Stupidly powerful characters [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

ZombieWomble

2007-06-14, 02:47 PM

He can die. His head must be removed from his body for an extended period.

Define "body". After the Nitro incident, he literally had no body left. Everything was burnt to nothingness barring his adamantium (including, apparently, the inside of his head given his eyes were burnt away and all we could see behind them was a vague red glow), and we are aware that his healing factor considers the adamantium as a disease, not as part of him (at least, that was how they explained his new uber-healing factor after his first skeleton was removed, right? Or has that been retconned too?). As a result, there was literally no body for the head to be attached to. And yet he was back on his feet and kicking butt in minutes or less. Wolverine is now effectively established as being unkillable if the plot requires it.

Which really brings it to the crux of the issue, doesn't it? Characters are exactly as powerful as the plot requires them to be. A detailed examination of many heroes' powers indicate vast levels of ability which are simply untapped because it's not what the writers want to do, and even arbitrarily powerful creatures can often be laid low by a handy bit of plot armour (Squirrel girl for the most tongue in cheek example, but it's only satirising a real trend in comics). So yes. Although it's something of a cop-out, I'd like to humbly submit "plot" as the most overpowered entity. ;)

Selrahc

2007-06-14, 05:28 PM

and we are aware that his healing factor considers the adamantium as a disease, not as part of him (at least, that was how they explained his new uber-healing factor after his first skeleton was removed, right? Or has that been retconned too?).

That wasn't the explanation.... The explanation was that adamantium is incredibly toxic, and that much of his healing factor was devoted to keep it from killing him.

Nothing to do with the body rejecting it.

Tyrant

2007-06-14, 05:43 PM

That wasn't the explanation.... The explanation was that adamantium is incredibly toxic, and that much of his healing factor was devoted to keep it from killing him.

Nothing to do with the body rejecting it.

But his body did reject it when Genesis attempted to put it back in.

....

2007-06-14, 06:57 PM

Wolverine is pretty broken. I remember when I read that comic and I saw his skeleton I said, "Well, Logan is dead now."

I specifically remember the "Days of Future Past" comic line back in the day when he got fastballed towards a Sentinel and got blasted down to his skeleton, and he died. Apparently the writer forgot that/didn't realize how stupid it would be to attack a guy who explodes in melee combat.

I stand by what Deadpool said when asked if he could regenerate from a skeleton like Wolverine did in that issue, his respone was, "Well, I'd love to, but my writer says I couldn't. That'd just be silly."

Gavin Sage

2007-06-14, 08:50 PM

I think there needs to be some qualifiers on how a person is powerful. The Anti-Monitor was a multiversal threat that devoured universes. He needed to be as powerful as he was for the epic story that was COIE. Simply being very powerful is not a problem. If you are really powerful, but have broad sweeping omnipotence, then its consistent and workable. It when you aren't a god, or rather godlike in basic concept yet perform the ridiculously powerful stunts that it becomes stupid.

The classic stupidly powerful character would be Pre-Crisis Superman. Not simply for how powerful he was, but for such stupidity as using super-ventriloquism to throw his voice across noiseless space. Or spontaneously developing new powers like shooting rainbows out his hands. Or concealing his identity with super-hypnosis, which also worked through photographs or where-ever else they needed it too. Yet he wasn't "a god" and still acted as plain old good guy hero with lots of powers more often then not, which present the problem of what could be a challenge for him. Hence why he was rebooted and still cannot say, fly through time by going faster then light, because he's not faster then light anymore.

Wolverine right now is stupidly regenerative as of Nitro. Its not so much that I doubt he could grow back, since getting inside a skull or bones without breaking them would be hard. However its should take a long, long time for him to heal and with some kinda nutrient bath Beast or someone cooks up for exactly that purpose.

Others I would include would be Dr. Strange, who's is largely a deus ex and has fought multiple extradimensional gods. Yet can be shot by..... Hitler's gun. He has no consistency except being tremedously power as Marvel doesn't have magic even close to well defined even when compared to DC which is nominally alright. The Sentry would be another, since he seemingly has no limits when not having emo-fests and has done crap like rewrite the minds of everyone on the planet.

DC does a bit better but has a lot of really powerful characters. It could loose a lot of characters and would be better if more of its heroes were closer to street level like Marvel's. Someone like Martian Manhunter would be better if he was more like his cartoon version, focusing on his weird powers but not being a complete and utter S-class powerhouse to boot. Black Adam very recently was stupidly powerful as well. The universe as a whole is hard to relate to since a high portion of its biggest names are just plain hyper-powered.

And conversely, while Batman himself is not quite overpowered his reputation among fans is stupidly powerful. Heck he really has no business being on the Justice League, though that's not an argument I think anyone wants to make including me.

Ras Sha'Akhamen

2007-06-14, 08:51 PM

Define "body".
The things below his neck. Was his head still touching any of those things. Then it wasn't removed from his body.

After the Nitro incident, he literally had no body left.
I don't have a copy of Grey's Anatomy handy, but I'd be willing to wager that bones are a part of one's body.

his healing factor considers the adamantium as a disease, not as part of him (at least, that was how they explained his new uber-healing factor after his first skeleton was removed, right? Or has that been retconned too?).
I think that's still canon, but the bones that are trapped in that adamantium (it's encased in it, not made of it) are still a part of his body.

Shadow of the Sun

2007-06-14, 09:32 PM

Mad Jim Jaspers.

Like Franklin Richards, but eeeeeeeevil!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeviiiiiiiiiiiil!

Grod_The_Giant

2007-06-14, 10:50 PM

anyone with reality-altering powers or nigh-omnipotence. There is no way possible to beat that.

Otherwise, you can always meet someone with equal or greater powers. Not so with the above abilities. They don't even work as a BBEG. "What? The heroes have found me? I'll...I'll..." Wipe them from existence? Anti-climatic. Conjure up some more guardians? Why not just kill them? It doesn't work.

As for Martian Manhunter, I think he seemed stronger in the cartoon because his abilities were so ill-defined. I've seen him shape-shifting like Mr. Fantastic, phase through everything with ease, and then dish out some Superman-level punches. With virtually no mention of his fire weakness. The only thing that kept him from being ridiculous was his aloofness. But partly it's because he can do so many things. It makes him hard to balance. But in a JLA TPB set just before Infinate Crisis, he got his ass totally handed to him by Desperado. Then again, I've seen the big pink dude going toe-to-toe with every physical character in the JLA and JSA. Simultaneously. And win (or at least stalemate).

Marvels are bad because they have no weakness like fire or kryptonite.

...

wow, that was a long off-topic rant.

Beleriphon

2007-06-14, 11:13 PM

Marvels are bad because they have no weakness like fire or kryptonite.

Do you mean Marvel Comics or Marvel as in Captain, Mary, and Junior?

If its the latter I'm not sure that I agree with you. Yes, those characters are very powerful, but in DC's universe its not exactly unheard of.

Lord Zentei

2007-06-14, 11:21 PM

The things below his neck. Was his head still touching any of those things. Then it wasn't removed from his body.

I don't have a copy of Grey's Anatomy handy, but I'd be willing to wager that bones are a part of one's body.

I think that's still canon, but the bones that are trapped in that adamantium (it's encased in it, not made of it) are still a part of his body.

So how much of the body needs to be present? A few bones? A handful of cells? "Part of body" != "body".

Incidentally, I seem to recall him having been carried through a star at one point; the ionizing radiation should have destroyed his bones then, and yet he regenerated.

Viscount Einstrauss

2007-06-14, 11:33 PM

Are you telling me that adamantium now is not only super tough, but is also completely impervious to becoming hot? Because bones present or not, they should have been devoid of life after the adamantium heated up from the giant blazing fire outside.

It's sort of terrible that despite how ridiculous and stupid that is, it's pretty much canon because Civil War is still canon. Blah.

Foeofthelance

2007-06-14, 11:47 PM

Marvels are bad because they have no weakness like fire or kryptonite.

That's because most Marvel characters don't require arbitrary weaknesses to provide them with challenges. No, the X-Men don't have any weaknesses, out side of their relationships and the various devices worked against them. Then again, they also fight enemies who are just as powerful, sometimes even more so. When was the last time Superman faced something he had to go all out against?

The exceptions tend to be things like the Pheonix, who is all powerful but was intended as such. It drove Jean insane, eventually got her killed, and now uses her as an avatar. It is also no longer a regular character. It provides excellent writing material, (Emma Frost: Even when she's dead, I still rank lower then that cow!) but doesn't make the writers stretch disbelief in order for it to be interesting. Superman, on the other hand, has maybe three opponents who can stand toe to toe with him in a fight, and against them he generally just loses for lack of practice.

Beleriphon

2007-06-15, 12:28 AM

Superman, on the other hand, has maybe three opponents who can stand toe to toe with him in a fight, and against them he generally just loses for lack of practice.

Lobo, Mongol, Darkseid, Sinestro, Doomsday, and those are just off the top of my head. Superman has plenty of foes that are at, or approaching, his power level.

Also, Kryptonite wasn't originally part of the story for Superman. It was created for the radio drama when Superman's voice actor went on vacation, or otherwise take a break from the show. Its one of those things that a lot of people don't realize: Superman originally had no weaknesses what so ever.

Gavin Sage

2007-06-15, 12:34 AM

@Foeofthelance:
No the whole post was about DC. Meaning he is referring DC's character Captain Marvel (who has to be published under Shazam, because Marvel Comics snapped up the name Captain Marvel though DCs is older but from a different company) and assorted characters. Include Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr, along with Black Adam. All of them gain magic powers giving strength, speed, and flight at S-class levels without a kryptonite. Captain Marvel was the first Superman clone, hence why him and Superman have had a lot of fights.

Haruspex

2007-06-15, 01:11 AM

Disclaimer: I have read Wolverine comics, but not the ones where he comes back from disintegration, something which is referred to a bit on these boards.

That aside, I've always considered Wolverine's powers to be science fiction and not magic. Starfish for example can regenerate relatively quickly and having someone with regeneration didn't seem so far out there. Even his long lifespan made sense in tandem with his regen. But the fact remains that a living organism requires raw materials to fuel growth, any growth. I vaguely remember one comic where Wolverine was starving and couldn't regenerate because he didn't have protein or something. That made sense, but the examples I hear cited on these boards seem to go far beyond this. Does his body magically have the ability to synthesize iron, calcium, and all those other components required to make up a creature such as Wolverine?

Ranis

2007-06-15, 01:21 AM

Wow, interesting how this thread dissolved into a Wolverine argument so quickly.

Anyway, Franklin Richards is pretty WTF powerful. I mean, "Onslaught HUNGRY!!!" and several heroes die.

Powerful heroes, eh? How about the Silver Surfer? Name me something he can't do. He's much more powerful than Phoenix could ever hope to be. Simply because of the fact that she can't reshape matter at will.

I think Ultimate Invisible Woman is one mean cookie as well. Have you seen the comic where she pwns Doom with her force tentacles? And, hell, she can just make a force field inside someone and expand it until they explode. That's pretty hardcore.

kpenguin

2007-06-15, 01:38 AM

Powerful heroes, eh? How about the Silver Surfer? Name me something he can't do. He's much more powerful than Phoenix could ever hope to be. Simply because of the fact that she can't reshape matter at will.

Well, Phoenix beat Galactus so, Phoenix>Galactus. Galactus gave the Silver Surfer his powers, so Galactus>Silver Surfer. Thus, logically, Phoenix>Silver Surfer.

Stupidly powerful? Squirrel Girl. I need no explanation.

Shadow of the Sun

2007-06-15, 04:54 AM

Hyperstorm is also freakishly powerful.

The son of Franklin Richards, he can pretty much control everything.

He makes the power cosmic look like a kid with a magnifying glass.

And he's a nuke.

Haruspex

2007-06-15, 06:32 AM

Plastic Man, maybe? Or Magneto at one point where he could control the iron in people's bodies. Any sort of regen/invincible/reality bender sort really. No idea how you'd make an engaging story with an untouchable character.

TreesOfDeath

2007-06-15, 07:24 AM

Pikachu, his plot powers make him unbeatble, unless he really needs to win.
If he does, he can one hit ko legendary pokemon, and electrecute things that can't be electracuted.
PIKACHU, AIM FOR THE HORN!

Catch

2007-06-15, 08:29 AM

Dhavaer

2007-06-15, 09:02 AM

No idea how you'd make an engaging story with an untouchable character.

Watchmen was good, and it had Dr Manhatten.

Shadow of the Sun

2007-06-15, 09:05 AM

Dr Manhattan is one of my favourite characters ever.

I love his omnipotentiness.

Indon

2007-06-15, 09:22 AM

Nobody's mentioned Dr. Strange yet?

I mean, he _used_ to have his own comic book. And admittedly, he has minor problems with hostile rulers of alternate hell-universes, but that's about it.

Haruspex

2007-06-15, 09:44 AM

Watchmen was good, and it had Dr Manhatten.

Haven't read Watchmen. What was the character of Dr. Manhattan like?

Shadow of the Sun

2007-06-15, 09:52 AM

Detached.

He was completely apathetic about the concerns of humanity until some serious prompting.

In gaining his powers he lost a lot of his humanity.

Tallis

2007-06-15, 10:40 AM

Scarlet Witch, remade tthe world to get her kids back, then depowered at least 80% of all mutants.
The Eternals, every one of them manipulates cosmic energy, allowing them to do anything they can imagine.
Black Bolt, his voice can level cities, plus he's the absolute ruler of a race of superhumans.
Spectre, the wrath of god.
Any Green Lantern, their rings are only limited by their imagination and willpower.
Ion, the overpowered Green Lantern.
The Guardians of the Universe, they created the Green Lanterns and wield the same power without rings.
Mogo and Ego, they're planets (and Mogo is a Green Lantern too!)
Any Superman clone, I think we left out Hyperion and Gladiator.
Dormamuu, Demigod, ruler of the Dark Dimension (most of the time).

....

2007-06-15, 10:47 AM

Haven't read Watchmen. What was the character of Dr. Manhattan like?

He was god.

Blue Paladin

2007-06-15, 01:26 PM

Himura Kenshin. The show/manga was really cool to watch/read but it got ridiculous after a while. Characters are supposed to grow in power over the course of a story, not steamroll everyone until a worthy opponent shows up in the end.Himura starts the series already holding the title for strongest fighter of the period. Saitou is disgusted by how weak Himura's let himself become. And this weak version of Himura is able to steamroll most everyone; his full power was that strong. And yes, it's pretty ridiculous.

But Hiko is moreso. :P

If we're going into manga/anime, I nominate G Gundam. It's so over the top; the main character pilots are able to take out the cannon-fodder enemy mechs... with their bare hands! Of course the utter ridiculousness is a big part of the show's charm. The cheese must flow!

Over on the American comics side:

The gold standard is pre-Crisis Superman, who had a new power for every occasion. Remember Superman II and the Super Kiss? Yeah. Like that. In a similar vein, the old Batman could pull a Bat-anything out of his utility belt to deal with, well, anything. "Fortunately, I always carry my 'Carousel Reversal Spray'..."

Superman himself of course, pretty much the tops in DC power. Martian Manhunter on the DC side has a huge array of powers, with a comparable strength. Captain Marvel would be up here too, if he didn't split his power with Mary & CM3. Black Adam is up here (or was, before he lost his powers... and now suddenly he's splitting it with Mary, so whatever about that).

Green Lantern, all of them, since they took away the yellow weakness from all of the rings. And if GL is ridiculous, Ion is ridiculous squared. Barry as Flash vibrated his way out of everything. Wally as Flash was stupid fast (e.g. he outran someone, and had a slew of Speed Force whatever powers; not sure yet if Bart as Flash is up to that level of ridiculous.

Marvel has succumbed to power creep too: as previously noted, Wolverine now is stupidly powerful. No protein required. If you can fish his body out of that sun, he'll grow back. That's pretty ridiculous.

Franklin Richards and the Scarlet Witch were behind total reality makeovers. Beyonders/Cosmic Cubes. Anyone with the Infinity Gauntlet.

The current Black Panther is a front-runner in the Batman-wannabe race; he happens to have a plan for just about anything. In a recent FF, he steals the Power Cosmic from Silver Surfer (gives it to Johnny Storm), and beats the crap out of Norrin. The Silver freakin Surfer. That's ridiculous.

And this is the newly souped up version of the Surfer too. He's already up near the top of the scale (not counting cosmic beings); and then he got further empowered by Galactus just cuz. In a similar vein, Nova got a severe Ion-style boost. On the god side of things, Thor has always been up there, and the hammer lets him do even more (same thing with Beta Ray Bill); Thor definitely crossed over to ridiculous once he got Odinpower.

Are you counting deus ex machina characters? Dr. Strange, Adam Warlock, Phantom Stranger, Dr. Fate (did they settle on a new Fate? I dunno...), Reed Richards, Forge... Can't really think of "invent anything" types for DC. Batman I guess. Any of the cosmic beings; Quintessence.

