Chuckg

Re: DC Universe Overview There are indeed. One of them is the classic Post-Crisis Lex Luthor, and the other one is Alexander Luthor from the original Crisis, who has been impersonating the 'real' Lex for an indetermined amount of time, it seems.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever It's not portrayed consistently. The best fudge I can come up with is 'the more purely magical something is, the more it hurts Superman'. But it's still not portrayed consistently.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Well, it wouldn't bypass *all* normal defenses, merely *Superman's* normal defenses. Supes having that magic vulnerability and all. The relevant part isn't on Thor's character sheet, it's on Big Blue's. I.e. -- Thor doesn't have an NND, Supes has a "Not vs. Etc" limitation on his PD and ED.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist Oh, Helena Bertinelli, aka the Huntress, is well down the list of movers and shakers in martial arts skills. Her training from Richard Dragon wasn't so much improving her skills as mental discipline and focus -- Helena has issues, and Old-School Richard Dragon (not the retcon) was as much about teaching enlightenment as he was about teaching head busting. Helena used to rank down around Tim Drake (Robin III) in skills, but has been improving somewhat during her tenure on the Birds. She's still clearly inferior to most of her co-workers, though. (So why is she there? Contacts and Streetwise, as well as having enough grit for a sand factory.)

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist Incorrect -- Kathy Kane also didn't survive, and enough about the Society of Assassins was changed around that a lot of things related to it are doubtful, although Bronze Tiger did acknowledge an early association with the Society still existing Post-Crisis, in BIRDS OF PREY. Also, Bronze Tiger faced Batman Post-Crisis, during Ostrander's SUICIDE SQUAD run. The fight was interrupted before a conclusion was reached, but before it was, Bronze Tiger was losing on points. Then again, Bruce has been improving over time too, and that 'kicked in the face' incident -- even if still in continuity -- was quite a while ago. I mean, Batman used to be given trouble by the GCPD SWAT team. Now he effortlessly trashes entire squads of Special Forces types.

Re: The Punisher vs Bugs Bunny To be fair, let us say that if Bugs uses Toon Shtickery to sabotage Punisher, then the victim of said Shtickery will have only toon-like results inflicted on him, non-toon victim or not. Besides, that's how it worked in both 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' and 'Space Jam', so there's a precedent.

Re: Did anyone ever write-up the DC Impact comic characters? Purely for laughs, I link to Unca Cheeks' review of the "Mighty Crusaders" characters of the 60s. http://www.geocities.com/cheeksilver/crusaders1.htm Warning -- savage and merciless.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist BTW, other meta feats for Batgirl involve moving in literal bullet time -- and I don't mean just 'dodging bullets' (every street-leveller from Spider-Man on down to Hawkingbird can do a simple acrobatic dodge), I mean explicit Matrix-time events of standing there, watching the bullets approach her face in slow motion, and then stepping aside while they're still hanging there in mid-air. She's done that at least three times under two separate writers. (Whether or not Shiva can do this is unknown -- Shiva has never faced opponents with guns above the mook level, as she specializes in picking fights with martial artists. And mooks, she can wipe out before they even get a chance to shoot. However, given that they are templated off each other... Ra's was attempting to recreate Lady Shiva 2.0 with Cassandra, only better... and their matching each other in all other respects, I'd speculate that she could.) As with Val "Karate Kid" Armorr -- if nowhere on his level -- Cassandra operates at blatantly superhuman levels via sheer ubermartialartsskillz. Such is possible in the DCU, Val himself being the most notable case.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist We appear to have cross-posted, becasue I was digging out (and just posted) the indicators that Batgirl *is* metahuman, or rather, operates at metahuman levels w/o a metagene. As shown by scientific analysis of her abilities by government metahuman experts. As to Shiva -- Shiva was operating at clearly metahuman levels as well, recently. (Recheck her fight with Batgirl in BATGIRL #25 -- both of them are shattering brick walls with the force of their punches, when they miss each each other and hit the landscape instead.) Bronze Tiger comments in a recent BIRDS OF PREY that the Shiva of years ago (i.e. -- her first appearance in BATMAN comics) was not as formidable as she is now, so she has apparently only discovered these abilities in recent years. It's instructive to note that over the past few years, Shiva's appearances in comics have usually not been as a direct antagonist for the heroes, and on the few occasions that she has been, the heroes all react like fighting Shiva = certain death. Even the Connor Hawke fight.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist Oh, data points re: Batgirl (and by extension Shiva, as they share common abilities)... Her unique training, conditioning etc. allows her to basically be a low-end Master of Sinanju, getting truly superhuman performance out of the human body without cybernetics or metagenes. Case in point, BATGIRL #14: The people in these scans are either from the CIA, or from the DEO (Department of Extranormal Operations), the DCU equivalent of DOSPA. They're running the full analysis treatment on footage of Cassandra after, in the last episode, she blitzed a CIA safehouse to rescue a guy some rogue spooks were screwing over. They're trying to ID and classify the powers of this new (to them) player on the scene. After crunching all the #'s, they come to the clear conclusion -- she's obviously metahuman, with multiples of human speed and strength. When their geneticist reports that her blood sample has no metagene, they start talking about cybernetics. (Apparently, they don't believe in ye freaky chi.)

