Worst comic book superfight ever

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Actually, no, retcons in the THANOS monthly and the SILVER SURFER monthly have shown that the Surfer was not the first Herald ever, merely the first Herald in a long while. Several 'antedeluvian' Heralds have shown up, mostly as villains, and mostly for the purpose of getting gang-stomped by the current Herald of Galactus team-up crew or Thanos.

 

(add) As for Firelord deliberately 'damping himself down' or acting with 'honor' -- actually, no. ASM 269 has dialogue of Firelord specifically in a rage, adamantly determined that Spider-Man will die for his 'affronts'.

 

http://img297.imageshack.us/my.php?image=26917nq.gif

 

Note that in this panel, Firelord's saying flat-out that he'll blow up the *PLANET* if that's what it takes to kill Spider-Man.

 

http://img297.imageshack.us/my.php?image=26947xm.gif

 

This makes his failure to, you know, actually use his flame powers to burn any large chunk of the city down, doubly incomprehensible. I mean, forget about contradicting other writers, the writer was directly contradicting *himself*, inside the span of *one issue*.

 

(edit -- these scans may be from ASM #270 as well as #269, the person who posted these things originally (it was on another message board), not very clear.)

 

(add -- and yes, that's Firelord actually staggering from the impact of... having flown through a building. The same guy who took being blasted across a state line by Phoenix without mussing his hair, suddenly having problems with architecture. Ridiculous!)

 

Oh, note, beginning of ASM #269 -- this same issue -- Firelord casually wastes an asteroid the size of a small planet. Casually as in 'it's in my way, and I'm not going to bother going around it, boom'.

[Agent X]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Arrogant superbeings in comics often say they will destroy this or that or somesuch when they are a rage and then they don't follow through with it, whether because their threats were insincere or they couldn't actually succeed; it's entirely in character for Firelord to say he would kill Spidey or destroy the planet to get to him and not actually try to do either.

 

It's only natural, Firelord is full of hot air.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Bringing in any other fight is irrelevant to any point other than "the writers have been amazingly inconsistent in showing how powerful Heralds of Galactus are". The Heralds are all supposed to be among the most powerful beings in the Marvel Universe, but when the writers want, a comparative flyspeck like Spider-Man beats one down?

 

Sorry, but its nothing more but bad writing. No amount of justification on your part can change that.

 

If half the storylines show Firelord as nigh-opmnnipotent, and half show him as barely powerful enough to pose a credible threat to Aunt May, which ones are correct?

 

The rgument presented by the naysayyers is that the established continuity of Firelord and Spiderman is that Firelord (or any Herald of Galactus) is so far above Spidey on the power scale that Spidey should have had no hope.

 

The numerous storylines where Heralds are presented as much less powerful (or when Spidey is presented as much more powerful than normal when he pulls out all the stops) establish that the "established continuity" is far less "established" than you would have us believe.

 

It then becomes a matter of either:

 

(a) reconciling the disparate power levels (eg. there's something in the atmosphere; power goes down if not acting in Galactus' interests)

 

or

 

( selecting which stories shall be granted greater creedence, and which lesser. When one story is the obvious "odd man out", it's easy to single it out as the story to be ignored. This would be the case if Firelord were a powerhouse, unstoppable by anything less than a deity, in every appearance. When there are a variety of stories which support each power level, there is no obvious "odd man out", so which power level to believe becomes a matter of opinion.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Oh' date=' note, beginning of ASM #269 -- this same issue -- Firelord casually wastes an asteroid the size of a small planet. Casually as in 'it's in my way, and I'm not going to bother going around it, boom'.[/quote']

 

We keep hearing about this asteroid as though it is somehow relevant. It is not. This proves that, if Firelord can hit a target, he can inflict a lot of damage. True. But he could not hit Spidey, so it's irrelevant. Asteroids are bigger and don't dodge as effectively.

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

If half the storylines show Firelord as nigh-opmnnipotent' date=' and half show him as barely powerful enough to pose a credible threat to Aunt May, which ones are correct?[/quote']

 

It's not half and half, that's the point. The amount of comics in which Heralds of Galactus are cosmic beings is notably greater than the amount in which they job to Earth superheroes. (Thank the SILVER SURFER title for that! Not to mention all those cosmic crossover sagas of the 90s...)