Grod_The_Giant

2007-06-15, 02:11 PM

GLs aren't beyond challenge. Their rings aren't omnipotent, and willpower is a bigger limitation then many give it credit for. They can be stressed by numbers, people with superhuman strength can break forcefields (and cause mental feedback), and all kinds of stuff. Not to mention running out of charge (it seems to be a gas tank style thing now, rather then the 24 hour thing of the past).

Wally West was fun. Sure, a lot of his foes were stupid, but when they teamed up... And others...well...Gorilla Grodd gave the Outsiders a good fight.

Black Adam and the rest of the Marvel family are, like I said, a bit ridiculous because they have Superman-level physical powers and no weaknesses besides saying Shazam. But they, and most of the other DC examples you gave, aren't on the level this thread is discussing.

Marvel (comics) is the most guilty here. Modern characters with anti-anything rays, reality-altering dudes... (Thor with the Odinforce fell into this category, but he's not active now. I think there's going to be a new one.) That is stupidly powerful. DC can't touch that.

Khantalas

2007-06-15, 02:31 PM

Za-gor-te-nay. He can beat gods. With an axe.

Seriously. He did it.

Closet_Skeleton

2007-06-15, 04:56 PM

Wolverine is a problem. There are some writers who understand him and some writers who think "yay, I get to write Wolverine who is so cool, I know what regeneration does, I heard it on the discovery channel when I was half asleap, I'll show off how awesome Wolverine is by having him regenerate even greater wounds than the last writer inflicted on him".

Ideally;

Wolverine needs a source of matter to heal from. Regeneration involves replacing matter. If he had some kind of thing that forced his atoms together he'd be able to get up again from disintergration, but he doesn't, he has a mutation that accelerates a normal biological process.

Wolverine heals fast not instantly. Bullet wounds won't trouble him due to his skeleton but if you burnt all the flesh off his arm he should take at least 8 hours to get it working properly.

Decapitation or complete roasting should kill him.

Wolverine is a cool character but only if he isn't over used. Some writers just don't use him properly.

Superhero power fluctuates so often that Hypertime might actually make sense. For example on one appearance, Beast (Hank McCoy, the blue guy) had a healing factor faster than Wolverine has in some stories while on all other appearances he hasn't even got a healing factor. Then there's how when Sue Storm turns evil she can wipe out the other three members of the Fantasitic Four but otherwise she doesn't act very powerful at all.

Grod_The_Giant

2007-06-15, 09:23 PM

Tokiko Mima

2007-06-15, 10:03 PM

Himura Kenshin. The show/manga was really cool to watch/read but it got ridiculous after a while. Characters are supposed to grow in power over the course of a story, not steamroll everyone until a worthy opponent shows up in the end.

I disagree. He was strong because the fights he picked were against swordsman and in that sphere he's unbeatable no matter what his disadvantage at the time. Several times when someone in the series showed up with guns Kenshin would take a hit, then manage to escape somehow. He did that because he's the main character with plot protection, not because he's unbeatable by guns.

This is akin to beating Hulk in an arm-wrestling contest. That's just not going to happen, and while nigh-invulnerable in most ways the Hulk can be killed. If you challenge Kenshin Himura to melee combat, expect to be defeat soundly, even if he's deaf, dumb, blind, has one arm and both legs broken and in casts... you are going to lose as long as he has an arm and a sword to swing with it.

Plus, Kenshin was literally beaten at one point by an underling, Sojiro, who broke Kenshin's blade but called the match a draw because his own sword was damaged, but not unusable. Kenshin even admits as much, that if the fight had gone on he would have lost.

Wojiz

2007-06-15, 10:15 PM

I will not acknowledge Wolverine as being 'stupidly' powerful. His healing ability is, but nothing else. Strength? Low. Energy powers? None. Intelligence? Normal human. Fighting skill? Decent, but not exceptional. He survives well, but little else. He is nowhere near the level of people like Franklin Richards and Hyperstorm.

I could've sworn I read something about him playing 5 games of chess in his head whilst simultaneously doing gold-medal winning gymnastics, so he's got Intelligence up there, or at least focus. Plus, he's totally and completely unkillable, as we've seen in the inferno incident that's been mentioned a hundred times. In addition to that, he's got the adamantium claws, obviously, superhuman strength, speed and agility, has trained in about a billion different martial arts, superhuman senses and high levels of telepathic protection from Professor Xavier.

So far we've got lined up:
Superhuman focus
Superhuman speed
Superhuman strength
Superhuman agility
Superhuman stamina
Totally indestructible
Claws
Has mastered dozens of martial arts
High telepathic protection

So, basically, he's totally indestructible, and his claws seem that way too. That means whenever he gets in close proximity with pretty much anyone, which is likely with the superhuman speed and agility, they're dead. And you can't stop him, even if you burn all but his brain and his adamantium skeleton, which his body rejects. And seeing as the brain is encased in adamantium and said adamantium is indestructible, Wolverine's indestructible.

That's stupidly powerful.

Hungry Kobold

2007-06-15, 10:51 PM

Wolverine (as I've learned from reading the Wolvie vs Jedi Master thread). That nuclear blast he survived apparently caused his adamantium to, without decreasing its own mass, mutate into stem cells which were used to fully replace recently annihilated skin, muscle, nerve, blood, circulatory systems, digestive systems, every organ remade and fully able to replenish all vital fluids fast enough to avoid natural death, etc etc. all within the span of minutes. Also his brain regenerated because the heat would pass through his ears/eye sockets and into the brain, carbonizing it at best. :smallannoyed: That defies even Marvel comics' mumbo-jumbo.

kpenguin

2007-06-15, 10:54 PM

I could've sworn I read something about him playing 5 games of chess in his head whilst simultaneously doing gold-medal winning gymnastics, so he's got Intelligence up there, or at least focus. Plus, he's totally and completely unkillable, as we've seen in the inferno incident that's been mentioned a hundred times. In addition to that, he's got the adamantium claws, obviously, superhuman strength, speed and agility, has trained in about a billion different martial arts, superhuman senses and high levels of telepathic protection from Professor Xavier.

So far we've got lined up:
Superhuman focus
Superhuman speed
Superhuman strength
Superhuman agility
Superhuman stamina
Totally indestructible
Claws
Has mastered dozens of martial arts
High telepathic protection

So, basically, he's totally indestructible, and his claws seem that way too. That means whenever he gets in close proximity with pretty much anyone, which is likely with the superhuman speed and agility, they're dead. And you can't stop him, even if you burn all but his brain and his adamantium skeleton, which his body rejects. And seeing as the brain is encased in adamantium and said adamantium is indestructible, Wolverine's indestructible.

That's stupidly powerful.

Wolvie's not indestructible. Admantium is isn't indestructible. It can, for instance, be destroyed on the molecularly and it still isn't as tough as Cap's shield. Wolvie is still killable. You can disable his mutant power, you can destroy his mind, or you can erase him from existence.

Hungry Kobold

2007-06-15, 10:59 PM

Wolvie's not indestructible. Admantium is isn't indestructible. It can, for instance, be destroyed on the molecularly and it still isn't as tough as Cap's shield. Wolvie is still killable. You can disable his mutant power, you can destroy his mind, or you can erase him from existence.

In fact, he can be killed by some of the simplest of Star Trek phasers, since they all fundamentaly function on the breakdown of matter on the atomic level. Just give him enough juice to remove his entire body and even Wesley Crusher could kill him.

But he is still stupidly powerful overall.

Dhavaer

2007-06-15, 11:08 PM

In fact, he can be killed by some of the simplest of Star Trek phasers, since they all fundamentaly function on the breakdown of matter on the atomic level. Just give him enough juice to remove his entire body and even Wesley Crusher could kill him.

But he is still stupidly powerful overall.

So what do the Feddies make their packing crates out of?

Hungry Kobold

2007-06-15, 11:12 PM

So what do the Feddies make their packing crates out of?

Heh, well, I'm talking potential power :smallwink:. Those little cargo bay shootouts would be on low/stun settings (stun not being based on atomic disintegration, naturally), but any Starfleet Issue phaser from at least the TMP-era could easily kill Wolvie.

Payne

2007-06-16, 12:30 AM

Powerful heroes, eh? How about the Silver Surfer? Name me something he can't do. He's much more powerful than Phoenix could ever hope to be. Simply because of the fact that she can't reshape matter at will.

Actually yes she can. Telekinesis at an atomic level, turns anything into anything.
Once she cleansed the whole earth from a demonic invasion (every friggin' person, hero, even objects for crap's sakes was possessed and bodily reshaped as an hell-ish dimension ... *poof* all better).

OTOMH:

The beyonder (more powerful than everything in the universe put together, nuff said)
Superman (nothing new)
Squirrel girl ... already said but that's cool :smallbiggrin:
Pheonix (Rachel mostly)
The Molecule man (second only to the Beyonder) but he's a washout
The Doctor (from Authority but the campy British TV guy too:smalltongue: )

Shadow of the Sun

2007-06-16, 12:36 AM

Ah yes, that reminds me.

Black Bolt is freaking powerful.

He can blow up a planet by screaming. He whispered and it stopped the Hulk.

The Extinguisher

2007-06-16, 12:57 AM

Black Bolt also has to deal with the fact that he can't speak. Ever. Except when he wants to do some serious damage to EVERYTHING around him.

And for the record, the Hulk survived the whisper.

Shadow of the Sun

2007-06-16, 01:16 AM

He is still powerful.

One of my favourite characters, actually.

Dark Tira

2007-06-16, 01:33 AM

Haruspex

2007-06-16, 01:51 AM

Was Sentry the one with mental problems who ripped Carnage in half? Another candidate is Psylocke's brother. He theoretically was stupidly powerful, but never saw much "screen time" IIRC.

EndgamerAzari

2007-06-16, 01:56 AM

I think if this topic includes characters who have the potential to become overpowered, then I think an honorable mention should go to DC's Brother Sebastian Blood. The kid's like, 14, and he can gain a portion (not sure how BIG of a portion,though) of a super-powered person's strength simply through tasting their blood. And hell, he managed to bite through Superboy's skin. Imagine what would he could do with that. I know he's got more abilities than that, too, but I haven't really kept up-to-date.

Green Bean

2007-06-16, 02:50 AM

Why is Wolverine on this list? If super regeneration makes someone overpowered then Mr. Immortal has Wolverine beat hands down. My vote would go to Sentry. Power of a million exploding suns? Come on....

Wolverine's in this thread not because he's powerful, but because he's stupidly powerful. Wolverine started off as a simple concept; guy with claws who heals fast. But because he's turned out popular, that's somehow turned into a superfast, superstrong, five games of chess at once, immortal, indestructible, mentally resistant, martial arts mastering array of powers that would almost make Golden Age Superman blush. Though, admittedly, Wolverine should totally get the power to shoot rainbows from his hands. :smallbiggrin:

StudlyDuck

2007-06-16, 04:53 AM

Himura Kenshin. The show/manga was really cool to watch/read but it got ridiculous after a while. Characters are supposed to grow in power over the course of a story, not steamroll everyone until a worthy opponent shows up in the end.

I don't feel that Rurouni Kenshin was really about physical combat, so much as ideological combat. For example, whether or not killing is a necessary evil, whether or not true redemption is possible, or the value of an individual's life vs. the good that can be accomplished by sacrifice. Don't get me wrong, the combat makes for great eye candy, but it's not the main point of the story. Even if very few fighters could challenge Kenshin in terms of combat, many threatened his ability, or even his desire, to uphold his ideals.

Closet_Skeleton

2007-06-16, 08:47 AM

Was Sentry the one with mental problems who ripped Carnage in half? Another candidate is Psylocke's brother. He theoretically was stupidly powerful, but never saw much "screen time" IIRC.

Psylocke's brother? Captain Britain? He was too lame to bother with. I think he got more screen time in Excalibre.

Haruspex

2007-06-16, 09:15 AM

Psylocke's brother? Captain Britain? He was too lame to bother with. I think he got more screen time in Excalibre.

Eh? I never knew there was such a character as Captain Britain. I'm pretty sure Psylocke had a brother (maybe another brother) who could manipulate the "quantum strings of reality" or somesuch. I think his name was Jamie.

Setra

2007-06-16, 09:29 AM

Shinji, in the end of Evangelion. He becomes a God. Or something. I was never too sure on that.

Ranga, from Neo Ranga. Because it can use Time Travel offensively. Again, I am not too sure how it works. But imagine using a time travel portal, to suck in an attack, only to use it to attack a different enemy, in the past.

Lina Inverse. If she wants, she can end all existance. Technically this is more the Lord of Nightmares than her. Of course she's a good guy so it doesn't matter.

These are all technicalities, but I wanted to try to add new people to the list.

Dihan

2007-06-16, 09:49 AM

Doctor Strange is a deus ex machina plot device.

JabberwockySupafly

2007-06-16, 10:38 AM

Gaiman's Sandman, jeez what a lame character. Waaaaayyy too powerful.

Okay, all joking aside I'd have to say a few stupidly powerful characters would be

A. Wolverine because he has the almighty power of Plot Device to save him every single time.

B. Golden Age Superman... reasons have already been established.

C. Superboy Prime. Okay, the whole blowing up the world thing was alright, but still, stupid.

Those are pretty much my votes.

And for those of you mentioning Doc Manhattan? Honestly, if you could see every single thing that's going to happen in the future and felt completely powerless to stop it, even with your amazing abilities, wouldn't you feel despondant & detached?

"What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?" -Matthew 16:26

Oh, and before anyone accuses me of Bible Bashing, I remembered that quote because of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night :D

Cheers
JS

Woofsie

2007-06-16, 11:11 AM

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Alucard from the Hellsing manga/anime. Seriously, his only possible weakness is his overconfidence, and that's entirely justified. He practically never uses his full potential, but still wipes the floor with every enemy he comes up against... and if they turn out to be stronger than he thought, he can just turn his power up a notch.

Still though, he's one of my favourite characters in anything, simply because he oozes awesomeness from every pore. :smallwink:

DarkEternal

2007-06-16, 11:22 AM

Yeah, Alucard certainly qualifies in the "stupid powerful" category. Still, have to give props at how old man Hellsing was since he is the guy who had to beat Alucard to bend him to his will.

If you are talking about Kenshin then stupid powerful in that universe is Hiko Seijuro. The author of the manga himself said that he disliked using him too much because he was too powerful.

As for the western comics, Franklin Richards, Phoenix, Dr. Strange and Molecule Man would probably take the top of the "non celestial/cosmic beings"(though Phoenix could count for that as well).

Lord of the Helms

2007-06-16, 11:46 AM

Why is Wolverine on this list? If super regeneration makes someone overpowered then Mr. Immortal has Wolverine beat hands down. My vote would go to Sentry. Power of a million exploding suns? Come on....

Sentry is very Superman-esque in that his powers are ill-defined, but extreme. He seldom does demonstrate them though, from what I gather he's mostly scared of his own absurd powers. He mentioned once he could sink the entire island of Genosha or, alternatively, throw it into the sun, and was evenly matched with a being that had more or less the powers of almost all mutants on Earth, but female Ultron somehow gave him a tough fight.

On a related note, he knocked out Uber-Wolverine without any effort or receiving so much as a scratch, even while Wolverine had help from two Atlanteans.

mockingbyrd7

2007-06-16, 12:14 PM

He can die. His head must be removed from his body for an extended period.

Does melted off at the epicenter of a nuclear explosion that leveled half a city count as "removed"? And he grew everything back in about five-ten minutes.

....

2007-06-16, 02:59 PM

How about Tetsuo from Akira? Him flying into space and destroying a giant orbital laser that had shot him a second ago was pretty sick.

Foeofthelance

2007-06-16, 05:32 PM

For the record, Psylocke actually does have two brothers. One became Captain Britain and leads Excalibur, while Jamie went insane, partly because he had Scarlett Witch type powers. He was responsible for bringing her back from the dead, so that she could beat on what ever force it was that gave him his powers.

Wolverine is hardly over powered. He is, in fact, not that powerful at all. He is multiple martial arts master with six claws and the ability to regenerate.

1) Nitro's blasts were not nuclear events, they weren't even close. They were pulling kids out of the rubble who were still alive for crying out loud. A nuke at that range would have left nothing but a crater. By the time Wolverine caught up with him he wasn't even on Kick anymore, as he had no supply, IIRC. Chalk this up as an urban legend caused by bad art/writing. At one point Logan himself admits that it takes about three hours to regenerate his eyes alone. No time was shown passing, but then there weren't any clocks around either. I believe Logan over a lack of time scale.

2) Logan is deadly fighter, who can afford to take chances others can't because of his healing. However, he is still particularly vulnerable to ranged attacks as he is melee focused.

