Chuckg

Re: Mjolnir ... you could say the exact same thing about Ralph and Sue Dibney, the Blue Beetle, Stephanie "Robin IV" (but only briefly!) Brown, Wonder Woman, Superman, Hawkeye, the Scarlet Witch, the... ... but I already listed all those storylines.

Re: Mjolnir The sad thing is, no, it really ain't. I can think of at least *FIVE* storylines from the past couple years of comics that are stupider, without even straining hard.(*) ... look, there is a *reason* that on the CBR.com domain, there exists a thread called "The Death Spiral of Comics", and that it's gone through over 10,000 posts total in three incarnations, and that I'm the guy who started it. (add) Although it's appearing likely that the mods are soon going to kill it. :sad: (*) "Identity Crisis", "Avengers Disassembled", "House of M", "Countdown to Infinite Crisis" (actually, this qualifies as about 4-5 separate crimes against sanity all by itself), "War Games" (Batman arc), "War Crimes" (follow-up to said arc), and "Infinite Crisis". But that's me, your mileage may vary. Wait, that's *more* than five stories.

Re: Mjolnir Yes, it turns out that Ultimate Thor is most likely no such thing, given that Ultimate Loki has announced himself now as genuinely being an Asgardian god. Ult Loki was merely making people *think* that Ult Thor was a lunatic with power gizmos... including making Thor himself believe that, for a time. I find this entirely legitimate, as messing with peoples' heads and cursing Thor with delusionary states of mind is what Loki *does* for a living.

Re: Mjolnir No, no, 'Thor Rules Earth', that was just an alternate future that was prevented from being or something. The series finale of the THOR monthly was... you guys honestly don't know this? OK, you know my usual opinion of spoiler space, so the fact that I am providing some should warn you -- this is some truly ****ed up insano **** I am about to tell you about, so proceed at your own risk of SAN loss. x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x "They Who Live Above In Shadow" -- you know, that mysterious bunch of dudes we only glimpsed before the once talking to Loki in X-MEN VS. ALPHA FLIGHT and haven't been part of the narrative since -- are revealed to be cosmic parasites who feed upon the life force of gods. Asgard is revealed to be nothing more than their food crop. Ragnarok is something that happened over and over again, and each time, Asgard is recreated, allowed to rebuild itself, and then destroyed again as they suck up all that lovely energy. It's like the Asgardians are wheat, and Ragnarok is harvest time -- then plant the seeds, let 'em grow tall again, and harvest 'em again. Oh yeah, and like making too many Xeroxes, the quality of the copy has been degrading over time, thus resulting in their personal stories becoming cheaper and hollower with every go-around. Thor realizes that his life and the life of all Asgardians is a meaningless and sick cosmic joke. He also realizes why this time around on the great wheel o' meaningless munchies, his dad Odin kicked the bucket early and left him as King of Asgard instead of just marching up for the regular Ragnarok script one more time -- to break the cycle. So, Thor kicks off Ragnarok... and then deliberately betrays everyone so that Asgard *LOSES* to the giants. As They Who Live Above In Shadow are going "WTF? What's happening to the script, man? The actors are totally ad-libbing!!!" Odinpower Thor proceeds to start trying to mojo his way into their presence. Meanwhile, everybody from Balder to Sif to the Warriors Three is being killed off like mooks in a Tarantino movie, to the point where the only survivor of the entire Asgardian supporting cast is Loki, who by this point has been reduced to following Thor around, carrying his luggage and gaping helplessly a lot as his entire worldview is revealed to be a sick cosmic joke. At any rate, the last act is Thor confronting They Who Live Above In Shadow, telling them that they can go suck his big Asgardian wang, he's going to starve them to death by destroying Asgard *FOREVER* this time, and never permitting it to be reborn anew! Thor then smashes the loom of the Fates, obliterating Asgard entirely, and is last seen still existing for some reason (despite the rest of Asgard going poofski into not merely being destroyed, but removed from existence totally a la Omega Effect), drifting off in a giant space coffin in eternal slumber. The End. In case you were wondering why Thor hadn't been in Avengers comics recently. x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x Stupid, weren't it? Of course, that was back during 'Avengers Disassembled', so who knows, maybe they've retconned it already! Or not. (The relevant comics were THOR vol. 2, #80-85.)

Re: Mjolnir Thanos -- "Doom never got this kind of abuse!"

