Superman vs. Hulk

Originally posted by DarkSaint85

Assuming he doesn't just punch him upwards.

I was discussing the case of Gladiator versus Hulk from the 1997 annual specifically, so, yes, assuming that ...

Originally posted by DarkSaint85
supposing my friend Joe standing on a train platform, and a book whizzed by his eyes at 60 mph. No way in hell he's reading that.

Right. You're simply repeating my own premise here.

Originally posted by DarkSaint85

He's now in a car, travelling at 60 mph, and travelling for 60 miles. In one hour, he can comfortably read a page (assuming he's not driving).

No offense, but if Joe is NOT driving, yet still taking fully an hour to read a single page of a book, you might want to consider getting him a "Hooked on Phonics" program. 😬

Originally posted by DarkSaint85

Now Joe's in the car, and its travelling the same distance, but at 600 mph. He's still stationary relative to the car, but he's only going to be in there for 6 minutes. Much harder to read that page, but still doable.

I want to ask you how long it takes you to read a page of a book so badly now it's ridiculous.

(I REALLY want to ask P.R. how long HE takes ... but I'm scared of the answer 🙁 )

Originally posted by DarkSaint85

Now its going at 6000 mph. How much time does he have to read that page? 0.6 of a minute, or 36 seconds.

At 60000mph? 3.6 seconds.

At hundreds of times the speed of light?

You see where this is going? Joe, relative to the car, is still stationary. But as the car speeds up, he's spending less and less time in the car, and so, its getting harder and harder for him to read that one page, over a fixed distance

And so it is with Gladiator/Superman carrying the Hulk (not to mention, just picking him up and throwing him, or punching him, which seems to be more SUperman's MO). Relative to the carrier, Hulk DOES appear to be stationary - but as the distance remains the same (ground level to the upper atmosphere) as the carrier speeds up, they will spend less tiem travelling, and thus, less time to react to the new situation.

I get the basic idea you're trying to get across;
taking the hypothetical of Hulk getting "passenger of Gladiator treatment" from Superman, though,
I DON'T see where that all by itself would be a winning advantage for Superman.

Quite the opposite; Superman on the receiving end of a thunderclap from, say,
one of the high-level Hulks we've seen from Pak direct to the head ... equals Superman knocked out.

Or so close to it that the next blow does him in.

If this were part of some larger omega-serious plan a la Superman/Batman #13, however,
I have little problem in saying Superman has a chance of taking Hulk to a place where he can negate such vulnerabilities and reverse the fight in his favor.

There's a few things you're not considering, even besides Superman
opening himself to instant knockout by taking the "bullet train" approach, though ...

I'm generally a fast reader; that's why when I read comics or books, I generally read them a second time just to soak everything in.

Originally posted by bluewaterrider

Right. You're simply repeating my own premise here.

No offense, but if Joe is NOT driving, yet still taking fully an hour to read a single page of a book, you might want to consider getting him a "Hooked on Phonics" program. 😬

I want to ask you how long it takes you to read a page of a book so badly now it's ridiculous.

I get the basic idea you're trying to get across;
taking the hypothetical of Hulk getting "passenger of Gladiator treatment" from Superman, though,
I DON'T see where that all by itself would be a winning advantage for Superman.

Quite the opposite; Superman on the receiving end of a thunderclap from, say,
one of the high-level Hulks we've seen from Pak direct to the head ... equals Superman knocked out.

Or so close to it that the next blow does him in.

If this were part of some larger omega-serious plan a la Superman/Batman #13, however,
I have little problem in saying Superman has a chance of taking Hulk to a place where he can negate such vulnerabilities and reverse the fight in his favor.

There's a few things you're not considering, even besides Superman
opening himself to instant knockout by taking the "bullet train" approach, though ... [/B]

But the point still remains the same. Superman is capable of travelling so fast, that the Hulk won't even realise he is being taken out of the fight, let alone that he has the option of thunderclapping.

I am open to being shown the Hulk possessing reaction feats, though. If you could show me a fast speedster (so not just Quicksilver MAch 3 level or whatever) using their full speed against Savage Hulk, and him reacting to it with superfast reactions (so not holding his arm out and the other guy runs into it or something silly like that), then yes, I can entertain the possibility speed doesn't kill here.

Missed your response before my last post was posted.

Give me warning before you're about to post next time!

