Chuckg

Re: Mjolnir

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever > There is a double standard there, there has to be, otherwise > X-Men/Avengers would have been about 4 panels, but disagree all you > want. OK, now if you want to call X-Men/Avengers a piece of crap, I'll agree with you there. But not because of some general "crossovers don't count!" standard, but because of the specific example of Doctor freaking Druid supposedly mentally paralyzing Magneto while Magneto had his shielding helmet on. The idea of Doctor Druid, psychic middleweight, easily performing a feat that Xavier has repeatedly failed to do, and had to go into freaking Onslaught mode before he could finally touch it... let me put it this way, before I'd agree with that one, I'd agree that Spidey could punch out Firelord. But! I do not disagree with this because I hate crossovers! I disagree with it for the same reason I disagree with other things... because it makes no damn sense when we look at the characters' prior histories and overall feats. > You're right, there doesn't have to be a balance in order to make a > pre-determined number of X-over issues occur, there need be no fudging of > powers because we all know that every super team and indavidual is > created =, with just the perfect amount of balance to last the obligatory 4 > issue release. ... you did read FANTASTIC FOUR VS. X-MEN, yes? They 'balanced' the issue by never having the teams actually knock-down drag-out brawl at all. Both times that it came to blows because some hothead on one side or the other went off (Logan in the first instance, Magneto in the second), the fight was interrupted before it really got started (Storm ordering the X-Men to stand down the first time, Franklin Richards shaming both sides into realizing that they were acting like total butt-wads the second time.) The entire point of FF vs. X-MEN was the personal drama of 'How far will the X-Men go to save Kitty's life?' (read -- they done entered into a devil's bargain with Doctor Doom, is there any way they can get out of this with their souls and honor still intact?). And 'Will the FF be able to stop them?' (read -- Reed Richards' inner struggle with the hideously tormenting mind**** that Doom was laying upon him, as well as the rest of the FF having to decide whether or not they still trusted him 'cause said mind**** was also screwing with them hardcore as well.) Teams needing to be 'balanced' for the brawl, not. I mean, it was quite clear both times that if it had come down to the knock-down-drag-out brawl, the X-men would have won. (Not only did they have the FF outnumbered four to two, but they had freaking Magneto on their side.) However, due to something known as "good writing", that never became an issue, and neither side required stupid jobbing to achieve that.

Re: Mjolnir

Re: Mjolnir Seeing as how I've seen vampires bite through his supertough skin as if it were normal human flesh, do I have much of a choice? In the Silver Age, Pre-Crisis, at least, Superman had absolutely no defenses at all vs. magic. Willow Rosenberg could conceivably have killed him with a magically levitated pencil, it was about that bad. Along with the "his powers all instantly turn off if he's hit with a red sunlamp!" weakness, PC-Supes' magic weakness was the most debilitating he had. (Kryptonite was his most famous weakness, but paradoxically it was actually his least crippling one.) Post-Crisis, Supes has gotten better, to the point where he's only a lot more vulnerable vs. magic, not totally puked out against it. (It does seem to vary -- the more 'purely magical' something is, the less tough he is against it. So magical creatures punching him with mundane punches, barely bugs him at all... magical lightning wrapped around a fist like mystic energy brass knuckles and *then* punching him, he goes down.) However, this is Captain Marvel we're talking about here. He's strong enough that even if Superman kept, oh, 10% of his defenses vs. magic (and remember, that means he's 10% as durable as something that can soak multi-megaton nuclear blasts, i.e., still pretty godawful tough)... well, a 90% vulnerable Superman taking Billy Batson's haymaker to the back of his head is still quite likely to die, never mind that he's still got metahuman durability. Captain Marvel is strong enough to beat even lower-tier bricks to death, let alone normal people. So when hitting a Superman whose lost a major chunk of his defenses against him, but him not knowing *exactly how much* of those defenses are gone, Billy still has to be a little careful.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever You know, snide crap like that really isn't helping.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Yes, that is pretty much what I said, with the caveat that 'magic attack' means 'magical spell or energy blast', and not 'any mundane bashing attack that happens to come via a magical creature or object'.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever My thoughts are that the vast majority of Superman's PD and ED are bought 'Not vs. Magical Spells Or Energies', as opposed to being bought with 'Not vs. Anything Related To Magic Whatsoever In Any Way', a far more crippling disad. I.e. -- a magic weapon only bypasses Superman's defenses if it's "magic" in the sense of "specifically charged up with magic energies of doom", and not if it's merely magic in the sense of "it's magically strong and tough". It's sometimes hard to split that hair, yes, but this is why DM calls were invented. Or in the case of comics, writer calls.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Oh, btw, fun fact -- who wrote FANTASTIC FOUR vs. X-MEN (we've been getting the title wrong) limited series? Hint -- the same guy who, at that time, was writing the regular UNCANNY X-MEN title. Who was the *editor* for FF vs. X-MEN? Hint -- the same lady who, at that time, was the editor for the UNCANNY X-MEN title (and the other X-books). So, your thesis of Wolvie getting jobbed out by Marvel editorial or pro-FF writers? Not hardly, bub. The same crew what did that storyline was doing the regular Xbooks of that era. Heck, it pretty much *WAS* a four-issue UNCANNY arc with the FF guest-starring. (I anticipate with amusement any attempt at explaining why Chris Claremont and Ann Nocenti allegedly didn't know how to properly write Wolverine circa 1987.)

