thanos v thor w/belt of strength: fist fight only!

Originally posted by slade10
What I am saying is that thor at ~1000x stregnth cannot brace hiimself from a head-on blow. And in fact is getting knocked onto his ass, and smashed into the ground. This strongly suggests at least comparable strength.

If thanos were hitting him in the back, or surprise-attacking him (as is true of many characters in the IG fight against thanos above), then that would be a more debatable conclusion. As it wouldn't be strength-on-strenght but rather strength-on-weight.

But this is a 1on1 fistfight, with blows straight to the face and body. If thor at 1000x is 100x or 500x stronger than thanos, he should be able to, by strength alone, prevent thanos from grabbing him by the head and smashing him into the floor. Just as an ant would not be able to grab you by your neck and smash you into the floor -- particularly if you are standing their prepared for the ant's attack.

But you have to realize that Thanos punching Thor in the face or slamming Thor to the ground or knocking Thor on his ass, are just that. There was no real test of strength between the 2 to determine Thanos is whatever amounts stronger than Thor. Prime examples are Thor and Hulk. They were locked for an hour in a test of strength. Herc and Thor were also dead locked at a time. Namor is many many times stronger than Daredevil, yet DD was still able to punch him through glass. If Thor actually tried to physically stop Thanos from slamming him into the ground by grabbing him hand, then you may be able to make the assumption that Thanos overpowered Thor and may be multiple times stronger.

I believe this is the page slade refers to about thanos being cut off from all the gems bar the power gem, but I don't think that's true as Thanos states there he will cut himself off from the sensory element but retain the power. Therefore he kinda isn't cut off from the gems depends on how you interpret it.

damn, go away one day . . .

i'll not rehash all of this, but i'll look at a couple of salient points:

1. gauntlet affair. slade, whether unknowingly or not, you've mixed things up. he did NOT cut himself off from the gauntlet's power, rather he cut himself off from a portion of it. in fact, far FROM cutting himself off from everything save the power gem he still RETAINED his infinite power, he just didn't allow himself to know his opponents' next move. given that he still had so much power, this really wasn't a great showing. without the gems, we can concluse thanos would have had his ass handed to him by this group. here's the scan:

2. thor #25 -- thor v thanos/thanos clone. the clone controlled mangog and stormed asgard. it usurped power from ODIN and wielded power that supposedly EXCEEDED odins! tell again how it was a 'weak' clone'? thor states that odin increased the power of mjollnir with the odin power, he has his belt and his shield. interpret as you may, but if the odinpower was fueling him, he certainly wouldn't need the belt. imo odin increased the power of his hammer and that was it. the belt doubled his strength. he also wouldn't need the shield if he were wielding the odinpower.

aside from that -- you keep saying thor couldn't get near him. of course he couldn't -- thanos was using power GREATER than odin's! at least great enough to cause odin great dread and fear, and great enough to snuff a planet casually with a single shot. so . . . not too surprising regular thor couldn't touch him! thor ended up fighting this AMPED thanos without his shield, (destroyed by thanos) h2h. again, it's my opinion this was done with only the belt amping his strength. he never used his hammer's powers during the fight. it was a GREAT showing for thor who actually ko'd thanos at the end.

3. ss/parallax?? non-canon -- who gives a rat's arse. 😕

4. the power gem issue. nothing has ever been conclusively proven with regards to it. as far as thanos using the power gem to kill gardner -- not wholly true. turns out we were BOTH right about this. he used the power gem to AUGMENT gardner's gem's abilities to have it's powers run amok. THAT is the purpose of the power gem -- it augments and is a power supply for all the others. it's like the backbone of the gauntlet. it seems none of the other gems are that powerful without its backing. still unclear what the power gem does in a solitary fashion. apparently some can pull power from it to augment strength. i disagree with cc's assessment that jameson could slam hulk if he had it. i doubt he could do much more than reach say, spidey level. no knowledge of how to use it. NO ONE apparently has knowledge, which is why i said initially that thor's belt of strength may be comparable to the gem on a FEAT BASIS. VERY few good feats for the power gem alone by its users. makes sense to me -- the gem's function isn't to supply power to an individual -- rather it is meant to augment the gems. like them, it is less they they are seperated from them.

5. i still say thanos was getting totaled bby tyrant until he accessed the orb's power. i leave that for others. scans posted in the warrrior mad thor v immortal hercules thread a page or 2 back. anyone is welcome to check it out for themselves and decide. i'm not sure about thanos amping his strength cosmically. i've never seen him do it, nor has it been alluded to that i've ever seen. he's got his base strength. no proof exists that i know of that shows/says he can raise his strength level.

6. thanos is NOT 100x stronger than thor. stronger yes. more powerful, yes. with his belt strength would be close imo, though thanos would likely still win for the damage he could take -- belt doesn't up thor's durability.

whew . . .

last thing, slade:

here's a blow up of thanos reaching for the orb after tyrant bashed him around. seriously, you CANNOT look at that and say the aritst wasn't showing his hand shaking. even the look on his face is saying -- sh!t, better get that orb back! again -- i'll contend thanos tried using his own power (utterly ineffectually, and he had his ass beat down for it) against tyrant (egomaniac that thanos is) BEFORE he used the orb's powers, powers which turned the fight and made things more even, though tyrant was STILL the more powerful of the 2.