 

And even if it *was* half and half, the question then becomes 'What was the character /supposed/ to be? What was the intent when they were first drawn up? What is their thematic role in the Marvel Universe?'

 

And in the case of Heralds of Galactus, the answer is 'they are supposed to be cosmic beings, not high-end street brawlers'.

 

It's called the Power Cosmic, not the power Adequate.

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

We keep hearing about this asteroid as though it is somehow relevant. It is not. This proves that' date=' if Firelord can hit a target, he can inflict a lot of damage. True. But he could not hit Spidey, so...[/quote']

 

If he can blow up things the size of small planets, then this proves he has an area-effect frag that *could* have hit Spidey. An area-effect frag that he mysteriously chose not to use. Even if we are very miserly with our estimate, and assume that 'the size of a small planet' means 'only the size of a city'... well, gee, getting the entire city would have gotten Spidey no problem. Spidey has a nice Dive for Cover range, but it ain't 3000 hexes.

 

Well, maybe he was feeling restrained. Maybe he was holding back against Spidey out of some sense of self-restraint or honor or whatnot. Oh, wait, no, there are explicit page scans from ASM 269-270 that show that Firelord was not only in a towering rage, but was specifically threatening planetary-scale destruction if that's what it took to get the job done.

 

Which kicks us back to 'maybe he was just blustering and couldn't really unleash wide-area devastation like he was threatening'. Except that he obviously *CAN* do that, as ASM #269 *SHOWS* him doing it. So, not just empty bluster then.

 

So, we've got a power that even the Spider-Man writer admits that Firelord has, /and/ that very same writer has Firelord announcing his intent to actually /use/ that power... and yet, Firelord never actually uses it. For no reason that anyone can see.

 

This is not sloppy and inconsistent writing how?

 

Pointing this out is 'irrelevant' to a discussion of ASM 269-270 how?

[Enforcer84]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Ooh here's one. Storm v Callisto. Never bought Callisto as a threat after Storm beat her in HTH combat.

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Hey, Mohawk Storm was a legitimate hand-to-hand badass. And it's not like she beat Captain America or Wolverine or something. Callisto's a damn mean street fighter, but Ororo weren't no shrinking violet either, not at that phase.

[Marketeer]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

I don't know, since my Spidey History is flaky, but I notice Spider-Man is wearing a black costume during his fight with Firelord.

 

Is that the symbiote?

[Superskrull]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

I don't know, since my Spidey History is flaky, but I notice Spider-Man is wearing a black costume during his fight with Firelord.

 

Is that the symbiote?

 

No. The symbiote was removed in #258. For a time afterwards, Spidey wore a normal fabric version of his black outfit before once again returning to his standard gear.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Hey' date=' Mohawk Storm was a legitimate hand-to-hand badass. And it's not like she beat Captain America or Wolverine or something. Callisto's a damn mean street fighter, but Ororo weren't no shrinking violet either, not at that phase.[/quote']

 

I never did understand how getting a mohawk made Storm into a great hand to hand fighter. Callisto has been doing this all her life (it's the way Morlocks fight for leadership, and she was their leader) and Storm has never been shown to fight HTH prior to this, yet she pulls it off.

 

And you find that to somehow be more credible than Spidey beating Firelord.

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

If he can blow up things the size of small planets, then this proves he has an area-effect frag that *could* have hit Spidey. An area-effect frag that he mysteriously chose not to use. Even if we are very miserly with our estimate, and assume that 'the size of a small planet' means 'only the size of a city'... well, gee, getting the entire city would have gotten Spidey no problem. Spidey has a nice Dive for Cover range, but it ain't 3000 hexes.

 

Well, maybe he was feeling restrained. Maybe he was holding back against Spidey out of some sense of self-restraint or honor or whatnot. Oh, wait, no, there are explicit page scans from ASM 269-270 that show that Firelord was not only in a towering rage, but was specifically threatening planetary-scale destruction if that's what it took to get the job done.

 

Which kicks us back to 'maybe he was just blustering and couldn't really unleash wide-area devastation like he was threatening'. Except that he obviously *CAN* do that, as ASM #269 *SHOWS* him doing it. So, not just empty bluster then.

 

So, we've got a power that even the Spider-Man writer admits that Firelord has, /and/ that very same writer has Firelord announcing his intent to actually /use/ that power... and yet, Firelord never actually uses it. For no reason that anyone can see.

