Worst comic book superfight ever

[Agent X]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

This consistent misunderstanding seems almost deliberately obtuse.

 

Nobody is arguing that the story didn't exist. What they're arguing is that the story made no damn *sense*. That Spider-Man beat Firelord in Marvel 616 continuity, that is a fact. That the events of the story cannot be logically reconciled with the vast majority of either Spider-Man's or Firelord's appearances either before or afterwards, *also* a fact. One plus one equals "sloppy writing".

 

Again, you are taking the tack that simply because something was written, that means its validity is beyond question. The problem with that tack is that it completely ignores the possibility of sloppy, inconsistent, or just plain stupid writing -- when we all know that the history of comics has *lots* of that going around.

 

Marvel canon, as with the canon of virtually any other comic book company, is not perfectly consistent with itself. There always will be things that are inconsistent, and when there are, we have only two options -- to unthinkingly swallow whatever bull**** the writers scoop on our plates and pretend it's chocolate, or else to stand up and go 'This is crap!'

Spider-Man has consistently been very effective against cosmic threats whenever the chips were down.

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

There's that word' date=' "misrepresented", with the qualifier "deliberately". So I think what I said, and what you quoted and referred to as "completely not true", which was:[/quote']

 

The reason the qualifier 'deliberately' is there is because (edit) he had specifically mentioned having just read the issue before posting. IOW, there is no way he could plausibly claim memory lapse, the damn thing was right in front of him.

 

I, OTOH, hadn't read Secret Wars #8 for over five years before writing my post. I didn't go and dig out my copy (which first required /finding/ my copy) until a few posts later.

 

You have no moral high ground here, Hugh. Virtually every time you've tried to post a series of events from a comic, you have left out very significant chunks of the storyline. "Forgetting" that the "window" Spidey tossed Titania out of was over a mile off the ground. "Forgetting" that in one of their later fights, a helicopter crashed on her. Stuff like that. It's not so much what you've gotten wrong, it's that you haven't gotten anything *right*. The /most/ charitable explanation possible is that your memory is really, /really/ bad.

 

I, on the other hand, got one wrong one detail, from one issue, that didn't even materially affect the validity of my argument.

 

Obviously, we should be treated exactly the same.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

This consistent misunderstanding seems almost deliberately obtuse.

 

Nobody is arguing that the story didn't exist. What they're arguing is that the story made no damn *sense*. That Spider-Man beat Firelord in Marvel 616 continuity, that is a fact. That the events of the story cannot be logically reconciled with the vast majority of either Spider-Man's or Firelord's appearances either before or afterwards, *also* a fact. One plus one equals "sloppy writing".

 

Again, you are taking the tack that simply because something was written, that means its validity is beyond question. The problem with that tack is that it completely ignores the possibility of sloppy, inconsistent, or just plain stupid writing -- when we all know that the history of comics has *lots* of that going around.

 

I prefer the Roy Thomas approach of "this is what happened - let's find a reason for it" to the Retcon approach of "Let's sweep the story under the rug". Many don't. Certainly, the publishers have become bigger and bigger fans of the retcon approach, and many writers today are inclined to say "That story isn't consistent with my vision of the character, so it didn't happen". Frankly, I think it's much lazier writing to say "it didn't happen" and retcon it away than to develop a plausible reasoning by which what was published did happen. YMMV.

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

And as for Agent X apologizing for his error -- let's just say that based on every prior interaction him and I have had, I have sufficient reasons for gravely doubting the sincerity of any apology he's ever going to give me.

[Agent X]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

And as for Agent X apologizing for his error -- let's just say that based on every prior interaction him and I have had' date=' I have sufficient reasons for gravely doubting the sincerity of any apology he's ever going to give me.[/quote'] :rolleyes:

 

You're a little more invested in whatever "rivalry" we're supposed to have than I am.

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

I prefer the Roy Thomas approach of "this is what happened - let's find a reason for it" to the Retcon approach of "Let's sweep the story under the rug".

