low feats vs PIS

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leonidas
hrm. this is a topic that i feel like i'm seeing more and more of--or more likely it's always been this way and i'm just noticing it more. we have some NOTABLE employers of this tactic, one of the more frequent users happens to be on vacation....

the question is simple--should low feats, in general--be considered PIS if a character has more than enough quality feats to offset them? iow, should they, by rule, simply be disallowed? i feel like it would save...countless pages and hours of pointless bickering.

i find that in soooo many threads, people get caught up in 'putting down the OTHER guy' as opposed to defending and showcasing YOUR guy. there are literally hundreds of examples of this in the forum, and the 'putting down the other guy strategy', invariably leads to flaming and trolling and kills threads. i KNOW you can think of examples where this has happened. eliminating a lot of low feats wouldn't devolve into powerset battles either. character still counts, but if someone can battle someone in a herald tier for pages and pages, and someone shows that same character battling evenly with a street level guy, seems common sense would dictate the street showing shouldn't count--assuming the character has MORE to support the herald feat.

the forum says AT THE BEST OF THEIR ABILITIES. should that mean everyone should stop with the near-constant low balling of characters, worry more about defending their guy, and should it be more strictly enforced when it does happen?

mmm

cdtm
Depends on a number of factors. Averages should certainly be taken into consideratioj, but so should power sets and internal logic.

No matter how many times Spidey beats a herald, for example, that should be PIS. Same with Batman, and his herald leveling kicks.

On the flip side, you can take a jobber like Rhino and make a case that a lot of his poorer showings should he thrown out.


So yes, I agree all of Supermans lowballing should be ignored, as should Hulks outliers like holding up a mountain range, or anything above the level of a large snake.

That is my unbiased opinion.

carver9
It does say to the best of their abilities but it does say "they fight in character". Those two statements are colliding with each other.

cdtm
"In character" means ethics and logical character flaws.

Flash forgetting he can outrace a boomerang has no justification other then bad writing.

Galan007
Originally posted by leonidas
the question is simple--should low feats, in general--be considered PIS if a character has more than enough quality feats to offset them? iow, should they, by rule, simply be disallowed? i feel like it would save...countless pages and hours of pointless bickering. Absolutely.

But you're always going to get the f*cktards that will ignore 20 consecutive high-end showings from a character, but cling solely to 1 low-end showing(or vice versa) as though it is the gospel. Unless mods start dropping the ban-hammer more frequently, that stupidity is never going to change, unfortunately. ermm

riv6672

DarkSaint85
Originally posted by cdtm
"In character" means ethics and logical character flaws.

Flash forgetting he can outrace a boomerang has no justification other then bad writing.

Pretty much.

In Rhino's case, that character flaw is that he's actually that stupid. But it's not always stupidity, per se.

A good recent example is when Mangog attacked Asgard. Odinson and Odin started going fisticuffs with Mangog.

Jane shows up, BFRs Mangog. Odin's first words : why didn't we think of that???

It's not that Odin is stupid. But he's a fighter, a brawler. So is Odinson. They've spent literal millennia fighting with their fists and Spears and hammers.

WW would fight like that.

Batman wouldn't. He'd be fighting to cheat, to win, if possible.

Philosophía
I think PIS should start to include high-showings, too.

The forum is boring when there's the same 4-5 cream-of-the-crop feats every time. A herald could right now thundercunt the moon out of orbit with a slap, and the forum would put its fedora and collectively groan "meh, it's not even that impressive, his palm was bruised, and every herald could replicate that". There's absolutely zero perspective, from many posters

Or, let's put it this way..
Imagine, right now, Hulk would get a random writer, from a random comic, to move in a nanosecond.

No matter what has happened before that comic, or after that comic, the forum will forever use THAT as gospel, and proof of Hulk's speed.

No matter how many times Spiderman, Wolverine, Daredevil or whomever dances around him.

Well, apply that to every character, and that's the forum.

cdtm
Originally posted by DarkSaint85
Pretty much.

In Rhino's case, that character flaw is that he's actually that stupid. But it's not always stupidity, per se.

A good recent example is when Mangog attacked Asgard. Odinson and Odin started going fisticuffs with Mangog.

Jane shows up, BFRs Mangog. Odin's first words : why didn't we think of that???

It's not that Odin is stupid. But he's a fighter, a brawler. So is Odinson. They've spent literal millennia fighting with their fists and Spears and hammers.

WW would fight like that.

Batman wouldn't. He'd be fighting to cheat, to win, if possible.

Best example ever was when Kon-El forgot the sun doesn't affect his powers' against New52 Eradicator, on a past Krypton.

"Not much I can do, with the red sun weakening me."

*Next page*. "Wait a minute.."

Parmaniac
@Phil
"I think PIS should start to include high-showings, too. "

I thought we already did that. I mean in some cases it should come logically when a character that has no business of hanging with another suddenly wrecks him. That would be a PIS low for the higher tier and a PIS high for the other one.

leonidas
@phil--i agree--all outlier-style feats should be disallowed. i think so long as a feat can be backed by a large number of similar feats, it should be all right. so your hulk example would certainly be tossed (by me at least) since it would so far exceed the norm. it's less average and more....'where does the bulk of evidence lay' if you get what i'm saying? simplifying--someone battles 5 separate heralds for pages and pages, more than holds their own. they show up in some street book and appear to be giving it their all but can't seem to beat the street. too me, that showing should carry little to no weight (again, over simplification, but you get where i'm going, hopefully.)

i just think if we focus more on supporting our guy, than denigrating the opposition, debates would be more fun, and we'd likely learn more about the individual characters as well. maybe.

i fear that galan may be right though. whatever. thought it worth a conversation.

cdtm
Some people lowball, some people highball.