 

This is not sloppy and inconsistent writing how?

 

Pointing this out is 'irrelevant' to a discussion of ASM 269-270 how?

 

Well... it's actually something of a leap to go from "Can blow apart a planetoid" to "Has a beam 6km wide".

 

Hitting it square in the centre could shockwave out and blow it to pieces that way. And there are other ways to envision it. (Such as multiple beams slicing it into pieces while the heat clears the debris).

 

 

(Setting aside the "Maybe Firelord can only do that in space" arguments)

 

 

As for why doesn't he just destroy the planet like he was threatening? Maybe he was getting ready to. It's not unreasonable that a planet buster of an attack might take some time to charge up.

 

 

Just some thoughts.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Well' date=' maybe he was feeling restrained. Maybe he was holding back against Spidey out of some sense of self-restraint or honor or whatnot. Oh, wait, no, there are explicit page scans from ASM 269-270 that show that Firelord was not only in a towering rage, but was [b']specifically threatening planetary-scale destruction[/b] if that's what it took to get the job done.

 

Which kicks us back to 'maybe he was just blustering and couldn't really unleash wide-area devastation like he was threatening'. Except that he obviously *CAN* do that, as ASM #269 *SHOWS* him doing it. So, not just empty bluster then.

 

Have you ever seen a parent threaten to kill a child? Do you doubt a fully grown adult could readily take the life of a young child? Yet those children somehow grow up without being killed.

 

Just because someone makes a threat doesn't mean he actually has any intention of carrying it out.

 

To me, Firelord thought he had something to prove, and he wouldn't prove it by blowing up the Earth. He hsad to beat Spidey senseless so Spidey would show him the respect he (believes he) deserves. Blowing up the planet, or the city, or the city block, would not get Firelord what he wanted, so he didn't do it.

 

[All concerns about his willingness to actually carry out the threat aside, anyway.]

 

I wonder why Galactus would give his Heralds the power to destroy his meal tickets in the first place...

[Superskrull]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Callisto suffers from the traditional Claremont writing consistency. However, it might be interesting to postulate that her fighting skills are in inverse proportion to her looks. Regular Callisto looked like she was 'rode hard and put away wet' and was a skilled streetfighter. She underestimated Storm in their duel and got shanked for it, though.

 

Later, she got a makeover by Masque and became drop dead supermodel gorgeous. At this point she mysteriously couldn't fight her way out of a paper bag and had to be saved from street punks by the then-amnesiac Colossus who (having also forgotten his powers) whaled on them with a baseball bat or some such. She also had her eye restored by Masque in the process.

 

Later, after Claremont's return to the world of X, she turns up having gotten her arms replaced by tentacles again courtesy of Masque. At this point, she is now apparently death on two legs and can force Juggernaught to job to her. Why she has chosen to not have her eye restored again is beyond me.

 

Of couse, you can make all sorts of assumptiona about the character, such as her odd fondness for Professor Xavier. She has repeatedly gone out of her way to assist him, such as saving his life when he was beaten for being a mutie back in like Uncanny #192-193. Then there is her more recent assistance in Genosha in the third Excaliber series. Maybe she digs bald guys or something. Who can say, really.

[lapsedgamer]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

I never did understand how getting a mohawk made Storm into a great hand to hand fighter. Callisto has been doing this all her life (it's the way Morlocks fight for leadership, and she was their leader) and Storm has never been shown to fight HTH prior to this, yet she pulls it off.

 

And you find that to somehow be more credible than Spidey beating Firelord.

 

I always thought that part of that victory was based on Storm having been a street fighter--specifically a knife fighter--in her youth as a theif in Cairo before her powers manifiested. I also believe that they always made a point of saying that every X-Man received H-T-H combat training in addition to working on their powers. Some were trained by Wolverine. I remember that Cyclops was supposed to be a pretty tough fist fighter based on his X-Men experience and training. I think they all could take on an agent or two without using their powers after being on the team for a while, even when their powers weren't based on STR or DEX or other combat related things.

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Well... it's actually something of a leap to go from "Can blow apart a planetoid" to "Has a beam 6km wide".

 

Hitting it square in the centre could shockwave out and blow it to pieces that way.

 

Likewise, hitting NYC square in the centre would shockwave out and kill everybody in the city. Including Spider-Man.

