And this
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.
Anyway!
“Legion of Super-Heroes v4”/”Legionnaires” era:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...ires-022-08.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...ires-022-15.jpg
Val, trapped in a cell for superpowered convicts, detects a weak spot in the force field and collapses it. This is early on in his career, before he joined the Legion.
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...nnual-02-21.jpg
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...m/LSH111-14.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...m/LSH111-18.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...m/LSH111-19.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/LSH121-14.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..._v4_n125-08.jpg
Val “senses micro-fractures” in a space station’s hull.
From the “Universe Ablaze” Titans/Legion crossover:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...tanslsh2-01.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...tanslsh2-02.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...tanslsh2-03.jpg
In an homage to a Silver Age scene shown above, Reboot Val shows that he too is an expert in martial arts across the galaxy, including those with weapons. This time his sparring partner is M’onel, who’s actively fighting back and explicitly using his superspeed—but Val still wins the bout.
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...tanslsh4-19.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...tanslsh4-20.jpg
Val detects the weakest spot on a huge Tamaranian carrier—containing hundreds of fighters, and hi-tech even by 30th-Century standards—and destroys it with one punch. Kills himself too, but hey, time travel was involved, so everything worked out okay in the end.
From the “The Legion” era:
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
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...dream/riot5.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...dream/riot6.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y9...dream/riot7.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.