And Carver does both. Sometimes with the same character, in the same thread.

deathslash
We need to judge characters based off of their averages. Going off of high end showings makes characters like Superman and Thor skyfather+ and would, by extension, make the weaker characters that do well against them close to (if not outright) herald level. Going off of low end showings makes only the most consistent of characters stay even remotely in their tier while making less consistent characters drop by several tiers. With that said, if a character (let's say rhino) is on enough of a losing streak for long enough, the question becomes one of "how long can we write these off as low showings?".

I'm seriously wondering, how many low showings is it possible to write off as PIS. For example, Spider-Man appears in somewhere close to 10,000 comics. If he faces enemies armed with guns and manages to get shot/grazed/winged/blasted in 45% of those showings, how many can we write off as PIS? Better yet, if tomorrow Superman got wrecked by Wonder woman and for the next 10 years looked inferior to her but is still given the sort of lip service that he always has been, can we really discount all of his showings of outright inferiority?

cdtm
Originally posted by deathslash
We need to judge characters based off of their averages. Going off of high end showings makes characters like Superman and Thor skyfather+ and would, by extension, make the weaker characters that do well against them close to (if not outright) herald level. Going off of low end showings makes only the most consistent of characters stay even remotely in their tier while making less consistent characters drop by several tiers. With that said, if a character (let's say rhino) is on enough of a losing streak for long enough, the question becomes one of "how long can we write these off as low showings?".

I'm seriously wondering, how many low showings is it possible to write off as PIS. For example, Spider-Man appears in somewhere close to 10,000 comics. If he faces enemies armed with guns and manages to get shot/grazed/winged/blasted in 45% of those showings, how many can we write off as PIS? Better yet, if tomorrow Superman got wrecked by Wonder woman and for the next 10 years looked inferior to her but is still given the sort of lip service that he always has been, can we really discount all of his showings of outright inferiority?

For Spidey, I'd argue pis, unless an in universe reason is given.

Wonder Woman is harder, because she's strong enough where she can be "as strong as she needs to be", e.g, as powerful as writers want to make her. They could totally make her more powerful then Superman, just like they raised her stock since the crisis.

It would still affect her averages, of course, and one could argue against her based on her overall history. Or if this was CBR, she'd be defined by enough high ends, even if her entire history contradicted it. I mean, that's what happened with Beta Ray Bill post Stormbreaker. Surviving a moon and planet explosion, Galactus's hand clap, and tons of cosmic energy against his naked skin had them arguing Superman can't even hurt him anymore.

An extreme like Deathstroke beating her up in high heels is a better example of clear cut pis that SHOULD be tossed out.

One Big Mob
I always try and find averages and see if there's a reason this low feat happened before declaring pis. Take everything into consideration before saying "Hey doggy, this doesn't add up".

I try to stay away from incredibly high feats unless the question directly relates to if one has done or done similar things to this high feat.

And if a character has a long streak of losses or suddenly got more powerful, I usually seperate those characters into unofficial powerups or power downs.


An example of all 3 in order:

Take Bendis Thanos for example. Every appearance he makes he gains a new low feat, and by low feat, I mean if it wasn't for other Bendis appearances, it would be his lowest feat. However, not being one to just hand wave things away, you look at the feats.
In one of them he was weakened by a faux Cosmic Cube. In one he was weakened by a wormhole and possibly had the God Cancer. The other two showings? Not so great. One was wildly inconsistent for every character involved, and the other was mostly off panel but all the way gay.
So you weigh these feats. They still exist but enough showings can make them weigh less. Another would be inclined to just say pis and I wouldn't disagree.


Number 2.
Leon and I (Bran) had a conversation about Surfer slapping away Ego and throwing Suns/large sunballs. These normally wouldn't be something I would just toss like dice in a thread and look around at all the faces and go "Beat this you smelly cock suckers" with a carver9 sharp smirk on my face. However, I would discuss them, as they became pertinent to the conversation. All I wanted to say is these feats do exist and are canon. However, that again doesn't mean I'd use them in a serious manner unless the thread became about that.
If Surfer overpowered Galactus tomorrow, I would only bring that up against Thor fans, people asking if anyone has killed a Galactus level being, or if someone was directly challenging me to find high feats. Maybe some more, but it wouldn't be something I would solely use to say he beats Hulk for example.



Number 3.
Leon made this thread because of Gamora. He said "By Golly I don't enjoy you bringing up these... these... 'downward examples' to say your blasted character wins. Don't sully my name with your crud Mr Slashes!"
I've also had a Gamora exchange with Stoic recently. Here's where my point comes in hand:

Gamora simply isn't written up to the standards that Annihilation and Danbett set for her. Leon doesn't like her low feats brought up when all he wants is to use Annihilation Gamora. The issue is, is that her low feats are in abundance. So much so that she only mimics Gamora's appearance and nothing more. As I've said to Stoic, she has over 200 appearances since DnA left. She's had over 150 appearances before that. More than half of her appearances are of a shitty form, that's a lot to rule out.

A simple solution, and one we see often on the forum, is to seperate this.
Pre Annihilation Gamora would be everything from just before her tie ins to Annihilation.
Annihilation would be that, and DnA. It would also include the good of pre Annihilation.
Bendis Gamora would be the 200 appearances afterwards.

Nice and tidy. Now you could argue that you could pick and choose from highlights of Bendis Gamora for Annihilation Gamora since let's be honest, she's shit. But trying to mash them all together without addressing this creates issues, issues that led to Leon creating this thread. As always, there is usually a simple solution, you just have to open your brown eye a little.

Same with Carol. She has gotten more powerful. Unofficially (just like Gamora has gotten unofficially weaker since she should be the same level). Issue with her, is that she should be privy to all her prior feats. So without addressing her "upgrade", it creates issues when someone cums in and says she loses because she's in canon the same level as many of her oopsies.



