Crossbones is by far my favourite Cap villian, tough, border line psychotic and very skilled.
Hes very near peak human strength, Cap admited when he no longer had the SSS in "streets of poison" that without it Crossbones was stronger than he was.
Crossbones was trained by the taskmaster, he was already a mercenary before he broke into one of the Red Skull's safehouses and ended up being recruited by the Skull, so his fighting abilities are very good indeed.
Cap had to cheap shot him to win when he was without the SSS (pulled his mask over his eyes and put all his remaining strength into a punch to the throat).
As far as tough goes, Bullseye stabbed him through the bicep with a shiv (to get him off him as he was choking the life out of Bullseye at the time) and he still chased after him as Bullseye jumped through a window to escape.
Later he was fighting with his arm still bandaged and it didn't seem to overly bother him.
He also carries a few hidden weapons, like spring bladed knives in his bracelets but we have said no toys.
All in all he has proven he can give Cap one hell of a fight with or without SSS, he has also shown the ablity to catch knives, In a subway when he had kidnapped Diamondback, he took on a street gang one of which threw a knife at him, Bones caught it right before it hit him in the head, he then threw it back hitting the guy, drew his own knife and made him eat it.
I remember the line went "Little boys playing man's games" or something like that.
While he was asleep, Cut Throat who was Diamondback's older brother and an expert assasin (who had killed two other assasins, one being about class 10 strength and the other claiming to know "30 ways of killing you withjust my feet".) tried to creep up on him and kill him.
Bones was faking being asleep but as far as I remember unarmed, Cut Throat was in full costume and had a sword, fight was mainly in shadow and off panel but when the lights came on there was blood everywhere and Crossbones still standing, he uttered this classic line.
"Cut Throat just got his throat cut", so hes no slouch when it comes to h2h.
In saying all that however, Crossbones always fights best with prep, he knew Cut Throat would come for him, because he had Crossbones place on the crew and wouldn't give it up (I think he only found out after he killed him that he was back's brother, which just made it more fun for him)
He has prep when he tricked Cap into not only stepping into a bear trap but also stepping on to a mine with a pressure pad.
His skills have helped him keep up with foes with actual super powers and at an AIM convention he claimed to be able to take on and beat any 5 fighters Batroc chose (Cap disguised as Crossbones ended up fighting them however).
But in saying all that, in pure H2H I think Shang is better and he can channel chi which Crossbones cannot.
So in this instance I would say Shang 7/10, with prep time I would swing that majority in Crossbones favour.
....um......ermmm....yeah. I dunno man thats the same as Frank. How good is Shang when he channels Chi? From my understanding Shang would not be much better than Cap, and if CB can take Cap what difference would it make?
__________________ Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.
- General George Patton Jr
Well, the way I look at it, Shang can boost his strength and speed to beyond Human levels, with Chi Shang is quicker than Cap and easily his equal in terms of strength (possibly a class 1).
Now Crossbones with some prep time would counter this, like he counters Cap's superior strength and speed when he has the SSS.
On the fly however, I think it would prove to much for Cross and give Shang the edge.
Without chi involved I would say toss a coin, Shang is still the more skilled in pure martial arts, but Cross is a sneaky, aggressive and dirty fighter who knows how to use his enviroment to his advantage.
Crossbones has only ever been able to get the better of Cap with prep, even when Cap had no SSS and was tiring from being unused to fighting without it, he still beat Crossbones but again, Crossbones was not expecting him so unprepared.
Give Crossbones prep and he would take the majority, Crossbones is no Batman but he knows how to set things up to take advantage of his opponents.
He would make one hell of a fight out of it with or without prep though.
Well, on second glance it seems I was a little over zealous in saying faster, I should have said as fast.
As I found out during the Punisher fight, there is not a lot of info out there on Shang, so I am basing that off the official stats for both men on the RPG.
Now lets have a look at the two mens physical stats in base form and I will break them down for you.
F = Fighting ability, A = Agility, S = Strength, E = Endurance.
Ok lets look at Cap.
F AM (50) A IN (40) S RM (30) E RM (30)
Ok let me break down those stats, AM = Amazing, this is the highest level of talent a normal human being can possess as far as fighting skill goes.
IN = incredible, this is superhuman type agility, up there with the likes of DD and Beast.
RM = Remarkable, this is slight super strength, up to a class one and for endurance it means peak human.
So Cap in te RPG, like in his comic is one the best HUMAN hand to hand combatants on the planet, is exremely agile has Peak human/minor superhuman strength and peak human/minor superhuman endurance.