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Just because someone makes a threat doesn't mean he actually has any intention of carrying it out.

 

............ so, we can't even use what's printed directly on the page anymore, if it contradicts what you want to believe?

 

For a guy who keeps telling us that we're not allowed to ignore comics that we don't like, you sure want to ignore, oh, pretty much everything.

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

I always thought that part of that victory was based on Storm having been a street fighter--specifically a knife fighter--in her youth as a theif in Cairo before her powers manifiested. I also believe that they always made a point of saying that every X-Man received H-T-H combat training in addition to working on their powers. Some were trained by Wolverine. I remember that Cyclops was supposed to be a pretty tough fist fighter based on his X-Men experience and training. I think they all could take on an agent or two without using their powers after being on the team for a while' date=' even when their powers weren't based on STR or DEX or other combat related things.[/quote']

 

Absolutely correct.

 

The most extreme example is Kitty Pryde. When she first joined the team, she was a skinny 13-year-old girl who couldn't punch her way out of a paper bag. A couple years later, she was a trained ninja fit to whup five times her weight in mooks without straining hard... and that's even after we *subtract* the mental imprint she got from Ogun. Current-day Kitty is hardcore enough that even /without/ her phasing powers, she could /still/ qualify for a spot on the X-Men roster, simply as a superhero martial artist and stealth expert. (She's currently at the level where being attacked by Hand ninjas is no longer a threat so much as it is an annoyance... and that's without using her phasing.)

 

Most of the other X-Men didn't obsess quite so much on the martial arts courses(*), but even the least of them got a very good basic HTH training, usually with Wolverine as the instructor.

 

Storm, in addition to this, had a whole lot of skills dating back both to her time as a thief, and her teenaged sojourn across the length of Africa, some of which involved non-powered fighting. Add in to that her taking the advanced courses from Logan, and a period of training from Wolverine's old Japanese acquaintance Yukio, a noted thief/martial artist/acrobat in her own right, and, well, her slapping Callisto one, not quite so unbelievable.

 

Please note that in the period of time not too long after the Callisto fight, powerless Storm was still leading the X-Men team, still qualifying for a place on the roster solely via combat training and physical fitness.

 

 

 

 

(*) Although to be fair, there were factors in Kitty's case that made her participation on the super-accelerated martial arts learning track somewhat less than voluntary. Such as the fact that by the nature of her powers and her role on the team, she above everybody else *had* to learn how to survive even if her mutant powers were temporarily or permanently stripped from her -- because as the girl who walks through walls and the advance scout, it's pretty much guaranteed that if a villain is going to hit her with a power-neutralizer beam of some kind, he's going to do it while she's a) away from the rest of the team and with at least one solid barrier between her and any help.

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Likewise' date=' hitting NYC square in the centre would shockwave out and kill everybody in the city. Including Spider-Man.[/quote']

 

Not a given. He's a soft superhumanly tough target that _will_ be in midair at the time and as prepared for it as is possible.

 

And dropping that kind of power at his own feet strikes me as something that even a nigh-invulnerable character would probably avoid doing (when he blew up the asteroid, he was flying towards it, probably some distance away, yes?).

 

 

Besides, if you're in a towering fury (which is why you suggest he'd do this), is hitting the _ground_ as hard as you can a likely response, when the (spider)man you're agry at is somewhere over there?

 

("Why didn't you use a grenade?" "Because I wanted to rip his throat out with my teeth")

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

> Not a given. He's a soft superhumanly tough target that _will_ be in

> midair at the time and as prepared for it as is possible.

 

We're talkiing about a guy who can produce blast radii that are measurable fractions of a planetary diameter. How high can Spidey jump again? Nowhere near enough.

 

> And dropping that kind of power at his own feet strikes me as

> something that even a nigh-invulnerable character would probably

> avoid doing (when he blew up the asteroid, he was flying towards it,

> probably some distance away, yes?).

 

Firelord has Personal Immunity (it's part of the standard Herald package, as seen over and over again), in addition to an ED high enough to let him fly through solar plasma without singing. His own cosmic flame blast? No problem.

 

And actually, no, when he blew up the asteroid, it was right in his face. Flying towards, yes... some distance away, no.

