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Worst comic book superfight ever


FenrisUlf

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Which meaningless, poorly-drawn, or unlikely in result ("Beast Boy just beat Darkseid?") brawl do you nominate?

 

I've been reading little beyond JSA recently, so I can't think of a good choice right now. The closest I can get is the first Doomsday-Superman fight. When Supes saw how dangerous Doomsday was, why didn't he just try grabbing Doomsy and hurling him into space at escape velocity?

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Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Batman vs Lady Shiva in Batman/Superman. Lady Shiva is probably the world's best non-powered fighter and most skilled martial artist. Batman one-punched her. Some people have tried to say that she was mind controlled but it doesn't change the fact that they totally screwed her character over by giving her a glass jaw.

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Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Which meaningless, poorly-drawn, or unlikely in result ("Beast Boy just beat Darkseid?") brawl do you nominate?

 

I've been reading little beyond JSA recently, so I can't think of a good choice right now. The closest I can get is the first Doomsday-Superman fight. When Supes saw how dangerous Doomsday was, why didn't he just try grabbing Doomsy and hurling him into space at escape velocity?

 

I'm not sure Superman was powerful enough to do that at the time. Even ignoring Supes' ability to be as strong as the plot requires and no stronger, I think the writers had him on a fairly low level (for him), so he would have had to physically tow him into space, during which he'd've been pummeled to death anyway.

 

I'll have to give it to Quasar #50, for comics I have experience with. Ereshkigal, with the New Universe's Starbrand, is threatening to disrupt the Cosmic Axis. The Living Tribunal along with Lord Chaos and Master Order (or is it Lord Order and Master Chaos?) show up to confront her. Since a battle of the magnitude they'd generate would lay waste to most of the universe, they agree to a contest of champions; Quasar and the Silver Surfer, both being present, are the options.

 

Now, the trick is that Q and Surfer aren't told who they're fighting for; they each think they're fighting for the Tribunal against Ereshkigal, and are basically mind-controlled into throwing down (the audience, as well, are not told who's fighting for whom). About two pages in, Quasar notices that whenever Surfer slaps him around, Master Order gets bigger while Lord Chaos get smaller; thus, he reasons that he's fighting for the evil Ereshkigal and the Surfer is the Tribunal's champion.

 

Now, here's the annoying part; right after Quasar comes to this conclusion, the rest of the fight is summed up with a caption. 'And so, after giving just enough resistance to make his poor showing credible ...' Then you see Surfer holding a badly beaten and bruised Quasar up by one arm, and claiming his victory.

 

Here are my problems with this ...

1. Despite having the Starbrand's power, Ereshkigal is still a finite, defined entity rather than an abstracted one like the Tribunal. Even with the Starbrand (which seemed more powerful in the Marvel U), Ereshkigal's fight with him shouldn't have endangered too much of the universe.

 

2. Order and Chaos had no dialogue, and served no purpose other than being a Cosmic Litmus Strip .

 

3. Quasar should be in the Surfer's class, IMHO; the two pages of fight they did show should have been more of a fight.

 

4. Finishing the rest of the fight off-panel just annoyed the hell out of me.

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Guest Suleyman Rashid

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Deathstroke vs. The Justice League in IC. I don't consider it bad because he nearly won' date=' I consider it bad because it was poorly written, and he was beating them in ways he shouldn't have been able to.[/quote']

 

 

I'll second this. I mean, I don't really have a problem with what he did to Hawkman... it made sense. Same with Zatanna... it was a smart move.

 

But the Flash? Come on... I don't care how upgraded Slade Wilson is, with Wally West we're talking about someone who moves so quickly that the explosions Slade supposedly "channeled" Wally with would be nothing more than fancy lightshows, and the sword thrust would have been a quite easily avoidable STATIONARY object.

 

And I won't even get into the utter imbecility of turning Green Lantern into a punching machine. The one thing they (the DC people) keep saying Kyle has over Hal is his imagination. Kyle uses his ring more creatively than Hal. That's the official company line. So why does Mr. Creativity wade in to fight Deathstroke hand-to-hand when he's got so many more ranged options?

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Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Also from Identity Crisis: Random heroes vs. Shadow Thief. I have to believe that Mr. Meltzer was told he had to kill off Firestorm somewhere in the series, probably at the last moment, so he just threw together a scene without doing any research.

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Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

I'm surprised to read that Quasar noticed something rather obvious and the Surfer didn't. Whatever happened to his Cosmic Awareness?

 

Outside of the Guardians of the Galaxy (a possible future 1,000 years from now) when has the Surfer ever been cosmically aware? I believe at the time Quasar was working within/towards Captain Mar-Vell's old "protector of the Universe" title, and probably had a better claim than the Surfer to cosmic awareness.

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Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

See there is this canadian Mutant with claws and a healing factor, and this alien who normaly fights GL's and Superman who is super strong, has knives, and a even BETTER healing factor. They meet up in an intergalactic bar and throw down (over some stupid, this is how bar brawls start issue), they take it behind the bar, and then some fight noices, then wolverine stands up and says "He's the best at what he does bub"

 

Shows you how popularity can turn the tide of common sense

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Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

While Deathstroke vs the JLA was certainly lame (and I dig Deathstroke)...

 

Wolverine vs Lobo is, hands down, the absolute worst. It was so bad, not even the writers/artists could come up with a bad depiction. They had to hide it, entirely (matching them up was pretty stupid, to begin with).

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Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Sometimes I think I'm the only person in the world who didn't have a problem with the Deathstroke-JLA fight in IC.