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist Wildcat is under Dinah now. The student has surpassed the teacher. They interact like that nowadays. And Batman has been repeatedly schooled by Cassandra in sparring, sometimes by truly humiliating margins. The one time Batman has ever matched her, she was under the influence of berserker drugs, with God only knows what effects on her. (Supposedly, Batman was as well, but there was that conversation at the end with Babs, where he admits he set it up deliberately...)

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist > Ignoring the terrible Richard Dragon series (that last one), I'd rank > Dragon above Lady Shiva as a better martial artist. He is simply more > balanced and mediative. Oh, *Old School* Richard Dragon was *clearly* Shiva's superior. She acknowledged that without hesitation. Clearly Cassandra's superior as well. The old version of Richard was the acknowledged chief zen guru of all martial arts, dude had attained enlightenment and everything. Shiva followed him around like a fangirl for a while. [snip] > Regarding Cassandra, her skills fluctuate so much that it's tough to > rank her. In her first fight with Deathstroke, he couldn't touch her. > Next time they meet, she acknowledge that Slade is just playing with > her. WTH? That would be part of Slade's recent ridiculous power-ups for no reason, him having gone from 'Dick Grayson can repeatedly elude me in close combat' to 'I can punk entire combined JLA lineups like they were children.' Ignore it. It's the writers make Slade into SladeGod, naught more. > Personally, despite issue 25, I rank her below Shiva due to lack of > experience. Also, it was noted that Shiva had a deathwish at the time > and may have wanted to lose, albeit in a hardfought contest with one > of the few people who can come close to Shiva. Batgirl is at worst Shiva's *equal*, though. The two of them are 'any given Sunday', with who wins depending on who's having a better minute... and that's the conservative estimate. Generous estimate, Cassandra laps her. (Shiva is more experienced, yes -- but Cassandra has literally been trained and mentally conditioned from birth for Ultimate Combat, as a combined project of the entire Society of Assassins, following a master plan laid out by Ra's al Ghul. The girl's just not normal.) > Regarding Black Canary, she has been redefined under Birds of Prey as > one of the top martial artists in world (we'll ignore Identidy Crisis 3) in > part to Shiva's tutelage. Yup, Dinah's in the top six now. I'd rank her as just alongside the Bronze Tiger, a hair under Batman. And it's not just Shiva, she went and trained under Cassandra and even sparred with Wonder Woman a little. (Diana was clearly holding her strength and speed back to 'compete fairly with peak human' levels, not her full power -- they both admitted that -- but the point was that Dinah was picking up Amazon-fu in addition to other styles.)

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist Actually, Nightwing and Bruce had a solo match during 'Fugitive', in the Batcave. Dick having room to maneuver and all. Bruce humiliated him without even having to punch back, he left Dick wrecking himself against the furniture. It was very sad.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist As for where Richard Dragon ranks -- the problem is that the latest RICHARD DRAGON mini-series is absolutely impossible to reconcile with Post-Crisis DC continuity. (Richard Dragon is a young punk in the present day, but Huntress, Oracle, and the Question were all taught by him when he was an old master -- years ago? And this is just counting post-Crisis, post-Zero-Hour stuff!) (Note -- Dragon having taught Huntress things still having happened, confirmed a couple months of go in BIRDS OF PREY #85 -- which was *after* the recent RICHARD DRAGON mini.) OTOH, if we specify 'Young Punk Richard Dragon', just the latest, he's still superior to Shiva, but in an indeterminate place as regards Batgirl., as they've never fought. Given that his showing vs. Shiva was more decisive, however, I must (very reluctantly -- Dragon's latest retcon made him into an *obnoxious* little bastard) say he probably laps Batgirl. Oh, and note, Batgirl has defeated Shiva twice -- BATGIRL #25, in the epic knock-down drag-out brawl for it all (Batgirl wins by the skin of her teeth), and BATGIRL #9 (Batgirl sucker-punches Shiva with her broken arm). OTOH, Shiva's defeat of Batgirl (BATGIRL #8) occurred when Batgirl was temporarily suffering a significant neurological impairment, and had temporarily downgraded to the level where Batman was casually walking all over her face.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist Mark Shaw's currently suffering from an advanced case of the crazies in his own comic, and with his mental state in such a mess, God only knows what's happened to his skill level.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Errr, well, actually, he was created as a one-issue-only disposable mook for the Hulk.

Re: "What do you mean, the character came off the paper and won't come back?"

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever And there was much rejoicing.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever No, but it seems to have kinda withered away.

Re: Mjolnir

Re: Mjolnir *continuing the obligatory joke* They got full lifetime subscriptions.

Re: Mjolnir I want my 80s comics back.

Re: Mjolnir