Originally posted by jrodslam
But you have to realize that Thanos punching Thor in the face or slamming Thor to the ground or knocking Thor on his ass, are just that. There was no real test of strength between the 2 to determine Thanos is whatever amounts stronger than Thor. Prime examples are Thor and Hulk. They were locked for an hour in a test of strength. Herc and Thor were also dead locked at a time. Namor is many many times stronger than Daredevil, yet DD was still able to punch him through glass. If Thor actually tried to physically stop Thanos from slamming him into the ground by grabbing him hand, then you may be able to make the assumption that Thanos overpowered Thor and may be multiple times stronger.

*my* position through all of this has been that a 100x strength difference is not that much at all. Everything in comics is amplified, and characters with 100x, 1000x, 10000x strength multiples often fight 1on1. Thanos, for example, is not equal to tyrant's strength, despite the fact that he was able to hurt him with a few punches.

Even under MY interpretation of comics, however, there's a difference between saying htat a character can fight and survive with vastly lower strength than their enemy, and that a character can smash someone around with vastly lower strength. When batman, captain america, spider-man etc. fight vastly stronger characters they survive and sometimes even do well -- BUT they do not run up to their enemies and match them blow for blow, or smash their heads into the ground. They use plot devices and evade physical confrontations -- and survive the blows they do receive.

You apparently want to see an arm wrestling match or lifting contest, but that is nto going to happen. Which is fine, in my view -- a fistfight or wrestling match between two prepare dopponents is even better than an arm wrestling match or lifting contest for illustrating strength. It shows how much BATTLE STRENGTH the two characters have.

In this fight, thanos is at least equal, probably doing better than wm thor. If you've ever wrestled, for example (I did in high school), you would know it's virtually impossible to get a prepared opponent to the ground if he is singificantly stronger than you. Strength is not contained soley in the arms. You have muscles in your back, neck, and torso that will prevent a weak opponent from taking you down.

WM thor did not have the strength to prevent that from happening. Far from it, he was getting battered all over the place. It defies all reason that this is just an illustration of durability; THANOS IS THE ONE DISHING OUT MOST OF THE PAIN.

I feel like people are taking inconsistent positions here. On the one hand, they want to argue that if thanos is so much stronger than everyone else, then he should blow up everyone's head in a single blow. (despite innumerable examples where this should have happened, if this were real life, but did not).

But when it comes to this particular fight, people want to argue that wm thor is in fact vastly stronger than thanos -- he's just a really stupid fighter or something?

That's a pretty gaping inconsistency.

Originally posted by raptornx
I believe this is the page slade refers to about thanos being cut off from all the gems bar the power gem, but I don't think that's true as Thanos states there he will cut himself off from the sensory element but retain the power. Therefore he kinda isn't cut off from the gems depends on how you interpret it.

Yes, that's the scan.

No, it does not mean he maintains the infinity gaunlet. Time, space, thought, etc are the 5 other gems. Cutting them off means he's cutting himself off from the power.

This is affirmed in the fight. He does not use super-speed, stop time, soul drain, mind control, or blink people out of existence. You realize that throughout this dialog, he has stopped time, right? When he snaps his finger, his control over time ends.

This is straightforward, I think. And is common knowledge on every forum I have participated in -- in this one too, at least until this point.

Leo below takes the last sentence too seriously -- about predicting his opponents moves. if he were using the infinity gauntlet, he would have NO NEED to predict anyone's moves. Indeed, he had already demonstrated that he could just stop them from moving entirely, and come back a millenium (well, not really, since time stopped later) later to eat them for breakfast.

Originally posted by leonidas
2. thor #25 -- thor v thanos/thanos clone. the clone controlled mangog and stormed asgard. it usurped power from ODIN and wielded power that supposedly EXCEEDED odins! tell again how it was a 'weak' clone'? thor states that odin increased the power of mjollnir with the odin power, he has his belt and his shield. interpret as you may, but if the odinpower was fueling him, he certainly wouldn't need the belt. imo odin increased the power of his hammer and that was it. the belt doubled his strength. he also wouldn't need the shield if he were wielding the odinpower.

It was weak relative to thanos -- not weak, period. Thanos is shown chuckling later on about how thor is proud of his victory. He explicitly states that he's using inferior clones of hiimself to test various heros. Someone posted a scan of this previously. It's in a discussion with, I think, gamora?

Originally posted by leonidas

3. ss/parallax?? non-canon -- who gives a rat's arse. 😕

I certainly don't. Av brought it up, apparently to show that thanos was so weak he could be drained by a normal GL. He conveniently edited out that throughout that comic, parallax and thanos were set against each other as equals, and that Kyle ALSO implausibly drained Parallax.

Originally posted by leonidas
4. the power gem issue. nothing has ever been conclusively proven with regards to it. as far as thanos using the power gem to kill gardner -- not wholly true. turns out we were BOTH right about this. he used the power gem to AUGMENT gardner's gem's abilities to have it's powers run amok. THAT is the purpose of the power gem -- it augments and is a power supply for all the others. it's like the backbone of the gauntlet. it seems none of the other gems are that powerful without its backing.
[/B]

Well, you're just wrong here. Go back and read thanos quest, which identifies the powers of the gems. Runner, already the fastest being in the marvel universe, stated that the space gem made him far faster. Grandmaster was warping reality to design all sorts of crazy contests with the reality gem. Thanos stopped time, turned runner into an old man, and then a baby, with the time gem. All of the gems are massively powerful alone. In fact, none of the elders even knew about their combined power until thanos came along -- yet they were still their prized possessions. And it's not as if these elders are neophytes. They are among the most powerful entities in the marvel universe.