3) Logan is not psychic proof. He has had shields put in place by Xavier, but I believe those are almost standard for the X-Men. Nonetheless, others can get past, such as Emma Frost, Jean Grey, Xavier, Rachael (Probably, no evidence though) and most over main line mutants. Both Hand/Hydra and SHIELD have manaed to brainwash him at seperate points. Lady Voodoo down the block couldn't do it, and the Stepford Cuckoos might strain themselves, but it is possible.

4) Wolverine is no smarter then anyone else. He does have a certain craftiness, but mostly focusing on setting up ambushes or simple psychological tricks. The "Five chess masters while doing gymnastics" was a bad argument in the vs. Jedi thread, and should not be taken seriously.

Wolverine is only broken in the minds of some overzealous fans, and those willing to listen to them.

....

2007-06-16, 10:11 PM

1) Nitro's blasts were not nuclear events, they weren't even close. They were pulling kids out of the rubble who were still alive for crying out loud. A nuke at that range would have left nothing but a crater. By the time Wolverine caught up with him he wasn't even on Kick anymore, as he had no supply, IIRC. Chalk this up as an urban legend caused by bad art/writing. At one point Logan himself admits that it takes about three hours to regenerate his eyes alone. No time was shown passing, but then there weren't any clocks around either. I believe Logan over a lack of time scale.

But Logan has survived nukes and whatnot.

Nitro didn't kill those kids who were, what, blocks away? Logan was face to face with Nitro when the explosion went off. He was nothing but a warm metal skeleton. There was no clock to time his regeneration, but as I recall, Nitro had enough time to call one guy, have a brief conversation, and then put his phone back into his pocket before Logan was completely restored.

So, in five minutes, tops, Logan can completely regenerate his entire body.

Yeah, thats not stupidly powerful at all.

Beleriphon

2007-06-16, 10:37 PM

So, in five minutes, tops, Logan can completely regenerate his entire body.

Yeah, thats not stupidly powerful at all.

No, that stupidly bad writing. I'm firmly of the opinion that until a character has demonstrated an ability to achieve a particular feat three times (or its so patently obvious that its part of their power set that it can't be ignore) then its a one off event created by poor writing, the necessity of the story, or special circumstances. So Logan's 5-minute regeneration routine isn't standard since as far as I can tell it has only happened once, and I would chalk that up to poor writing rather than an intentional increase in what has otherwise been a fairly mundane power in terms of comics.

Grod_The_Giant

2007-06-17, 08:54 AM

<sigh>

ENOUGH WITH WOLVERINE!! HE SUFFERS FROM FANBOYISM AND OCCASIONAL BAD WRITING!! COMPARE HIM WITH FRANKLIN RICHARDS AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT HIS 'OVERPOWEREDNESS' NOW!!

lord_khaine

2007-06-17, 09:42 AM

well i belive wolverine can go out and buy himself a beer, Franklin Richards have to pester his parents if he wants a Soda, who is the most powerfull now ehh :P

Foeofthelance

2007-06-17, 10:45 AM

Nitro didn't kill those kids who were, what, blocks away?

In the school building, which he exploded right in front of. Nitro>Bus>Playground>School building. They were right there at the epicenter. The explosion was probably more on scale with a decent sized "smart" bomb then a nuke.

Seriously, the only reasons Nitro lost to Wolverine was because he was dumb enough to turn his back on the guy, hang around while he regenerated, and because he was the bad guy.

Well I belive wolverine can go out and buy himself a beer, while Franklin Richards has to pester his parents if he wants a soda, who is the most powerfull now ehh :P

Yeah, but Franklin Richards could probably whip up a machine that could make him beer or soda out of toothpicks, plumbing wire, and a empty diet pepsi can. He stopped Onslaught, so he gets the win.

....

2007-06-17, 12:41 PM

Why isn't Franklin Richards king of the universe, anyway?

Yuki Akuma

2007-06-17, 12:46 PM

Why isn't Franklin Richards king of the universe, anyway?

...Morals, maybe? The same reason Superman doesn't go on a superhero killing spree?

Setra

2007-06-17, 12:49 PM

Why isn't Franklin Richards king of the universe, anyway?
He'd get grounded.

Selrahc

2007-06-17, 03:59 PM

So, in five minutes, tops, Logan can completely regenerate his entire body.

Guess you missed an issue.

In issue 48 of the Wolverine title, we get a recap of everything Wolverine has been doing during the Civil War. And one part of that is the exploding nitro act.

Wolverine gets fried... but Nitro gets knocked cold. Hes lying there for hours. Then, when he gets up he makes a phone call. Wolverine at this point has gotten back the majority of his central nervous system, and a bunch of flesh, but to casual inspection he loks like a charred corpse. His eyes, and ears and brain and nerves are all working by the time Nitro gets up. His bones are, of course, fine. So in the time it takes Nitro to walk away and go to his car while having a telephone conversation, Wolverines muscles and flesh start growing back. Fast.

It hasn't finished when he gets to Nitro, but he is able to stand, and able to slice, which is all he really needed. The resulting conversation with Nitro puts him back into ready to battle shape, and then the Atlanteans show.

So no, its not regenerating your entire body in five minutes from a skeleton. Its regenerating over an undisclosed number of hours, followed by being just about on your feet while you lay the shake down on a two bit thug. That is a world of difference.

Why isn't Franklin Richards king of the universe, anyway?

Because right now hes depowered. And when he was powered up, his control over them was sketchy at best.

Grod_The_Giant

2007-06-17, 06:22 PM

Why isn't Franklin Richards king of the universe, anyway?

because he's...what? 10?

Gavin Sage

2007-06-17, 11:39 PM

Why isn't Franklin Richards king of the universe, anyway?

Generally speaking he has self-installed mental block around using his powers for such things. And "king og the universe" is pushing it as most of the reality warpers I tend to think rank about Cosmic Cube level. Which is supposedly several order of omnipotence below things like Eternity, Death, Galactus, the Infinity Gauntlet, or the Celestials.

sealemon

2007-06-18, 02:59 AM

So no, its not regenerating your entire body in five minutes from a skeleton. Its regenerating over an undisclosed number of hours, followed by being just about on your feet while you lay the shake down on a two bit thug. That is a world of difference.

Perhaps, but it's still regeneration of 99% of all living tissue without any type of matter intake, which is stoopid. I put that same issue at the same level as another hero who is becoming very close to being stupidly overpowerd:

Iron Man. In a recent issue, he bitch-slapped all of the Avengers without even trying, finishing up with Spiderman. See, he had used the Iron Spider suit to study Spiderman's "pherome based Spider Sense (!)", and was able to not only spof it, but to copy it into his armor. In the first issue of World War Hulk he took out She Hulk by using nanites to remove her powers. He's quickly morphing into a deux ex machina character.

And seriously, "Pherome based"? How does that even make sense?

Finn Solomon

2007-06-18, 04:47 AM

Franklin Richards. I hate the character of an insanely powerful kid, it's been used so many times and isn't funny anymore.

Setra

2007-06-18, 04:52 AM

Franklin Richards. I hate the character of an insanely powerful kid, it's been used so many times and isn't funny anymore.
Yeah but wasn't he born before a lot of the other "insanely powerful kids"?

Shadow of the Sun

2007-06-18, 04:55 AM

Mad Jim Jaspers is worse.

He's an evil Franklin Richards, except with no mental blacks and far better control of his powers.

....

2007-06-18, 01:10 PM

Howard the Duck.

He hasn't died yet. He's a normal regular duck.

He's overpowered.

Blue Paladin

2007-06-18, 02:01 PM

But they, and most of the other DC examples you gave, aren't on the level this thread is discussing.Thanks for trying h_v, but he missed it. Grod, you're focusing on stupidly powerful characters. I'm focusing on stupidly powerful characters. Like Internet Chuck Norris. Or his comic book equivalent, Karate Kid (Val Amorr). A character of normal strength and endurance is not powerful by your standard; the same character holding his own against pre-Crisis Superboy is stupidly powerful by mine.

anyone with reality-altering powers or nigh-omnipotence. There is no way possible to beat that.And yet they do beat omnipotence/reality-altering powers. All the time. Beyonder? Check. Infinity Gauntlet? Check. Celestials? Check. Galactus? Check check and check. Let's check in with the DC side, lest it appear I am picking on Marvel. Shazam? He's dead; that's a pretty big check. Zeus/Jupiter? Check; WW seems to make a habit of that. Guardians of Oa? Check check check. Phantom Stranger? Hmm. Not really, but it's really hard to thwart a being who doesn't actively do anything. I know I'm missing someone from the Quintessence there... Anyone remember who it is?

If super regeneration makes someone overpowered then Mr. Immortal has Wolverine beat hands down.It's not a question of being overpowered. It's a question of taking a power to a stupid extreme. Healing from a gunshot? Fine. Perfectly in line with other healing types. Healing from incinerated vaporized explosion? Stupidly powerful (it directly contravenes the much more reasonable conclusion to the incinerating vaporizing situation as shown in Days of Future Past: death). Hence, Wolverine in this thread.

Wolverine is no smarter then anyone else. He does have a certain craftiness, but mostly focusing on setting up ambushes or simple psychological tricks. The "Five chess masters while doing gymnastics" was a bad argument in the vs. Jedi thread, and should not be taken seriously.No, it's established fact. Wolverine #51; Forge is monitoring Wolvie's vitals during a Danger Room session. Wolverine's physical and mental state during the workout are the "equivalent of an Olympic-level gymnast performing a gold medal routine while simultaneously beating four chess computers in his head". He's not saying Wolverine is coming up with the Grand Unified Theory of Physics; he's saying his brain is calculating future moves five, ten, twenty moves in advance, to stay ahead of his opponent.

Grod_The_Giant

2007-06-18, 02:42 PM

And yet they do beat omnipotence/reality-altering powers. All the time. Beyonder? Check. Infinity Gauntlet? Check. Celestials? Check. Galactus? Check check and check. Let's check in with the DC side, lest it appear I am picking on Marvel. Shazam? He's dead; that's a pretty big check. Zeus/Jupiter? Check; WW seems to make a habit of that. Guardians of Oa? Check check check. Phantom Stranger? Hmm. Not really, but it's really hard to thwart a being who doesn't actively do anything. I know I'm missing someone from the Quintessence there... Anyone remember who it is?

let me clarify: no realistic way.
also:
Shazam: not omnipotent, and was killed by the Spectre, the father of all stupidly overpowered characters.
Olympian Gods: not killed, as far as I know. And they're not worshiped anymore, so they're not omnipotent.
Guardians: not omnipotent- although they can, in the words of Kyle Rayner, "crack a planet open with a though"- and they were killed by two parties (as far as I know)- Anti-Monitor in CoIE and Parallex (Hal, not the parasite) when he had all the Central Battery energies. Both foes were just about all-powerful, and Parallax even had reality-warping.

other beings in DCU:
Anti-Monitor- withstood attacks from every powered hero at once, but that was his point. He was a big, one-time use cross-over (the biggest crossover, in fact) baddie. And no reality warping.
Parallax- Ion, which were the same powers, was referred to as 'godhood.' Plus, he was a crossover baddie that turned into a deux-ex-machina guy. Then died.
Ion- yeah, he's stupidly powerful. Hopefully he'll either burn through his extra power or be forced to sacrifice it again. He'll probably have a big role in countdown, though..

Selrahc

2007-06-18, 03:48 PM

(it directly contravenes the much more reasonable conclusion to the incinerating vaporizing situation as shown in Days of Future Past: death).

He did die. He always dies when he takes injuries of that level.

HE dies again two issues later when he jumps out of the shield hellicarrier miles above the ground.

He dies a few issues earlier when he gets killed by guys with machine guns.

He just comes back.

Faithless

2007-06-18, 08:07 PM

I feel superman is overpowered. His weaknesses are very single sided, he's either superpowerful or the odd chance someone finds a rare material from a meteor he becomes extremely weak. Even in the movies and such he is showed overcoming Kryptonite which to me says, he is pretty much overpowered. Super everything, X-ray vision, the ability to turn back time, fly etc..

gatitcz

2007-06-18, 08:38 PM

<sigh>

ENOUGH WITH WOLVERINE!! HE SUFFERS FROM FANBOYISM AND OCCASIONAL BAD WRITING!! COMPARE HIM WITH FRANKLIN RICHARDS AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT HIS 'OVERPOWEREDNESS' NOW!!

However, we all know that if you put Franklin Richards and Wolverine in an arena and had them fight to the death, it would be Wolverine who walked out alive.

Ranis

2007-06-18, 08:43 PM

However, we all know that if you put Franklin Richards and Wolverine in an arena and had them fight to the death, it would be Wolverine who walked out alive.

Uhm, no. No. If you know jack about the Marvel universe, you don't say that.

Franklin Richards: Alters reality on a subatomic level.

Wolverine: Insane healing ability and adamantium skeleton.

Which seems more dangerous to you? Yeah.

Setra

2007-06-18, 10:42 PM

sealemon

2007-06-19, 01:40 AM

It seems like Superman is on a fast track to his Silver Age power levels, which were in fact really silly. Planet shoving, shorug off the heat of a nova, super speed through time silly.

I really liked the John Byrne reboot right after the Crisis (The original one). He was a still a really tough guy, but he COULD be beaten.

gatitcz

2007-06-21, 10:37 AM

Uhm, no. No. If you know jack about the Marvel universe, you don't say that.

Franklin Richards: Alters reality on a subatomic level.

Wolverine: Insane healing ability and adamantium skeleton.

Which seems more dangerous to you? Yeah.

I don't know how it would happen. But it's almost like there's an arbitrary force in the marvel universe giving someone with claws the ability to take on people who can bend matter with their minds..

Lobsopdoy

2007-06-21, 10:40 PM

I don't know how it would happen. But it's almost like there's an arbitrary force in the marvel universe giving someone with claws the ability to take on people who can bend matter with their minds..

I second this. Anyone remember the Wolverine VS Lobo fight?

Lobo can take on Superman. Wolverine still beat him. All because of some stupid voting system. ****ing fans -_-

To those who are bringing up characters that are meant to be omnipotent, you're missing the point of the topic.

The Spectre is SUPPOSED to be all-powerful. He's the wrath of God incarnate. That is NOT stupid

Wolverine is supposed to just be some dude with some claws and the ability to heal wounds fast. But NOW he's suddenly able to survive being in the epicentre of nuclear explosions. That's STUPID.

hanzo66

2007-06-22, 07:21 AM

Since Wolverine is considered stupidly overpowered, what does that make Deadpool?

Isn't that guy supposed to be technically immortal?

Tal9922

2007-06-22, 10:35 AM

Well, while i won't pretend to know much about comics, i do read one here and there, and regarding the 'Wolverine-can't-die' debate, bear in mind that the Adamantium that covers his skeleton is Indestructible, so if he didn't have the Adamantium to protect his skeleton, his skeleton would probably burn down as well, and then he'd really die.

nothingclever

2007-06-22, 11:09 AM

Since Wolverine is considered stupidly overpowered, what does that make Deadpool?

Isn't that guy supposed to be technically immortal?
Deadpool is like stupidly sucky. His healing factor still sucks because people are able to knock him unconscious or fight him to a stand still without having all his super attributes and the guy is pretty much never put in a situation where he can really use his powers well. The most he ever does is take out a bunch of nameless mercenaries here and there or beat Mr.Immortal's team of gimps and beat Wolverine but everyone beats Wolverine at least once for comic book street cred. I've read the different limited series, the -1 and 1-65, agent x, plenty of cable and Deadpool, and other stuff where he makes guest appearences but he never does anything really cool or impressive.

Characters like Rhino are able to totally destroy Deadpool while Spiderman and numerous other people are able to beat him. The only way Deadpool beat him was by using the spray can he stole from the Ant Man to shrink him. I don't know if Wolverine ever fought Rhino but I bet he'd beat him without being even breaking a sweat because he's more popular and has the power of plot on his side. Deadpool is basically Wolverine without all the coolness. His personality might be cool but everything he does sucks. You never see him being given the fastball special and suddenly taking out everyone in some over the top scene. Instead he gets thrown by Juggernaut as a sacrifice special where he lands in a bunch of non super thugs and distracts them so everyone else can do the important stuff.

Green Bean

2007-06-22, 11:48 AM

Since Wolverine is considered stupidly overpowered, what does that make Deadpool?

Isn't that guy supposed to be technically immortal?

Deadpool...is different. Calling him too powerful is like calling Roadrunner too powerful because Wile. E. Coyote can never catch him. It's mainly a matter of story focus.

Keldin

2007-06-22, 12:51 PM

Any character with an antagonist who can hurt them is not omnipotent. I think the real crux of this issue is about good and bad writing. If you're too tired ot talentless to come up with a compleeing storyline, just have the hero do something REALLY out there so the artist can have fun drawing something like Superman moving the entire planet using only musculature.

The weaknesses many characters have when the writing is good are human weaknesses -- take Dr. Manhatten from "The Watchmen." There was nothing he couldn't do, but he still failed at love and in relating to his fellow man. No amount of power can make up for that soul-crushing loneliness that he expressed.