But that's just how I see things. I don't speak for everyone, I'm just giving my two pesos.

darthgoober
Originally posted by leonidas
hrm. this is a topic that i feel like i'm seeing more and more of--or more likely it's always been this way and i'm just noticing it more. we have some NOTABLE employers of this tactic, one of the more frequent users happens to be on vacation....

the question is simple--should low feats, in general--be considered PIS if a character has more than enough quality feats to offset them? iow, should they, by rule, simply be disallowed? i feel like it would save...countless pages and hours of pointless bickering.

i find that in soooo many threads, people get caught up in 'putting down the OTHER guy' as opposed to defending and showcasing YOUR guy. there are literally hundreds of examples of this in the forum, and the 'putting down the other guy strategy', invariably leads to flaming and trolling and kills threads. i KNOW you can think of examples where this has happened. eliminating a lot of low feats wouldn't devolve into powerset battles either. character still counts, but if someone can battle someone in a herald tier for pages and pages, and someone shows that same character battling evenly with a street level guy, seems common sense would dictate the street showing shouldn't count--assuming the character has MORE to support the herald feat.

the forum says AT THE BEST OF THEIR ABILITIES. should that mean everyone should stop with the near-constant low balling of characters, worry more about defending their guy, and should it be more strictly enforced when it does happen?

mmm


I think the reason there's so much confusion is because people try to lump all poor writing under the heading "PIS" simply because that category is supposed to get outright tossed from discussions(which has obvious appeal when it benefits your guy). But in KMCs days of yore....



PIS= Characters "forgetting" powers for no apparent logical reasoning. Examples are things like GL not trying to drain or disrupt the energy of an energy based being or Surfer being unable to escape the grip of a brick even though he can phase and teleport. Frequency of occurrence has no bearing on true PIS. In other words responding to an argument about a characters abilities with "Well he didn't do it here against this other guy" is attempting to use PIS to support your argument.

SMvF= One character being portrayed as much more powerful than normal for no apparent logical reason. This is/was based on the frequency of such a display relative to the overall number of applicable appearances of the character. See even though Spider-Man frequently seems to be able to hurt or at least knock around herald level guys, he has far more instances of having a tough time hurting people less durable therefore him KOing Firelord isn't valid. On the other hand, even though Batman being able to sneak up on Superman seems to be some of the most ridiculous writing ever, the vast majority of the time Batman can sneak up on pretty much anyone he wants regardless of logic so him sneaking up on Supes IS a valid feat for Bats and doesn't reflect poorly on Supes's ability to detect most stealthy characters. Batman basically has "super stealth" as an unofficial power.

General High and Low showings= Grey area. Kinda like trying to define porn, can't put it into words but you know it when you see it. Both get factored into the average but the extremes in either direction hold less weight than the mean unless your also taking the characters "at their best" like we also used to do.


Don't get me wrong, these things are all very subjective and there's a lot of overlap between them but debates would prob be a lot "cleaner" if if people went back to trying to recognizing those distinctions.

deathslash
@Bran: That...... actually makes a lot of sense. I knew that I missed you for a reason.

Also, I figured that this thread was made to offhandedly debate Gamora's low (currently average) showings.

Philosophía
Originally posted by Parmaniac
@Phil
"I think PIS should start to include high-showings, too. "

I thought we already did that. I mean in some cases it should come logically when a character that has no business of hanging with another suddenly wrecks him. That would be a PIS low for the higher tier and a PIS high for the other one. I'm not solely talking about characters combat feats. After all, a character's high showing is another character's low showing, if they're split by several tiers. And even then, it gets murky. I mean, we have the obvious PIS examples (Batman vs Justice League, where his kicks make them disappear off the page), but we also have other ones (say...Cap vs Namor. Or Batman vs Lobo) which can, have and will be used anytime you put Cap vs Aquaman, for example. In a forum fight, one shot from Aquaman should kill Cap

Or, to put it another way, we know that Thor is simply on street leveler speed. Imagine Hulk's situation, applied to Thor. Do you think celey, rage etc. wouldn't drive that into the ground? Do you remember ODG desperately using one showing to show that Thor has, and I mean this in the literal sense, "instant speed"? I do.

Remember when Superman pulverized that Shadow Moon but was KO? Remember when Cho almost hit the moon out of orbit? Remember when Surfer surfed the moon to hit Galactus? These are crazy feats but...they're not 'their best' so they don't get mentioned. Even worse, they get mentioned as 'that's pretty weak, they couldn't even do that casually because my fav character, in a completely different storyline under a different writer did this, that's better' which is goddamn insane.

We don't go by how characters' capabilities are normally portrayed. And I don't mean "they forget they have speed" or "they forget they can do more than just hit with the hammer". Those are obviously PIS, but as in actual, consistent 'level' they operate at in their attributes. The best feat is their level. Which makes literally any other feat below that level as "meh", making any discussion in the forum as irrelevant.

Originally posted by leonidas
@phil--i agree--all outlier-style feats should be disallowed. i think so long as a feat can be backed by a large number of similar feats, it should be all right. so your hulk example would certainly be tossed (by me at least) since it would so far exceed the norm. it's less average and more....'where does the bulk of evidence lay' if you get what i'm saying? simplifying--someone battles 5 separate heralds for pages and pages, more than holds their own. they show up in some street book and appear to be giving it their all but can't seem to beat the street. too me, that showing should carry little to no weight (again, over simplification, but you get where i'm going, hopefully.)

i just think if we focus more on supporting our guy, than denigrating the opposition, debates would be more fun, and we'd likely learn more about the individual characters as well. maybe.

i fear that galan may be right though. whatever. thought it worth a conversation.

thumb up

That would also imply reasonable discussion. But we all get caught in 'our side', and it all goes downhill from there.