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever > Crossovers never count, I don't care if they are in company or out, so much > crap is pulled out for them its ridiculous. The "Marvel vs. DC" crossover you refer to I agree with -- especially since they admitted that the results were determined not by actually using characterization, but purely by fan voting. It was a popularity contest, nothing more, and none of the crap from it counts. FF vs. X-MEN, otoh... > Wolverine damn sure should never have been able to hang with Lobo who is > basically a superman power level version of himself, but he did. Why? > Special circumstances. Also by crossovers I don't mean Spidey making an > appearance in a book I mean crap like X-Men/Avengers, X-Men/FF4 etc. > the stuff is almost written and used in a vacuum, which is why I don't read > most contrived crossovers. Explain to me how X-MEN VS. FANTASTIC FOUR would have been any different if it had simply been the FF guest-starring in four UNCANNY X-MEN issues. Let us say, for example, that UNCANNY X-MEN #umptysquat through umptysquat+3 is a four-parter arc, in the regular UNCANNY title, that has the Fantastic Four guest-starring. And let us say that in this hypothetical four-part arc, the exact same events as X-MEN/FF #1-4 occur -- word for word, panel for panel, page for page. Does it suddenly become all better now? Cross-company crossovers are one thing. *IN*-company crossovers are merely a phenomenon known as 'guest starring', and if we outlawed all of that, fug, we just threw the majority of all comicdom out of canon. Which is very silly.

Re: Mjolnir No, I think Billy was pulling his blows for two simple reasons: a) Billy knows Supes is vulnerable to magic. But he *doesn't* know *exactly how much*. So he runs a risk of killing Superman on the first shot, if that first shot is his best haymaker and not a pulled punch. Desperate situation or not, ain't no way Billy is wanting to kill Superman. This kind of behavior is what CvKs are *for*. So the first shot was pulled enough to test Supes' defenses, so that Billy knew how hard the second punch had to be to KO Supes, without being too hard to kill him.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Eh? Thought Busiek was saying that Supes was no more vulnerable to *Mjolnir in default bashing mode* than the Hulk or Gladiator would be. 'Cause Mjolnir in default bashing mode, not actually using magic to amplify the blow, merely the fact that it's a big !#%!%!!%ing indestructibilium club. If Thor switched Mjolnir over to "fire mystic lightning" mode or somesuch, Supes should be going 'aggggh, my rapidly being electrocuted internal organs!'