The same thing can be said for Superman -- he may be next to indestructible, but he still has problems with betrayal, loneliness, romance, and all those other things that all of us face. The stories that focus on that stuff are the ones that are worth the read.

Grod_The_Giant

2007-06-22, 02:17 PM

The same thing can be said for Superman -- he may be next to indestructible, but he still has problems with betrayal, loneliness, romance, and all those other things that all of us face. The stories that focus on that stuff are the ones that are worth the read.

Um, not too much trouble with romance and loneliness, since he's married and all...

But you know something? Character flaws are realistic, but I don't really want them to be the point of the story. Support, yes, but not the point. A comic book should, in my opinion, be basically good-vs-evil, not "dude-vs-himself-with-really-short-fight-thrown-in-to-keep-it-a-superhero-comic."

on subject, though...how about the classic Hulk? He can't really be beaten, because loosing makes him mad. So he gets stronger. So he wins.

Lord of the Helms

2007-06-22, 04:32 PM

Deadpool is like stupidly sucky. His healing factor still sucks because people are able to knock him unconscious or fight him to a stand still without having all his super attributes and the guy is pretty much never put in a situation where he can really use his powers well. The most he ever does is take out a bunch of nameless mercenaries here and there or beat Mr.Immortal's team of gimps and beat Wolverine but everyone beats Wolverine at least once for comic book street cred. I've read the different limited series, the -1 and 1-65, agent x, plenty of cable and Deadpool, and other stuff where he makes guest appearences but he never does anything really cool or impressive.

Characters like Rhino are able to totally destroy Deadpool while Spiderman and numerous other people are able to beat him. The only way Deadpool beat him was by using the spray can he stole from the Ant Man to shrink him. I don't know if Wolverine ever fought Rhino but I bet he'd beat him without being even breaking a sweat because he's more popular and has the power of plot on his side. Deadpool is basically Wolverine without all the coolness. His personality might be cool but everything he does sucks. You never see him being given the fastball special and suddenly taking out everyone in some over the top scene. Instead he gets thrown by Juggernaut as a sacrifice special where he lands in a bunch of non super thugs and distracts them so everyone else can do the important stuff.

Deadpool beat a guy who was far faster and stronger than him (Ajax). He also not only managed to blackmail Juggernaut into giving him a valuable thing (dunno what it was, but it was back in the first limited series when he was after Tolliver's stack) by dangling Black Tom Cassidy out of a plane, but even made Juggy jump out of the plane by dropping Black Tom after Deadpool got what he wanted. He also saved the entire world (in an instance where none other than Cap failed to accomplish it and had to get his butt saved by Deadpool) from mindlessness, took Wolverine down twice (once even for a good cause), took on and caused massive damage to Weapon X (taking down Kane and Sauron and even beating Sabretooth by making him suffocate on Deadpool's jelly-turned arm), and managed to get Death to prefer him over Thanos while barely even trying.

nothingclever

2007-06-22, 11:00 PM

Deadpool beat a guy who was far faster and stronger than him (Ajax). He also not only managed to blackmail Juggernaut into giving him a valuable thing (dunno what it was, but it was back in the first limited series when he was after Tolliver's stack) by dangling Black Tom Cassidy out of a plane, but even made Juggy jump out of the plane by dropping Black Tom after Deadpool got what he wanted. He also saved the entire world (in an instance where none other than Cap failed to accomplish it and had to get his butt saved by Deadpool) from mindlessness, took Wolverine down twice (once even for a good cause), took on and caused massive damage to Weapon X (taking down Kane and Sauron and even beating Sabretooth by making him suffocate on Deadpool's jelly-turned arm), and managed to get Death to prefer him over Thanos while barely even trying.
1.Deadpool made Juggernaut give up one of the two disc/pieces to the Tolliver info by dangling Tom out an airplane and Juggernaut was dumb enough to trust him to not let Tom fall. Everyone outsmarts Juggernaut. Plus Tom should've realized he could've survived the fall by blasting the ground below since he fires concussive blasts that would slow his descent which people have done before. Outsmarting the Juggernaut is a constant gag/joke/whatever you want to call it. He also threated to kill Cassidy multiple other times and "outsmarted" him. Taking a hostage is not really outsmarting someone like you're beating them flawlessly at a game of chess or predicting their every move or whatever.

2.Saving the world was dumb and anyone could've done it or at least any average super like Spiderman or anyone with super endurance/healing or good powers. All someone had to do was survive long enough to put on the alien armor to protect himself from mind control to poke the alien. Plus it was a silly prophecy thing and it made Deadpool even more depressed/whiny/emo than he already was.

3.As I said before everyone beats Wolverine at least once and he beats them vice versa. Big deal. Cable also fights him to a standstill without his psychic powers and all he has is some super strength and skills, no healing factor or super dexterity/reflexes/blah blah blah.

4.Death preferring him to Thanos isn't anything special other than a dumb plot. Death has no reason to anyway. Plus Thanos is a suck up and really boring.

5.Sauron and everyone else he fought sucked in that big battle and he did not beat Sabretooth. All he did was stall him temporarily. Sabretooth was still going, he didn't go unconscious or stop. Also everyone was just running blindly into every trap/trick/whatever Deadpool employed. No one was being smart. The only reason he was allowed to last that long was to melt later and cry. That robot guy he fought was only beaten by setting stupid traps, getting help from the pilot girl and Killebrew, the guy being overconfident and not killing Deadpool right away after many many chances.

Look at his fight with Punisher. He had more than one but in one of em he gets beaten without even having the fight drawn. He just ends up dangling from Punisher's ceiling without Punisher having a scratch on him pretty much which is really dumb since Deadpool is supposed to be super all around meaning no matter how fasts Punisher moves he should move faster.

He also gets knocked out by shovels and other garbage by random people. His healing factor has to have a glitch over and over again. He acts extremely emo and cries about various save the world plans he gets involved in. Cable's, the blue people and the Mithras directive. All he does is bitch about cancer and even when his face is made to look like Tom Cruise or just normal in general he cries like a baby. "I have the Big C and my writers suck. Whaaaa!" I used to like him but then they just made him suck completely.

Keldin

2007-06-23, 11:38 AM

I can see how someone might not want TOO much maudlin introspection in what is supposed to be an action comic. My contention is that if all the comic is is a lot of splash panels of combat with no human context, I get bored really quickly.

Superman as a case in point is a character who (if I recall correctly) could not originally fly ("leaping over a building in a single bound") and could be hurt by U.S. military ordinance ("only an exploding star-shell can pierce his skin"). As the stories progressed and he faced more bizarre foes he developed more and more abilities until he became, in my humble opinion, a 2 dimensional joke.

As for Wolverine, one of the few X-Men comics I read in the past was the one where in the future a Sentinal blasted away all his flesh (and other DNA bearing bits), leaving nothing but the skeleton. If mutants gain their powers by an alteration of their DNA, then it stands to reason that eliminating their DNA would also eliminate their powers (though I'm sure that many psi-powered mutants have left many examples of carrying on in other host bodies after their original bodies were destroyed, but I digress.)

Shadow of the Sun

2007-06-23, 01:33 PM

On the psi mindswitch issue, I'd say that is because their mutant causes a unique brain structure, which the mindswitch transfers to the new body.

It makes sense to me.

....

2007-06-23, 03:16 PM

Since Wolverine is considered stupidly overpowered, what does that make Deadpool?

Isn't that guy supposed to be technically immortal?

Deadpool is funny. Wolverine is not.

Grod_The_Giant

2007-06-24, 11:08 AM

Superman as a case in point is a character who (if I recall correctly) could not originally fly ("leaping over a building in a single bound") and could be hurt by U.S. military ordinance ("only an exploding star-shell can pierce his skin"). As the stories progressed and he faced more bizarre foes he developed more and more abilities until he became, in my humble opinion, a 2 dimensional joke.

:smallfurious: Superman is the best hero, period. NOT because of all the **** he got in the SILVER AGE, MORE THEN THIRTY YEARS AGO, but because he embodies all that humans can strive for. He's the King Arthur of superheroes. And he no longer has "super-whatever-I-want." There are a decent number of people out there who can give him a good fight hand-to-hand. He is NOT 2-dimensional, no matter what anyone who knows more about him then what's on Superdickery can tell you.

Viscount Einstrauss

2007-06-24, 11:26 AM

So, uh, to translate without the explosive anger- Superman has never been two dimensional really. He had some silly stories in the Silver Age, but he was never a flat character. The entire superhero genre is based off of Superman. Things that were originally special and unique about the Man of Steel appear ordinary and mundane to a lot of readers today because everyone's copied him. Even then, he has some aspects that are still peculiar in superheroics.

For one, despite his incredible power, he neither asks for nor wants anything. He does a lot of soul searching to keep himself humble, because that's what he feels is right. As Clark Kent he's pretty much a loser, but he likes it that way- you'll never find Superman being Superman when he can instead be Clark, because he prefers pretending to be nobody. He's had a very storied past of not knowing which woman he truly loves, and not because he's stupid or picking poorly. Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Lori-Whatever (the mermaid), and Wonder Woman would all pretty much make Mr. Kent a very happy man, but he has attacks of conscience a lot between them and it doesn't help that most of them prefer Superman over Clark. Finally, when push comes to planet shove, Superman's the only hero I can think of that can instinctively act in a selfless, heroic way to save everyone- even the villain if he can manage it.

Superman is not just some regular hero that they heaped too many powers onto. He's a walking god that wishes he was a mortal. That's where his story comes from.

Shatteredtower

2007-07-13, 03:38 PM

Lori-Whatever (the mermaid)Lemaris.

And here's to how much Superman owes to the Kent heritage.

....

2007-07-14, 02:24 PM

Listen to that song "Superman" by Five for Fighting. I think its a pretty good summary of how Superman feels.

Scientivore

2007-07-14, 03:32 PM

Superman is not just some regular hero that they heaped too many powers onto. He's a walking god that wishes he was a mortal. That's where his story comes from.

Well put! I also see him as a dramatization of the Intimacy vs. Isolation (http://inst.santafe.cc.fl.us/~mwehr/PEDevErikStage6.htm) stage of personal development. (I think that he's rather mature for a comic superhero; many appear to be dramatizations of the earlier adolescent stage, Identity vs. Role Confusion (http://inst.santafe.cc.fl.us/~mwehr/PEDevErikStage5.htm).) To seek attachment is to guarantee pain -- either up front by rejection or at the end by loss -- and to not seek it is to guarantee loneliness. It's a dilemma that most every mortal can relate to, even without supervillain nemeses to potentially threaten our loved ones.

TheMeanDM

2007-07-14, 06:14 PM

So how much of the body needs to be present? A few bones? A handful of cells? "Part of body" != "body".

Incidentally, I seem to recall him having been carried through a star at one point; the ionizing radiation should have destroyed his bones then, and yet he regenerated.

As I'd mentioned elsewhere...

In the Uncanny X-Men Annual # 11 (1987), Wolverine is effectively killed by the villain, Horde, when his heart is ripped from his body.

One drop of his blood splatters on the prize (a powerful gem) and he rematerializes/regenerates from that single drop.

He makes the comment that his healing factor is in every cell of his body and he also comments he's always wondered, if given enough power, would that be enough for him to regenerate.

Obviously, from 1987 until 2007, somewhere along that line, he's gotten enough power :)

GoC

2007-07-15, 12:26 PM

One drop of his blood splatters on the prize (a powerful gem) and he rematerializes/regenerates from that single drop.

Tell me he lost his personality and all his memories then.:smallannoyed:

Essex

2007-07-15, 03:52 PM

Tell me he lost his personality and all his memories then.:smallannoyed:

Nope. And the new self that regenerated from a drop of blood also still had adamantium bones for some reason.

psycojester

2007-07-15, 10:01 PM

Porthos

2007-07-15, 11:48 PM

He's a walking god that wishes he was a mortal.

What a wonderfuly awesome summation. :smallsmile: If you had to describe Supes in a sentence, then that would be it.

All jokes about Superman aside, he really is the Gold Standard on what a hero should be. :smallsmile:

Scientivore

2007-07-15, 11:51 PM

I HAVE IT! i just worked out how Wolverine is able to appear in so many comic simultaneously. We all know how stupid his regen has gotten (from a single cell). So therefore every time Wolverine has a haircut or trims his nails, a new Wolverine regenerates from the hairs/nail trimmings

Aha! It explains so much. Every time someone shoots or stabs Wolverine, a new one regenerates from the blood spatter, complete with memories, attitude and adamantium bones. He doesn't really regenerate from being disintegrated. That would just be silly! (Yes, even sillier than this.) It's just that with all of the blood that he's lost over the years, there are so many copies of him running around now that after successfully destroying one, it only takes about 60 seconds (on average) until you encounter one of the other copies.

It's estimated that at their current exponential rate of bacteria-like mitosis, Wolverines will completely coat the surface of the Earth in a year -- and will fill the volume of the solar system in ten years. Unless they're all simultaneously destroyed by triggering Sol to go nova, Wolverines will fill the volume of the galaxy in less than a century. Shi'ar are watching these developments with cautious optimism that Earth can be used to "incubate" Wolverine "cultures" that Galactus can snack on to keep the edge off his hunger, sort of like yogurt.

psycojester

2007-07-16, 12:30 AM

Shi'ar are watching these developments with cautious optimism that Earth can be used to "incubate" Wolverine "cultures" that Galactus can snack on to keep the edge off his hunger, sort of like yogurt.

Thats just stupid, the Wolverines are clearly part of the upcoming plot for the Skrull themed cross over-event. Think about it, each of those Wolverines has an Adimantium skeleton, you set up a large scale harvesting operation and BOOM! massive quantities of indestructive metal to build your war-skrull. Or failing that crash the intergalactic ore prices.

Dhavaer

2007-07-16, 01:41 AM

Would the Saint of Killers counts as stupidly powerful? He is essentially a plot device, so colossal powers are to be expected.

Hushdawg

2007-07-16, 10:03 AM

:smallfurious: Superman is the best hero, period. NOT because of all the **** he got in the SILVER AGE, MORE THEN THIRTY YEARS AGO, but because he embodies all that humans can strive for. He's the King Arthur of superheroes. And he no longer has "super-whatever-I-want." There are a decent number of people out there who can give him a good fight hand-to-hand. He is NOT 2-dimensional, no matter what anyone who knows more about him then what's on Superdickery can tell you.

QFT

dude, I'm with you 100%

Superman has grown a lot in the last 70 years and he definitely has come to represent the absolute pinnacle of what humanity can strive for.

The Silver age really bounced him around for some crazy ideas, but a lot of that had to do with the fact that back then nobody cared about continuity as we were just getting into the concept of having a character that lasted more than a few issues. Technically speaking, Superman WAS the first in a lot of things.

Superman was the first Superhero, he was the first comic character to last issue after issue and the first comic character to have his own title.

So yeah, the comic industry really messed up a lot with Superman because they were trying a new concept and creating the methods of storytelling that had impact across all comic books to come.

The Last Son of Krypton became the first superhero of Earth.

Hushdawg

2007-07-16, 10:05 AM

Tell me he lost his personality and all his memories then.:smallannoyed:

Magic gem...

`nuff said, true believer!

TheRiov

2007-07-16, 11:15 AM

Season 8 Buffy's Willow is overpowered too, particularly for the universe she's in.

BlackStaticWolf

2007-07-25, 03:46 PM

Plus, Kenshin was literally beaten at one point by an underling, Sojiro, who broke Kenshin's blade but called the match a draw because his own sword was damaged, but not unusable. Kenshin even admits as much, that if the fight had gone on he would have lost.

Hell, if it weren't for Sojiro's mental breakdown in their second fight, Kenshin probably would have lost that one too, seeing as he flat out couldn't match Sojiro's speed. Come to think of it, if Sojiro hadn't been essentially toying with Kenshin at first, he could have scored a killing blow instead of just a shallow cut across the back when he dodged the kuzu-ryusen.

....

2007-07-25, 05:19 PM

Season 8 Buffy's Willow is overpowered too, particularly for the universe she's in.

She was overpowered ever since... ohhh, I dunno, she was able to hold back goddesses and destroy the planet.

Aidjn

2007-07-28, 05:40 AM

I think the problem with Superman is that he generally classifies things as Right and Wrong, with what he thinks as right standing for right, and what he thinks as wrong for wrong. For example, why he left in Kingdom Come.

GoC

2007-07-28, 10:28 AM

psycojester

2007-07-28, 11:48 AM

I'd go with Superman's idea of right and wrong over humanity's any day.

If we're talking silver-age Superman that would be a horrifically violent world filled with over-reaction and casual cruelty.

Grod_The_Giant

2007-07-28, 08:47 PM

If we're talking silver-age Superman that would be a horrifically violent world filled with over-reaction and casual cruelty.