Originally posted by leonidas
5. i still say thanos was getting totaled bby tyrant until he accessed the orb's power.
[/B]

You know, I actually went back and read that comic (or actually, a torrent of it), and it's even worse than I said before. THat orb was simply MORG"S power.

Tyrant had drained a bunch of different heros (surfer, gladiator, brb) and stored their powers in orbs. Your best case scenario si that this is thanos + morg. (and morg is not particularly powerful, relative to thanos, so it would be more of an "in your face" trinket than a real power source). In all likelihood, it wasn't even that, since you still have failed to explain why tyrant would store one power orb away from all the others, then leave an indication of its isolated presence in a computer.... You also need to explain why tyrant woudl seemingly not care at all about the orb at the start or end of the fight, and why the orb would never be mentioned again in any comic. This is an artificat of significant power?

Originally posted by leonidas
6. thanos is NOT 100x stronger than thor. stronger yes. more powerful, yes. with his belt strength would be close imo, though thanos would likely still win for the damage he could take -- belt doesn't up thor's durability.
[/B]

You have no basis for making that claim at all. I've already proven that wm is 10x, contrary to your repeated claims that this was just "forum rumors and nonsense." And your position on the power gem (that it is the backbone of the other gems) further undermines you. If the power gem is truly that powerful, thanos MUST be vastly more than 10x thor strength -- since he was thumping on thor with the power gem. On the other hand, if the power gem is merely as powerful as the belt of strength, which is laughable, that implies thanos is at least 20x.

Simply stating that "thor is really strong" is not an argument. Spider-man is also really strong, but thor is 1000000x+ stronger than spider-man. Why can't thanos be 100x+ stronger than thanos? Spider-man does reasonably well against thor-strength heros in crossover series. It stands to reason that thor-strength heros will do reasonably well against thanos, especially if there is only a 100x difference.

Ok, actually I was wrong about the power gem. It DOES power up the other gems, in addition to its own power. On the other hand, it is also very clear the other gems are vastly powerful ON THEIR OWN. And this fact is showin in the comics, when thanos uses them individually.

Here are scans describing the gems' powers:

(Notice, for example, that the mind gem can touch every mind in the universe, and turn them into the bearers' thrall.)

STILL, there is no indication that the other gems were used in the IG fight. Limitless power, in my view, should mean limitless power (strength) from the power gem alone. There is really no other plausible explanation, as thanos did not use any of the other gems' powers in the fight, except arguably the reality gem. (but thanos has already shown transmutation abilities, so this is nothing new)

you're arguing semantics and interpretation. thanos says with abundant clarity -- i will retain limitless power. of course he doesn't use all the gems powers -- he's giving them a chance. but no where does it say he cuts off their power. preventing sensory input means he can't read their minds or use his cosmic awareness - not that he's not using its powers in other ways. one thing should be clear -- that was NOT regular thanos, and as such should not have any bearing on this discussion.

you read the power gem yourself. you can interpret however you like. fact remains, without making an excuse for a wielder, no one has ever been able to use it in the way you suggest, or to the level you claim it can raise someone to. preach all you want about it, feats and lack of feats are what's important here, and no wielder of a power gew has done anything even close to lifting the midgard serpent or holding the earth. hulk has smashed planetary objects and so has glads. superman has done many similar things. you still think thanos is 100x stronger than superman?? who has bested darkseid in physical combat. darkseid who has long been considered a thanos equivalent? to be clear, THAT is what you're saying, right?

as far as your scans about the gems -- they're irrelevent because thanos already HAS the power gem as he experiments, so already his level of control and their power presumeably, is augmented beyond what it would be if he had them individually. that is what each is capable of with the power gem behind it, imo. moondragon for instance has never been capable of the feats depicted in that scan. why? because the whole of the gems is greater than the sum of their parts.

we could argue the point forever, cuz that is the way i see it, and the only way i can see everything that i know about them fitting together.

as far as the orb -- i told you - tyrant didn't care about it. it was insignificant. why was it alone? i don't know. you think tyrant left it out just in case someone HAPPENED to crack his computers and said -- where is the orb holding morg's power? for that matter, is thano's tech blind, or imagining things? if it was a decoy, why'd the computers find the orb in the first place? thanos's vaunted tech couldn't tell it wa s a decoy?

thanos first attack did less than nothing. he was getting smacked around. dropped the orb. desperately thought to regain it. shot through it, punched WITH it, wrestled with it held in his hand. clearly it was meant to be shown to helping thanos.

thanos+morg is a pretty substantial being, and thanos was still on the losing end. to say HOW great the increase, we'd need to know how tough tyrant was. weaker for sure than galactus. i'd guess somewhere just above skyfather. odin probably had an easier time withy ss and drax than trant did, in fact. morg would be a good addition to thanos and would help even things a bit, especially when tyrant probably wasn't THAT far above thanos to begin with.

oh, and the state of thanos's clone BEFORE he took power that may have exceeded even odin's, is irrelevent. thor fought him at the skyfather level. and just because thanos laughed doesn't mean much in any event.