Sound about right? ok lets move on to Shang
F AM (50) A RM(30) S EX(20) E RM(30)
This is Shang without his chi amping, he is as skilled as Cap, as agile as the best olympic gymnast but not quite on Cap's level, can press twice his own body weight up to 800lbs and has peak human endurance.
Without Chi he is slightly below Cap, probably along the same lines as Cap without the SSS when he fought Crossbones.
Using his Chi to amp he gets these stats.
F MN (75) A IN (40) S RM (30) E IN (40)
MN = Monsterous, he is quite literaly now an unaturaly talented fighter, enhanced beyond what a normal human can achieve.
he now has up to class one strength, agility to rival Cap, and about the same strength, combined with superhuman endurance.
Now an RPG be it officialy endorsed and based on the handbooks or not, is not a perfect guideline but its the best I have to go on, considering that I have read very litte of him and info on the net is sparce.
I got a little carried away in saying he was faster than Cap, however, so I take that statement back.
But the Chi does put Crossbones at a disadvantage that without prep I don't see him being able to counter in the long run.
He will however use his enviroment to his advantage and he definetly won't be fighting fair so he will keep the majority pretty low.
Last edited by Hercules on Mar 2nd, 2007 at 05:11 PM
Yeah this is the thing I like the role playing game, but I wouldnt go for it. Heres one example in the comics Spiderman can get killed by a bullet but according to the game he cant because a gun does less damage than his endurance. I dunno man im kind sceptical about using game stats in debating...
__________________ Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.
- General George Patton Jr
Me too but in the situation with the gun you just outlined, its a game, if your playing Spiderman and due to one bad roll your character is offed and your out of the game, you can understand while the mechanics work that way.
But I'm not talking about the actual mechanics of the game, I'm talking about the portrayal of the characters in the game.
Forget about how much damage a pistol does in the game (although to be fair, even with 10 damage, roll a kill on the table and the character still has to test against endurance) were not talking about the mechanics of an actual Game here, were talking about the stats of the character reflecting the stats in the comics.
And for the most part they do this, as I said its far from perfect but you will keep picking Shang Chi in fights!
So why don't you give me your take on it and we will see if we can agree and find some middle ground?
Yeah ok like character stats? Well both DD and Wolverine have good strength. Ive seen some DD feat that could put DD at least at excellent strength. I think Wolverine has remarkable strength now.
Ok see above. I think they were pretty accurate on Cap stats though.
Ok.
Its pretty diffcult because to be quite honest I dont really know how good Shang is, but in all the scans I have seen I have never seen him do anything better than Cap, but then again im not sure if he was pumped with Chi.
I mean when people say superhuman in the street level world as far as im concerned there is no major difference between that and peak human. Hell they keep saying Cap has peak human strength when we know he can lift a ton. So when people tell me that Shang can amp himself to superhuman levels it dont mean nothing to me.
Going by performance I would say Crossbones beats him, it has been stated I think by Zaran a foe of Shang that Cap is better than Shang and Crossbones has good showings against him.
You know what I think I see Crossbones winning 6/10 because he has good showings against Cap who is better than Shang. It could be argued that Shang is better in terms of skill but Crossbones wont be far behind, his bio states that he is one of the best fighters in the world making him top tier.
Crossbones is one of the world's best hand-to-hand combatants, with extensive training in street-fighting, military combatives, and as a student of the Taskmaster. Physically, Crossbones is tall and very heavily muscled, but moves with an athletic grace uncommon for men of his bulk.
Also Crossbones as you know is very sneaky and I think he will use that to get some wins. I think Shang is skillful but not sneaky.
P.S. Crossbones is maybe my most favourite Cap villain also.
__________________ Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.
- General George Patton Jr
Well, as of the updates, Wolverine has got Remarkable strength in the RPG I do however take your point on DD.
I think they have Cap pretty much spot on, the thing about the RPG is they get a lot of things wrong cause there based on the handbooks, the revisions and fan input however have made them much, much better, though far from perfect.
Shang Chi is one of the lesser known characters though so hes probably still a work in progress.
Cap is better than Shang imo, only because Cap is so hard to read for his opponents, DD commented on how he seems to flow from movement to movement, meaning its hard for his opponent to figure him out.
using Wiki as a source for a comment is also a little dubious though cause anyone can update it but I would say he was a very dangerous individual.