Re: Mjolnir INFINITY ABYSS, Thanos reveals that for a time he experimented with "My own unique blend of clone, android, and mystical doppelganger." These Thanosbots, of varying power levels and specialities, were intended to run errands, as well as test opponents for him. He eventually scrapped the project because he couldn't quite get the logic circuits right -- they kept going only for the direct and violent solution and skipping the subtle part entirely. This was getting them involved in lots of big smashy fights, thus entirely voiding the part where they were supposed to *save* Thanos trouble, not *cause* him trouble. So, he done scrapped 'em. A few of the last ones to be scrapped causing him *LOTS AND LOTS* of trouble was the driving force behind the plot of INFINITY ABYSS. Well, that plus more weird cosmic crap, but such is usual in 'Infinity...' stories. At any rate, the Thanosbots varied in power level, from 'wimpy enough to get beaten by Ka-zar' on up to 'Thanos actually called for back-up.' Although that last one was a special case. Paraphrasing: Thanos -- "I built it solely for the intellectual challenge of seeing if I could do it. I never actually intended to *activate* the crazy thing." Gamora -- "I don't care, building *THAT* thing was the stupidest idea I've ever heard of!" Thanos -- "A thought that has since occurred to me, I assure you. But I was young and foolish." Confirmed Thanosbot appearances are the one vs. Ka-Zar, and (I since googled this) the one with Mangog.

Re: Mjolnir Remember, 'Thanos' that was with Mangog, him not the real Thanos, him was a Thanosbot...

Re: Mjolnir Actually, it's *not* -- given that Thor was able to use Mjolnir to cut Juggernaut off from his power source later. Where Thor erred lay in matching himself against Cytorrak's *strongest* point (resistance to physical damage), instead of matching his strength vs. Juggernaut's weakness. He's the Juggernaut, being physically invulnerable with a capital "I" is his *thing*. Thor simply found a way around that, not directly through it. That's legitimate.

Re: Mjolnir *cough* Thanosbot.

Re: Mjolnir Conscious, subconscious, the point is, it has to be turned on, and usually it ain't.

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Re: Mjolnir *After* trying and failing to beat some sense into Juggy the old-fashioned way -- repeatedly.

Re: Mjolnir No, it was that way since daddy finally passed on and let him inherit the Odinpower, which was another arc entirely and eventually led to the stupidest ending of a THOR series ever.

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Re: Mjolnir Catacomb -- Not kidding in the slightest bit, about either the Thanos-clones ("My own unique blend of clone, android, and mystical doppelganger") or about the Ka-zar thing. To get rid of 'Thanos vs. Ka-zar, Thanos loses', I will accept Thanosbots. The alternative is just too sanity-blasting to contemplate. (But Squirrel Girl still legitimately kicked his ***! )

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Re: Mjolnir Sometimes, the hammer head is glowing when Thor swings or throws it, and sometimes it's not. An example would be FANTASTIC FOUR #28 (Claremont run, not the original), where Thor does a hammer toss that knocks an entire starship the size and general build of an Imperial Star Destroyer several hundred feet sideways. ISTR a bit of glowy thing on the end while he threw that one, but I am going from memory Of course, said ship had been built by Doctor Doom, which is why the shields managed to just barely absorb the kinetic energy of the impact -- and then fire it all back into Thor's face, thus resulting in Thor being knocked back half a dozen zip codes away. He needed a couple pages to fly back. But still, knocking something the size and build of an Imperial-II several hundred feet sideways and into a severe tilt before it managed to right itself, that's not shabby.

Re: Mjolnir The Thanos incident, also the Power Gem + Warriors' Madness thing. Normally, Thanos laughs Thor off. (Then again, that's no shame -- Thanos normally laughs off things that would put the Silver Surfer in the coma ward, he's just plain ridiculous that way.)

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Yes, it can do that. But it doesn't normally. Champions game thought -- Thor can charge his hammer with mystic energy to boost its damage, but doing so costs him END. Just bashing with the hammer as a big blunt object, no END beyond his normal STR usage. So, most of the time, Thor saves himself the juice, because most of the time, he doesn't need to boost himself to KTFO whatever he's whaling on. He is Thor, after all.

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Re: Mjolnir Oh, BTW, I'd like to note that even in the fight Thor lost, he'd taken so much out of Superman that Supes was then cold-cocked by a coordinated attack from Iron Man, Wonder Man, and Warbird -- three people who normally shouldn't have been able to do more than nudge him. So even in a fight where Thor had no idea of Supes vulnerabilities and never got a chance to launch his most devastating attacks, he *still* took Superman down to the 'just barely on his feet' level before dropping. Thor didn't do too badly at all.