At any rate, the most interesting consideration nagging me right now is that, unlike what we think of when we think of everyday conventional speeds and the behavior of objects AT conventional speeds, things get weird when you near the magical light speed realms you're talking off. Like, seriously comic-book weird.
And a lot of the writers of Hulk and Superman are on record saying they read this stuff and actively try to include it in their writings (Mark Waid and Kurt Busiek immediately come to mind).

You've gotta have SOME type of background to understand any of this. Let me give the minimum amount of info that should suggest one of the problems; after I know you've had a chance to read this, I'll expand and explain the central problem if time permits:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
" Since one might not travel faster than light, one might conclude that a human can never travel further from the earth than 40 light-years if the traveler is active between the age of 20 and 60.

A traveler would then never be able to reach more than the very few star systems which exist within the limit of 20-40 light-years from the Earth.

This is a mistaken conclusion: because of time dilation, the traveler can travel thousands of light-years during his 40 active years.

If the spaceship accelerates at a constant 1 g (in its own changing frame of reference), it will, after 354 days, reach speeds a little under the speed of light (for an observer on Earth), and time dilation will increase his lifespan to thousands of Earth years,
seen from the reference system of the Solar System, but the traveler's subjective lifespan will not thereby change.

If the traveler returns to the Earth, he will land thousands of years into the future.
His speed will not be seen as higher than the speed of light by observers on Earth, and the traveler will not measure their speed as being higher than the speed of light, but will see a length contraction of the universe in his direction of travel.

And as the traveler turns around to return, the Earth will seem to experience much more time than the traveler does.

So, although his (ordinary) speed cannot exceed c, the four-velocity (distance as seen by Earth divided by his proper (i.e. subjective) time) can be much greater than c. This is seen in statistical studies of muons traveling much further than c times their half-life (at rest), if traveling close to c ... "

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light

(Edited to properly italicize Wikipedia quote.)

That's not how it works in comics, though. I may as well type a post showcasing how gamma radiation actually gives you all manner of cancers, rather than turning you into a green rage monster...

Originally posted by DarkSaint85
That's not how it works in comics, though ...

But the problem is that sometimes it DOES work like that in comics.

For instance, one famous illustration of relativity is a thought experiment called the twin paradox. Twin World stays on Earth.
Twin Shuttle travels aboard a spaceship going near the speed of light. Twin Shuttle goes to his destination, which is about 2 light years away. Comes back after 4 years. He is 26 when he returns, having started the trip at age 22.
His brother, however, is an old man.

Think you've never seen this premise in a comic before?

If so, read Mark Waid's Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes run, where part of Kara Zor-el winds up one thousand year in the future from chasing an interstellar missile moving near the speed of light for three days.

Such is what relativity would predict, or at least a sci-fi enthusiast like Mark Waid's understanding of it; such is what we see.

Similarly, P.R. made note of the fact somewhere that Superman can see and hear across space. Remember where he went to the planet Vega, was it? Hearing the people across the void and going to their rescue?

I don't know the author of that episode. Probably whoever wrote the "For Tomorrow" storyline.
I DO, however, remember a forum discussion erupting on DC's retraction of it. I don't know if he was the one that did it, but Kurt Busiek himself came on board that particular forum and explained that Superman could NOT, in fact, move faster than the speed of light OR hear sound across a vacuum.

So, again, the body of ideas of relativity and lightspeed with all its quirks and limitations WAS considered, and AGAIN, comic book stories made to conform to them.

And this brings up another point unexplored in this discussion to any extent I can see:
there is little if any uniformity of opinion among DC creative staff, let alone DC AND Marvel writers all being on the same page.

The vision of Superman that exists in the mind of P.R., for instance, is shared, if shared at all, only with a small percentage of DC writers, not all of them as a whole. His opinion is sharply contradicted by some of them, as they themselves hold opinions contradictory to their own peers.

It's very easy to forget details of that sort in a thread like this.

By the way, part of the reason Marvel has a Red She Hulk running around right now is nearly precisely because of what you described -- Betty Banner initially developed cancer, and yes, died, though it was retconned ... from exposure to gamma radiation.

Superman has heard across space more than once, under various writers. It did happen under Azarello (the writer of For Tomorrow), but it has happened under Busiek and several others. His senses seem to be able to function even in a vacuum like that.

The problem with Busiek's retraction is that both before and after it, Superman continued to have feats of hearing in a vacuum and flying faster than light.

Even since the reboot, he's flown well in excess of C at least twice now.

Originally posted by bluewaterrider
But the problem is that sometimes it DOES work like that in comics.