But we're NOT talking about the silver-age Superman, who WAS WRITTEN FOR LITTLE KIDS, and who certainly fits to 'overpowered' category. We're talking about the modern one, who's GREATEST power has always been his sense of 'right' and 'wrong'. So yes; I'l with GoC here- Superman knows the right thing. And don't forget, Kingdom come (while a great and entertaining read) is both an alternate reality and a story where even Captain Marvel is corrupted.

psycojester

2007-07-28, 10:13 PM

silver-age Superman, who WAS WRITTEN FOR LITTLE KIDS

Have you read super-dickery.com ? that man was a jealous, sadist who couldn't stand to see anybody else succeed.

gatitcz

2007-07-28, 10:54 PM

Have you read super-dickery.com ? that man was a jealous, sadist who couldn't stand to see anybody else succeed.

That's a pretty big condemnation based on the covers of a few comic-books.

Solo

2007-07-28, 11:23 PM

You haven't been to superdickery.com, have you?

swordmaster2000

2007-07-29, 01:10 AM

I have only one comment to make to this thread, and I can't even claim it as mine, I stole it from my Dad:
"with great power comes great stupidity"

gatitcz

2007-07-29, 01:43 AM

You haven't been to superdickery.com, have you?

I have. It cherrypicks. It's funny, but you don't have context.

GoC

2007-07-29, 11:43 AM

Have you read super-dickery.com ? that man was a jealous, sadist who couldn't stand to see anybody else succeed.

Some comics (or pages or covers or panels) are so bad that you must either ignore them or give up hope for humanity.

Almost all of the time he's a "paragon of virtue".

Grod_The_Giant

2007-07-29, 02:50 PM

yes. we HAVE all been to superdickery. And yes, those covers make superman and all comic-book characters, look bad. But they're COVERS, devoid of context, FROM FIFTY YEARS AGO, when comics were for KIDS. How many of those are from modern comics? How many would make sense with context?

The answer is that almost none are modern, context would explain much, and the fact that those comics were trying to avoid attacks by idiots (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seduction_of_the_innocent). Writers weren't allowed to show violence or sensuality- they were forced to keep a G rating. Their audience was KIDS.

...Gods, I've written this rant way too much.

Tiki Snakes

2007-07-29, 03:16 PM

My knowledge of Marvel universe has only reached just-post-onslaught era, so far, but I just thought I'd add;

Forge, stupidly over-powered? Well.
Technically, he can create ANY MACHINE HE CAN THINK OF. So, on paper, yeah, that sounds ridiculous.

However; In 99% of all cases, the machines he make....just don't help. At all. At best he seems to provide the fancy toys for the x-bases. Super-Jacuzzi's and so on.

His problem, I've figured, is as follows.

Forge can create any machine he can imagine. Any. Machine.
But he has the imagination of a Brick. He's dumb as a post.

Never, Ever rely on a Forge Macguffin to save the day. Henry Maccoy has a much better line in technological Macguffinary.

psycojester

2007-07-29, 06:01 PM

Ummm thats not what a Mcguffin is. A Mcguffin is something that seems very important and gets the plot rolling but ultimately turns out to ignored/unimportant.

ImpFireball

2007-07-29, 06:50 PM

sealemon

2007-07-29, 06:51 PM

Have you read super-dickery.com ? that man was a jealous, sadist who couldn't stand to see anybody else succeed.

Ummm, you DO realize that covers like that were meant to sell the comic, right? In every single case the cover either turned out to be a bait-and-switch, or there was some sort of reason for Superman's seemingly out-of-character actions. Super-dickery.com is very funny, but it's no more a true representation of what the source material was really like than seanbaby.com (Also a very funny web site).

DDL

2007-07-30, 07:10 AM

If you wanna kill wolverine, just break the adamantine skeleton into little tiny bits. Something like, say, a cruise missile'd probably work.

They could feature it on an episode of mythbusters if adamantine actually existed.

Isn't the whole idea that it's "an unbreakable metal?" So not really open to being broken into little bits.

Coming from a rather ludicrously accurate biochemical/immunological perspective, I'd assume his adamatium 'bone coating' has pores in it to allow his bone marrow to actually DO stuff (that being the primary source of white (and other) blood cells), or else he'd be dead pretty quickly anyway.

So all you have to do really is remove all traces of 'him' from the skeleton: torch him till you're down to bones, then boil the bones in acid: that should permeate the insides of the bones and clean them out, leaving you with a nice shiny metal skeleton cast to hang on your wall or something.

Alternatively, if we go with the "adamatium is indestructible once it's set" ploy, you could just dunk the guy in a big vat of molten adamatium and..let it set. He might not actually die immediately (or ever: he seems to have a truly thermodynamics-breaking regeneration ability), but he's basically screwed from then onwards.

I've always wondered why nobody tries to sever his limbs: go for the joints and an arm will come off, metal bones or not. The arm might regrow, but sans metal it's a lot less threatening.

As for supes and his sense of morality, it's kinda nice to see characters still trying to embody those sort of moral 'ideals' in this day and age (Steve Rogers is up there, too), but it gets horribly frustrating to read, sometimes.

"Yay! You defeated Luthor/Red Skull/appropriate repeating DC or Marvel villain again. Now for the LOVE OF GOD LET SOMEBODY SHOOT THE MAN DEAD."

Coz, let's be honest, you KNOW he's coming back again otherwise.

Which is what makes the Authority such a refreshing read.

Tiki Snakes

2007-07-30, 10:18 AM

Ummm thats not what a Mcguffin is. A Mcguffin is something that seems very important and gets the plot rolling but ultimately turns out to ignored/unimportant.

Ah, damn. My bad. What am word was I thinking of, then? >_>

Plot Coupon? Deus Ex Machina? hmm.

Nerd-o-rama

2007-07-30, 10:42 AM

McGuffins don't have to become unimportant. It's just a generic term for a plot-relevant item.

What you were thinking of, however, is a device (in the mechanical or literary sense) that is created by a character to allow the resolution of a plot. It can have elements of a Deus ex Machina, and usually does in one-issue comic plots due to size constraints. There's not a formal name for this particular kind of device, although Machina ex Richards is probably a good one.

Re: Wolverine: Decapitation, by cutting between his Adamantium-coated vertebrae, has been said to work. Logically, so would stabbing/shooting him in the brain or heart if you can get around his skeleton: a lucky torso shot, or an eye shot, basically. However, Wolverine's come back from nigh-vaporization in continuity, so...

Oh, and entombing him in Adamantium is a good idea too. That's essentially how he beats Lady Deathstrike, who's got the same general abilities, in the movies.

Grod_The_Giant

2007-07-30, 10:50 AM

"Yay! You defeated Luthor/Red Skull/appropriate repeating DC or Marvel villain again. Now for the LOVE OF GOD LET SOMEBODY SHOOT THE MAN DEAD."

Coz, let's be honest, you KNOW he's coming back again otherwise.

Which is what makes the Authority such a refreshing read.

If Superman killed, that would be the end of the character (the execution of the three genocidal Kryptonians aside (damn you Bryne)). Cap, though, was a soldier...but really, super-heroes don't kill. Otherwise, there would be no repeating villains.

Tiki Snakes

2007-07-30, 11:25 AM

Re: Wolverine
cutting things off, works. We know this from the Age of Apocalypse version, with his missing hand. wolverine can't, generally, grow back things that aren't there anymore. (so, bone-regrowth not so much, i guess.)

On the other hand, the ultimate wolverine, if i recall, does at some point re-attatch a certain significant portion of himself that the Ultimate Hulk had...um, torn off.

Also, you can't really hold up Superman as some kind of example of Humanities finest, or some kind of Exemplar for Humanity.

He's an Alien, who has been frankly gifted with vast powers merely by living on a planet with a different sun to his own species homeworlds sun. He doesn't even work out.

He can be an interesting character, sometimes, but mostly when he isn't being held up as a flawless paragon of ultimate goodness. for example, in the 'Dark Knight Returns' by Frank Miller.
Not that I read much DC, admittedly.

T.Titan

2007-07-30, 11:28 AM

I've always wondered why nobody tries to sever his limbs: go for the joints and an arm will come off, metal bones or not. The arm might regrow, but sans metal it's a lot less threatening.

We've seen some alt reality Wolverines with missing limbs... but unless you take away the limb somewhere he can't get to it in time he could just stick it back in it's place and the joints will heal and reattach the limb (Sabertooth tried it before Logan beheaded him with a sword that stops their power, and Ultimate Wolverine vs Hulk starts with Logan looking for his lower half to reattach it).

Closet_Skeleton

2007-07-30, 02:19 PM

Superman originally had no weaknesses what so ever.

Superman originaly couldn't fly and could be hurt by a repeated artillery barrage so it isn't that big of a deal.

Vondre

2007-07-30, 05:04 PM

I'm gonna reiterate what others have said: Dr. Manhattan. He has the capability to simply decide that he doesn't want the universe to exist, and have it happen. Poof. No more existence. Some have said that he makes up for this in his emotional apathy; a complete lack of any emotion at all, but seriously. He could decide that he wants your brain to be made of nothing but hyrogen atoms, and it would happen.

Of course, he can't kill Wolverine. He would turn Wolvie's entire body into cheese, and turn his back, and Wolverine would be back to normal.

Grod_The_Giant

2007-07-30, 08:29 PM

Also, you can't really hold up Superman as some kind of example of Humanities finest, or some kind of Exemplar for Humanity.

He's an Alien, who has been frankly gifted with vast powers merely by living on a planet with a different sun to his own species homeworlds sun. He doesn't even work out.

He can be an interesting character, sometimes, but mostly when he isn't being held up as a flawless paragon of ultimate goodness. for example, in the 'Dark Knight Returns' by Frank Miller.
Not that I read much DC, admittedly.

First off- calling Superman an alien, not a human is like calling someone born in England and brought to the US before he was six months old, then was raised in a small town, a Brit, not an American. Just about ALL characters in the DCU say that Superman is 'the most human of us all.'

Secondly, I think that fighting super-villains like Bizarro and Metallo counts as a 'workout,' don't you? Besides, it's all relative: exercise for us is a jog around the neighborhood, exercise for Big Blue is a few laps around the planet.

But yes, he can be interesting. Go check out All Star Superman or Birthright or something. The DKR version, I felt, was terrible. His choices were SO unreaklistic it's not funny. Besides, he was KILLING PEOPLE when he was blowing up those jets and aircraft carriers. THAT'S NOT $%&(*#^# SUPERMAN! Kingdom Come is a way better representation. He still tries to be a paragon of good, but the world has changed and he doesn't know it. Go read some more DC, THEN make judgments.

Grod_The_Giant

2007-07-30, 08:31 PM

Superman originaly couldn't fly and could be hurt by a repeated artillery barrage so it isn't that big of a deal.

True. When he first appeared, he was incredibly strong, had skin that could resist anything under a bursting shell, could run very fast and could leap an 1/8 of a mile. Nothing more. His power started increasing because of competition like Captain Marvel and GL- DC wanted Superman to stay at the top of the power rank.

gatitcz

2007-07-30, 10:59 PM

I'm gonna reiterate what others have said: Dr. Manhattan. He has the capability to simply decide that he doesn't want the universe to exist, and have it happen. Poof. No more existence. Some have said that he makes up for this in his emotional apathy; a complete lack of any emotion at all, but seriously. He could decide that he wants your brain to be made of nothing but hyrogen atoms, and it would happen.

That's the point of the character, though. And he still gets outsmarted by Ozymandias.

Now, it might be different if you were talking about Captain Atom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Atom) :smalltongue:

Vondre

2007-07-30, 11:41 PM

That's the point of the character, though. And he still gets outsmarted by Ozymandias.

Now, it might be different if you were talking about Captain Atom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Atom) :smalltongue:

Well, he gets outsmarted, if by 'outsmarted' you mean 'walked into something that was meant to be a trap, but instead managed only to annoy him.'

gatitcz

2007-07-31, 01:12 AM

By "outsmarted" I meant "Ozymandias prevented Dr. Manhattan, a truly omnipotent and omniscient character, from stopping the bomb."

DDL

2007-07-31, 04:55 AM

The impression I always got from Doc Manhattan what that he was basically disconnected from the timestream: he was everywhen at the same time.

"I'm walking across the room now, while also talking to you right here on the moon, while also killing somebody in the future"

He could see EVERYTHING that had happened, and that would happen. For him it's already happened, effectively (and is happening, and will happen).

Thus, since he already knows everything that will happen, he can't change it, because he knows he didn't.

His "walking into the trap" was done with a sort of "oh well, lets get this charade over with" attitude: I know it won't kill me, because it didn't, but I also know I walked into it, because I did. I am beholden to everything that has happened and will happen, but I don't particularly have to like it.

So he's not so much disinterested, as unable to express his interest. Because, well, he didn't. :)

He can't decide to "destroy the world" or similar because he didn't/won't/isn't having going to have been doing that, ever.

Grod_The_Giant

2007-07-31, 10:40 AM

Now, it might be different if you were talking about Captain Atom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Atom) :smalltongue:

what? since when can Captain Atom alter reality?

gatitcz

2007-08-01, 12:26 AM

He could see EVERYTHING that had happened, and that would happen. For him it's already happened, effectively (and is happening, and will happen).

To a point, yes. But Ozymandias's use of tachyons actually managed to mess with this, so Manhattan didn't know who was responsible for the explosion, where to find them, or the exact details of what happened immediately after (for instance, he knew he would kill someone, but he didn't know it would be Rorschach). Tachyons and "thermodynamic miracles" seem to be outside of his knowledge of the future.

what? since when can Captain Atom alter reality?

All the characters in Watchmen were primarily based on characters from Charlton Comics (Rorschach on the Question, Nite Owl on the Blue Beetle, etc.). Dr. Manhattan himself was based on Captain Atom. Supposedly, one of Moore's points was that all superheroes are stupidly powerful when compared to your average guy on the street. Dr. Manhattan is meant to be overpowered, but his inspiration, who still has atomic transmutation as one of his powers, and who can actually create matter the same way he creates energy, is not. And in your average comic, he really isn't, which was the point of my admittedly bad joke.

Grod_The_Giant

2007-08-01, 08:57 AM

All the characters in Watchmen were primarily based on characters from Charlton Comics (Rorschach on the Question, Nite Owl on the Blue Beetle, etc.). Dr. Manhattan himself was based on Captain Atom. Supposedly, one of Moore's points was that all superheroes are stupidly powerful when compared to your average guy on the street. Dr. Manhattan is meant to be overpowered, but his inspiration, who still has atomic transmutation as one of his powers, and who can actually create matter the same way he creates energy, is not. And in your average comic, he really isn't, which was the point of my admittedly bad joke.

ok, my bad here. Captain Atom had atomic transmutation powers in Charlton comics, but in the post-crisis DCU he didn't (probably because it would cut in on Firestorm's shtic too much).

Aidjn

2007-08-01, 06:05 PM

I'd go with Superman's idea of right and wrong over humanity's any day.

In the DC universe humans have wanted to, ya know, actually kill criminals like The Joker.

Also, I'd not trust a basically unkillable flying unstoppable warrior with right and wrong.

Arameus

2007-08-01, 06:57 PM

I don't know if anyone's mentioned Supergirl, but honestly, isn't she some sort of Goddess now or whatever?

Foeofthelance

2007-08-01, 11:00 PM

I don't know if anyone's mentioned Supergirl, but honestly, isn't she some sort of Goddess now or whatever?

Supergirl? Hardly. At one point she claimed to be stronger then Superman, up until the point he whalloped her and explained the finer points of "holding back". After that she went on quite a number of benders, including trying highschool, trying to imitate Paris Hilton, dealing with a deranged stalker, dealing with constant attempts of assassination, and is now currently hanging out with Wondergirl and the Teen Titans, or at least she has for the past few issues. (Personally, I think they intend for her to replace Conner as the team's finisher.) I think the closest she's gotten to Goddess level is the occasional talks with Artemis.

Tiki Snakes

2007-08-03, 11:27 AM

First off- calling Superman an alien, not a human is like calling someone born in England and brought to the US before he was six months old, then was raised in a small town, a Brit, not an American. Just about ALL characters in the DCU say that Superman is 'the most human of us all.'

Secondly, I think that fighting super-villains like Bizarro and Metallo counts as a 'workout,' don't you? Besides, it's all relative: exercise for us is a jog around the neighborhood, exercise for Big Blue is a few laps around the planet.

But yes, he can be interesting. Go check out All Star Superman or Birthright or something. The DKR version, I felt, was terrible. His choices were SO unreaklistic it's not funny. Besides, he was KILLING PEOPLE when he was blowing up those jets and aircraft carriers. THAT'S NOT $%&(*#^# SUPERMAN! Kingdom Come is a way better representation. He still tries to be a paragon of good, but the world has changed and he doesn't know it. Go read some more DC, THEN make judgments.

Firstly, It's not really the same as calling someone born in the usa and raised in the uk 'An American', though, is it? Because, quite frankly, he is an alien. It's a biological fact. It's pure cosmic happen-stance that he doesn't glow bright indigo and have fourteen heads. He Is Not A Human.

