Chuckg

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever BTW, note that theoretically, Thor can sidestep Superman's defenses by specifically charging Mjolnir with mystic energy before he throws it or hits with it -- which is something he *can* do, with conscious thought. It's just not automatic. Note also that in JLA/AVENGERS #4, Thor says that he knows Superman's measure now... and that if they ever rematched, the Man of Steel might get an unpleasant surprise.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Here's how I understood what Busiek is saying... Mjolnir has a ton of enchantments on it. Enchantments for dimensional travel, for weather control, for energy blasts, for everything. What it *doesn't* have is an enchantment for enhancing its melee damage. (Although Thor can charge it up with the energy blast, but not release it and instead set it for contact detonation, achieving the same effect -- but only as a deliberate action) The reason it lets Thor strike harder is... well, the reason any non-magical club lets you strike harder, it's both made out of something tougher than your hand, and is a lever to multiply your strength with. Mjolnir being made out of indestructibilium metal and really dense besides, it's an even handier club. But, within the limited aspect of melee bashing, it's not necessarily a *magical* club. (The magic is all for other things.) So, basically, if Thor had *blasted* Superman with the hammer, Supes should have gone down as fast as a normal man hit with Mjolnir's mystic energy blast. I.e. -- charcoal. But, Thor didn't know that, 'cause Supes doesn't have "I AM VULNERABLE TO MAGIC" tattoed on his head. So Supes 'merely' took the same impact as would have been delivered by a non-magical indestructiblium hammer of Mjolnir's exact same size, shape, and weight, wielded with Thor's strength. Which is why Supes was 'only' knocked back over a block into an office buidling, whereupon he had to shake off a bad case of Stunned before he could get up, catch his breath, and get back in the fight. Diana's sword in 'Kingdom Come', OTOH, had a magic spell on it to let it slice through anything... and Superman qualified as 'anything'. Hence, him getting cut like a normal man who touched a razor-sharp sword. And if Mjolnir had had a 'bash through anything' enchantment on it? Well, then Supes should by all rights have been affected like a normal human hit with Thor's full strength -- i.e., sticky red stain. So I can see where Busiek is fudging to avoid that, due to the obvious difficulties involved in Superman dying in act one. But since it's an *intelligent* fudge, I can live with it.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever It's Danger Sense. It requires a PER roll. Some days, Spidey rolls a 17-18. Simple.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Hey, if you're going to retcon something *intelligently*, then by all means retcon away, if you can. Continuity is a framework, not a straight jacket. The key word, however, is 'intelligently'. To tie specifically back into SM-vs-FL, these two things are *not* "intelligent" plotting: a) hero arbitrarily pulls vast power boost out of his *** villain just stands there like a dumb mook AAMOF, it's plotting via the line of absolute least resistance. It's what is spelled L-A-Z-Y W-R-I-T-I-N-G. Is part of why I hate it so.

Re: HERO combat - somewhat abstract or entirely specific? Doesn't Sweep allow for multiple attacks vs. a single target? And to quote what I said on another thread:

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Oh, come on, you link to a Busiek jumps in post and it has to be one of the ones where he was *sane*? You meanie. Link 'em to one of the *funny* ones... ... OK, folks, I kid. No frothing at the mouth actually happened. Much.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Nobody's debating that it's a whole lotta weight, but we need to narrow it down a little finer than that. I might also point out that unless it's an inverted pyramid, the entire mass of the pile is not going to be balancing on one point at the bottom -- i.e., Spidey might be buried under it, but he doesn't have to lift *THE ENTIRE THING* to get out, he merely has to shift the parts that are directly on him to somewhere off of him. (As opposed to Doc Ock's thingy, which actually /was/ an inverted pyramid, kinda. Plus, we got a wide enough shot of that to see that Spidey wasn't just tilting it, but was genuinely pressing it over his head, all four corners well off the floor.) This still requires metahuman strength, obviously -- but Spidey has that. OTOH, it doesn't necessarily require 'I lift zillions of tons!' kinda strength.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Given that Spidey KTFO'ed Firelord, and people are making some kind of Rhino = Thor = Firelord and/or Spidey = Thor analogy, asking if Thor's ever KTFO'ed Firelord is a legit question. And, as you say, Stunning and KO'ing are two different things, and while Thor's Stunned Firelord once (out of several tries that failed, lifetime), he's never KO'ed the dude.