Re: Mjolnir True, he didn't go into superspeed mode and punch Thor thousands of times in an eyeblink -- which, given that Supes is 98+% as fast as the Flash, is a possible maneuver for him. OTOH, even without his superspeed, Supes was still giving Thor an offensive rush, not giving Thor any opportunities to take Full Phase Maneuvers... such as haymaker wind-ups. As for...

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever OK, plot summary of FF vs. X-Men: X-Men -- "Oh no, Kitty is dying!" Kitty -- "I am indeed dying, slowly and painfully. Sigh." Logan -- "Flamin' Marauders! I'm gonna kill 'em one by one!" Storm -- "Not for a couple dozen issues yet, we won't. Patience." Moira MacTaggart -- "Kitty's phasing switch is jammed in the "ON" position and she's slowly disintegrating. I'm stumped." Magneto -- "I've actually remembered that I'm a good scientist myself! Which is something that they usually don't let me do! ... not that it helps much, I'm stumped too." Ororo -- "Well, we know what this means." Magneto -- "Yes, it's time to consult The World's Smartest Man. Since I am the least trusted by the FF of any one of us, I will of course go." *off to New York!* Franklin Richards -- "Mommy, I had a bad dream that something horrible is gonna happen. And it will involve the X-Men, Doctor Doom, and daddy's old college journal!" Susan Richards -- "Don't worry, Franklin, despite the fact that at this point in canon you are the most powerful precog known to mankind when you're dreaming, it's probably nothing. Hey, I just found Reed's old college journal that was lost forever! I wonder what's in it?" Franklin Richards -- "... nobody ever listens to me." *scene cut to Reed Richards being thrown face-first into a wall by the Thing* Ben -- "Hey old buddy. About this thing where your college journal says you deliberately set us all up to be mutated into the FF because you thought the world was gonna need heroes. I am not amused." Susan -- "I'm a little put out myself." Johnny -- "Hey, this FF gig is the best thing that ever happened to me!" Ben and Susan -- "SHUT UP!" Reed -- "Despite the fact that I have absolutely no memory of doing any of this or writing this, I am going to wonder if I did it anyway, because I'm perfectly willing to believe that I spent several years of my life in a fugue state and having false memories of the period. Us comic-book supergeniuses are always torturing ourselves with stuff like this." Magneto -- "Umm, I hate to interrupt the Richards Family Soap Opera Hour, but there's a young lady who's terminally ill. Can the World's Smartest Man come out and play?" Fantastic Four -- "... in a minute, Reed's having a crippling attack of self-doubt while we're deciding whether or not to kill him." Magneto -- "I'll just wait outside then." *scene cut back to Muir Isle* Reed Richards -- "I'm stumped." Magneto -- "The hell you mean you're stumped? You're Reed freaking Richards! You're the guy Galactus calls when he needs help with his science homework! You should be solving this in your sleep!" Reed -- "Normally, yes, but I'm having a real crisis at home right now and kinda can't concentrate well..." Logan -- "MISERABLE !#%!@#%#!%! YOU SAVE KITTY RIGHT NOW OR I CUT YOU!" Johnny -- "Logan's attacking Reed! FLAME ON! Oh hell, I hit Storm by mistake!" *fighty time occurs briefly* Thing -- "Lookin' the wrong way, shorty. Nap time for you." X-Men -- "EVERYBODY GET READY TO RUMMMMMM..." Ororo (staggering back to her feet) -- "No attacking fellow superheroes without my permission!" X-Men -- "... never mind." Fantastic Four -- "Man, can this day get any worse?" Hologram of Doctor Doom Suddenly Appearing -- "I would just like to remind people that there are *two* contenders for the title of The World's Smartest Man, and I'm always up for trying a challenge that Reed Richards admits he can't do." X-Men -- "Since at this point, 'desperate' doesn't even begin to cover where we are, we'll actually take this despite knowing the fact that selling our souls to Mephisto for a box of Cubans would be a safer idea than accepting aid from Doom." Reed -- "Wait! You can't do this!" X-Men -- *flip the FF the bird, get on the Blackbird, fly to Latveria* End of Act One. (add) No, I'm not gonna summarize the whole thing. It was actually very good, track down and read.

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