I've thought about this, because I'm running a supers con game next month.
I'm going to go with the second method. It's mainly because in comic books Batman can beat up Superman if the story demands it. (I distinctly recall a Batman comic where Batman threw Superman out of a window with a judo style sacrificial throw and won that conflict. : - ) Superheroes with widely discordant ability levels have no trouble adventuring in the same comic book and contributing to the story.
Here is how I would do it. IMHO the two key things to keep in mind are to keep the ability names cool and descriptive and remember that in HQ2 we really have two layers of things going on. First we have the fiction encompassing things like genre, setting, mood and stuff and also how the character fits in it and secondly we have the numerical stats of the characters that depict their ability to resolve conflicts with those stats.
The numerical value of the ability does doesn't reflect, for example, how much the character can bench press. That would be something that is part of the fictional content.
Let's say that we have a supers genre campaign set in gritty modern day New York. Something that Frank Miller could have done with Frazetta covers. We have Spiderman and Thor/Donald Blake messing about with criminal/supers conspiracies.
Thor/Donald Blake has The Stick Transforms Me to a Thundergod keyword with abilities like Cosmic Strenght, Call Thunder and Magical Uru-hammer. Spiderman has Spider Strenght and Web Tricks etc. The thing is that the two have cornered a supervillain to Hell's Kitchen after some healthcare reform related crazy scheme. The villain is trying to escape by forcing the characters to either get him or sacrifice civilians.
Now Cosmic Strenght seems to me like a pretty broad ability. Spider Strenght seems to me like it's narrower. Also it could be that they are equally broad, but apply to better to different situations. Spidey isn't as hot stuff when dealing with the heavyweights, but Thor is bound to do collateral damage when he flexes his muscles. Then again, in this example, the ability best suited to save civilians and stuff, would probably be Web Tricks with the player describing how he could fling webs around as the villain flings civilians around. Web Tricks also seems to be a good match to catching the villain.
We could thus rate the applicability of those abilities to this conflict as Web Tricks, Spider Strenght -3, Cosmic Strenght -6 and Magical Uru-hammer and Call Thunder -6 with the character limited to minor and marginal victories. (Your group could interpret the genre/setting/mood stuff differently of course.)
Does this make sense to you guys?
Olli Kantola
-- As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being - C. G. Jung
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