Batman, for all intents and purposes, killed Darkseid during Final Crisis and yet has lost in the past to individuals such as the Joker and Bane. While other examples may not have such extreme variance (such as Rulk, Hulk, Spiderman, Reed Richards, Superman, Green Lantern, and others), the issue being discussed was a character's powers and abilities being depicted inconsistently and if that alone was enough to dismiss the character and all of their feats out of hand.
My point was that practically every character is depicted inconsistently from writer to writer and from book to book. The Sentry is no difference. When he is the center of a major storyline they tend to amp up his feats, and when he is a tertiary character in someone elses event - he's used as a measuring stick or foil resulting in a lower showing.
Yes, Marvel has just given Sentry a major upgrade but why the hell is everyone so up in arms about it? Practically everyone gets upgrades at some point in their history either permanently or temporarily. In Marvel along there is Extremis Ironman, Spider Totem Spiderman, Odin Force Thor, WWH, Diamond Emma Frost, Adamantium Sabertooth, reality-warping Scarlet Witch, Trion/8th Day Juggernaut, Silver Surfer and Thanos as various times, and the list goes on and on. Yet rarely do you hear people b!tching as loudly as they are now with the Sentry. I just don't understand why.
__________________
Carl - "No, the real point is: I don't give a damn."
Carl - "This line, here? Line of Death. You cross it, and your freedoms no longer exist. Um-kay? Have a good day."
You don't understand because you can't really perceive the difference in power here. Let me summarise your examples.
Iron Man: High meta to High meta
Spidey: Low meta to mid meta
Thor: High herald to Skyfather
Hulk: mid herald to mid herald
Emma: Another power
Sabretooth: low meta to low meta
Scarlet Witch: Not really applicable
Juggernaut: mid herald to mid herald
These are all examples of characters gaining additional legitimate powers. These powers, with the exception of Juggernaut, are CONFIRMED and mentioned in the comics. This has absolutely not a single thing to do with what happened to the Sentry and you know it. Gaining some sort of powerup is completely different from beating around herald to suddenly shooting up to Abstract-level beings and then dropping back down in the next comic. This power-spike has aboslutely not a thing to do with the examples you listed.
Suddenly becoming capable of beating someone faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar above your established level is in no way the same as gaining an additional powers
is it really can upgrade? Or is it him being display at his real potential? I mean when he burst on the seen he was stated to have the power of thousand suns and then the power of million exploding suns. He then had hyperbole comments like stalemating galactus ect. He broke Terrax axe and defeated him with ease as well.
Thanks for explaining it to me, but next time could you use smaller words? My little brain gets all confused so easily these days.
Pretentious dickishness aside, the difference in power is no different that Superman suddenly being able to take down someone like Dominus with Torquasm Vo and then losing to far lesser villains, Kyle Rayner being able to contain the big bang with his will and yet have Deathstroke overpower his control of his ring, or any other comparisons of a character's very highest showings to their lowest ones.
Marvel has said the Sentry is insanely powerful since the beginning (stalemating Galactus, owning a herald, etc), now they are just showing how powerful he really is. I hate to break it to you but matter manipulation is a legitimate power and it has be confirmed in comics that the Sentry has that ability. You may not like it or how the character is written in general, but there really isn't a damn thing you can do about it.
__________________
Carl - "No, the real point is: I don't give a damn."
Carl - "This line, here? Line of Death. You cross it, and your freedoms no longer exist. Um-kay? Have a good day."
Why do you purposely choose to act like you don't understand it? Because it's god damn simple. This power spike is unprecedented, simple as that. Nobody has ever come close to that sudden and 1 ISSUE LONG increase in power.
Owning a herald, sure, that could be possible. Stalemating Galactus was never shown, only stated by Parker, right? And you still seemed to be miss understanding what I was trying to say.
Why does a character drop from such a high level and back to what people consider his regular level. It's not the same as DS losing to Batman, Batman had a Plot Device. It's not like Hal having a hard time beating a low-meta, why? Because those are not high drops like what just happened to Sentry. He was very powerful in his fight with MM, and now, he dropped back to MH. It's a HUGE drop, much more then HH to meta.