 

> Besides, if you're in a towering fury (which is why you suggest he'd do

> this), is hitting the _ground_ as hard as you can a likely response,

> when the (spider)man you're agry at is somewhere over there?

 

It is after trying and failing to hit Spider-Man with your flame blast repeatedly. Especially when one of those attempts involved blowing up a building he used to be standing on half a second ago. When *that* kind of fragging fails, it's time to switch to the nuclear option.

 

> ("Why didn't you use a grenade?" "Because I wanted to rip his throat

> out with my teeth")

 

Doesn't work. Firelord had already been trying to burn Spider-Man to a cinder for quite a while before he finally started threatening wide-scale destruction. He demonstrably didn't feel any need to kill Spidey mano-a-mano, he just wanted Spidey to be incinerated.

[Andrew Cermak]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

............ so, we can't even use what's printed directly on the page anymore, if it contradicts what you want to believe?

 

For a guy who keeps telling us that we're not allowed to ignore comics that we don't like, you sure want to ignore, oh, pretty much everything.

 

Considering your response to the Spider-Man/Thor scans, I don't really think you want to pursue this argument.

 

After all, Eric/Thor said he was being worn down, and you wanted to argue that he wasn't.

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Considering your response to the Spider-Man/Thor scans, I don't really think you want to pursue this argument.

 

After all, Eric/Thor said he was being worn down, and you wanted to argue that he wasn't.

 

Difference is, Eric/Thor at that time was an inexperienced goober and prone to panicking even when there was no genuine need.

 

Firelord, OTOH, has no psych lims or behavior patterns that give us any reason to doubt his words.

 

It's the difference between going 'is this consistent with prior portrayals? appears so! (or, alternately, 'appears not!')' and simply going 'I don't like it, I ignore it'. The first is reasoned analysis. The second is not.

 

So yes, I do want to pursue this line of argument. My line of speculation, entirely plausible given the character involved. His line of speculation, not plausible at all. Seeing as how, up /until/ this point in time, every threat Firelord made, he actually tried to carry out.

 

Behold, the difference between *explaining* a thing and *denying* a thing.

[Inu]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

*Definitely* agreed on Garth Ennis Punisher. That guy has a Jobber Aura that would embarass Loeb Superman. Any 'conventional' superhero that crosses over into an Ennis Punisher comic can rest assured' date=' they will be magically reduced to cretinous levels, and deliberately humiliated in the bargain. [/quote']

Eh, that's a pity. I actually enjoyed Daredevil's appearance in the first Ennis Punisher series (during the Gnucci arc)... DD got his props. In that Punisher admitted 'I have no chance against this man in fair combat.'

 

Admittedly, I don't follow DD, but the idea of using sound against him is something that's worked in his own comic in the past, so I bought it.

 

Sad to hear that it went downhill from there. Kinda like Dark Knight Strikes Again.

[Inu]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

It seems a lot more like the structures which exist throughout Superherodom - immune to anything conventional' date=' but able to be harmed by the Supers. Much like Life Support makes you immune to the cold and void of space, but Iceman can still give you frostbite.[/quote']

There is the Claremont exception: "Sure, I can take hits from meteorites. But man, if I get hit by that LAW rocket, I'm dead!"

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

 

Eh, that's a pity. I actually enjoyed Daredevil's appearance in the first Ennis Punisher series (during the Gnucci arc)... DD got his props. In that Punisher admitted 'I have no chance against this man in fair combat.'

 

Admittedly, I don't follow DD, but the idea of using sound against him is something that's worked in his own comic in the past, so I bought it.

 

Sad to hear that it went downhill from there. Kinda like Dark Knight Strikes Again.

 

That particular takedown of Daredevil was legitimate, yes, as it involved a weakness he actually had and not one Garth Ennis just made up for the occasion.

 

The deliberate humiliating of Daredevil *after* he was captured, however, was Ennis just plain being sadistic. Daredevil did not deserve to get put into a 'false dilemna' situation where Frank was headgaming him so that whatever Matt chose it would be the wrong thing, and would cause him to severely doubt the righteousness of the heroic code and possessing a CvK besides.

 

Note, I'm not a big Daredevil fan. Don't hate the dude particularly, just not thrilled by him particularly. But even I felt downright angry at the 'ha-ha, your hypocritical little heroic code is no match for the righteous purity of my latest homicidal maniac character!' dance Ennis was doing.