For instance, one famous illustration of relativity is a thought experiment called the twin paradox. Twin World stays on Earth.
Twin Shuttle travels aboard a spaceship going near the speed of light. Twin Shuttle goes to his destination, which is about 2 light years away. Comes back after 4 years. He is 26 when he returns, having started the trip at age 22.
His brother, however, is an old man.

Think you've never seen this premise in a comic before?

If so, read Mark Waid's Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes run, where part of Kara Zor-el winds up one thousand year in the future from chasing an interstellar missile moving near the speed of light for three days.

Such is what relativity would predict, or at least a sci-fi enthusiast like Mark Waid's understanding of it; such is what we see.

Similarly, P.R. made note of the fact somewhere that Superman can see and hear across space. Remember where he went to the planet Vega, was it? Hearing the people across the void and going to their rescue?

I don't know the author of that episode. Probably whoever wrote the "For Tomorrow" storyline.
I DO, however, remember a forum discussion erupting on DC's retraction of it. I don't know if he was the one that did it, but Kurt Busiek himself came on board that particular forum and explained that Superman could NOT, in fact, move faster than the speed of light OR hear sound across a vacuum.

So, again, the body of ideas of relativity and lightspeed with all its quirks and limitations WAS considered, and AGAIN, comic book stories made to conform to them.

And this brings up another point unexplored in this discussion to any extent I can see:
there is little if any uniformity of opinion among DC creative staff, let alone DC AND Marvel writers all being on the same page.

The vision of Superman that exists in the mind of P.R., for instance, is shared, if shared at all, only with a small percentage of DC writers, not all of them as a whole. His opinion is sharply contradicted by some of them, as they themselves hold opinions contradictory to their own peers.

It's very easy to forget details of that sort in a thread like this.

By the way, part of the reason Marvel has a Red She Hulk running around right now is nearly precisely because of what you described -- Betty Banner initially developed cancer, and yes, died, though it was retconned ... from exposure to gamma radiation.

OK - so, the main premise of your argument is - what, exactly? That comics sometimes do not conform to real world logic?

That's a fair assumption to make. Does that mean we throw out examples where they focus on the fiction, rather than the science? I don't think so.

Originally posted by DarkSaint85
OK - so, the main premise of your argument is - what, exactly? That comics sometimes do not conform to real world logic?

That's a fair assumption to make. Does that mean we throw out examples where they focus on the fiction, rather than the science? I don't think so.

No, I'm saying it's important to consider what the reality was in the minds of the creative teams who wrote a particular story.

For instance, in that 1997 Hulk annual, that fight with Gladiator, the author had in mind that, for all his speed, Gladiator grabbing Hulk and taking him up into the upper atmostphere would not work before Hulk had a chance to quickly clap Gladiator a good one and crater them both back to Earth. Was that due to Gladiator being slow, Hulk being fast, or consideration of what moving at that speed would actually be like?

The answer considered from any of those 3 angles would be legitimate: Gladiator had just been pounded and weakened (Hulk himself commented that his face should have been road pizza); Hulk has MUCH faster reflexes than conventional opponents expect; the (at least one, that is) argument from relativity says that Hulk would be like Twin "Shuttle", experiencing time in a different inertial frame than the rest of us by virtue of being carried like a passenger on a near light speed velocity ship.

Which is right? Which is the reason? I can say with confidence that Mark Waid would be amenable to the last, and, being the scifi geek he is, would probably come up with that himself.
Kurt Busiek might go with the last or the first.
Greg Pak would probably go for option #2.

Except that writer intent is a secondary source when we talk about what feats apply and what ones don't. If we went by each writer's "idea" behind a character, we'd never find a happy medium or an average.

People start to argue which writer's interpretation is superior, rather than which character.

You probably already realize, but it should probably still be spelled out ...

the weirdness of relativity at "near-light-speed", "light-speed", or even "faster-than-light-speed" speeds

.. suggests that at some point speed ceases to be any real advantage, at least in the sense of accomplishing more in less time than your opponent can.

Note, for instance, that Kara Zor-el only completed the "work" of 3 days. The rest of the universe, moving at its normal stately pace, accomplished the work of 365,000 days.

A writer considering things from THAT viewpoint, let alone their own views on how efficient a person unused to moving at speed would be, their own ideas on how fast Hulk's near deus ex machina rage works to power him past difficulty, not to mention how long it takes even to recover balance and re-set to attack once more, probably won't see Hulk suffering much of the treatment you envision him taking from the Man in Blue.