 

Really? Then find me a reason. Nothing you've tried so far has been even remotely plausible. An exploding gas station to a guy who flies through suns? A building demolition charge to a guy who takes hits from Ego the Living Planet? A subway train to a guy who takes full-power shots from Mjolnir?

 

That's as implausible as dropping the Savage Hulk with a normal hand grenade.

 

Heck, even the very Spider-Man-vs-Firelord arc, in ASM #269, starts out with a scene of Firelord casually blowing up an asteroid the size of a small planet. As in 'that planet-sized rock is in my way. I could fly around it, but eh, more fun to just nuke the sucker. wave, wave, boom.'

 

So we can't even use the excuse that he was 'depowered' for this storyline, the author made it quite plain in the beginning that Firelord was at full charge.

 

It's like he was *deliberately* trying to hurt our heads.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

The reason the qualifier 'deliberately' is there is because you specifically mentioned having just read the issue before posting. IOW' date=' there is no way you could plausibly claim memory lapse, the damn thing was right in front of you.[/quote']

 

Kindly go back and read the post. I do not have a copy of Secret Wars #8 at my current office, which I am in the process of moving to a new office 20 minutes across town, and from which I posted yesterday, and am posting today. M

 

Andrew Cermak, whose posts I quoted, along with your replies, has taken his copy out of the bag, and posted some commentary thereon. You replied, with that qualifier "deliberately", applied to "misrepresented".

 

You then subsequently claimed that you had not accused anyone of lying on this thread, with the sole exception of Agent X. Unless Andrew Cermak is Agent X's secret identity, your claim that you had not accused anyone else of lying cannot be true.

 

Thus, your statement that my comment that "Chuckg misremembers; everyone else misrepresents" was "totally not true" is, itself, totally false. And that is what my post sets out.

 

I'm tempted to say I'm not really interested in the "moral high ground" on a Fanoy v Fanboy debate over whether one fictional character could beat another - I don't really see any moral high ground to be had. To the extent there is such ground, however, I don't see your approach to what others are able to debate rationally, without resorting to personal attacks, raising you to that high ground. But I'll give you this, Chuck - at least no one can accuse you of consistency in your approach to these discussions more's the pity.

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

(add) Oh, btw, in UNCANNY X-MEN #105, Firelord casually snagged a dodging Nightcrawler out of the air and threw him into a wall. While Spidey on a full dodge is more agile than Kurt Wagner on a full dodge... not *that* much more agile. He should at least have gotten a /little/ closer to Spidey than the blindly flailing dipwit he was drawn as. Especially with, you know, the cosmic flame blasts and not just his hands or staff.

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

> Andrew Cermak, whose posts I quoted, along with your replies, has taken

> his copy out of the bag, and posted some commentary thereon. You

> replied, with that qualifier "deliberately", applied to "misrepresented".

 

> You then subsequently claimed that you had not accused anyone of lying

> on this thread, with the sole exception of Agent X. Unless Andrew Cermak

> is Agent X's secret identity, your claim that you had not accused anyone

> else of lying cannot be true.

 

The irony of this is that Andrew Cermak is also the very same person to whom I later posted that I was willing to accept a mistake of his as an honest mistake, and not as deliberate misrepresentation. Of course, that was a mistake where he *hadn't* said 'I just read the issue, and...'

 

So, your point that I accuse everyone, or even most of everyone, who gets something wrong as a liar while demanding that nobody do the same to me? It's still crap. To get me to accuse you of lying, you have to do more than simply remember something wrong.

 

And apparently, even if I catch someone deliberately getting something wrong, I'm still charitable enough to accept later errors of his as not deliberate, unless I have sufficient reason to sustain such an accusation. That only speaks the *better* of me, it would appear.

 

> Thus, your statement that my comment that "Chuckg misremembers;

> everyone else misrepresents" was "totally not true" is, itself, totally false.