Originally posted by leonidas
preventing sensory input means he can't read their minds or use his cosmic awareness - not that he's not using its powers in other ways. one thing should be clear -- that was NOT regular thanos, and as such should not have any bearing on this discussion.

How do you manipulate something if you have no sensory input of it? I can change reality without sensing it? I can manipulate minds without sensing them? I can stop time with no awareness of it? Your position makes no sense. Point to a single example that indicates that thanos was using one of the other infinity gems.

Originally posted by leonidas

you read the power gem yourself. you can interpret however you like. fact remains, without making an excuse for a wielder, no one has ever been able to use it in the way you suggest, or to the level you claim it can raise someone to.

Which means that thanos crushed a team of 20 superheros largely on his own power. Sorry, but however you interpret it, it doesn't help you. If the power gem is uber, then thanos is uber for smashing wm thor. If the power gem is a trinket, then thanos is uber for smashing the team of 20 with a trinket.

Originally posted by leonidas

as far as your scans about the gems -- they're irrelevent because thanos already HAS the power gem as he experiments, so already his level of control and their power presumeably, is augmented beyond what it would be if he had them individually. that is what each is capable of with the power gem behind it, imo. moondragon for instance has never been capable of the feats depicted in that scan. why? because the whole of the gems is greater than the sum of their parts.

No. Because warlock as god (IG bearer) put safeguards on the mind gem prior to granting it to moondragon, preventing her from fully tapping it. Even so, moondragon has some impressive feats -- including mind controlling an entire planet.

Originally posted by leonidas

as far as the orb -- i told you - tyrant didn't care about it. it was insignificant. why was it alone? i don't know. you think tyrant left it out just in case someone HAPPENED to crack his computers and said -- where is the orb holding morg's power? for that matter, is thano's tech blind, or imagining things? if it was a decoy, why'd the computers find the orb in the first place? thanos's vaunted tech couldn't tell it wa s a decoy?

Um, thanos didn't have any tech with him when he took the orb. He was in tyrant's base. He hacked the computer, grabbed the orb, then ran off to fight tyrant. Later on, you see thanos examining the orb with a bunch of devices, which weighs against your interpretation -- that this orb had any immediate exploitable power.

Originally posted by leonidas

thanos first attack did less than nothing. he was getting smacked around. dropped the orb. desperately thought to regain it. shot through it, punched WITH it, wrestled with it held in his hand. clearly it was meant to be shown to helping thanos.

His first attack (which did "nothing" in your view) was WITH THE ORB, contrary to what you stated earlier. And he was not getting "smacked around." he got hit once and dropped it. Then picked it back up BEFORE HE WAS STRUCK AGAIN. There was NO indication of any harm at all. Thanos was knocked into the air (WITH the orb), but aren't you the one who was saying getting knocked around says nothing about power?

You ahve this odd faith that this orb had power. Yet there's no mention of the orb in the fight. No mention of thanos exploting any power from the orb, before or after the fight. And tyrant states, "You are more than these others." Not "You are more than these others WITH MY STOLEN ORB" or "GIVE ME BACK MY ORB, IMMEDIATELY." Thanos talks a lot about the knowledge he has and will obtain from the orb, but strangely, NOT POWER.

Originally posted by leonidas

thanos+morg is a pretty substantial being, and thanos was still on the losing end. to say HOW great the increase, we'd need to know how tough tyrant was. weaker for sure than galactus. i'd guess somewhere just above skyfather. odin probably had an easier time withy ss and drax than trant did, in fact. morg would be a good addition to thanos and would help even things a bit, especially when tyrant probably wasn't THAT far above thanos to begin with.

Just above skyfather? You realize that after the fight with thanos, tyrant challenges galactus to a fight, and is about to kill him when morg shows up with the ultimate nullifier, right?

And morg is a bug compared to thanos. THis has been shown repeatedly. Heralds are unable to harm thanos, and they get 1-shotted in virtually every fight with him. They have an even lesser chance against tyrant -- e.g. surfer (who is > morg) blasting tyrant repeatedly to literally zero effect (until tyrant got irritated and 1 shot him). Adding a zero does not add up to much.

Moreover, i's not even clear what power tyrant drained from morg, since morg was back to full power after he escaped from tyrant. (which has already happened by this point in the story) Was he draining the power cosmic via galactus (considerable, but puny relative to thanos' power)? Or just morg's intrinsic powers? (even more puny than puny) And how did the power stay in the orb, if morg was back up, and flying arond trying to kill terrax?

So, in short, you have:

a. zero textual evidence that thanos used any power from the orb.
b. zero textual evidence that the power in the orb was significant
c. zero textual evidence that, even if the power of the orb was significant and usable, it was anywhere near the power of the thousnads of orbs tyrant was already drawing power from in his base

and finally

d. zero textual evidence that tyrant considered his fight with thanos unfair or loaded

Yet you continue to believe that this fight was all about the orb. Sorry, but that strains credulity.

Originally posted by leonidas
oh, and the state of thanos's clone BEFORE he took power that may have exceeded even odin's, is irrelevent. thor fought him at the skyfather level. and just because thanos laughed doesn't mean much in any event.