Because its not unprecedented. From the beginning they claimed he was able to stalemate Galactus, had him casually owning a herald, and lately had him able to resurrect himself and others instantly. Which of those doesn't scream really frackin' powerful to you?
__________________
Carl - "No, the real point is: I don't give a damn."
Carl - "This line, here? Line of Death. You cross it, and your freedoms no longer exist. Um-kay? Have a good day."
God damnit Khan, I'm at the end of my patience here. How powerful do you think Molecule Man is? Someone who only stalemates Galactus can not even dream of defeating him. He could have killed a thousand Galactus' at once, and not be strong enough to take on Molecule Man.
Its not as if Marvel hasn't explained the cause in the his inconsistent showings: he's crazier than a shithouse rat!
There are at least three separate personalities rolling around his head - Bob Sentry, Void Sentry, and the Void with each demonstrating a different power level.
__________________
Carl - "No, the real point is: I don't give a damn."
Carl - "This line, here? Line of Death. You cross it, and your freedoms no longer exist. Um-kay? Have a good day."
I can accept that. I can accept Bob having different power level, but they have to be considered either an amp, an different version, or something close to that
Clearly, it wasn't classic Molecule Man and the character has either been retconed or de-powered in some way. But that's happened to other similarly powerful characters in Marve (such as the Beyonder).
I don't think Sentry's showing over MM means he's necessarily close to classic MM's power level in any way, in my mind it was just meant to show that he is a high-level matter manipulator. They just dusted off MM and used him as the means to an end because no one was using him at the time. Its not that huge an addition to Sentry's powerset to me.
__________________
Carl - "No, the real point is: I don't give a damn."
Carl - "This line, here? Line of Death. You cross it, and your freedoms no longer exist. Um-kay? Have a good day."
It was current MM, who is still up top in the Marvel hierarchy. Mr.M's onslaught of scans and various interpretations are a PM away. Don't make me do this.
Like I said, either the writers were unaware of classic MM's power level, knew and ignored it, or they plan on retconing or depowering him in the near future, imo. The only reason I think he was even used was to finally show the nature of the Sentry's powers (ie matter manipulation). Any other matter manipulating villain not currently being used anywhere else could have been substituted and not changed the point of the storyline.
Was it the most elegant and logical way to go about giving the Sentry an upgrade? Hell no. But that's all I think they were intending to do. I don't think they honestly meant to start rearranging Marvel's top cosmic hierarchy.
__________________
Carl - "No, the real point is: I don't give a damn."
Carl - "This line, here? Line of Death. You cross it, and your freedoms no longer exist. Um-kay? Have a good day."
Interpretations of the writer's intent do not matter here. You can't provide any single incidents of a character going from Sentry's level, to defeating someone around current MM's level. That's my point, it's never gone this far.
And yet there are a near infinite number of instances where characters have jobbed for the sake of a storyline - which is exactly what MM did here. That's all it was - one relatively obscure and unused character jobbed to make a newer one look better. From Darksied to Thor, it happens all the time.
Could they have picked a character that is less controversial? Of course. But its not as if MM was about to get his own on-going series. Hell Marvel would retcon his entire history in a heart beat if a writer really wanted to in a current book. The companies don't treat history from 10, 20, or 30 years ago with near the reverence as comic fans do.
__________________
Carl - "No, the real point is: I don't give a damn."
Carl - "This line, here? Line of Death. You cross it, and your freedoms no longer exist. Um-kay? Have a good day."
I've already pointed out several instances of jobbing that make just as little if not less sense than MM vs Sentry. If you don't want to accept what happened because you don't agree with it, that's a you problem.
Although, Rulk does come to mind.
__________________
Carl - "No, the real point is: I don't give a damn."
Carl - "This line, here? Line of Death. You cross it, and your freedoms no longer exist. Um-kay? Have a good day."
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Jan 7th, 2010 12:16 PM