Re: Mjolnir Note, Captain Marvel beat Superman only when he specifically charged his fist with magic lightning beforehand. (Even then it took two punches, not one, and surprise shots to the back of Supes' head besides... although CM was only trying to KO him, not kill him, so the first shot was definitely pulled.) When CM just punches Superman in the normal way, it's only a normal superstrong punch to Big Blue's defenses. It has to be a deliberately magic-charged attack to down him. Just like... * Thor swings Mjolnir Superman goes "ow! damn! that hurt!" * Thor charges up Mjolnir, to where mystic energies and the magic lightning is crackling around the head... and then swings it. Superman goes "AGH! Oh, my shattered bones! Oh my bleeding internal organs!"

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Note, one of the examples where Wolvie 'went down easy' was while he was in a full-on raving berserker psycho fit.(*) (FF vs. X-Men #2) So it doesn't *always* work like that. Sometimes, the instances in question are merely the Power Fanboy channelling through the writer to give Wolvie a win when, reasonably speaking, there's no way he should have stayed upright. (Such as, oh, "Wolverine vs. Spider-Man") (*) Did you ever wonder /why/ the Thing was KO'ing Wolvie? Hint: had something to do with Logan trying to carve Reed Richards into rubber bands. Logan's not usually up for murdering FF members when he's *calm*, and he was *literally* foaming at the mouth during this sequence.

Re: Mjolnir My opinion? If Thor doesn't know about the magic weakness and thus sticks solely to big blunt attacks (which is what Thor usually does, him having that Psych Lim of "Prefers The Slugfest, Common, Moderate"), Supes has a legitimate chance to win. If Thor *does* know about the magic weakness and thus adjusts tactics to compensate (after all, his Psych Lim about preferring the straight-up brawl is only Moderate, meaning he can set it aside at need), then Superman's frickin' screwed.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

Re: Mjolnir

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Well, actually, the Ben Grimm bop on the head was while Wolverine was raving berserk... however, Wolvie was enraged at the person in front of him (Reed Richards), and had absolutely no idea who'd just walked up behind him, so Ben got a free blindside. (FANTASTIC FOUR VS. X-MEN #2, if you're curious) The Magistrate incident, however, was Wolvie (and Rogue, who was alongside him) walking into it cold -- don't remember the issue #, it was UNCANNY X-MEN, first issue of the very first Genosha arc.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever "... when used as a blunt object without being specifically charged with a mystic blast first.", yes.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Wolverine *has* been KO'ed by concussive force before -- heck, the man-portable artillery that Genoshan Magistrates used to pack did the job once, at least when the mook in question fired it off at maximum power and point-blank range into Logan's face. People in the Ben Grimm strength range (such as, oh, Ben Grimm) have easily KO'ed Wolvie with a simple hammer blow to the top of his skull. Ben wasn't straining overmuch either, just a simple *BOP*, and he's down. So having Spidey work the speed bag on Logan's forehead? No way Logan should have just shaken that off. Granted, Spidey ain't the ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing, but Logan should at least have been seeing *some* stars, not factory fresh and able not just to continue fighting, but execute subtle feints that somehow magically evade the #!%!@%@# Spider-Sense even.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever ... I don't even begin to understand the question.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Look, the Spidey-Sense was invented in the early Silver Age, where "Logically consistent and unifying explanation for all the various items on a hero's powerset" was considered a luxury, not a necessity. It's genuine precognition. It has been consistently presented as such. It's just a very specific form of precognition -- it don't do Lotto tickets, the weather, or box scores, it just does immediate danger. That's it, really.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever You know, they have a specific Danger Sense category for 'threats that cannot be perceived via normal senses'. And yet it still works on a PER roll. Remember, Unusual Sense Groups work on PER rolls too, just as much as Normal Senses do.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever It's true precognition -- during the Cosmic Spidey arc, it got amped up to where his brain was practically melting under the temporary boost of nigh-omniscience -- but it's very specific. It's only about immediate danger, and it virtually never tells him *what* danger (although sometimes Spidey can guess what it is just from context). It's just a "you need to move NOW!" and "hey! instincts say, this the way to jump!" It works on more than just physical danger, though -- it's actually warned him on occasion that it wasn't safe to change out of costume to Peter Parker just yet (because there was an eavesdropper he hadn't spotted who just happened to be watching whatever deserted corner he was lurking in for the switch).