Considering the clone:

1. Enthralled mangog
2. Basically walked into Asgard, smashed all its defenses, and took an artifcat from odin (admittedly, after he had been poisoned... how lame is it that a skyfather can be poisoned?)
3. was virtually immune to thor even without any boosts (even when thor let loose with a planet-busting blast from mjolnir)

I'd say it's pretty significant. As thanos says in the comic, thor is "puny" to him. What does that tell us about the real thing?

<<How do you manipulate something if you have no sensory input of it? I can change reality without sensing it? I can manipulate minds without sensing them? I can stop time with no awareness of it? Your position makes no sense. Point to a single example that indicates that thanos was using one of the other infinity gems.>>

he wasn't manipulating -- that as the idea. but he still retained the power it gave him. i could say show me where it says he used ONLY the power gem . . .

<<Which means that thanos crushed a team of 20 superheros largely on his own power. Sorry, but however you interpret it, it doesn't help you. If the power gem is uber, then thanos is uber for smashing wm thor. If the power gem is a trinket, then thanos is uber for smashing the team of 20 with a trinket.>>

he didn't crush 20 on his own or with just the power gem. HE RETAINED HIS LIMITLESS POWER. he said it, not me. you say i have no textual evidence of anything, then, i give you textual evidence and you say i misread it, or misinterpret it. are you ABOVE misinterpreting?

<<Um, thanos didn't have any tech with him when he took the orb. He was in tyrant's base. He hacked the computer, grabbed the orb, then ran off to fight tyrant. Later on, you see thanos examining the orb with a bunch of devices, which weighs against your interpretation -- that this orb had any immediate exploitable power.>>

😑

his computer FOUND it for him when he said WHERE IS THE ORB WITH MORG'S POWER! how much more clear does it have to be stated?? the orb HAD power. are you saying his computer/tech, was fooled by a decoy? that thanos' computer only THOUGHT the orb had morg's power? and somewhere his examining it goes against ME? so, he examines it, sees it has no power, and STILL decides he should steal it? 🤨 how in god's name can you sit there and say the orb was a powerless decoy????

<<You ahve this odd faith that this orb had power. Yet there's no mention of the orb in the fight. No mention of thanos exploting any power from the orb, before or after the fight. And tyrant states, "You are more than these others." Not "You are more than these others WITH MY STOLEN ORB" or "GIVE ME BACK MY ORB, IMMEDIATELY." Thanos talks a lot about the knowledge he has and will obtain from the orb, but strangely, NOT POWER.>>

why would their need to be mention of the orb? it's clear to me it had power. again, why did thanos so desperately reach for it even as tyrant closed in on him?? why not just turn and blast him THEN get the orb?? because the orb amplified his blast is the answer. you keep asking me for explanations. i've given them repeatedly.

<<Just above skyfather? You realize that after the fight with thanos, tyrant challenges galactus to a fight, and is about to kill him when morg shows up with the ultimate nullifier, right?

And morg is a bug compared to thanos. THis has been shown repeatedly. Heralds are unable to harm thanos, and they get 1-shotted in virtually every fight with him. They have an even lesser chance against tyrant -- e.g. surfer (who is > morg) blasting tyrant repeatedly to literally zero effect (until tyrant got irritated and 1 shot him). Adding a zero does not add up to much.

Moreover, i's not even clear what power tyrant drained from morg, since morg was back to full power after he escaped from tyrant. (which has already happened by this point in the story) Was he draining the power cosmic via galactus (considerable, but puny relative to thanos' power)? Or just morg's intrinsic powers? (even more puny than puny) And how did the power stay in the orb, if morg was back up, and flying arond trying to kill terrax?

So, in short, you have:

a. zero textual evidence that thanos used any power from the orb.
b. zero textual evidence that the power in the orb was significant
c. zero textual evidence that, even if the power of the orb was significant and usable, it was anywhere near the power of the thousnads of orbs tyrant was already drawing power from in his base

and finally

d. zero textual evidence that tyrant considered his fight with thanos unfair or loaded

Yet you continue to believe that this fight was all about the orb. Sorry, but that strains credulity.>>

when he fought his next battle (where was that, with the nullifier cuz no, i don't have it and haven't read it) did he USE the power he had gathered? likely, because that was what was hinted at in the cosmic powers series. it's why he was saving it.

to use your own statements:

1. you have zero (less actually since the text SAYS the orb had morg's power) evidence of ANY kind that the orb was powerless and a decoy.
2. zero evidence that tyrant was drawing ANY power from any orbs in his ship as he fought thanos.
3. zero evidence that thanos fought the battle WITHOUT augmentation from the orb.

you keep saying prove it, prove it and clamoring for evidence but haven't given any. you'll not be able to support your ideas because there IS no evidence. i suppose you could say the same of my position. i am wholly confident that anyone seeing/reading the fight would say the orb was obviously a powerful tool, but insignificant to tyrant.

if i'm a millionaire and a dollar falls out of my pocket, do i pick it up? no, but to some poor person a dollar is a lot of money.

so, then answer these question:

1. is thanos 100x stronger than superman and darkseid?
2. were thanos and darkseid depicted as relative equals in the xover?
3. do you have evidence showing the orb was a decoy?
4. do you have any feat done by a power gem wielder that exceeds feats done by those who do NOT wear the gem?
5. what do you consider thanos's greatest pure strength (non-power assisted) feat?