I would say Crossbones was slightly below Capt as far as skill goes, he has shown Bullseye who's boss though so hes no slouch, I think in his fight against Cap without the SSS which ironicly enough was Cap's first "clean" win over him he would have won if Cap hadn't taken drastic measures to finish the fight.
With the SSS though Cap is going to be getting the win, just because of the physical advantages it gives him.
So if we say that Shang is similar to Cap with the SSS then I would say that he has an Edge.
Fighting on the fly I'm still inclined to give Shang the edge maybe as low as 6/10 though, based on Crossbones using his enviroment and not fighting fair to make up some of the lost ground.
I think though if Crossbones knew he was fighting him and got him on his turf, Crossbones would win.
It all comes down to prep for me, Cross is at his best when he can lure you onto a battleground of his choosing that he has "prepared" beforehand.
Seems if I'm saying 6/10 Shang and your saying 6/10 Cross then we can only meet in the middle and say stalemate?
But I would have to see more of Shang to call it a stalemate, from what I have seen he is a little better than Crossbones, the only bad fight I have seen is him losing to Logan but to be fair to Shang, Logan should be superior.
I know about Crossbones lower showings, I would have to see more of Shangs.
As it stands at the moment I still think slight majority in Shangs favour. I do think Cap has superhuman strength though for the record.
He is seen benching in excess of 1,000lbs for reps and he only weighs about 235lbs.
The unofficial WR for bench is just over 1,000lbs benched for one (dubious) rep by someone who weighed around 400lbs, so to me if Caps working out with more than a WR bench press, hes not human anymore in the strength department!
Last edited by Hercules on Mar 2nd, 2007 at 06:13 PM
Not unreasonable at all, as we both know we seem to be dealing with lack of info. I dont know what to say really. Im going for stalemate.
Most def.
Yeah and he did it easily. Its been argued that it was at least 1100lbs and both barbells could have weighed 1100 but the dials were electronic. Straight afterwards he did acrobatics.
Yeah from what I heard, the guy only managed just over a 1000lbs with one rep....and he was using a benchshirt....and I think I saw the video, they guy had assistance as well. Not in lifting but you know setting the stuff up.
P.S. Were do you get your rpg stats from I go to classicmarvel.com
P.P.S. Until I got some more comics on Shang im not opening another Shang thread.
__________________ Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.
- General George Patton Jr
Scott Mendelson holds the bench press record, both using a bench shirt, and raw.
Raw? He pressed like Seven sixty, I believe. With the bench shirt, he pressed a one rep maximum of one thousand eight pounds. This rep was done with no assistance (obviously, or else it wouldn't have counted), and was quite amazing.
Scott mendelson, however, does not weigh four hundred pounds, last I checked. I believe he is between three and four, but much closer to three. 320, if I recall correctly.
EDIT: My bad. Scott's biggest competitor, Gene Rychlak, surpassed Scott, pressing 1010 pounds. (Two pounds, big whoop).
However, I believe scott weighs less than Gene, and is significantly fitter, so Scott would still be, in my opinion, the superior lifter.
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Last edited by Soljer on Mar 2nd, 2007 at 06:48 PM
Gene Rychlak I believe, I have seen the vid, its probably on youtube, yeah he had a suit and bench shirt on and there were about 4 guys spotting him, he didn't lock out either and he bounced the weight off his chest.
A Powerlifting official would have given it a no lift, although its still pretty impressive.
I do go there but I also have all the handbooks up until the 90's, don't think I have seen an update since about 93, 94. classic marvel is good for the most part but some of there stats are a little wild imo.
Have you seen the ones that some of the guys on the forum have done? they are much closer to the comics because thats whey they have based them on.
I agree, Scott is far superior, I hate Gene! according to his bio hes 345lbs, so I was a little over on my 400lbs estimate. still bigger than Cap though!
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This is an awesome fight. And....there's nothing I can that hasn't already been said. The location makes me give Crossbones a narrow 6/10 margin. If it were a neutral arena, Shang 6/10. But Crossbones is better at using his enviroment, and I can see him getting a makeshift weapon together, like a shiv, or a trash can. Or throwing dirt in Shang's face. He's a dirty fighter, and to my mind, that gives him a narrow advantage. I'm pretty sure Shang and Cross have never met. I'd call this an outright stalemate if they had. Because then Shang would know that Crossbones is a dirty fighter and to watch out for a cheap shot. However, going in cold, Crossbones 6/10 under this setup.
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Crossbones vs Shang Chi
Mar 2nd, 2007 03:47 PM