But your analogue of a near light velocity ship, only holds true if Gladiator and, by extension, Superman, was travelling at near lightspeeds, no? If you can prove that Glads was travelling at his potential, when he was carrying the Hulk, then argument 3 is valid.

Post a scan, please, of the Hulk's fastest reaction times. And not clotheslining someone, or holding his arm out and someone running into it (because by that argument, Deathstroke has Flash-level reactions). Because by this scan, argument 2 can be valid.

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Gladiator was not fighting at peak efficiency, and was handicapped. That would be argument 1.

A 4th explanation was that it was PIS - the writer's intent was that the Hulk was to win, and he just didn't care about the explanation, and wrote it that way.

Oh, and by the by, from the pen of Mark Waid (JLA: Heaven's Ladder):

"Superman can race a speeding photon to its target"

Whilst you will no doubt focus on the 2nd part of the sentence, that he could not react, writer's intent was clearly to show that despite Superman's clearly fast reactions, there are some things even faster still.

Also, that Mark Waid does not quite care for real world physics when he has a story to write.

Originally posted by DarkSaint85

A 4th explanation was that it was PIS - the writer's intent was that the Hulk was to win, and he just didn't care about the explanation, and wrote it that way.

That can be the explanation for just about anything we discuss on this forum, though.
Arguably that holds truer for some writers than others, of course ...

Originally posted by DarkSaint85

Post a scan, please, of the Hulk's fastest reaction times. And not clotheslining someone, or holding his arm out and someone running into it (because by that argument, Deathstroke has Flash-level reactions). Because by this scan, argument 2 can be valid.

I don't have a tremendous amount of material on the Hulk.
We both know of Hulk swatting Quicksilver of course ... other submissions you'll probably want to contact Carver or ODG for.
I don't know of too many light-speed capable beings Hulk has fought outside of Gladiator and Silver Surfer.

Originally posted by DarkSaint85

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Gladiator was not fighting at peak efficiency, and was handicapped. That would be argument 1.

When you have eliminated the impossible, you've eliminated much of the action that defines superhero comics ... 😬

Originally posted by DarkSaint85
your analogue of a near light velocity ship, only holds true if Gladiator and, by extension, Superman, was travelling at near lightspeeds, no?

No, in the sense that Gladiator is a ship regardless of how fast he is going, and, by his action of grabbing and carrying, is putting Hulk into a different inertial frame.

The FULL weirdness of relativity won't reveal itself until fairly close to light speed velocity, though; that much is true...

Originally posted by DarkSaint85
Whilst you will no doubt focus on the 2nd part of the sentence, that he could not react, writer's intent was clearly to show that despite Superman's clearly fast reactions, there are some things even faster still.

Also, that Mark Waid does not quite care for real world physics when he has a story to write.

Waid wrote the Flash, after all.

Different inertial frames are all well and good, but much like our example of Joe and the book reading, if the car is travelling at a high speed over a fixed distance, does that not mean that the time spent travelling, and thus, reacting, is less?

And it doesn't have to be fighting lightspeeders.

Light is Mach 886559. Hulk having Mach 100 reactions will do, or Mach 1000. 5000 times the speed of sound, perhaps? This would also avoid any tricky relativity problems. Quicksilver is fast, for Marvel Earth.....

Or a travelling speed feat for him - whereas travelling speed does not always equal reaction speeds, for the Hulk, this would be different, imo, as his travelling involves him pumping those legs and swinging his arms.

Originally posted by DarkSaint85
Different inertial frames are all well and good, but much like our example of Joe and the book reading, if the car is travelling at a high speed over a fixed distance, does that not mean that the time spent travelling, and thus, reacting, is less?

Depends on the writer.

But I largely agree with you.

And you're deriving conclusions from the problem I presented now itself instead of using something completely contrary and unrelated, which is why I said this is MUCH better than your

"Fantastic-Four-stuck-more-or-less-standing-still-in-the-Baxter-Building-with-something-moving-towards-them" example from before.

Originally posted by DarkSaint85
a travelling speed feat for him - whereas travelling speed does not always equal reaction speeds, for the Hulk, this would be different, imo, as his travelling involves him pumping those legs and swinging his arms.

Immediately coming to mind is Rulk (who is roughly original base Savage Hulk level in terms of physical abilities) jumping from the moon back to Earth after fighting Thor.

But I don't have that particular comic, and do not recall having read an exact time given for how long that return trip took.

If only a few minutes, though, would mean Hulk jump speed beats out that of the most powerful rockets ever launched in our real world by a wide, wide margin ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V