Originally posted by slade10
Considering the clone:

1. Enthralled mangog
2. Basically walked into Asgard, smashed all its defenses, and took an artifcat from odin (admittedly, after he had been poisoned... how lame is it that a skyfather can be poisoned?)
3. was virtually immune to thor even without any boosts (even when thor let loose with a planet-busting blast from mjolnir)

I'd say it's pretty significant. As thanos says in the comic, thor is "puny" to him. What does that tell us about the real thing?

thanos battled a clone from the magus in the past and the battle was HIGHLY in doubt. why should i think this clone was less powerful than THAT clone? thanos is not exactly what one would call a reliable narrator. becuae he made light of it AFTER a friggin' retcon, i should think the author made the 'clone' weaker than he would have made the original??

i don't think so . . .

btw, this is the LONGEST damn debate i've ever had . . . criminy, i've never been on this damn site so much . . .

I'm not sure there's much point in continuing this argument, but:

1. It states thanos' sensory connection to the 5 forces related to the 5 gems has been cut off. Of course he still retains the power to manipulate them. He has the IG, after all, and he wills himself back to full power after the fight. But you cannot manipulate what you cannot even sense.

2. Of course he had limitless power. He was using the POWER GEM -- duh. That does not mean he was using the IG. FOr god's sake, the text explicitly mentions the other five gem forces by name. If they simply meant that he wasn't going to predict his opponents' moves, why wouldn't they simply say that? Why mention the forces of the other 5 gems?

3. It wasn't thanos' computer in that scene. It was tyrant's computer, and tyrant's base. Thanos had no tech all the time. HE DOES use his tech on it later. If you have the comic, check the last pages. Thanos is tinkering with the orb and he talks about the knowledge he can aquire from it. Notably he still says nothing about POWER (rather, he says "with knowledge, there is power."😉

I'm not committed to the position that it was a decoy; I said that was a possibility. But what's clear is that this was an insignificant power source. You want to take a razor's edge position -- that it was insigificant to tyrant but not to thanos. That makes no sense.

And I'm still wondering why we haven't seen this orb again. If it's amping thanos up from 2x to 100x thor strength, you'd think we'd hear about again, huh? Especially since you think the power gem is like 2x -- this orb would be like the most powerful strength-boosting artifcat in the marvel universe. Funny how worlds are destroyed and series are written about the power gem, yet this orb, dozens of times more powerful than the power gem, is never heard of again?

My interpretation, that it was acquired as a mere prize, or to acquire more knowledge about tyrant, requires no contorted explanation. It also squares better with the comic.

4. As for the scene where he is picking it up, I still don't see shaking fingers, and I don't want to argue about this again. There are lines next to tyrant's feet, adn there are lines next to thanos' hand. He reaches for it, and he picks it up. He had not been hurt prior to dropping it, and he was not seriously hurt after dropping it, until the end of the fight when tyrant goes nova.

5. You still haven't explained how adding morg's power would contribute to a fight with tyrant. Surfer and a bunch of other heralds combined could not even scratch tyrant. Morg himself was literally enthralled by tyrant and shoved into a battery, until he escaped and ran back to galactus.

Yet somehow morg's power in the orb amps thanos up 50x? That makes no sense. If a single herald's power meant that much, then why would herald teams fall to tyrant like flies?

6. The difference between your and my position is that my position needs no proof. If there is no indication that a character is amped, it's safe to assume they're at normal power. Your position, on the other hand, creates numerous oddities and inconsistencies that need to be answered.

7. To answer your questions:

a. Yes, thanos is (at least) 100x superman and (current) darkseid. Just as any skyfather could be.

b. IIRC, no. Darkseid and thanos never even engaged in that comic. In any event, didn't you just say xover was nonsense? If you want to go by xover, thanos = parallax; you prepared to accept that?

c. I already answered this above.

d. Two best I can think of: Thor beating up on the infinity watch, ss, brb, strange unharmed. (when he had trouble taking them on AS INDIVIDUALS with just WM, which is 10x strength). Drax 1-shotting champion.

THe problem is the main hodler of the gem, drax, is both immensely strong without the gem, and also in relatively few comics. The other problem is that for the most part, when the gem appears, it's part of the infinity gauntlet.

But when MARVEL DESCRIBES IT, it states that it has infinite power, and that the wielder gains infinite strength. Please read the text. If you don't agree with marvel, then the burden of proof is on YOU to prove otherwise.

e. Smacking tyrant around is thanos' best strength feat, considering hammer throws from brb, cosmic blasts from surfer, eye beams from gladiator combined did not even AFFECT tyrant. Second best is the warrior madness thor fight. The nice thing about the latter is it actually gives one some numbers.

On and by the way, you still haven't mentioned the wm fight at all. Thanos pounded WM thor at AT LEAST 10x. Even if you think the power gem is 2x, that implies thanos is 20x -- just a TAD bit off your own estimate of 2x.

Originally posted by leonidas
thanos battled a clone from the magus in the past and the battle was HIGHLY in doubt. why should i think this clone was less powerful than THAT clone? thanos is not exactly what one would call a reliable narrator. becuae he made light of it AFTER a friggin' retcon, i should think the author made the 'clone' weaker than he would have made the original??

i don't think so . . .

btw, this is the LONGEST damn debate i've ever had . . . criminy, i've never been on this damn site so much . . .