A more appropriate simile would be to say that calling Supes an Alien is like calling a wolf raised by a pride of lions, a wolf, rather than a Lion-cub. It really doesn't matter if the Wolf acts like a Lion, takes his place in the Pride and in any and every way lives up to the role of an exemplary Lion.
He is, was, and ever will be Canis Lupus.

My point about the workout, though; Well. Yeah, admittedly, I'd say that fighting Bizarro and Metallo would count as a work-out. I'm not saying Superman has an easy, low-effort life.
I'm saying, he didn't have to put any effort in, in the first place, to get the strength that he now uses to be able to fight Bizarro and Metallo. Superman did not spend hundreds of long hours in the gym, in order to gain the strength and power to bench-press small buildings. He got it simply by living on our planet.

Sure, he uses it to good effect for the benefit of mankind, and he has tough challenges, but he was given his powers on a silver platter by simple effect of his alien physiology and so on.

I'll admit, I can't imagine any superman fan preferring the DKR vision of the big blue boy-scout. As a pure character though, no matter how far removed from the traditional, I found it to be a much more interesting re-imagining than what you could say was a better or more accurate one. It was a different Superman, and he was not so clearly and fully a Hero, but I saw that as a good thing, in that case. If not for the people of that world!

I suppose I will, eventually, chase up some more DC. My access to stuff is a bit limited at the moment, though. I'll make a note, or something. Still, between what bits I have read(I can't but laugh at the Crisis of Infinate Earths, thing), seen and heard about, I doubt I'm really a DC sort of guy. :)

Aotrs Commander

2007-08-03, 06:53 PM

I actually have no problem with stupidly powerful heroes myself. Stupidly powerful = more pyrotechnics = more awesome. And I actually like to see the bad guys get the living crap kicked out of them. I don't see why every single fight should always be the heroes nearly getting killed. Granted, it might get old if it happened all the time, but it tends to be too far the other way in most modern media.

Pikachu, his plot powers make him unbeatble, unless he really needs to win.
If he does, he can one hit ko legendary pokemon, and electrecute things that can't be electracuted.
PIKACHU, AIM FOR THE HORN!

And he deserves every bit of that plot power for being so damn Awesome!

Eh? I never knew there was such a character as Captain Britain.

You're not missing anything, really. Hey, America, if you want a replacement patriotic hero, take ours. Really. Please?

Forge can create any machine he can imagine. Any. Machine.
But he has the imagination of a Brick. He's dumb as a post.

Never, Ever rely on a Forge Macguffin to save the day. Henry Maccoy has a much better line in technological Macguffinary.

Bwahahaha! Sweet.

As for supes and his sense of morality, it's kinda nice to see characters still trying to embody those sort of moral 'ideals' in this day and age (Steve Rogers is up there, too), but it gets horribly frustrating to read, sometimes.

"Yay! You defeated Luthor/Red Skull/appropriate repeating DC or Marvel villain again. Now for the LOVE OF GOD LET SOMEBODY SHOOT THE MAN DEAD."

This is what gets me too (and one of the reasons I like Wolverine). A lot of entertainment these days seems to be 'screw and torture the heroes and much as possible, while the villains merely get beaten - if they're unlucky - and get away scot-free if they are.' I personally want to see a little less soul-searching and a little more evil getting it's guts spilled over the pavement, once in a while. I mean for crying out, the Shi'Ar Empire gets away with quite literally murder on a frequent basis. Could we not have a few of them (or better yet, all of them) die a totally pointless death for once?

Speaking of stupidly powerful heroes, what about Naruto and co? I mean, they're mostly, like twelve, and yet could probably seriously kick a fair proportion of the universe's heroes butts.

And we've mentioned Pikachu, but what about Ash Ketchem himself. I mean, he's got no abilities whatsoever, but he's died several times, and it's not stopped him anymore than Wolverine...

I wait, though, for the day when I can site Wondra in one of these discussions, because she so deserves to be stupidly powerful...

Grod_The_Giant

2007-08-03, 08:35 PM

A more appropriate simile would be to say that calling Supes an Alien is like calling a wolf raised by a pride of lions, a wolf, rather than a Lion-cub. It really doesn't matter if the Wolf acts like a Lion, takes his place in the Pride and in any and every way lives up to the role of an exemplary Lion.
He is, was, and ever will be Canis Lupus.

Technically he's an alien, but in personality, he is human. Totally human. He may not be from our planet, but he embodies everything that humanity should strive for. Irregardless of birth. And do you know how racist (or species-ist)you sound? You're saying that because he was BORN (or maybe just conceived, I'm not sure of current continuity) on another planet, people can never consider him human.

If you want to try DC, check out Grant Morrison's run on JLA- good, classic, super-hero fun. Nothing fancy or emotional, just Good Guys verses Bad Guys. Kingdom Come is good as well. The Superman/Batman series (the original writer) was good, as was 52.

† Dran †

2007-08-05, 06:53 AM

Whoracle

2007-08-06, 08:05 AM

Technically he's an alien, but in personality, he is human. Totally human. He may not be from our planet, but he embodies everything that humanity should strive for. Irregardless of birth. And do you know how racist (or species-ist)you sound? You're saying that because he was BORN (or maybe just conceived, I'm not sure of current continuity) on another planet, people can never consider him human.[...]

That's why he made the other example with the Lions and the Wolf.
We ARE talking species here, and not even branches of the same Family (like Cat and Leopard), but different Families (Dog and Cat, or better, Canis and Felis). Someone who was born in the UK and has been raised in the US is still HUMAN, because biologically thei're the same. Borders are made up by humans to tell each other where their turf ends and ours begins.
You can't say the same for Earth. The kryptonians aren't people from Earth that moved to Krypton because of better wages or some such, but another species that is in no way, except by looks, related with Homo Sapiens (non)Sapiens.

And on the "racist" note: "Race" is the (artificial) distinction between different branches of the biological family and/or an ethnic (and as such purely biased) distinction of people living in some place.
So "racist" would be a wrong accusation by default.

"Speciesist" on the other Hand would be more correct.

BUT
"racist" as well as "speciecist" implies a special viewpoint on said races/species, namely the idea of one race/species being superior over the other.
And THAT is something he never even hinted at. So, both "racist" and "speciesist" don't apply here.

So long, and excuse me for the excourse, but people throwing around potentially insulting things while disregarding/not knowing about their meaning make me kind of angry...

psycojester

2007-08-06, 08:58 AM

You can't say the same for Earth. The kryptonians aren't people from Earth that moved to Krypton because of better wages or some such, but another species that is in no way, except by looks, related with Homo Sapiens (non)Sapiens.

I'd love to see the reverse of that happening for a what if story. After the planet explodes, an ass-load of Kyrptonians turn up on Earth and end up forming a Kryoptonian ghetto, taking all of the heavy construction jobs and the like :P

Whoracle

2007-08-06, 09:16 AM

Wasn't that what happened in the first movie? Only they were prisoners, so you could say Earth is for Kryptonians what Australia was for the british ^^

And, of course, the job they applied for was entitled "SUPREME RULER OF THE PLANET(tm)", which some natives also wan't to go for :D

psycojester

2007-08-06, 09:48 AM

I was thinking more along the lines of the refugees arriving hat-in-hand and begging to be allowed to settle and then ending up with a pretty sucky deal due to some plot device about desperation (low food supplies or something).

Instead of using earth as the alternate dumping ground for sociopathic pratts when the shadow zone fills up.

Lord of the Helms

2007-08-06, 09:52 AM

Hate to say it, and i know im going to cop some for saying it, but i really believe that Superman is Stupidly powerful. I fully understand that hes meant to be everything that a human is meant to be, perfect in every way ext, but to me that kind of character is just.. well lame i guess. Everyone needs flaws and power wise superman just doesn't seem to have any.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. I don't dislike Superman for the Silver Age stupidity (actually that stuff is so hilariously bad I can't help loving it. The Commando-effect, I guess :smalltongue: ), I dislike him because of his lame "most perfect, moral, intelligent, powerful dude out there" concept.

Finn Solomon

2007-08-06, 10:05 AM

Really? I kinda like Big Blue for precisely the same reason. The world would be a frightening place if it was run by Batman. Perfect, ordered, but...frightening. Hand over the reins of power to Superman any day.

Winterwind

2007-08-06, 10:32 AM

But perfection does a boring character make...
Nevermind who I would prefer to be the world's ruler (if democracy was not an option), storywise I prefer a flawed hero/anti-hero over a perfect one every time.

DDL

2007-08-06, 11:01 AM

It's the fact that, being nigh-invulnerable and stupidly powerful as he is, stories have to either deal with "him vs. equally nigh-invulnerable and stupidly powerful foes", "him vs. foes armed with stupid amounts of kryptonite from somewhere", or "him dealing with the psychological damage that comes from being invulnerable when all your friends aren't."

The former two are fairly passe, and have been done to death, and the latter, while more interesting from a philosophical standpoint, is still not 'dramatic' enough, somehow, to guarantee interest. The guy is just too perfect to be interesting. Admirable, yes. Interesting? Not so much.

Same applies to Captain America, really. Too damn perfect/idealistic/honourable.

Cruxador

2007-08-06, 11:15 AM

There was a comic with God in it once. Like, from the Bible. Omnipotent, Omniscient, no actual physical form (usually), and thus unkillable. And even when in a physical form unkillable, because it's only part of him in a physical form, and the rest is still omnipotent.
(No offense intended to people about their religions, comparing God to a comic book figure or anything, but God is the ultimate Superpower

horseboy

2007-08-06, 12:01 PM

Renx

2007-08-06, 12:17 PM

Pre-death Nova during Annihilation Wave.
Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch. "No more mutants". 'Nuff said.
Superman, The Sentry, Cpt. Marvel etc. They're all basically the same, uninteresting "hero" archetype. Guess what? Being a hero doesn't mean being more powerful than everybody else. Supes could solve every food/energy/whatever problem in the world if he wanted to. But no, he's too busy playing detective with Batdork (another plot-powered cape caterer).
Post-movie Wolverine. Unbeatable, unkillable. His whole character point used to be that the healing FACTOR was not regeneration (emphasis mine). Now it apparently is. Besides, his claws wouldn't even work if you applied even the least bit of physics into it. But I like catgirls.
Phoenix has been done so many times that she(it?)'s boring. "Oh dear, Jean's alive again. Do we kill her now" "But Scott, I'm good again!" "Great!" "Ha, suckah!" "She tricked us! Again!"
Gunning for WildStorm, I'd say pretty much everyone in their own series. Roxy from Gen13 (or w/e) has the power to affect local gravitational fields with pin-point control enough to give a buxom beach bimbo "few hundred pounds extra to her implants". Anyone who has a thimbleful of imagination can see all sorts of thing fall into pieces with her around. But, of course, she's a dork who has absolutely no idea how to use her powers other than flying. Sigh. Also, Caitlyn from the same series has got all kinds of interesting powers - including being nearly naked all the time. Mmmmm.
Lobo. Kicks the ass of everyone and their pet dog. They had to pay him to lose to Wolverine.
The Fallen One. Goes around destroying planets just so that Galactus can't have them? Ouch.
Reed Richards. The most brilliant man on the planet. Possesses the all-destroyer (or whatever), builds gates to the Negative Zone on a whim, possesses all of the Infinity Gems... still, he lost to Hulkster.

Just to answer all Wolvie-fanboys: No, he's not killable. Thanks to you guys.

Wolverine is hardly over powered. He is, in fact, not that powerful at all. He is multiple martial arts master with six claws and the ability to regenerate.

Allow me to laugh. Ha. Ha. Ha. Now I'll assume you were joking and move on.

1) Nitro's blasts were not nuclear events, they weren't even close. They were pulling kids out of the rubble who were still alive for crying out loud.

Speedie drained most of the blast, which is why his Speed dimension is all whacky as are his powers.

Lobo can take on Superman. Wolverine still beat him. All because of some stupid voting system. ****ing fans -_-

Actually, that was Charles Xavier paying Lobo off to lose. It's official.

Since Wolverine is considered stupidly overpowered, what does that make Deadpool?

What he always was. A joke. Like Squirrel Girl.

Grod_The_Giant

2007-08-06, 03:39 PM

Actually, there have been some interesting storylines with Superman trying to relate his desire to help for the sense of help with the real world.

Mainly, though, it comes down to taste. I, personally, don't want to read about flawed heroes. I don't want angst-fulled soap opera. I want to read about confident heroic heroes fighting bad guys. Some people might like the reverse; it's a free country.

Dhavaer

2007-08-06, 06:41 PM

Renx

2007-08-06, 10:30 PM

Actually, there have been some interesting storylines with Superman trying to relate his desire to help for the sense of help with the real world.

Yes, there have. Sadly, as that would seriously but every other hero (group) out of business, it wasn't explored that much. No surprise there.

Finn Solomon

2007-08-07, 07:38 AM

Same applies to Captain America, really. Too damn perfect/idealistic/honourable.

Maybe, but you need Cap/Superman to make all the cool anti-heroes work. They wouldn't be half as interesting if there wasn't the idealistic standard-bearer to play off against.

Grod_The_Giant

2007-08-08, 08:35 AM

Maybe, but you need Cap/Superman to make all the cool anti-heroes work. They wouldn't be half as interesting if there wasn't the idealistic standard-bearer to play off against.

QFT. Guys like Supes and Cap...they're heroes' heroes.

DDL

2007-08-08, 11:36 AM

Oh, I agree. I can admire and envy their sense of morality and adherence to the whole 'no-killing' thing, and it's great that they actually ARE treated as such pillars of excellence in the genre, but ultimately I find myself wishing there were more 'practical' folks around.

Not the 'edgy antihero' types who are all Logan-brooding and stuff, and who drink beer and swear and act all badass...but just someone who'd be there saying

"Yay! We defeated Magneto/Luthor/Whatever! Now I'll just..."

*FUNT* *FUNT*

"...shoot him twice in the head, and that's a wrap. Oh, except maybe we should burn the corpse just to be on the safe side."

I mean, I know that completely destroys the whole 'repeating villain' aspect, but it would be nice to see every once in a while.:smallamused:

Aotrs Commander

2007-08-08, 12:31 PM

T.Titan

2007-08-08, 04:17 PM

Funny thing about Superman... he started out not that powerful, but DC decided that no other superhero out there could be better then him, so with each new character (even their own... that's why Flash wasn't allowed to be faster) that had better powers they made him stronger... until he could move planets from one galaxy to another by tieing them to a chain.

Jerthanis

2007-08-08, 07:09 PM

Oh yes! I very much agree.

(Wolverine - very occasionally - does that, actually; I find it one of his more endearing traits (unlike his brooding, which isn't).) But frankly, it'd be a whole lot better if a few - no a lot - more villains got killificated on a regular basis.

I disagree. The villains, in a lot of ways, define the heroes. Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four wouldn't be what they are without the egocentric, malevolent genius Dr. Doom, and they would've been denied an adversary who pushes them to the brink every time, and sometimes past it. If Reed Richards had said, "He's too dangerous to allow to live" after their third meeting and shot him with a disintegration ray, we would've never seen his backstory, and we'd be denied every climactic encounter with one of comic bookery's greatest villains ever. The X-men wouldn't be who they are without Magneto, the painfully sympathetic, misguided idealist turned psychotic, who would be fighting on the side of good if only for a different history... without him, they'd just be another superteam that everyone hates for some reason.

Some villains I'm happy to see go, since obviously not every villain is as vital to the story as the top 10% of villains, but if we start executing every dangerous villain the heroes go up against, you'll end up with the writers being run ragged coming up with something that'll slow the heroes down, and eventually you'll have things like, "Fan-Man" and "The Human Buzz-saw" or "The Kid-Napper" as the week's villains and then no one wins.

horseboy

2007-08-08, 07:13 PM

I mean, I know that completely destroys the whole 'repeating villain' aspect, but it would be nice to see every once in a while.:smallamused:

That's why Frank (especially the MAX version) is so cool.

kpenguin

2007-08-08, 07:20 PM

That's why Frank (especially the MAX version) is so cool.

That's also why Frank is an anti-hero. I'm quite sure that a great many of the heroes wanted to kill their villains once and for all at some point but they didn't. Why? Because that would be crossing the line. Superheroes beat up the bad guys, they cause massive damage, but they don't kill. In the end, they always turn over the villain to the proper authorities and let them deal with it. It would be much better if some of those villains were to be put on death row, however.

Winterwind

2007-08-08, 07:27 PM

Especially since the villains could often be accused of "attempted genocide" or stuff like that, for which they could probably be brought before international courts and treated as war criminals.

Grod_The_Giant

2007-08-08, 09:18 PM

I think the killing villains thing falls under the suspension of disbelief catagory, unavoidably. If villains were killed (whether be heroes or law), then cool villains couldn't be reused. No repeating villains makes things really unbelievable when you have powerful heroes that need powerful villains.