-Pr-
Originally posted by leonidas
i find that in soooo many threads, people get caught up in 'putting down the OTHER guy' as opposed to defending and showcasing YOUR guy. there are literally hundreds of examples of this in the forum, and the 'putting down the other guy strategy', invariably leads to flaming and trolling and kills threads.

That's been an issue on the forum for as long as I can remember, and has always implied insecurity on the part of the person doing it, imo.

Originally posted by carver9
It does say to the best of their abilities but it does say "they fight in character". Those two statements are colliding with each other.

No they aren't. They actually work in concert, so if you'd like clarification, I can provide it.

Originally posted by Galan007
Absolutely.

But you're always going to get the f*cktards that will ignore 20 consecutive high-end showings from a character, but cling solely to 1 low-end showing(or vice versa) as though it is the gospel. Unless mods start dropping the ban-hammer more frequently, that stupidity is never going to change, unfortunately. ermm

In all seriousness, if we did that, the forum would be a ghost-town bar the off-topic thread. There just aren't enough reasonable posters around anymore that intersect with other reasonable posters when it comes to the same characters and will yet disagree about them.

==

And yes, it is supposed to include High feats too. The problem is that we half-expected people to figure that out on their own and act sensibly, but alas...

carver9
So do we go by average showings or high showings? Its impossible to debate which one is the acceptable ft. Example, let's say if someone post a scan of Thing punching the Hulk drawing blood as an effect and I post a scan of the entire Avengers punching Hulk (including people who are stronger than Thing) and they cant even budge him, let alone scar him. Which one would be considered a more solid evidence of Hulks durability?

-Pr-
Originally posted by carver9
So do we go by average showings or high showings? Its impossible to debate which one is the acceptable ft. Example, let's say if someone post a scan of Thing punching the Hulk drawing blood as an effect and I post a scan of the entire Avengers punching Hulk (including people who are stronger than Thing) and they cant even budge him, let alone scar him. Which one would be considered a more solid evidence of Hulks durability?

That's easy: Whichever one is more consistent with his other showings.

Consistency is how we figure out an average. And figuring out averages really isn't that hard for anyone that reads a lot of a character.

leonidas
Originally posted by One Big Mob
I always try and find averages and see if there's a reason this low feat happened before declaring pis. Take everything into consideration before saying "Hey doggy, this doesn't add up".

I try to stay away from incredibly high feats unless the question directly relates to if one has done or done similar things to this high feat.

And if a character has a long streak of losses or suddenly got more powerful, I usually seperate those characters into unofficial powerups or power downs.


An example of all 3 in order:

Take Bendis Thanos for example. Every appearance he makes he gains a new low feat, and by low feat, I mean if it wasn't for other Bendis appearances, it would be his lowest feat. However, not being one to just hand wave things away, you look at the feats.
In one of them he was weakened by a faux Cosmic Cube. In one he was weakened by a wormhole and possibly had the God Cancer. The other two showings? Not so great. One was wildly inconsistent for every character involved, and the other was mostly off panel but all the way gay.
So you weigh these feats. They still exist but enough showings can make them weigh less. Another would be inclined to just say pis and I wouldn't disagree.


Number 2.
Leon and I (Bran) had a conversation about Surfer slapping away Ego and throwing Suns/large sunballs. These normally wouldn't be something I would just toss like dice in a thread and look around at all the faces and go "Beat this you smelly cock suckers" with a carver9 sharp smirk on my face. However, I would discuss them, as they became pertinent to the conversation. All I wanted to say is these feats do exist and are canon. However, that again doesn't mean I'd use them in a serious manner unless the thread became about that.
If Surfer overpowered Galactus tomorrow, I would only bring that up against Thor fans, people asking if anyone has killed a Galactus level being, or if someone was directly challenging me to find high feats. Maybe some more, but it wouldn't be something I would solely use to say he beats Hulk for example.



Number 3.
Leon made this thread because of Gamora. He said "By Golly I don't enjoy you bringing up these... these... 'downward examples' to say your blasted character wins. Don't sully my name with your crud Mr Slashes!"
I've also had a Gamora exchange with Stoic recently. Here's where my point comes in hand:

Gamora simply isn't written up to the standards that Annihilation and Danbett set for her. Leon doesn't like her low feats brought up when all he wants is to use Annihilation Gamora. The issue is, is that her low feats are in abundance. So much so that she only mimics Gamora's appearance and nothing more. As I've said to Stoic, she has over 200 appearances since DnA left. She's had over 150 appearances before that. More than half of her appearances are of a shitty form, that's a lot to rule out.

A simple solution, and one we see often on the forum, is to seperate this.
Pre Annihilation Gamora would be everything from just before her tie ins to Annihilation.
Annihilation would be that, and DnA. It would also include the good of pre Annihilation.
Bendis Gamora would be the 200 appearances afterwards.

Nice and tidy. Now you could argue that you could pick and choose from highlights of Bendis Gamora for Annihilation Gamora since let's be honest, she's shit. But trying to mash them all together without addressing this creates issues, issues that led to Leon creating this thread. As always, there is usually a simple solution, you just have to open your brown eye a little.

Same with Carol. She has gotten more powerful. Unofficially (just like Gamora has gotten unofficially weaker since she should be the same level). Issue with her, is that she should be privy to all her prior feats. So without addressing her "upgrade", it creates issues when someone cums in and says she loses because she's in canon the same level as many of her oopsies.



But that's just how I see things. I don't speak for everyone, I'm just giving my two pesos.

you're stating the obvious--again--when you talk about being able to explain away certain low or high showings. not of course what i'm talking about.

you're right in one regard--the gamora thread is a perfect example of what has been going on but it's not what solely prompted this. my recent tourney experience really brought the issue to the forefront for me. the thread just brought the damn crashing down. in slash's case though, and to his credit, i mentioned the low balling and what did he do--low and behold he posted legit feats i'd not seen from drax and even changed my opinion somewhat! astounding how that worked out. thumb up

it isn't about me 'not liking' anything. it's about having reasonable debates about CHARACTERS, and not getting bogged down in bashing ONE character.

your irreconcilable problem is the thread said GAMORA. not POST ANNHILATION gamora, or any other form of her. you don't like the character, obviously, but afaik, your not liking her doesn't discount her more classic feats, unless you know something i don't. focusing on these more recent showings only (like when she beat down carol) discounts the old ones. that's not how this whole things works i'm afraid. the old feats are as valid in an argument as the newer ones (unless you go back 60 years maybe...). focusing on the low showings also goes completely contrary to AT THEIR BEST and gamora still has a lot more good feats than bad ones imo.

if someone wanted to try and convince someone that they have a lot more low showings that CAN'T be offset, that's totally different. showing a couple bad ones and lingering on them like a fly does on sh!t doesn't come close i'm afraid. do research, show a bunch and maybe a character will/can be looked at differently. otherwise low balling is low balling and barely a step up from trolling.

just my couple pesos. thumb up

tkitna
I'm a Sentry fan and I agree that he's a hard character to gauge, but it irks me when somebody will bring up his scuffle with Namor in the horribly written Avengers/Invaders book. Namor appears to have gotten the better of Sentry because he's not shown for a few panels (somewhat typical ploy by writers to take the character out of the picture so the story can progress), but later in another book, the Sentry is somewhat miffed at Namor and Namor cant even muster up a single offensive strike. Not one. The Avengers/Invaders book has Namor doing well against Sentry and Sentry running away from Hammond Torch and its just silly, but people are quick to bring those examples up when theres a debate.

One Big Mob
Alright Leon, let's try this in a different way.

Would you admit that she hasn't looked as good since Bendis took over writing Guardians of The Galaxy?

And if yes, would it make sense to have this character who has more appearances than the rest of her other incarnations combined as a different version of this character?

It's not about bogging down a character, it's about all these showings being very much in line with her current depiction. Considering this forum uses the most recent iteration, it would make sense to use this. The way to get rid of this, would be to seperate her from previous incarnations. Something we do all the time. Not in Gamora's case yet though.



Now I understand you don't like attacking the character as opposed to raising your character up. And that's a tricky situation to address. Sometimes it has its place, sometimes it is just shitting on the character. I think in this case, Mr Slashes was just using the "low showings" to show that Gamora is portrayed as lower in comparison to Drax. He wasn't trying to use the low showings to try and say Cyclops could outfight her, he was trying to say they show her being less than Drax.

If you want to avoid this in this specific case, I think you need to look Mr Slashes in his cat eyes and say hey, I want to use this Gamora instead.

Like I said, you could just mash all of Gamora's showings together, but it opens her up to the issues you're facing now. She has a bunch of not great showings and like only 2 feats where she did something against Angela ODINSDOTTIR and Carol but ultimately lost or looked not so good. So yeah, those lesser feats add up.

DarkSaint85
Same way we have Classic Kingpin, Pre retcon Beyonder etc I guess...

deathslash
Originally posted by DarkSaint85
Same way we have Classic Kingpin, Pre retcon Beyonder etc I guess... thumb up let's also not forget about pre-crisis Darkseid as well as post-crisis darkseid. Even if they are technically the same character, enough low or high end portrayals make it obvious that there needs to be a dividing line between them based off of clear as day distinctions of their level of power.

leonidas
Originally posted by One Big Mob
Alright Leon, let's try this in a different way.

Would you admit that she hasn't looked as good since Bendis took over writing Guardians of The Galaxy?

And if yes, would it make sense to have this character who has more appearances than the rest of her other incarnations combined as a different version of this character?

It's not about bogging down a character, it's about all these showings being very much in line with her current depiction. Considering this forum uses the most recent iteration, it would make sense to use this. The way to get rid of this, would be to seperate her from previous incarnations. Something we do all the time. Not in Gamora's case yet though.



Now I understand you don't like attacking the character as opposed to raising your character up. And that's a tricky situation to address. Sometimes it has its place, sometimes it is just shitting on the character. I think in this case, Mr Slashes was just using the "low showings" to show that Gamora is portrayed as lower in comparison to Drax. He wasn't trying to use the low showings to try and say Cyclops could outfight her, he was trying to say they show her being less than Drax.

If you want to avoid this in this specific case, I think you need to look Mr Slashes in his cat eyes and say hey, I want to use this Gamora instead.

Like I said, you could just mash all of Gamora's showings together, but it opens her up to the issues you're facing now. She has a bunch of not great showings and like only 2 feats where she did something against Angela ODINSDOTTIR and Carol but ultimately lost or looked not so good. So yeah, those lesser feats add up.

following in some big footsteps with the subtle baiting. thumb up

anyway, there is actually a place for those types of distinctions to be made in threads, believe it or not. we call it the title box. if someone wants to label a thread a specific way they are free to do so. if they don't you argue a character as they have been shown through their history. hardly a newsflash.

and you have it completely backwards--if there is NO distinction made by the thread starter, mr slashes is in the wrong IF he is trying to pigeon-hole a character into only one specific era. the solution is easy. all he had to say was, 'do you think she's been depicted as well recently?' and i'd have said, 'i don't know. show me all these terrible feats she's amassed and we can discuss it.'

it doesn't take a 10 000 character dissertation, just a question. and if he feels like doing some research, and shows a bunch of terrible, winter soldier type feats then maybe she WOULD warrant something similar to kingpin. if he doesn't feel like doing the research, then we argue as the thread would have us argue.
frankly, i don't think anyone cares enough about her to bother with distinctions and i'd be surprised if there were so many lesser ones that it's clear they should now take precedence over the better ones. but that can be proven by anyone who actually wants to show it and if it was. i'd have no problem labeling them as different versions.

One Big Mob
I legitimately don't know why you see my posts as baiting or something completely wrong here. Read what I'm saying with an open mind. If I wanted to bait, there'd be nothing subtle about it as well.

I like Gamora. She's a character connected to many important Thanos stories. And I don't like the way she's been portrayed. It's not consistent with even her earliest portrayals, let alone the massive stat amp she got in Annihilation.

But if you actually need it laid out in full, I'll see what I can cook up either today or tomorrow.

carver9
I just noticed OBM sig. I'm laughing at it and I cant stop laughing but I dont know why.

leonidas
Originally posted by One Big Mob
I legitimately don't know why you see my posts as baiting or something completely wrong here. Read what I'm saying with an open mind. If I wanted to bait, there'd be nothing subtle about it as well.

I like Gamora. She's a character connected to many important Thanos stories. And I don't like the way she's been portrayed. It's not consistent with even her earliest portrayals, let alone the massive stat amp she got in Annihilation.

But if you actually need it laid out in full, I'll see what I can cook up either today or tomorrow.

if you're not baiting i owe you an apology, but....it feels like it at times lately. i'm also not understanding how i'm NOT being open-minded. i'm not going to continue to speak about gamora here though, because there is a thread for that, so if you're going to post some gamora stuff i'd ask you put it in the appropriate thread. and you brought her up. that thread was a PART of the problem, but this issue is reflected in an awful lot of threads.

if i'm confused regarding your point, it's because you haven't really made a clear one. you keep talking about gamora and suggest...creating different versions of her? but i'm talking much more broadly and not all characters can be pigeon-holed that way. i'm not even convinced SHE can... the question really has to do with low balling IN GENERAL and whether low feats should be viewed in the same vein as PIS--or if they ARE PIS and uncountable in either case. most seem to think that yes, low feats SHOULD be discounted, at least if there is a significant number of feats that contradict them. certain characters DO warrant special, individual attention, but i'm not asking about those characters.

slash raised a legit point in this thread when he said that looking at only high feats elevates everyone. but i'm not sure that would be the case tbh. the highest, outlier-style feats would be discounted anyway. the rest of the highs should paint a pretty good and consistent showing. i'd THINK anyway. that's the point of the discussion i guess. to get others' thoughts on the subject.

beatboks
Originally posted by leonidas
simplifying--someone battles 5 separate heralds for pages and pages, more than holds their own. they show up in some street book and appear to be giving it their all but can't seem to beat the street. too me, that showing should carry little to no weight (again, over simplification, but you get where i'm going, hopefully.)


I dont think flat out banning ignoring such feats is the answer. There needs to be a balanced approach and reason used the same way we apply to most feat analysis.

Context is key and always plays a part.
I mean think about it how often is it more the case of such a showing being a high end for the street character.

Then we have Street characters who operate on that sort of level Terminator for example, definitely a street level character yet he operates comsistantly as a team Buster

Some examples Batman dropping Blockbuster with pressure points.
Bats beating Solomon Grundy
Solomon Grundy vs Wildcat. Ted didn't really do any direct damage he just dodged and let Grundy blunder into a wall and then laid one on him.
I don't think any of these are examples of low showings for the higher powered character but high showings for the street heavily laden with context usually ignored.

leonidas
yeah, i agree with you in regards to one low being someone else's high, and it does come down to consistent portrayal. bats is one of those characters who does things outside his class so often it's impossible to see most things as pis--though many do have context. logan tends to be another one of those. but yeah when bats holds his own vs ww, that is clearly PIS of the highest caliber.

i don't think anyone would argue that bats can hold his own in straight h2h against someone like aquaman, even though he matched ww and grundy and whoever. it's when someone argues against aquaman because bats held his own against him that the problems arise. THAT kind of thing needs to be eliminated imo.

odin, oddly enough, is often a character who is low balled consistently. it's happened to galactus on several occasions i can remember too. honestly, it's hard to use averages in the forum, though i was a big proponent once upon a time. most don't read enough to SEE an average, and rely on the handful of feats they see here to decide. and to determine an average, we see loads of low feats often to skew that average, even though a character may tend to be pretty regularly portrayed well beyond the lows. the lows paint a biased picture. using just highs CAN do the same, but since we use characters at THEIR BEST, it seems much better to err on the higher side (with the exception of the stupidly high of course).

StyleTime
Without thoroughly reading all the replies, I want to throw something into the mix. Seems pertinent with all the Gamora talk. Sometimes, characters do undergo permanent downgrades(or upgrades) that aren't explicitly mentioned in-universe.

Are these low showings, or simply the new status quo? Is it fair to reference old, higher feats when it's clear a character is no longer at that level?

StyleTime
Originally posted by leonidas

your irreconcilable problem is the thread said GAMORA. not POST ANNHILATION gamora, or any other form of her. you don't like the character, obviously, but afaik, your not liking her doesn't discount her more classic feats, unless you know something i don't. focusing on these more recent showings only (like when she beat down carol)
Carol mollywhopped Gamora. You talking about something else?

-Pr-
Originally posted by StyleTime
Without thoroughly reading all the replies, I want to throw something into the mix. Seems pertinent with all the Gamora talk. Sometimes, characters do undergo permanent downgrades(or upgrades) that aren't explicitly mentioned in-universe.

Are these low showings, or simply the new status quo? Is it fair to reference old, higher feats when it's clear a character is no longer at that level?

Context and consistency come in to play here. If a character is somehow downgraded without it being mentioned in or out of universe, then they need to be written consistently at this new level for it to become the status quo.

DarkSaint85
Classic Kingpin
Byrne Superman


On the other hand, characters like the Hulk are all over the place.

For example. Gray Hulk is 'traditionally' seen as one of the weaker incarnations of the Hulk. Yet, he has feats better than a lot of the other Hulks (e.g his asteroid feat, unless we want to nitpick it). Do I take his strongest Gray feat, then extrapolate? That makes WWH the second most powerful Hulk.....but he was affected by attacks other 'weaker' Hulk's shrugged off. That kinda thing.

Doomsday is another. DoS is the 'weakest'. Then he has feats like the Guardian feat, Calaton, faster than Flash etc etc.

-Pr-
Originally posted by DarkSaint85
Classic Kingpin
Byrne Superman


On the other hand, characters like the Hulk are all over the place.

For example. Gray Hulk is 'traditionally' seen as one of the weaker incarnations of the Hulk. Yet, he has feats better than a lot of the other Hulks (e.g his asteroid feat, unless we want to nitpick it). Do I take his strongest Gray feat, then extrapolate? That makes WWH the second most powerful Hulk.....but he was affected by attacks other 'weaker' Hulk's shrugged off. That kinda thing.

Doomsday is another. DoS is the 'weakest'. Then he has feats like the Guardian feat, Calaton, faster than Flash etc etc.

Superman at least had it explicitly stated outside the comics that he was downgraded, though people took that and ran with it to a ridiculous extent.

With Hulk, and the dynamism of his powers, finding that average is even more important. I'm not saying it's easy, but I do believe it can be done.

Doomsday... Doomsday suffers from the forum myth that because he fought the "weakest" Superman, and a not-elite Justice League, that he's not that special. If you take his feats all together, he's not the weakest Doomsday at all. He's second only to Hunter Prey, I would argue. it follows to Superman too. Because he's the weakest, they assume he's also weak, when he isn't. They're not the same thing. Byrne Superman has feats that heralds today would look impressive doing.

It's just another forum myth that needs to **** off and die.

Mindship
I consider general character ability/profile + story context (writer intent) to determine if the low-end -- or high-end -- feat is legit or PIS.

leonidas
Originally posted by StyleTime
Carol mollywhopped Gamora. You talking about something else?

well, i wouldn't say mollywhopped (though i love that word) but carol would probably have won that fight though she was having trouble keeping gamora down. gamora did get in some really good shots though. the gamora talk was starting to get irritating however so i may have oversold it. thumb up gotg 13 for anyone who wants to check it out.

and again, that's not what the thread is about. if a character can definitively be shown to be less than they were then of course distinct 'eras' of a character can be introduced or referenced in threads--as they always have been. problem is no one has proven she HAS been 'downgraded' beyond showing a couple random lower feats. this is more about the use of low feats, and their use in vs threads in general...

cdtm
Originally posted by -Pr-
Superman at least had it explicitly stated outside the comics that he was downgraded, though people took that and ran with it to a ridiculous extent.

With Hulk, and the dynamism of his powers, finding that average is even more important. I'm not saying it's easy, but I do believe it can be done.

Doomsday... Doomsday suffers from the forum myth that because he fought the "weakest" Superman, and a not-elite Justice League, that he's not that special. If you take his feats all together, he's not the weakest Doomsday at all. He's second only to Hunter Prey, I would argue. it follows to Superman too. Because he's the weakest, they assume he's also weak, when he isn't. They're not the same thing. Byrne Superman has feats that heralds today would look impressive doing.

It's just another forum myth that needs to **** off and die.

In the case of Superman, the depowering was done to a ridiculous extent in the comics themselves.

Not by Byrne, either. The worst offender was Marv Wolfman, who wrote the most pathetic Superman ever.


I mean, just look at him struggle with Teen Titans villains.

It's said Byrne could be kind of a jerk, so wouldn't surprise me if Wolfman went overboard on purpose. "Ok jerk, you want weaker, I'll do weaker."

-Pr-
Originally posted by cdtm
In the case of Superman, the depowering was done to a ridiculous extent in the comics themselves.

Not by Byrne, either. The worst offender was Marv Wolfman, who wrote the most pathetic Superman ever.


I mean, just look at him struggle with Teen Titans villains.

It's said Byrne could be kind of a jerk, so wouldn't surprise me if Wolfman went overboard on purpose. "Ok jerk, you want weaker, I'll do weaker."

Yes, but, and here's the point that this thread is about, what Wolfman did was low showings, not the status quo. Byrne had set the standard for it by bringing him down to herald level (not Thing and Colossus level like some might believe).

DarkSaint85
Originally posted by leonidas
well, i wouldn't say mollywhopped (though i love that word) but carol would probably have won that fight though she was having trouble keeping gamora down. gamora did get in some really good shots though. the gamora talk was starting to get irritating however so i may have oversold it. thumb up gotg 13 for anyone who wants to check it out.

and again, that's not what the thread is about. if a character can definitively be shown to be less than they were then of course distinct 'eras' of a character can be introduced or referenced in threads--as they always have been. problem is no one has proven she HAS been 'downgraded' beyond showing a couple random lower feats. this is more about the use of low feats, and their use in vs threads in general...

So do we go by percentages?

Thor has 1000 showings, with 10 low showings, that weighs less than the 10 low showings Grail has?

That DOES rely on having knowledge of Thor's 990 higher showings, though.

leonidas
i don't know. i'm not trying to answer for anyone. i guess that would be the ideal situation but we can't expect everyone to know all of that. in thor's case though we certainly know his high feats FAR outweigh his lower ones and that's easy to prove in regards to where he is most consistently portrayed.

i guess the way I'D like to see low feats used, is when someone is trying to prove the low feats are closer or as close to the norm as the high feats, if that makes sense.

cdtm
Originally posted by -Pr-
Yes, but, and here's the point that this thread is about, what Wolfman did was low showings, not the status quo. Byrne had set the standard for it by bringing him down to herald level (not Thing and Colossus level like some might believe).

Agreed. My main point, was the myth of sub herald Superman probably came from these low end showings. I was frankly surprised as just how low Wolfman wrote him, it was kind of ridiculous.

-Pr-
Originally posted by cdtm
Agreed. My main point, was the myth of sub herald Superman probably came from these low end showings. I was frankly surprised as just how low Wolfman wrote him, it was kind of ridiculous.

Oh right, yeah, true. That or people just want to make the guy look bad.

beatboks
Originally posted by DarkSaint85
So do we go by percentages?

Thor has 1000 showings, with 10 low showings, that weighs less than the 10 low showings Grail has?

That DOES rely on having knowledge of Thor's 990 higher showings, though.

I think we also need to look at the character motivation and how and why highest end showings occur. Using Thor as the example. With the use of Mjilnors full power he can take any herald and hold his own above herald class at least for a bit. But the Honourable Warrior nature of thor means that he doesn't use the hammer and it's full power as often as he should. He wants to fight in an honourable battle and usually only draws upon the power of the Uru mallet as a last resort. The question then becomes either
1. can he last out until he gets to do this. The answer obviously is usually yes due to his durability.
2. Is the nature of the battle such that he will get to the point of calling on its full power. Here it comes down to how the oppoment he fights is fighting and the level of threat they are. Against a brick not posing a danger to others likely not.

So for example in a battle with an in character Superman who would be of no threat to innocent lives he's probably not going to use the esoteric powers of the hammer. When fighting however a blood lusted Superman, or Ultraman who is a major threat to innocent life he's going to go for those Powers earlier due to the duty he has to protect them (falling within his honor- i.e duty to protect greater than personal glory and honor would demand the duty upheld.

The example you gave for Odin a page or so ago being the same.

krisblaze
Originally posted by cdtm
In the case of Superman, the depowering was done to a ridiculous extent in the comics themselves.

Not by Byrne, either. The worst offender was Marv Wolfman, who wrote the most pathetic Superman ever.


I mean, just look at him struggle with Teen Titans villains.

It's said Byrne could be kind of a jerk, so wouldn't surprise me if Wolfman went overboard on purpose. "Ok jerk, you want weaker, I'll do weaker."

Never noticed that Mammoth that couldn't even come close to lifting the 65 ton weight after, jesus christ.

Superman's weak as ****.

He's not a bad writer though, that stuff is still a -****ton- better than the tripe we're seeing nowadays.

quanchi112
Wolfman seems pretty level headed if you ask me.

beatboks
Originally posted by beatboks
I think we also need to look at the character motivation and how and why highest end showings occur. Using Thor as the example. With the use of Mjilnors full power he can take any herald and hold his own above herald class at least for a bit. But the Honourable Warrior nature of thor means that he doesn't use the hammer and it's full power as often as he should. He wants to fight in an honourable battle and usually only draws upon the power of the Uru mallet as a last resort. The question then becomes either
1. can he last out until he gets to do this. The answer obviously is usually yes due to his durability.
2. Is the nature of the battle such that he will get to the point of calling on its full power. Here it comes down to how the oppoment he fights is fighting and the level of threat they are. Against a brick not posing a danger to others likely not.

So for example in a battle with an in character Superman who would be of no threat to innocent lives he's probably not going to use the esoteric powers of the hammer. When fighting however a blood lusted Superman, or Ultraman who is a major threat to innocent life he's going to go for those Powers earlier due to the duty he has to protect them (falling within his honor- i.e duty to protect greater than personal glory and honor would demand the duty upheld.

The example you gave for Odin a page or so ago being the same.

Something I left out in this post. If in the battle with an in character Superman Kal used heatvision than Thor would likely respomd with lightning, freeze breath-storms or wind. He'd fight the battle how he sees it as fair. Its like tje Noble knight in a joust who unhorses and makes gis opponent drop a lance. IF the opponent then drew a sword and shaped up the honorable response would be to drop the lance dismount and fight by sword. Not many have that level of honor, Thor is one.

beatboks
Originally posted by krisblaze
Never noticed that Mammoth that couldn't even come close to lifting the 65 ton weight after, jesus christ.

Superman's weak as ****.

He's not a bad writer though, that stuff is still a -****ton- better than the tripe we're seeing nowadays.

Wolfman is one of the best comic writers of all time. He took a nothing concept like the Teen Titans and madenit matter. He wrote titles that had real characters with completely identifiable and understandable motivations and drive. His work on COIE taking the complete and utter patchwork mess of DCU continuity and cleaning it up was amazing.

He amd Roy Thomas are a couple of writers who can take the inconsistent and unreconciled contradictory mess created by other writers and make it somehow make sense.

I'll admit that story was far from what he normally does, but to be fair all the FF did was knock the wind out of him because he blindly rushed in and underestimated them. When he didnt they were no issue.

-Pr-
Guys. The question of Wolfman's pedigree isn't the issue here. I don't think anyone's calling him a bad writer. The point is simply, that if he wrote Superman as being less impressive than Byrne did, it wouldn't be the status quo but instead low showings, simply because Byrne was still the flagship writer at the time, and he had basically created Post Crisis Superman. He had priority.

leonidas
^ this guy gets it. thumb up

-Pr-
Originally posted by leonidas
^ this guy gets it. thumb up

thumb up

And before anyone argues, no, Byrne was first. Byrne's six issue mini called "The Man of Steel" predates his own run on Action Comics, and Wolfman's run on Adventures of Superman by a few months. It's part of the reason we say "Byrne Superman" and not "Wolfman Superman".

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