Wednesday, April 13, 2011

You Know It's True


Ultra Boy can only use one super power at a time - i.e., he can't be both super strong and invulnerable at the same time. Why doesn't he shatter every bone in his hand every time he throws a punch with super-strength?

One of the best bits in Kirkman's Marvel Zombies was the bit where Wolverine's arm got torn in half when he tried to slice the Silver Surfer open. His bones were unbreakable but his ligaments were not. It was funny in the book because zombie Wolverine was a rotting corpse but that should really come up more often. Just because his bones are strong doesn't mean that he couldn't be torn limb from limb, unless he had magic ligaments and cartilage.

And while we're on the subject of Wolverine: his claws are super sharp but he's not super strong. Even the sharpest knife in the world is only as strong as the force behind it, so his ability to cut metal and stone would be limited unless Colossus was standing behind him pushing his elbow forward.

Also: as annoying as the "super" Wolverine of the last decade is, I do appreciate that a few writers (such as Jason Aaron) have taken the time to establish that Wolverine's true weakness is drowning. It makes sense, since he's not super-strong, that he would sink like a stone.

One of the few things that the Daredevil movie did well was actually showing how Daredevil's radar sense might actually work: he "feels" the reflection of sound waves off surfaces and objects. Would Daredevil's radar sense work in a completely silent room?

I generally liked Geoff Johns' work on Superman but one thing that has always bugged me about the "Superman and the Legion of Superheroes" arc is how Superman's powers instantly return the moment Sun Boy turns the sun back from red to yellow. Even if we accept for the sake of the story that Superman wouldn't need any kind of interregnum to recharge, we're still left waiting the seven minutes it would take yellow sunlight to reach Earth from the sun. The way that scene was written required precise timing to work the way it does, but unless we bypass the most elementary understanding of the physics of light we're left with a situation where Superman would be dead long before the new sunlight could revive him.

It is practically a law of nature that the more popular a character becomes, the stronger he will be. This is true of Wolverine to an absurd degree, but it's also become true of Luke Cage as well. As originally written, Cage was just not very strong - in his earliest stories, his invulnerability is far more prominent than his strength. But now he's gone from being maybe roughly Spider-Man's equal to someone who can hoist an eighteen-wheeler above his head and walk half the length of the city.

It is a continuing per peeve of mine that so many creators seem to believe that the Silver Surfer is still human underneath his silver shell. The whole point of the Surfer is that he was completely remade by Galactus: he is his shell, he's solid silver throughout. Otherwise, this wouldn't make any sense. It is always within his power to pretend to be human, but no force this side of Galactus has the power to actually make him human again.

It's really quite awesome that Thor possesses the ability to communicate with amphibians. It's probably not something that comes up very often, but I imagine it's a really neat party trick.

I've said it before but it bears repeating:
Thor = Green Hulk = Juggernaut > Wonder Man = Thing > Grey Hulk = Colossus = She-Hulk
The Silver Surfer can theoretically be as strong or stronger than any other character if he chooses to be, based on his theoretically limitless ability to channel the Power Cosmic, but he rarely chooses physical confrontation.

Traditionally, Superman > Everyone. This was not strictly true in the years right after Crisis when Superman was depowered considerably. It made for some memorable stories not because Superman was weak but because he could be an underdog against enemies like Darkseid and Doomsday. Now he's basically back to pre-Crisis levels. So:
Superman = Captain Marvel > Power GIrl = Martian Manhunter = Wonder Woman
Among villains, Doomsday is by far the strongest since he's been shown almost killing Darkseid, and Darkseid is easily the better of Mongul, Despero, or any other of the strong villains.

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