 

A couple of points:

 

- I'm not a Deathstroke fan.

 

-The JLA was fatigued, stressed-out and out of sorts. Slade was very prepared (I'd argue that the laser-pointer deal that took out the Atom was given to Deathstroke by Dr. Light [since he hired Slade to protect him]) and, basically, ambushed the JLA.

 

- I don't mind how Slade took out the Flash, because I just don't buy into the notion that Wally West reacts to things at a super-speed level all the time. I know Mark Waid started that stupidity, but look for that to be one of the things to get retconned post Infinite Crisis.

 

- Sometimes Kyle does dumb things, especially if the writer doesn't like the character (check out how Ennis wrote Rayner in Hitman.)

 

I think many readers had a visceral reaction to a bunch of silver-age favorites being easily taken out by a hardcore "90's" character.

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Guest Suleyman Rashid

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

I think many readers had a visceral reaction to a bunch of silver-age favorites being easily taken out by a hardcore "90's" character.

 

I disagree. I think its more accurate to say that many readers had a visceral reaction to a writer utterly and completely misusing a large band of characters for the single express purpose of making one villain look tougher than he should have been.

 

There are no in-story justifications for that battle and how it went that make any sense whatsoever and don't involve a lot of juggling on the part of the "pro-Slade-wins" reader. No justifications whatsoever.

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Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

There are no in-story justifications for that battle and how it went that make any sense whatsoever and don't involve a lot of juggling on the part of the "pro-Slade-wins" reader. No justifications whatsoever.

 

Again, not a Deathstroke fan, just didn't have a problem with the combat.

 

Considering how much annoying crap the character has pulled in the last year (impersonating Batman, etc.) I'm surprised he hasn't received his comeuppance yet, then again, he seems to get a free pass for all the stuff he's done since he first appeared.

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Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

There were 2 fights in the Marvel vrs DC crossover that I hated. The fight between Wonderwoman and Storm and the fight betweenWolverine and Lobo.

 

For the Fight between WW and storm I can get behind the opinion that Storm could win, it's the execution that I hated. Wonderwoman grabbed Storm, that should have spelled doom for Storm... Let's see Super strength of god like proportions, check. Skilled in all forms of greek combat (like wrestling and pankration) check.

 

For the Wolvie vrs Lobo fight All i gotta say is that Lobo hold his own against people like Vril Dox, Captain Marvel and Superman. No way the Kanuckle head could take him.

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Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Yah, just about any fight involving the 'Riddler factor': where a less-powerful villain survives and puts in a good showing due solely to the writer wanting them to do so. So the hero acts stupid, falls into traps, forgets about powers/equipment they posses, and is slow and ineffective.

 

PARTICULARLY if this means the villain WINS.

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Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Sometimes I think I'm the only person in the world who didn't have a problem with the Deathstroke-JLA fight in IC.
I'm actually with you. I'm not so hung up on DC characters, so I kind of liked the idea of the master villain anticipating their moves.
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Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

- I'm not a Deathstroke fan.

 

We won't hold your bad taste against you :P

 

-The JLA was fatigued, stressed-out and out of sorts. Slade was very prepared (I'd argue that the laser-pointer deal that took out the Atom was given to Deathstroke by Dr. Light [since he hired Slade to protect him]) and, basically, ambushed the JLA.

 

Prepared is ok.

 

Laser pointer? No. That would mean the Atom would be bombarded every time he shrunk that small because of all that, y'know, light... And Slade wouldn't have a chance of seeing the Atom when he was small enough to be hit/harmed by photonic particles.

 

- I don't mind how Slade took out the Flash, because I just don't buy into the notion that Wally West reacts to things at a super-speed level all the time. I know Mark Waid started that stupidity, but look for that to be one of the things to get retconned post Infinite Crisis.

 

He doesn't have to have the kind of reactions to detest for it to be bad.

 

Slade has fought Wally many times. That's not the point. The point being that Slade is now(?) fast enough to draw his sword and stab Wally that fast... no, not really... the point is that Slade's sword is only like 3 feet long and held under his arm, meaning its length is diminished by the depth of his torso and that he stabbed Wally in his own torso. The question being... what was Wally trying to do? Run up and give him a hug? There's no reason for him to be that close, at all, and to run into a sword. Wally isn't what you would consider a grappling kid of fighter. Incredibly stupid.

 

- Sometimes Kyle does dumb things, especially if the writer doesn't like the character (check out how Ennis wrote Rayner in Hitman.)

 

Ennis aint no prize. But if you want us to consider how one writer depicts a character then you cannot discount Waid-Flash.

 

"Gee, he just wiped out everybody and I have the universe's most powerful weapon. I guess I better punch him." Anyone writing him as that dumb isn't worthy of being called a fanfic writer let alone a professional.

 

I think many readers had a visceral reaction to a bunch of silver-age favorites being easily taken out by a hardcore "90's" character.

 

80's character (early 80's, actually). And I'd point out one of my own favorite characters and I still have a huge problem with it. Deathstroke is too powerful and too weak in the same fight...

 

Deathstroke can hear Canary's jaw click, but he can't hear Ollie's footsteps coming up behind him or the arrow being drawn from its quiver. He can react fast enough to shoot a guy the size of a photon, but not fast enough to get an ordinary human (who is fatigued and stressed out) off his back before that guy can stab him in the eyehole? Lame.

 

Also, more poor writing, the dialog is used to establish the pace of the fight in the very beginning and then that rule of speed is thrown out, entirely, as it switches back to speech takes no time while we all jibber jabber.

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