I don't understand what you're trying to say here. Marvel retconned thanos because they thought the thor apperance was too low of a showing for him. What is wrong with that?

If you don't like it, fine. But marvel are the ones in control of the character. And they say he's too powerful for that showing. Which, as you yourself suggested, was actually not that bad of a showing.

In my view, it was a good move by marvel. It would be sad if thanos' first KO came to thor, even w/ odinforce, when thanos has regularly gone up against the likes of walker, in-betweener, mephsito, galactus, tyrant, the elders of the universe, etc.

where does it say cut off? where does it say he uses just the power gem?

doesn't matter anyway -- we're talking reg thanos. that was not reg thanos however you choose to interpret.

what about that HUGE orb tyrant held and clearly valued? we heard of THAT one again . . .?

and YOU still haven't answered MY questions: why was the first blast shrugged off by tyrant but the one through the orb was so devastating? why bother reclaiming it to BEGIN with as tyrant bore down on him? clearly he didn't need it in your opinion. it certainly didn't appear that tyrant considered him much of a threat the way he walked towards him rather than press the attack.

i'd hardly call morg's power insignificant to anyone, thanos included. adding his power to thanos would certainly help him. should it have helped as much as it appeared to? maybe not. but to use your oft said phrase -- it is a comic and it had to look good. and the difference between our positions is mine explains what is seen, yours doesn't. unless you finally want to tell me why one blast was so useless, but another so devastating. you are quite quick to call 'it's a comic book' but you are also quick to scrutinize every detail of a scene. comics ALWAYS fail at this level of scrutiny, inconsistencies will ALWAYS be found. they weren't meant to be considered in this fashion.

marvel also says hulk is the strongest one there is. stronger than the gem? flash is fastest. stabbed by deathstroke. marvel and dc SAY a lot of things. it's what is shown that matters.

as for wm thor v thanos: nothing was really decided by the fight. you said yourself weaker beings can hang with stronger beings. or i could call pis on the whole arc as so many in the forum have done. and 20 is a further cry from a 100 than 2 . . .

and i dare say if you went anywhere in any forum and said that thanos is 100x stronger than darkseid, you'd probably be laughed off the forum. hell, wasn't long ago that wizard gave darkseid a win over thanos.

oh, and it weren't me who first brought up thanos's battle with the jla . . .

thanos once was a cool character. now he's a fanboys dream. like everyone else in marvel his overpowering has lessened him, rather than strengthened his character.

anyways, not much point in continuing. you clearly won't change my mind, i won't change yours. c'est la vie.

Originally posted by leonidas
where does it say cut off? where does it say he uses just the power gem?

It states that sensory perception to the 5 forces relating to the 5 infinity gems have been cut off. If you cannot sense something, you certainly cannot manipulate it. Why do you think they explicitly, and in bold, mention the 5 forces as being cut off, and then state that thanos retains the final force (power) if he really has the full power of all the gems? That makes no sense.

Originally posted by leonidas

what about that HUGE orb tyrant held and clearly valued? we heard of THAT one again . . .?

We do hear about tyrant's orbs later. He drains other people, and we orbs of energy. And I believe near the end of the saga surfer destroys the big one. Even so, there would be no need to see them. We know they are (at least part of) tyrant's power source. We knew he has a lot of them, and that each individually is probably not so snigificant.

In contrast, you claim that thanos was boosted from 2x thor level to at least 100x thor level by this globe. that is VASTLY POWERFUL in thanos' terms. Thanos is a relatively popular character, yet we never see it again. Is he hiding it for a fight that really counts? Is he permanetly powered up by it? Did he accidentally eat it for breakfast? This is an unusually powerful item, for thanos, and your theory is that it just.... what? disappears?

Again, that makes no sense. If you read the comic, and especially the end, it seems sensical to say that it was either a trinket/prize that thanos wanted to shove in tyrant's face (he WAS dropping by merely for the challenge of a fight, after all), or that it was valuable for the knowledge within rather than its power. (as is indicated at the end of the comic)

Originally posted by leonidas

and YOU still haven't answered MY questions: why was the first blast shrugged off by tyrant but the one through the orb was so devastating?

Why are you still bringing this up? I already pointed out that he had the orb from the start of the fight. You have no idea if the orb is being used or if it isn't. Thanos had been tossing it while chatting with tyrant before the fight, (notably, tyrant does not comment about it) and if he had deliberately brought it to battle tyrant, you'd think he'd use it on his first shot.

As for why tyrant doesn't go down. Well, one, he's bracing himself. The second shot, he's not ready for. Second, this sort of thing happens all the time. As the heat of battle goes on, people's anger/passion ramp up, and so too do their powers. For example, consider odin's first shot against thanos in the B&T series:

Are you going to claim that odin must have had a powerup later on, when he blasts thanos into asgard? After all, the first shot here does even less damage than thanos' first shot against tyrant.

Originally posted by leonidas

i'd hardly call morg's power insignificant to anyone, thanos included. adding his power to thanos would certainly help him.

Not really. You already said the power was insignificant to tyrant. Why you think it's significant to thanos, in a fight where they are shown as near equals, is befuddling to me.

Originally posted by leonidas

should it have helped as much as it appeared to? maybe not. but to use your oft said phrase -- it is a comic and it had to look good.