 

*points up*

 

I have accepted errors of fact as honest mistakes from Andrew Cermak and everyone else... except Agent X. The reason for this is because Agent X is the only person who immediately jumped to the conclusion that because I had gotten something wrong, I must therefore be deliberately lying. Everybody else got exactly the amount of honest benefit of the doubt as they had earned.

 

So you're still wrong.

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Oh, and as far as all the people who keep insinuating how obsessed a fanboy I must be -- nobody who is still active in this argument has anything to talk about on that score. By this point, anybody who wasn't stubborn as all get-out in their own right would have long since left. We *all* feel strongly about this issue, because if we didn't, we wouldn't be here. Don't try to pretend otherwise.

 

You have no high ground, Hugh. Not to accuse me of lying, not to accuse me of obsessiveness, not even to accuse me of being rude. Because for every bit of it, you've been right here alongside me every step of the way.

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

And last, but not least...

 

To the extent there is such ground' date=' however, I don't see your approach to what others are able to debate rationally, without resorting to personal attacks, raising you to that high ground.[/quote']

 

Rational debate? A rational debate starts with accurate and complete facts and reasons from them to logical conclusions.

 

You have consistently presented incomplete and badly remembered "facts", and then argued for blind acceptance of canon even in defiance of logic. Let alone your selective memory as regards contexts of events.

 

You haven't been 'debating rationally' since you got here. You've been doing the direct opposite, in fact -- you've been arguing that rationality has no place in canon, and that if it's printed on the page, we must accept it and not question it. You have repeatedly belittled the very idea of trying to analyze the issue at all. That isn't 'debate', it's trying to *suppress* debate.

 

You have the right to hold whatever opinions you wish. You do not, however, have the right to hold them and then try to pretend you didn't.

 

(add) So, we get your point. You think that because it happened, we must accept it and stop talking about it. Fine. Your opinion is duly noted and on record. Repeating it any # of times won't change my mind about it. Feel free to let those of us who /do/ want to still debate the issue get on with it without you.

 

PS -- your implication that I debate by throwing personal attacks at anybody I disagree with, also crap. The implication that I substitute personal attacks for actually having facts or constructing an argument, *doubly* crap. To get me to say something personally unflattering about you, you first have to say or insinuate unkind things about my personal behavior, alleged mental state, alleged dishonesty, employment status, etc. Again, this is part of my 'treat other people like they treat you' thing. And God knows I've posted more detailed cites of events from relevant comics issues in this thread than any two of you put together, or damn near.

[Guest Suleyman Rashid]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

At what point did Deathstroke actually SUCCEED in using the ring? He grappled with Kyle for a second or two' date=' but he did not, in fact, get the ring to work for him. You have read Green Lantern, and know the ring will work only for him. I doubt Deathstroke has the full run in a longbox in his basement.[/quote']

 

 

From this, its painfully obvious that you didn't bother to read the message I was replying to, or else you'd have realized that I didn't say a thing about Deathstroke succeeding.

 

 

Re: the Deathstroke vs. JLA fight in Identity Crisis:

 

Now that I think about it, if Slade had gotten ahold of Rayner's power-ring, he probably could've defeated Superman as well.

 

 

It was a hypothetical situation proposed by another person.

 

Hamish Lee's Second Rule of Discussion: Be ye not so in a hurry to make the person who disagrees with you look foolish that you end up making yourself look like a fool in turn.

[Guest Suleyman Rashid]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

This is a fairly common thing with Supers, especially villains, isn't it? When they first appear, they are hugely powerful (disintigrates beings Thor and Hercules have negligible impact on), then they move to more of an equals level (battles Thor to a standstill, with neither gaining an advantage) and then decline further until the street level characters take them to the cleaners.

 

For the Heralds in particular, maybe the Herald Process is less a one time thing and more an ongoing process. Once Galactus stops feeding them cosmic boosts, their power starts to trail off. The Surfer was in Galactus' service for much longer, so his power isn't trailing off (or maybe just isn't trailing off as fast), but Firelord didn't have much tenure, so he declines faster.

 

In any event, KA said it right a few pages back.

