This is a thread dedicated the one and only Karate Kid, quite possibly the single most skilled fighter in all of comicdom. Seriously, he’s not just some street-leveler; this guy’s martial arts skills surpass MANY street-levelers by a very wide margin. He’s mastered every single martial art in the universe in the 30th Century. His abilities allow him to tangle with top-tier characters.
I am not responsible for any of these feats, but instead I got them from SiliconDream, who says that he stole them from Mr. X (I’m starting to see a pattern here). http://forums.comicbookresources.co...ead.php?t=69734
Karate Kid uses Superboy as a practice dummy, showing that he has mastered all forms of combat in the known universe.
Note: “I would be dead if I weren’t Superboy.” http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...nture368p05.jpg
Val shatters the Emerald Eye of Ekron. Earlier in the very same story arc, Superboy, Mon-El, Ultra Boy and Pulsar Stargrave all tried their best to do the very same thing and failed to do any real damage whatsoever: http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...SLSH-198-15.jpg
An impressive pain resistance feat. In this story, Projectra suffers from a "pain plague" which kills every victim within six hours from sheer agony; the other Legionnaires save her by bearing the pain for her. A few seconds of this pain is enough to send Timber Wolf, Saturn Girl and Duo Damsel violently insane; yet Karate Kid endures three hours of it without complaint, meditating--and it's worse than when the other Legionnaires took it on.
*Bonus feat: Val immobilizes Timber Wolf with a judo hold. He needed Saturn Girl to blind Brin first, but only because he was afraid he'd accidentally hurt the guy if he had to subdue him with blows--and Brin can take punches from Kryptonians without falling down. http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...oyLSH209-05.jpg http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...oyLSH209-06.jpg http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...oyLSH209-08.jpg
Val breaks out of inertron restraints. For those who don't know, inertron is basically the DC version of Secondary Adamantium...not literally unbreakable, but even PC Kryptonians couldn’t bend or break inertron slabs thicker than a couple of inches. Superboy once broke out of inertron chains, but needed the strength of insanity to do it. http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...oyLSH231-28.jpg http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...oyLSH231-30.jpg
Val gets thrown out a skyscraper window by Nemesis Kid, and by using "the judo techniques of falling," he manages to steer himself toward the building's wall, dig his toes into the concrete, and jump back up through the window. That's some good judo. Then he dodges some “nuclear power blasts” for good measure. http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...ateKid01-17.jpg
By the next issue, KK is not only fighting SUperboy, but the rest of the Legion and does very well. His feat here include:
•Actually putting Superboy down for the count, by a combination of the hold he already put on him and spinning him around at superspeed;
•Knocking down several Legionnaires with said spinning Superboy;
•Dodging a lightning bolt and making sure it nailed Saturn Girl;
•Swinging Superboy around fast enough to block a bolt aimed at Val from behind, as well as a solar energy blast;
•One-shotting Colossal Boy. (But hey, who can't do that?) http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...ateKid13-02.jpg http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...ateKid13-03.jpg http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...ateKid13-04.jpg
Proceed to Karate Kid of the Reboot LSH, which ran from Zero Hour to yet another timeline change last year. This Val looked a little different from the last version, and tended to be more calm and collected. But his skills were just as impressive--I'd say he retained more of his Pre-Crisis mojo than most DC heavyweights. He got more cool sensory feats too--finding weak spots, reading body language, etc.
One thing to note concerning Val's fights with Daxamites: Reboot Daxamites were more powerful than Post-Crisis Superman for most of his career (and possibly the current version as well). They were stronger, flew between star systems at high FTL, had reaction times which let them perceive and avoid incoming lightbeams, and so forth. 12 of them sterilized the planet Trom in seconds with heat vision, in spite of the attempts of its people (who all had Element Lad's powers) to construct shields and insulating walls.
Val staggers a very surprised Daxamite with a kick to the face. (Mr. X thinks he actually broke his jaw, based on the art, but I think it's probably just bruised...the guy talks just fine afterwards and doesn't seem to be in serious pain.): http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...nnual-02-21.jpg
A couple years after the above scene, Val defeats a possessed M'onel. (Yes,same guy as Preboot Mon-El, a Daxamite). This is another long fight--LSH v4 #111 if you want to see more than three pages. Val's feats here include:
•Instantly deducing M'onel's possession and psychoanalyzing the entity possessing him, just by reading his body language from one panel (yeah, M'onel's eyes are glowing and he's snarling and stuff, but still);
•Dancing around M'onel's attacks, including a volley of heat-vision blasts (or a single continuous beam, not sure) at close range;
•Redirecting M'onel's charge and throwing him out of the solar system, so that he ends up in the gravity well of a nearby red star, causing the possessing entity to flee. And Val aimed him that way on purpose; they talked about the star earlier in the story. Crikey. http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...m/LSH111-14.jpg http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...m/LSH111-18.jpg http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...m/LSH111-19.jpg
Val vs. the Emerald Empress, within a larger Legion vs. Fatal Five battle. Even before she got the Eye, the reboot Empress was an incredibly skilled mass-murderer who "knew a thousand ways to kill a hundred species with her bare hands." Probably Lady Shiva-class or above. In the last page, Val hears her heartbeat from a kilometer away, tracks her by it, lets her stalk him, then casually takes her out in one shot. http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...m/LSH121-14.jpg
An admittedly “slow and out of condition” Karate Kid—he spent the last several months training as a pacifist monk—takes on Nadir, a guy with Kryptonian or near-Kryptonian strength and durability. (He defeated Ferro in one panel and two punches, and then casually fractured his body to bits by hand.) Val loses the first round, then comes back and finally defeats him by exploding his weapon’s powerpack. Feats include:
•Surviving getting smashed into the ground by Nadir three times, and twice recovering instantly or almost instantly;
•Dodging between rapid-fire energy blasts;
•Kicking Nadir hard enough to put him on his knees coughing up stuff;
•Punching his powerpack, thereby rigging it to explode when Nadir fired his weapon. http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...am/quothon1.jpg http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...am/quothon2.jpg http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...am/quothon3.jpg
Karate Kid dominates at least thirty inmates of Earth’s highest-security metacriminal prison; superpowers mentioned are flight, super-strength and TK. (In the first round he didn’t do too well before the Persuader broke up the fight, but—as he said—“I wasn’t mentally prepared, then.”) This was Reboot Val’s last big scene—The Legion #37—and it was a good’un.
This is very impressive display of control on Karate Kid’s part over his skills. Here, he completely clears a crust of snow and ice (estimated to be 5 meters and 70,000-80,000 tons) surrounding the Sidney Opera House with NO noticeable damage on the building itself. Now THAT is “control.” http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...-Scanned-13.jpg
You know what's weird? All those times I saw KK in the versus forum, I was thinking about the kid from the movie. I didn't know that he was a comic character.
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God put me on earth to accomplish a certain amount of things. Right now I am so far behind I will never die.
For the people that say he lost to Batman, that is absolutely not true. What happened was that Batman got in one hit on him, but that was because he was being mind - controlled and suffering from memory loss, and we later find out that he's dying of a deadly disease (but he still beat Batman. Black Lightning had to save him):