That's not my position. What I've said repeatedly is that comics do not have to be consistent with the real world. I have not said they do not have to be consistent with themselves. And i've never said antyhing about "it had to look good." I don't know where you're getting that.

If there is a fight between superman and darkseid, and superman grabs an energy orb with the strength of batman, then it should not make a difference. That is INTERNALLY inconsistent because batman has not been shown to have the power level to harm darkseid. On the other hand, if batman survives a blow from superman or darkseid, i have no problem with that. Because he survives such blows all the time -- in fact most extremely weak characters do. Deaths of comic characters are rather rare.

Internal consistency? Yes, it's desirable, if not necessary. It's the only way to have a coherent storyline. External consistency with reality? Don't care. It's a fantasy world where the rules of science and nature are broken by assumption.

The fact is, morg has been shown to be even weaker than batman relative to superman/darkseid. At least batman has shown the ability to hurt people in that range, usually with surprise attacks. On the other hand, morg has not shown even that meager ability against tyrant. And yet somehow his power, in your view, is amping thanos at least dozens of times. That makes no (internal) sense.

Originally posted by leonidas

marvel also says hulk is the strongest one there is. stronger than the gem? flash is fastest. stabbed by deathstroke. marvel and dc SAY a lot of things. it's what is shown that matters.

What's SHOWN matters if it actually provides information -- in particular, if it contradicts what is said. You can't really point to any examples that show, for example, that the power gem does not grant limitless strength. Or that thanos is not 100x thor. You've simply repeated the same mantra -- that you've never seen anything super impressive with the power gem, that thor is very strong, and that thanos got hit in the back a couple times against thor and thing. (thanos also got jarred by spider-man... is he really class 10, but just REALLY REALLY durable? lol)

When marvel says something in narration, and you think it's wrong, you have the burden to prove it's wrong. You have not done so. You have not even really tried to do so.

Originally posted by leonidas

as for wm thor v thanos: nothing was really decided by the fight. you said yourself weaker beings can hang with stronger beings. or i could call pis on the whole arc as so many in the forum have done. and 20 is a further cry from a 100 than 2 . . .

I said vastly weaker beings could survive blows with stronger beings. I never said that a vastly weaker being could run straight up to a vastly stronger being, and smack him around. That is exactly what happened in the wm fight. If anything, thanos was getting the best of it. The authors are clearly trying to demonstrate that thanos is approximately as strong, if not stronger, than wm thor. And wm thor is at least 10x strength. Closer to 1000x, imo.

Originally posted by leonidas

and i dare say if you went anywhere in any forum and said that thanos is 100x stronger than darkseid, you'd probably be laughed off the forum.

And? I was laughed at when I said thanos had planted a near full powered galactus with an unboosted blast. Then someone posted a scan of it happening. I was ridiculed when I said I remember wm thor narrated as 10x. Then I found a scan to substantiate my belief. I don't mind being laughed at if I'm right. most people would laugh if I said surfer was millions of times faster than superman -- turns out it's true. They'd probably also laugh if I said thor was tens of millions of times stronger than spider-man. Turns out that's true too.

Most people don't think carefully about what 1x means, or 2x, or 1000x. I actually do. And a 100x difference in strength, in comics world, is not uncommon or vast. As I said, it's smaller than the difference between earth and jupiter. Are you saying that, because thor and super-man max out at moving the planet earth, no one else can move 1/10th of jupiter?

That is what I'd describe as an ARBITRARY BELIEF, grounded in your near-religious faith that superman and thor smiply MUST be the strongest. Heralds regularly destroy stars in their line of work. THe average star is tens or hundreds of millions larger than the earth. Is that impossible, simply because superman maxes out at destroying a small moon? Obviously not -- because it has happened.

Originally posted by leonidas

hell, wasn't long ago that wizard gave darkseid a win over thanos.

Why are you still bringing these things up? In the GL-SS crossover, thanos with a limited amount of oan energy was equated with parallax with the FULL power cosmic (or at least most of it, as jrod pointed out... the point is surfer said hsi power had been drained, while kyle was fighting as normal).

Originally posted by leonidas

oh, and it weren't me who first brought up thanos's battle with the jla . . .

What does the jla have to do with anything? You said xover = bshit. I agreed.

Originally posted by leonidas

thanos once was a cool character. now he's a fanboys dream. like everyone else in marvel his overpowering has lessened him, rather than strengthened his character.

I never thought he was a cool character. I thought he was a lousy, cliched character then, and I think he's a lousy, cliched character now. His storyline seems to repeat itself ad infinitum (cosmic cube, IG, HOTU). And attempts to humanize his character have failed miserably -- e.g. his role in the B&T arc.

But I don't like misinformatio and bad arguments. ANd people tend to propagate misinformation, and make bad arguments about him. Probably because they equate him with (current) Darkseid, when in fact he is clearly more powerful.

last thing in closing -- you claimed once that you accepted bloodlust supes could hit bats and bats survive. what's the problem with accepting this thor fighting thanos or vice versa?

and the blast that laid out the watch was that -- a blast. he didn't finish them off with strength. so where is the evidence you required of me to prove that thor's strength was really amped by the gem? without evidence i suppose its 10x his strength, maybe less depending on who you thought was winning.