 

 

 

Spidey did beat him, so obviously he could beat him. I don't decide which stories are Marvel Canon, nor does anyone else on this thread. Marvel does, and the Spidey vs Firelord story remains un-retconned. If Spidey did beat him, clearly he could beat him.

 

By the way, it seems to me that every Herald seems indestructible to environmental effects (skimming through the sun and flying through the depths of space), and space battles, but when they land planetside, Supers can injure them. Terrax, for example, can also fly through the corona of a sun and navigate the depths of space, yet he was defeated when the Human Torch burst a pipe of supercoolant over his head in his very first outing.

 

Maybe their powers work far better when they're out in space doing their jobs (ie looking for new meal tickets) than when they're laying around planetside slacking off. [Kind of the cosmic equivalent of not being allowed to use the company car for personal driving - or the company internet to post on the Hero boards ]

 

 

This has got to be the biggest pile of mad justification to cover for utterly wretched writing I've seen in a long, long time.

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Hamish Lee's Second Rule of Discussion: Be ye not so in a hurry to make the person who disagrees with you look foolish that you end up making yourself look like a fool in turn.

 

[DeNiro]You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well, I'm the only one here...[/Deniro]

 

[Guest Suleyman Rashid]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

The problem lies in the fact, of course, that it wouldn't matter if it was Victor von Doom trying to overpower Kyle's control of the ring with his own willpower -- *that* ring simply won't be *listening*. It has nothing to do with Kyle's willpower or the willpower of the other dude, it simply has to do with the fact that Kyle's ring has a really *****in' firewall.

 

To use a networking analogy, the wireless port on Kyle's ring is set to MAC address authentication only, so any incoming packets that aren't coming from Kyle's brain are discarded without even being read.

 

BTW, as of the latest issue of the new Green Lantern Corps title, the same sort of address authentication trick applies to every Green Lantern's ring. There's a scene where Guy Gardner picks up an unconscious (and ringless) Lantern's ring, and its as inert as a lump of coal until it gets back onto the hand of the injured Lantern and has audibly recognized the Lantern as its authorized user.

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

You mean the Guardians actually *paid attention* when Kyle Rayner had a more intelligent idea than Hal Jordan? And made that idea *policy*?

 

*glyph of utter amazement*

 

Now that has to be a first.

[Guest Suleyman Rashid]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

And it's interesting that Chuck "misremembers" while everyone else "misrepresents".

 

Actually, that was me, not Chuck. And in my own defense, I admitted that I hadn't read the issue in question in almost 20 years.

[FenrisUlf]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Hellcat vs. Tiger Shark? One of the least skilled martial artist/acrobats to ever make an Avengers line-up... vs. a credible slugfest opponent for Namor?

 

No, never read that one, but now my morbid curiosity is piqued. Just how bad /was/ bad?

 

If this is West Coast Avengers we're talking about, he was taken down by Hellcat and Tigra. He was going to tear their heads off when they ripped his suit open, at which point it was mostly Tigra taking him down by choking him out with her legs and tail around his neck.

[Guest Suleyman Rashid]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Unfortunately' date=' once there's more than one stubborn poster, these things tend not to die (and we've got way more than that, the writer included).[/quote']

 

 

Stubborn, as in "utterly refusing to admit that the fight in question was the result of bad writing"?

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

If this is West Coast Avengers we're talking about' date=' he was taken down by Hellcat and Tigra. He was going to tear their heads off when they ripped his suit open, at which point it was mostly Tigra taking him down by choking him out with her legs and tail around his neck.[/quote']

 

Hadn't known that Tigra was there too. But still, even with his containment suit ripped, unless he'd been walking around drying out for over an hour he should still have been easily able to pull Tigra off his neck and throw her into the next zip code. She's only got 3-5 ton strength, and Tiger Shark's what, in the 60+ range?