Aotrs Commander

2007-08-09, 08:10 AM

I disagree. The villains, in a lot of ways, define the heroes. Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four wouldn't be what they are without the egocentric, malevolent genius Dr. Doom, and they would've been denied an adversary who pushes them to the brink every time, and sometimes past it. If Reed Richards had said, "He's too dangerous to allow to live" after their third meeting and shot him with a disintegration ray, we would've never seen his backstory, and we'd be denied every climactic encounter with one of comic bookery's greatest villains ever. The X-men wouldn't be who they are without Magneto, the painfully sympathetic, misguided idealist turned psychotic, who would be fighting on the side of good if only for a different history... without him, they'd just be another superteam that everyone hates for some reason.

Some villains I'm happy to see go, since obviously not every villain is as vital to the story as the top 10% of villains, but if we start executing every dangerous villain the heroes go up against, you'll end up with the writers being run ragged coming up with something that'll slow the heroes down, and eventually you'll have things like, "Fan-Man" and "The Human Buzz-saw" or "The Kid-Napper" as the week's villains and then no one wins.

Oh, I appreciate that you don't always want to do it. Especially with the really cool bad guys.

But, in the last few years, I've have just become Fed. Up. with the current media fetish for killing off the heroes and leaving the villains intact. Marvel, DC, Star War's New Jedi order, freakin' Stargate SG-1, fer cryin' out loud (hell, even the last few Harry Potter books are quite dark in places), to mention just a few all seem to be going into the 'let's make the heroes as bloody miserable as possible so we can fill the viewer's/reader's time with people looking upset and grim by killing off anyone we think we can get away with because they've not been in the thing recently and bugger their history.' (Okay, some of that was directed specifically at Marvel and DC, but the same theory seems to apply everywhere at the minute.)

So why can't we have a few the verminous villains be knocked off, then huh? What, they get plot immunity because they're bad guys but the heroes don't? WTF? But, y'know, the bad guys don't actually get to win so the heroes always have to settle with a 'victory' that gets more and more pyrrhic with each passive tale?

If I want to watch people being depressed and grim I'll watch the news (or soaps or dramas)1. I don't find people being miserable to be entertaining (unless I'm personally torturing them, obviously). I appreciate the best stories contain a bit of everything, but right now they seem to be sorely lacking in the 'bad guys get something resembling what they deserve'.

Heck, I'd be celebrating Wolverine 55 if I thought for more than one second it'd actually stick; yet even that moment lost it's charm in light of the previous pointless character deaths in prior issues.

I want to see the bad guys suffer for a change. Because right now, they don't seem to be. At. All. They get beaten, granted in the finale - barely, but about that's it; they don't suffer at all. I want to see a few of them crawling around on the floor and sobbing with despair because (and I realise I'm going againsts my own LE alignment here) they're the bad guys; isn't that kind of what should be happening to them? Karma and all that?

Or has the world become so dark and depressing that you're no longer allowed to have evil being beaten without paying a price that's equal to or greater than the cost of whatever evil was going to be done in the first place?

I like variety in my entertainment for it's own sake and I loathe standard tropes unless they can be used to turn the trope on it's head. And right now, 'torture the protagonist' is becoming way too popular with current media.

Okay...I'm done.

For at least the next several seconds anyway.

1Or go down to the brig and stab some Elves with sharp objects or something.

Grod_The_Giant

2007-08-09, 10:31 PM

Aotrs Commander

2007-08-10, 07:39 AM

I respect your opinion. We need guys like the Punisher going around and killing lame villains. Or a big 'villain war' that leads to dozens of low-level guys dying. But A-, B-, and maybe even C- level villains should live. Every hero needs one or two 'oh ****, my arch-nemesis! I'm in deep **** now!" villains (and one or two, like Magneto or Doom, that are that level for the entire universe), a half-dozen "iconic" villains that aren't SUCH big threats, and a few more low-level villains who aren't used much, but are still reasonably good...just maybe a bit more specialized, or used less.

Exactly. A really good bad guy, if you'll excuse the oxymoron, needs to be one you can get behind to some extent (like Vader, Thrawn, Sephiroth, Doom, Bester from Babylon 5 - and of course, Xycon! etc). But you should only have a few really awesome bad guys, since it then makes them more special. And you want to keep them around, because they are really cool. I'm all for really cool bad guys (actually, on reflection, I realise that I don't rate many of the Marvel - heck or DC villains - as being very high on my own Cool Evil scale. Most of them are insane or asshats...Come back Emplate, all is forgiven!)

But you also want plenty of cannon fodder, so the heroes can kick the crap out of them occasionally, without every villain causing them psycological trauma!

And I think the suffering handed out should fall a little nore unilaterially on both heroes and villains. It just seems like at the moment, the bad guys can be as big a jerkwads as they like, and all they get - if they're unlucky - is a quick pummeling, while the heroes get everything taken away...

Grod_The_Giant

2007-08-10, 09:23 AM

while the heroes get everything taken away...

I really hate the whole 'dark' trend in comics. #^@$ing Frank Miller...

Aotrs Commander

2007-08-10, 09:28 AM

I really hate the whole 'dark' trend in comics. #^@$ing Frank Miller...

Seriously. It says something when Power Pack - freakin' Power Pack - is getting to the 'read last because it's best' end of my regular comic pile, just because it's nice to end on a positive...

Dalenthas

2007-08-10, 09:42 AM

Recently Iron Man stopped the Crimson Dynamo's heart and then restarted it. Does that count as suffering enough for you?

Speaking of IM, with Extreamis he's starting to get up there on the "stupidly powerful" scale. But so far he hasn't used it to its maximum potential, so we'll see if he can stay on the reasonable level.

doliemaster

2007-08-10, 11:22 AM

I respect your opinion. We need guys like the Punisher going around and killing lame villains. Or a big 'villain war' that leads to dozens of low-level guys dying. But A-, B-, and maybe even C- level villains should live. Every hero needs one or two 'oh ****, my arch-nemesis! I'm in deep **** now!" villains (and one or two, like Magneto or Doom, that are that level for the entire universe), a half-dozen "iconic" villains that aren't SUCH big threats, and a few more low-level villains who aren't used much, but are still reasonably good...just maybe a bit more specialized, or used less.

Take Spider-Man, for example.
A-listers:
Green Goblin
Kingpin
Doc Ock

B-listers:
Sandman
Shocker
Electro
Vulture
Venom
and so on

C-listers:
Lizard (not used enough to be B-list)
Rhino (too stupid for B-list)
probably a few others I don't know about.

But that's all. Other villains should be henchmen, cannon fodder and such. Locked up and forgotten about, get the death penalty, shot by cops, and so on. Killed in big chaotic traps by the Punisher.

Ya' messed up there, Venom needs to be A-list since you know Doc Ock is a lame premiss who venom could kill.

Also I must add, I never really like superman simply because on one side of the spectrum, I can't figure out why for the love of me he WANTS to be mortal, with his powers he could get whatever he wants, and most things can't touch him. On another side he never kills the villians, when most of them would get the death penalty anyway, and he can kill them, and the law wouldn't care, heck they condone it.

fangthane

2007-08-10, 02:45 PM

Ya' messed up there, Venom needs to be A-list since you know Doc Ock is a lame premiss who venom could kill.

Fully agree. Venom and Carnage are definitely A-listers. I'm not sure Kingpin really fits there, either (isn't he really more of a DD nemesis?) but let that pass.

Also I must add, I never really like superman simply because on one side of the spectrum, I can't figure out why for the love of me he WANTS to be mortal, with his powers he could get whatever he wants, and most things can't touch him. On another side he never kills the villians, when most of them would get the death penalty anyway, and he can kill them, and the law wouldn't care, heck they condone it.
Here's where I disagree with you though. I thought Data's The Bicentennial Man's Superman's desire to be more human, in the face of his being, on the face of things, more than human, was an excellent source of conflict and an interesting social commentary with respect to that sense of isolation. I don't necessarily identify with that position, seeing as I'm more on the "wish-fulfilment fantasy" end of the equation, but it makes for good stories. I mean here's this guy who's done all kinds of good for the world, protected it from all kinds of problems and used his superhuman capabilities for the betterment of Mankind - and yet, he's consigned to forever be an outsider. In a lot of ways, he's like Moses. He leads the Chosen to the Promised Land, but he can't partake. It was a good story 2000+ years ago, and it remains so today.

Aotrs Commander

2007-08-10, 04:00 PM

Recently Iron Man stopped the Crimson Dynamo's heart and then restarted it. Does that count as suffering enough for you?

Without knowing the full specifics, I'd have to say, very likely, no. That's just physical damage again. Whereas the MU heroes at the minute seem to be dropping like flies and the ones who aren't dead are getting pretty messed up emotionally, socially, legally, heck, even finacially if I understand aright some of the fall-out of Civil War. The villains - if they're really unlucky - get a moderate pummeling and that's about it. Hell, if I understand correctly, huge chunks of them are actually benefitting from the SHRA by getting employed to hurt more heroes! (And if that's not totally whacked, I don't know what is.)

horseboy

2007-08-10, 04:02 PM

That's also why Frank is an anti-hero. I'm quite sure that a great many of the heroes wanted to kill their villains once and for all at some point but they didn't. Why? Because that would be crossing the line. Superheroes beat up the bad guys, they cause massive damage, but they don't kill. In the end, they always turn over the villain to the proper authorities and let them deal with it. It would be much better if some of those villains were to be put on death row, however.

They don't kill supervillains . Spiderman picks up a car and throws it at goblin. goblin Dodges. Where does this car land in a city that's that heavily packed? Some generic random flying superhero and supervillain are fighting and plow through an office building. How many people have walls/ceilings, heavy object fall on them? Sure it all happens off panel, so it doesn't count. But superheroes are responsible for deaths/horrible maiming almost everytime they get into a "super fight." Didn't Cap and Iron man kill 20 something people while they were fighting?

Frank knows he's going to kill somebody. Now that he's sane(r), he's far more responsible with his "blast radius." At the end of the day, he'd have a far lower body count.

FoE

2007-08-12, 05:25 AM

To be honest, most of the heroes and villains I see getting killed off these days are unloved nobodies. I'm not going to shed many tears for Stilt-Man or Goliath.

Xuincherguixe

2007-08-12, 06:49 AM

Or has the world become so dark and depressing that you're no longer allowed to have evil being beaten without paying a price that's equal to or greater than the cost of whatever evil was going to be done in the first place?

In short? Yes. It's a pretty bleak world right now.

And in a way it kind of makes sense too. When has conflict made the world a better place? At it's best it stops further damage. Chances are though a lot of stuff is going to get wrecked though.

Why should villains suffer? They have put away their ability to suffer. It's part of why they're villains. They just don't care.

But it would be nice for their to be some variety. I mean, part of the reason I like things dark is because it was a change from all those stories where everything somehow works out miraculously in the end and you just know that it's going to be fine for the good guys. And of course wondering why on earth anyone would be a bad guy because it doesn't make sense to be one in a world where you're constantly thwarted.

Heros should suffer. It's why they're Heros. But it is okay to have a few that can take anything that's thrown at them and just keep getting back up. Have a guy who recognizes that his morals are getting in the way and doesn't give them up. And show that it doesn't matter if he's hurt. Guy can take more punishment than anything in the universe can deal.

Aotrs Commander

2007-08-12, 06:31 PM

In short? Yes. It's a pretty bleak world right now.

And in a way it kind of makes sense too. When has conflict made the world a better place? At it's best it stops further damage. Chances are though a lot of stuff is going to get wrecked though.

Why should villains suffer? They have put away their ability to suffer. It's part of why they're villains. They just don't care.

But it would be nice for their to be some variety. I mean, part of the reason I like things dark is because it was a change from all those stories where everything somehow works out miraculously in the end and you just know that it's going to be fine for the good guys. And of course wondering why on earth anyone would be a bad guy because it doesn't make sense to be one in a world where you're constantly thwarted.

Heros should suffer. It's why they're Heros. But it is okay to have a few that can take anything that's thrown at them and just keep getting back up. Have a guy who recognizes that his morals are getting in the way and doesn't give them up. And show that it doesn't matter if he's hurt. Guy can take more punishment than anything in the universe can deal.

(Note, the following rant is aimed at no particular persons, but at humanity as whole...)

It tweaks me that these days, most people only seem to be entertained by other people's emotional suffering, as real as possible. What is wrong with you humanity? I know reality sucks (that's why I became Undead, to stick needles in the eyeballs of reality), but I mean, there are limits... Is the universe so dark that you (the hypothetical you, that is) can only be made to feel better by seeing others suffering more than you? Isn't that, y'know, supposed to be what my side is doing?

Seriously, I think most of humanity is sliding into Apathetic Evil alignment.

I mean, this is entertainment! In real (un)life, I'm all for the bad guys winning easily (for the given value of 'bad guys' being 'me and my comrades'), but heck, I thought part of being entertained was, y'know, to for a time forget that the universe acts like it's a brand-new beta release of Windows with the combined bug-testing skills of EA and Atari? Do so few people want hope, want examples to look up to, anymore?

(And don't get me started on the "life's just like that, it's always been the same and it always will be" crap, because my response to that is "That's an excuse, not a reason and it's not good enough! The universe should be better!")

(Not to mention that by-and-large, innovation and variety has died a death long since with all too few notable exceptions (OotS among them).)

Frag, it's getting so hard to be Evil these days. There's nobody to contrast with anymore. Pure black contrasts less well against grey... I feel less and less like a villain and more like pest extermination, putting the unmotivated human vermin out of their insular misery. I mean, I kill the Elves at every turn, but at least they still bother to put their hearts and soul into the fight1, even though it is inevitably hopeless. There are days when I want to sweep from the sky and cleanse Earth with cold and bone, and then there are times when I think "sod that, I'll just leave the rancid boil of a planet forever as soon as I can and never return."

I think Wolfram and Hart were right when they said that the Apocalypse has already started. And it's name is the entropy of society...

Ahem. It's been a ropey year, and I've had it right to nearly my break point2 with humanity and realities' combined idiocy, so I kind of want to not get it in my entertainment, since that's kind of the point, yes?

Somewhere in all this mess was an actual topic, right?

So, yeah, I actually want a few stupidly powerful characters who nearly always win - not all the time, by no means, but just a few who can go out and make the universe a fractionally better place by kicking the crap out of (fictional) evil in as pyrotechnical way as possible.

1Often literally, by the time I'm done with them...

2You'll know when I pass my break point, by the by. You may only know briefly, granted, but believe me, nobody on the planet will be able to miss it...

SITB

2007-08-12, 08:22 PM

Well, one reason for this trend might be the fact that Super-Villains are more popular/awesome then their Hero counterparts nowdays. Thus getting all that is entitled with being the popular characters.

On the other hand, I agree with you. After the the 4,562,234 the Joker has been caught, it can be properly argued that the goverment swiftly executes (with a trial montage sequence!) him because he has become such a meance to society.

fractal

2007-08-12, 08:36 PM

(Not to mention that by-and-large, innovation and variety has died a death long since with all too few notable exceptions (OotS among them).)
Innovation is always few and far between. That's why it's noteworthy. In fact, there's probably more innovation and variety today than at any other point in history.

Mind you, I'm not saying it wouldn't be better still to have even more.

I think Wolfram and Hart were right when they said that the Apocalypse has already started. And it's name is the entropy of society...

So, yeah, I actually want a few stupidly powerful characters who nearly always win - not all the time, by no means, but just a few who can go out and make the universe a fractionally better place by kicking the crap out of (fictional) evil in as pyrotechnical way as possible.
That's actually a lot of what I liked about the first few seasons of Buffy. Despite difficulties and opposition, you could generally trust her to win. I think the trust is really an important part.

Tiki Snakes

2007-08-14, 08:00 AM

I'm all for the heroes winning more often, perhaps, but I don't see where that requires ridiculously deus-ex-machina powerful characters to do that. It's just not so engaging.

Spiderman stops the destruction of the universe is so much more of a story than, say, The Invincible Man of Infinite PowerTM saves the universe.

As much as I've read any of the X-Man line, that's a risk he ran. The only thing balancing his almost-pheonix level power was the fact that every time he used it, Blam, nosebleeds out the wazoo and a few years off his life. If he ran no risk, then he was left in the "I wave my hand, you are no longer a threat!" class of protagonist.

Xuincherguixe

2007-08-14, 08:40 AM

Heh. Interesting reply Aotr :P

There have been a few times when I've been rooting for the hero amazing enough as that sounds. Sometimes I think that maybe it's not so much that I like evil more than good, but that I identify with the bad guys more.

So often what you see is that the heros are just a bunch of thugs wearing white. The villains though often have some good reasons to be pissed off (mad scientist for the win!)

Yeah, okay I have a bit of a love of (fictional!) violence. But I don't think that the world has to be one giant contest of who can destroy the most stuff. Part of what's so depressing is that's becoming more believable a story than someone who can successfully stop senseless destruction.

