Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-10711441-20130611042207/@comment-61022-20130612032004

That's an official Marvel ranking. Which, actually, if you have read the full scope of Adam Warlock's history it's fairly accurate. Intelligence level 3 is one of learned intelligence, whereas level 2 is normal intelligence. Adam Warlock is not an scientist, if anything he is a philosopher, but that doesn't make him a gifted (level 4) a genius (level 5) or a super-genius (level 6, which is the level Bruce Banner, Reed Richards and Tony Stark are listed at)

The only time Adam Warlock has exhibited advanced intelligence is when he has been enhanced by some outside power source, such as the Infinity Gems. The effects of that intelligence boost diminished back to his normal levels once he relinquished the Infinity Gems.

The other thing about the Intelligence ranking is that it's relative to the type of character they are. A space hero with an intelligence level of 3 is going to have a different knowledge base than a street level Earth hero like Daredevil (who is also has level 3 intelligence). Daredevil doesn't know how to pilot a starship any more than Warlock knows Earth law. That doesn't make them more or less intelligent than one another, it's just on average their knowledge bases are on different things.

Warlock has a higher than normal education and his education is practical to the environment he lives in (space), but he's not going to be inventing high tech armor, a space ship or a portal to the Negative Zone anytime soon. He might know how to fix such devices, but he certainly doesn't have the know-how to build one from scratch.