[Guest Suleyman Rashid]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

The crushed hand is the one piece of that whole scene that really bugs me. Still' date=' if Deathstroke had control of the ring, he would have used it for more than lowering Kyle's shields.[/quote']

 

Except that to Deathstroke, the ring is nothing more than an utterly useless bauble, regardless of how much more willpower he has over Kyle. No one other than Kyle can get his ring to be anything other than an oddly shaped finger-decoration, no matter how much willpower he has.

 

Thus, he could not have done anything with the ring AT ALL because he could never have gained control over the ring.

 

Jeez... didn't you yell at me a couple of messages ago for saying otherwise? What is it with you?

 

 

 

Now, the ring works on willpower and Kyle was working on a very basic and exhausted level (nothing else explains the "fly in and punch him" tactical decision), so maybe mustering his own focus is the problem here - but it wouldn't hurt to have that actually stated on panel...

 

Except, as has already been noted, that Kyle was one of two Leaguers in the fight with Deathstroke who wasn't exhausted, hadn't been up all night stressing to find Doctor Light, but unfortunately was dumbed down to moron level by bad writing. (The other, by the way, was the Flash... who notably was the other "worst jobbed character" in that fight, alongside Kyle.)

 

In short, your reasoning doesn't stand because, while it might be reasonable for Kyle to do something that stupid if he were utterly exhausted... well, no... it isn't reasonable even in that case. I can recall several fights where Kyle is badly wounded, utterly exhausted, on his last rope and at his wits end and yet still doesn't go "I know... I'll ignore the amazing versitility of my ring and just punch him!"

 

I'm sorry, but NOTHING explains Kyle's behavior other than "the writer had an agenda and screwed over the Leaguers in pursuit of that agenda".

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Hell, Kyle has still had a better grasp of tactics than that when he was so brain-fried by "neural chaff" that he couldn't concentrate enough to do more than make a few green sparks.

 

No, seriously. JLA #18 (or was it 19?), Prometheus hits Kyle with a nerve-scrambling attack so hard that Kyle can barely stand up, let alone concentrate enough willpower to use the ring... and Kyle *still* doesn't go 'I'll punch him!' Instead, he goes down still trying to fire off an EB or a Force Wall containment bubble while struggling with a really wicked Mental Entangle.

[Agent X]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

This has got to be the biggest pile of mad justification to cover for utterly wretched writing I've seen in a long' date=' long time.[/quote'] It's as if Worldmaker's lost twin had begun posting on the boards.

[Guest Suleyman Rashid]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Again, you are taking the tack that simply because something was written, that means its validity is beyond question. The problem with that tack is that it completely ignores the possibility of sloppy, inconsistent, or just plain stupid writing -- when we all know that the history of comics has *lots* of that going around.

 

Marvel canon, as with the canon of virtually any other comic book company, is not perfectly consistent with itself. There always will be things that are inconsistent, and when there are, we have only two options -- to unthinkingly swallow whatever bull**** the writers scoop on our plates and pretend it's chocolate, or else to stand up and go 'This is crap!'

 

 

The only way to really determine what "is" and what "is not" when it comes to comic book continuity and hero power levels and such is basically to look over the character's entire history and say "what's the mean average, in general".

 

Thus, extreme examples on both ends of the spectrum (Spider-Man gets a beatdown from Frog-Man? Only if he were sleeping...) get dropped off as what they are: ridiculous examples of bad writing.

 

The Firelord fight fits into this category. Spider-Man beat Firelord. Its in print. The point is that he shouldn't have been able to, and when his mean-average power level is taken into account he couldn't have without the help of a bad writer.

[FenrisUlf]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Hadn't known that Tigra was there too. But still' date=' even with his containment suit ripped, unless he'd been walking around drying out for over an hour he should still have been easily able to pull Tigra off his neck and throw her into the next zip code. She's only got 3-5 ton strength, and Tiger Shark's what, in the 60+ range?[/quote']

 

What, you were expecting consistency?

 

The cooler character will win the fight cause that's what the fans want. Respective power and/or skill levels have nothing to do with it. Unfortunately so, when it's done badly.