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Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Thanks for reminding me. I forgot to add "unless the character is known to be a goober wuss who can believably be having a panic attack even when there's nothing really wrong." Seriously, Eric Masterson, ummm, took a while to remember where he'd left his testicles after putting on the Thor suit. Then again, as you've no doubt guessed, me not exactly impressed with the dude.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever In light of that above, I suppose I should explain more: When analyzing comic books, we have to remember that characters -- like PCs or NPCs in our games -- can only speak from what they know, and not gods'-eye omniscience. (Well, unless they're *supposed* to be gods'-eye omniscient or thereabouts, but Uatu isn't in this scan, so n/m. ) For example, in certain Silver Age Batman comics, Batman has said -- repeatedly -- that the Ten-Eyed Man is "the most dangerous man who ever lived!" Taking a 'all dialogue must always be true at all times, no exceptions or circumstances' stance, that would mean that the Ten-Eyed Man really was the most dangerous man who ever lived. Folks, the Ten-Eyed Man was a guy whose sole superpower was that his eyeballs were on his fingertips. Read more if you're curious. And yet, Batman delivered these lines with a straight face. Obviously, if all dialogue spoken at all times was all literally true, comics would make even less sense than they do now. So we have to allow for character ignorance (as well as writers who are obviously on very powerful drugs, but hey, it was 1970, they probably still had a stash left over from the 60s. But enough about the creation of the Ten-Eyed Man.). Statements like 'I can't take much more of this!' or 'I'm getting tired!' are, of course, taken as gospel -- the character in question would obviously know how *he himself* is feeling, after all. OTOH, statements by characters where they guess what's falling on them can be true or not true -- and we don't know which. Unless we know they can actually *see* what's falling on them, and, well, cue lack of x-ray vision above. And no, this is not 'ignoring what's on the page', this is 'not reading any *more* into what's on the page than is actually there.' And what's there is 'Spidey is guessing there are trains falling on him', not 'Spidey knows for sure there are trains falling on him.' There is, as they would say, a reasonable doubt. Hope this helps.

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Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

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Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Oh, and PS -- since I get criticized if I *do* respond to posts that are 'mirrored' from people who I am Ignore List'ing, and criticized if I *don't* do so, then... well, if I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't, damned if I won't pick the option that's less work for me. IOW, don't bother mirroring anything anymore, folks, 'cause I damn sure won't feel obliged to debate it on any kind of regular basis.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever IOW -- 'Chuckg, you are inconsistent and ignore evidence when it suits you. If you didn't, they wouldn't be accusing you of doing it.' This is *not* 'benefit of the doubt'. This is the *exact opposite* of benefit of the doubt, in fact -- assuming my guilt based solely on the other guy's accusation.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Penn Station scan did not have Spidey lifting Penn Station or even remotely near Penn Station. It had him lifting a big chunk of wreckage from when Penn Station done got collapsed, presumably by some big supervillain attack. http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=929502#post929502 Note -- Andrew claims that 'all of Penn Station' is on his back, but that's not what's shown on the page... especially not given that a) most of the rubble is piled loosely upon the one concrete block, not attached to it and in the second page, the concrete block Spidey is lifting is not only in such close focus that we can't see the top of it any more, but it's /tilted/, so we have /no/ way of knowing how much is still on top, and how much has /slid/ off. (Spidey is tilting it over instead of pressing it straight up for a /reason/, after all. GW Bridge lift, otoh, was a squat press straight up... and not only did we get shown the entire bridge, but the chief engineer on the construction crew is specifically pointing out that Thor is the sole source of support for one end of the entire bridge.) And for that matter, even if we allow in every piece of metal and concrete that we see in the first scan -- "most generous interpretation of artwork", again -- that still ain't anywhere near a sizable fraction of the GW Bridge.

Re: I need an "S" System.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever It deliberately wastes time and sidetracks a discussion that's having enough problems staying focused as is. Not to mention that first you insult me, then you trivialize my arguments childishly, and now -- when I politely ask you to stop -- you instead make it *my* fault, becuase I'm 'humorless'? Remember yesterday, when I was hailing Squirrel Girl? And gladly accepting her kicking the crap out of Thanos? If something is genuinely funny, I laugh. No humorless person can see the joke in Squirrel Girl, and yet I did. The reason I'm not laughing at you? 'Cause you aren't being funny. You're just being an ***. You may have started out all civilized when you first got into this thread, but today, you have majorly backslid. So *plonk* you.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever This presumes that all accusations are always true and are never made for any other reason than being 100% sincere and truthful. During a COMIC BOOK FANBOY ARGUMENT on the INTERNET. For the love of God, at least *TRY* to be serious. Edit -- and weren't you the same guy saying a couple days ago that neither side had any just cause to be accusing the other? Hmmm? And now you're saying that no, they were entirely right to do so? You want inconsistency? Try your mirror.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever A tenth of half the George Washington Bridge? Hint -- go back and look at the Penn Station scan. Note the chunk of concrete wreckage that Spidey is straining his absolute max to lift. Notice that it's about one-millionth the size of the entire GW Bridge, not 1/20th of it. The idea that Spidey could lift even a tenth of half the GW Bridge (i.e. -- 1/20th of the bridge) is ludicrous. He'd be just as likely to pick up an entire 20-story building on his shoulders. It's well beyond even his *MOST* generous lifting feats. Hell, it's well beyond his greatest lifting feat ever.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever