spetznaz
Senior Fanboy Killer
Gender: Unspecified Location: United States |
p.s: I think one can separate most characters, on an ad hoc basis, into 4 groups.
The users of might.
The users of power.
The users of mind.
The exotics and mystics.
The users of might would be people like the Hulk and the Thing. Characters that have super strength as their key strength. If these guys cannot smash it there is nothing they can do.
The users of power would be people like the Green Lantern, Cyclops, the Flash, Magneto, and Superman. Basically people who use powers to take down their foes. The reason i put Superman here and not in the first group is because, unlike the Hulk, Superman has a wide variety of attacks he could use. Supes is basically Hulk with super-speed, flight, heat vision and a dozen other attributes. For example in a fight against Darkseid the Hulk could just have punched away at DSeid and gotten angrier until he was able to achieve a strength level that would enable him to defeat the dark god. However Superman, in the Batman-Superman arc, used his heat vision to take out an army of Doomsday clones, punched Darkseid a couple of times, before grabbing Darkseid and flying him out to space until they got to the outer edge of the sun! At which point Superman was drawing strength directly from a sun that was much nearer than normal, and thus he was able to literally tear Darkseid apart. At which point he flew Darkseid to the end of the universe and impaled him there! That is something Superman is able to do due to his powers, and something the Hulk could NEVER do since all he has is just strength.
The third group is comprised of users of the mind. These are people like Prof. X, Doom and Batman. PRof X is obviously due to his telepathic abilities, while D and Bats are due to their minds being their most effective weapon (i.e strategizing and the like). Those who rely on their mind, be it through telekinetic/pathic powers, or by coming out with plans.
The last group are people like Sersi, the Phoenix entity, Superman Prime, Thanos (when he has the IG), Parallax and Ion and other exotics; as well as mystics like Dr. Fate (due to the helm of Nabu) and Dr Strange (especially when he has the help of the Vishanti) and other STRONG mystics who can channel forces from beyond (being a weaker mystic, eg Zatarra, makes one a power user and not an exotic/mystic. To be in tis last group, as a mystic, you have to have access to TRUE power). These are people with powers that are simply too great to be explained (eg Phoenix, Superman Prime), or too strange to be comprehended (eg Dr Fate, Dr Strange, or best of all Dr StrangeFate).
Anyways, the purpose of all this is to show one thing.
The only way a person in group one or two (the strengths and the powers) can defeat a person in group 3 (the thinkers), is if they are just too strong for an effective plan to be thought of fast enough.
For example Batman couldn't beat (normal) Superman were it not for 2 things.
a) Superman has a weakness to kryptonite that Batman can exploit.
b) And this is the greatest one. As Batman said, Superman is inherently a good guy, and he (Batman) is inherently NOT a good guy. Thus Superman's greatest weakness is the goodness of his heart (whcih also makes it his greatest strength, since he was able to even lift Mjolnir during a crossover, something that only one pure in heart could do). And this reason is why Batman was able to beat Supes several times. Sueprman could have easily rushed Batman at superspeed, even if Batman had kryptonite, but he always held back sicne he did not want to kill Bats (this is explained in the Hush storyline).
Anyways, it is also hard for a person in group 1 (strengths) to take out a group 2 character (powers), unless the person in 1 has far greater strength than the person in grp 2 has power. For example the Hulk could defeat many power users. He is just too strong, and he keeps getting stronger. But the Thing would have a far harder time, and may not even defeat most of the major power users.
__________________

|