I think I can believe in a world with an honestly good person that said world despises. Kind of what Marvel has been doing already but... those kind of stories are better than some incoherent nonsense and a bunch of people killing each other that loosely related to that.

Tempting to make a comic with some kind of mad scientist overlord type, but he's the good guy in the series. It's not exactly that hard a leap. Wants to free the world from corrupt and negligent powers, super powered enforcers that keep stopping him? Totally works.

Tiki Snakes

2007-08-14, 10:40 AM

AtomicKitKat

2007-08-14, 10:56 AM

You know, if we're gonna bring Japanese series into this, I nominate Char Aznable Mwu Lla Flaaga from Gundam Seed/Destiny. I mean, the guy blocks a fricking battleship's Main Positron Cannon with what is essentially a "Prototype" Mobile Suit, and all he has to show for it is a flashback where he's mummified, and he returns with nothing more than amnesia/brainwashing and a pretty little scar across his nose, which he hides by wearing a mask in a manner reminiscent of his father's clone. He then proceeds to do exactly the same thing(block a battleship's Main Positron Cannon with a Mobile Suit). Except that this time, the MS is a top-of-the-line supersuit that deflects the shot with no harm.:smalltongue:

Oh, and from the same series. Andrew Waltfeldt, the Desert Tiger. Piloting a new type of Mobile Armour/Suit with his love/wife/whatever Aisha, he gets defeated by Kira Yamato(the "Ultimate Coordinator"/Main Protagonist/All-around Mary Sue+Mahatma Ghandi). The unit explodes, killing his wife, and leaving him alive(minus 1 eye, 1 arm, and 1 leg, all on his left side). And he still manages to pilot an MS in Destiny.:smalleek:

Edit: And since I brought up Mr Kira "Mary Sue" Yamato... He survives the destruction of his Mobile Suit. His FUSION POWERED Mobile Suit.

Come to think of it, both he and Athrun survived multiple Mobile Suit Destructions. When Athrun detonated his stolen Aegis MS to defeat Kira's Strike, they both survived. Then there was the time Kira came back from re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere in an unprotected Mobile Suit with nothing more than a fever. And then at the end of Seed Kira was drifting in space with a headless MS. And then the time Athrun was running from ZAFT(yet again), and Shinn ran his sword through Athrun's stolen Zaku.

Actually, thinking about that, how the hell did Meyriin survive that? She's not a main character like Kira and Athrun, so she doesn't have as large of a "plot shield".:smalleek:

Man, I always knew Co-ordinators were tough, but surviving an exploding suit borders on the ridiculous.

Xuincherguixe

2007-08-14, 10:54 PM

Should probably put that in a spoiler tag. Not that I hadn't kind of suspected the above :P

AtomicKitKat

2007-08-15, 12:11 PM

Should probably put that in a spoiler tag. Not that I hadn't kind of suspected the above :P

Sorry. I figure if my country is getting the English version of Gundam Seed/Destiny, and has in fact shown both series twice each, most of the rest of the world should have gotten it or some version thereof by now.:smallredface:

Dalenthas

2007-08-15, 03:03 PM

Tempting to make a comic with some kind of mad scientist overlord type, but he's the good guy in the series. It's not exactly that hard a leap. Wants to free the world from corrupt and negligent powers, super powered enforcers that keep stopping him? Totally works.

Ever read Marvel's Civil War? That's basically how they portray Iron Man in that.

Grod_The_Giant

2007-08-16, 04:24 PM

stuff

<applause>

I always say: If I want horror, I'll read the newspaper. If I want to see shocking, degrading, depressing $hit, I'll turn on the TV news. If I want to be ENTERTAINED, I'll watch Superman cartoons. Or read about a brave band of heroes overthrowing an evil overlord. There's too much horror and depression in the real world. Fiction is supposed to be an escape.
I don't want to read about some ordinary guy bumbling his way through the dreary horror of normal life, I want to read about a cool, collected, professional hero beating the snot out of some *real* bad guys. The kind that aren't misguided, or from bad homes, but simply evil because, well, they are (Dr. Doom, for example). Geoff Johns' JSA, Grant Morrison's JLA, the Justice League cartoon, give me this. Marvel, generally, doesn't. When fiction is more depressing then real life...that's disgraceful.

And if you're thinking "well, that kind of fiction is realistic. People can relate to it..." don't. Reread what I said. LIFE is tragic and horrible. Fiction, which is an ESCAPE from real life, should not be. :smallfurious:

Nerd-o-rama

2007-08-16, 04:32 PM

Hey, as long as someone's already brought up animé, how about Ruri in the Martian Successor Nadesico movie?

"Now if you'll excuse me, I'll just render the rest of you completely redundant and rob the audience of their big fight scene. Idiots."

Oh, that's right. Nobody watched that movie.

Also, any long-running pseudo-Kung Fu series tends to have characters like this, most famously Goku in Dragon Ball Z.

Green Bean

2007-08-16, 04:40 PM

Nerd-o-rama

2007-08-16, 04:42 PM

Never said Kung Fu shows had to have fight scenes. They can just blab about their Kung Fu being stronger than each others' for weeks on end.

Jerthanis

2007-08-17, 12:53 AM

The thing is though, that Comic books aren't a particularly good medium for the type of high octane, pyrotechnical, "take-out-your-brain-and-put-it-in-a-jar" escapist fantasy that you describe. Comic books show action in still frames, and struggle mightily to convey movement. The real strength of the comic medium is in the potential for merging writing with pictures to convey mood and setting more effectively than pure writing can, and to juggle dialogue smoothly. These strengths don't seem to imply stories based mostly on movement and dynamic pyrotechnic effects to me.

And also, I think it's a totally fallacious claim to say that our world's society is breaking down and that we're sliding toward apathetic evil because our entertainment media puts heroes in difficult situations a lot of the time. It's just good storytelling to make relatable characters suffer. What stories have survived throughout history? Gilgamesh, Shakespeare's best works, Arthurian legends? Tragedies all. What is so wrong with the heroes suffering? It's that very fact that makes them human, and when we suffer along with them, it's cathartic. We feel better about our own problems because we've experienced them over again through the eyes of our heroes, and in seeing how they dealt with them and moved on, we are ourselves able to survive and move on in our own lives, and it makes us feel better.

The lack of comic book villains suffering, and them avoiding death perpetually comes down to the fact that 1.) Writers don't want to come up with new villain concepts, or deal with the fact that many fans grow as attached to the villains as the heroes, 2.) Villains by their nature are far more difficult to injure, as they rarely have personal attachments, or don't allow themselves to have weaknesses like heroes do and 3.) A hero who kills because it's convenient isn't really a hero, and they don't have the right to judge who lives or dies... the fact that the court systems in comic books seem to put revolving doors on their prisons comes back to point #1, and the fact that a villain suitably taken down being tried and sentenced isn't a climactic way for a character to die. Comic books follow the laws of storytelling more than the laws of man.

That said, it IS possible for there to be a hero who doesn't suffer like protagonists in most other stories throughout history have, or present an interesting story about the trial and execution of a villain... so if they're so important to you, why don't you try writing them?

Grod_The_Giant

2007-08-17, 09:27 PM

That said, it IS possible for there to be a hero who doesn't suffer like protagonists in most other stories throughout history have, or present an interesting story about the trial and execution of a villain... so if they're so important to you, why don't you try writing them?

I am :grin:

Foeofthelance

2007-08-17, 10:35 PM

Just a couple of nitpicks. I enjoyed both series and don't want people to get the entirely wrong impressions. :)

You know, if we're gonna bring Japanese series into this, I nominate Char Aznable Mwu Lla Flaaga from Gundam Seed/Destiny. I mean, the guy blocks a fricking battleship's Main Positron Cannon with what is essentially a "Prototype" Mobile Suit, and all he has to show for it is a flashback where he's mummified, and he returns with nothing more than amnesia/brainwashing and a pretty little scar across his nose, which he hides by wearing a mask in a manner reminiscent of his father's clone. He then proceeds to do exactly the same thing(block a battleship's Main Positron Cannon with a Mobile Suit). Except that this time, the MS is a top-of-the-line supersuit that deflects the shot with no harm.

In the original series Mwu was actually dead. His helmet was seen floating past the Archangel at the end. It wasn't until the The Rumbling Sky movie was released that it was retconned to him surviving, mostly so Destiny made sense. When he does it in the second series he's using the Akutski (SP?) suit, which was already shown to have blocked the positron cannons back when Orb was attacked. Just as Freedom did at several points.

Oh, and from the same series. Andrew Waltfeldt, the Desert Tiger. Piloting a new type of Mobile Armour/Suit with his love/wife/whatever Aisha, he gets defeated by Kira Yamato(the "Ultimate Coordinator"/Main Protagonist/All-around Mary Sue+Mahatma Ghandi). The unit explodes, killing his wife, and leaving him alive(minus 1 eye, 1 arm, and 1 leg, all on his left side). And he still manages to pilot an MS in Destiny.

All you see when the La Cue goes up is an explosion followed by it collapsing. It's believable that Aisha took the brunt of the blast, and as you also pointed out he still need some major surgery. When he's piloting the Gaea he's doing so against only a few opponents, and even then he need Kira to finish the fight for him. That was more of a desperate holding action to protect the Eternal.

And since I brought up Mr Kira "Mary Sue" Yamato... He survives the destruction of his Mobile Suit. His FUSION POWERED Mobile Suit.

Come to think of it, both he and Athrun survived multiple Mobile Suit Destructions. When Athrun detonated his stolen Aegis MS to defeat Kira's Strike, they both survived. Then there was the time Kira came back from re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere in an unprotected Mobile Suit with nothing more than a fever. And then at the end of Seed Kira was drifting in space with a headless MS. And then the time Athrun was running from ZAFT(yet again), and Shinn ran his sword through Athrun's stolen Zaku.

Actually, thinking about that, how the hell did Meyriin survive that? She's not a main character like Kira and Athrun, so she doesn't have as large of a "plot shield."

Ack, too many points! Number list time!

1) Neither Strike or the Aegis were fusion powered. Both suits were developed by the EAF while they were under the N-jammer restrictions. Both just had really powerful batteries on board. The first nuclear powered mobile suits were Freedom, Justice, and Providence. Freedom was the only survivor of the three, but Providence wasn't taken out by its battery.

2) The Strike wasn't unprotected. It gets mentioned several times that the manual (Yes, Gundams come with owner's manuals!) claims it is capable of individual re-entry. They only wanted Kira to make it back to the ship because it had never actually been tested. :) Well, they wanted operational data... Actually, I think the fever was meant to be more a result of his battle with Yzak then the re-entry.

3) Cockpits are mounted in the chest of a mobile suit. Losing the head only costs the main cameras and a few other processing systems. So a headless Gundam isn't too badly damaged.

4) As for when Shinn runs through Athrun's Ginn (At least I think it was a Ginn. It definitely wasn't a Zaku though.) he stabs it through its side. He missed the cockpit. I don't even think that unit exploded, I think it just fell into the sea if memory serves.

Sorry, I'm a nut for Gundams! :)

Viscount Einstrauss

2007-08-17, 11:25 PM

Being a Gundam fan can be a labor of love. Things that make no sense to the casual viewer often do make plenty of sense to the OCD fan.

Foeofthelance

2007-08-17, 11:51 PM

Hehehehe, I'm not really OCD about these kinds of thins. But everyonce in a while I come across a rant like the one I corrected, where horrible miscalls are made. Then again, just about any fan will defend their favorites in a similiar manner, no?

AtomicKitKat

2007-08-18, 10:27 AM

In the original series Mwu was actually dead. His helmet was seen floating past the Archangel at the end. It wasn't until the The Rumbling Sky movie was released that it was retconned to him surviving, mostly so Destiny made sense. When he does it in the second series he's using the Akutski (SP?) suit, which was already shown to have blocked the positron cannons back when Orb was attacked. Just as Freedom did at several points.

Psst. I like the series too.

I know the Akatsuki is powerful. It's also the first time Mwu is actually AHEAD of the power curve in the entire 2 series.

All you see when the La Cue goes up is an explosion followed by it collapsing. It's believable that Aisha took the brunt of the blast, and as you also pointed out he still need some major surgery. When he's piloting the Gaea he's doing so against only a few opponents, and even then he need Kira to finish the fight for him. That was more of a desperate holding action to protect the Eternal.

Well, he was "supposed to be dead". The author just brought him back.

1) Neither Strike or the Aegis were fusion powered. Both suits were developed by the EAF while they were under the N-jammer restrictions. Both just had really powerful batteries on board. The first nuclear powered mobile suits were Freedom, Justice, and Providence. Freedom was the only survivor of the three, but Providence wasn't taken out by its battery.

I just think it's silly how Kira and Athrun both survived the Aegis/Strike explosion with hardly any injuries(well, no worse than say, a Natural falling out of a moving car or something).

2) The Strike wasn't unprotected. It gets mentioned several times that the manual (Yes, Gundams come with owner's manuals!) claims it is capable of individual re-entry. They only wanted Kira to make it back to the ship because it had never actually been tested. :) Well, they wanted operational data... Actually, I think the fever was meant to be more a result of his battle with Yzak then the re-entry.

I remember them specifically saying that the temperature would have killed a Natural, and that even Kira still wound up with a fever(heat stroke?).

3) Cockpits are mounted in the chest of a mobile suit. Losing the head only costs the main cameras and a few other processing systems. So a headless Gundam isn't too badly damaged.

Well yeah, but it's still not good. At least I think the cockpits are pressurised, so that should be useful.

4) As for when Shinn runs through Athrun's Ginn (At least I think it was a Ginn. It definitely wasn't a Zaku though.) he stabs it through its side. He missed the cockpit. I don't even think that unit exploded, I think it just fell into the sea if memory serves.

I think it was more like "Run through with sword, then release as it drops into the sea and explodes." Think he did the same with Freedom.

Nuclear or not, surviving the explosions does stretch my verisimilitude limits.

Foeofthelance

2007-08-18, 04:08 PM

Well, he was "supposed to be dead". The author just brought him back.

I don't remember them actually saying he was dead though. Kira had pretty much wrecked his unit, and the Archangel departed shortly afterwards. As far as I could tell he got brought back to ZAFT to serve as either a publicity stunt or as an advisor, and ended up attaaching himself to the Clyne faction.

I just think it's silly how Kira and Athrun both survived the Aegis/Strike explosion with hardly any injuries(well, no worse than say, a Natural falling out of a moving car or something).

Well, Athrun did eject after setting the self-destruct. And if I remember correctly Kira still spent quite sometime recuperating over at the PLANTs. Both were bed ridden after the event.

I remember them specifically saying that the temperature would have killed a Natural, and that even Kira still wound up with a fever(heat stroke?).

Well, Kira's not a Natural. He's a Coordinator,and like the rest he was engineered to be better suited to space as well as being designed to be basically the perfect physical human. So him suriving isn't too unbelievable.

Well yeah, but it's still not good. At least I think the cockpits are pressurised, so that should be useful.

Nope, the cockpits aren't all that well pressurized. That's why they were all wearing suits when they did space combat. Remember back when Kira gace Lacus back to Athrun? If the cockpit was pressurized she at least would have been sucked out when he opened the chest. And even if they were, again they were space suits, ones equipped with personal oxygen supplies.

I think it was more like "Run through with sword, then release as it drops into the sea and explodes." Think he did the same with Freedom.

Nuclear or not, surviving the explosions does stretch my verisimilitude limits.

The sword was definitely left of center when he stabs the unit. As long as the cockpit isn't breached I'm fairly sure they'd have a good chance of surviving. These are war units after all, and I'd wager the cockpit is heavily armored. In the fight between Shinn and Kira, Kira definitely threw the match. The only reason Shinn was able to even hurt the Freedom was because Kira wasn't fighting back. Also, the only explosion shown is when the Archangel's engine goes up. Freedom took the sword through the gut, not the cockpit. So that explains Kira.

Sadly I can't find the episode where Shinn takes down Athrun, so I'll have to find that tomorrow...

AtomicKitKat

2007-08-19, 01:59 AM

The sword was definitely left of center when he stabs the unit. As long as the cockpit isn't breached I'm fairly sure they'd have a good chance of surviving. These are war units after all, and I'd wager the cockpit is heavily armored. In the fight between Shinn and Kira, Kira definitely threw the match. The only reason Shinn was able to even hurt the Freedom was because Kira wasn't fighting back. Also, the only explosion shown is when the Archangel's engine goes up. Freedom took the sword through the gut, not the cockpit. So that explains Kira.

Sadly I can't find the episode where Shinn takes down Athrun, so I'll have to find that tomorrow...

What I mean is that by the same token as them being at least somewhat shielded from core explosions, the cockpits are also at least pressure-conditioned enough that they don't burst if something like an arm or leg gets blown off.

Anyways, I found a couple of them on You-Tube. Mostly AMVs rather than episode snippets. Just search for "Athrun" and "escape" should do it.