Don't remember exactly where that's from, but it got me to wondering:
"Hulk is the one most KNOWN for it, but which comic characters ACTUALLY demonstrate the greatest seeming increases in strength when made angry or scared or desperate (etcetera)?"
Superman's performance here against Slade, for instance, suggests that, once he loses himself in anger, he's punching MORE THAN 100 TIMES HARDER than normal.
That's a pretty impressive jump, to say the least.
So, I present the question to you:
Which character or characters in comicdom demonstrate the MOST dramatic increases in physical state once put under duress?
I think there are two things here - the first is increase in strength due to anger (similar to the Hulk), and the second is decrease in the extent of holding back.
In my opinion, Superman is capable of both.
We have seen cases where he gets irate, and in that state of anger is capable of doing more than he normally can.
But we more often see cases of where he stops holding back.
That scan is the latter - the first punch was him punching Slade in a way that would hurt him but not kill him. It was a punch that took into consideration that Slade was slightly meta, with a healing factor, and thus could handle it.
When the punch didn't work, Superman held back a bit less and unleashed another significantly powerful punch. When that didn't work, he held back even less and unleashed an even more powerful one.
To me that is less a strength increase due to anger or stress, and more Superman holding back less in each frame. Like you punching someone that you consider weak, them laughing at you, and you holding back a bit less on your next punch.
That's what I think.
As for Carver saying the Hulk would have immediately blown through the shield ...he is correct (although I think he is coming from the usual KMC 'support character X for the win as if there are shares owned in DC/Marvel' rather than being objective, but he is correct).
The typical angry Hulk would have blasted through it on the first punch. Why? Because the typical angry Hulk does not hold back. If he is trying to smash you, it doesn't matter if you're Thanos or Aunt May. He will smash you equally.
The difference though is, when the Hulk smashes Thanos and that first punch doesn't work, he gets angrier and the next punch is even stronger. So on and so forth.
Superman has been seen doing that in comics (where he struggles with an Imperiex probe, and then starts chewing them up like candy), but generally he dials his strength to what is needed ...especially when he is facing off against 'inferior' opponents like Luthor and Slade. Even Batman noted this in Hush when Superman was being controlled by Ivy and trying to kill him. Bruce said (even as he used Sonics, electricity and kryptonite) that at any moment Kal could use his various powers ...strength, speed, etc and smash him into the concrete, but he was holding back.
The Hulk, on the other hand, would have used almost 100% of his strength from the start, and he would have broken the shield. He wouldn't have cared that's Slade is just slightly above human - the Hulk would have been trying to kill him, and a 100% of Hulk's strength (just like 100% of Superman's strength) would have blown away the shield. Easily. We can see that Slade was expecting the next punch to kill him - hence the funeral arrangements.
To me, what the scan shows is just how much Superman holds back. Apparently a lot.
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Last edited by spetznaz on Dec 22nd, 2016 at 03:34 PM
No the Hulk wouldn't, he holds back as well and I mean all of the time, unless you think that Wolverine could take the same beating that the Abomination can. When he went up against Captain America in his merged persona he allowed Cap to toss him out of a door, which wouldn't happen if he didn't actively hold back. The Hulk isn't a villain, so I think that you're painting him in the wrong color here. I agree with the rest about Superman though.
Regarding the Hulk analysis, I think it's worthwhile to point out that, at various times in his history, that WOULD have been a good evaluation. In his early years, after all, Hulk WAS a villain, or at least a VERY dangerous threat other heroes often had to respond to. Consider, for example, Fantastic Four #s 25 & 26, where Hulk is out to battle the Avengers, and one Ben Grimm has the bad luck to get in the way. At one point, impatient at the delay Thing represents, Hulk grabs Ben and then flings him upward with all his might, telling him that, when he lands, the impact back to Earth will end Ben. We are NOT meant to understand Hulk is bluffing, and Ben himself comments on the seriousness of the situation, as he just barely managed to redirect himself by desperately reaching out to snag a nearby ledge. The Hulk from THAT era could be very dangerous; the Hulks we're used to from recent decades are pussycats by comparison.
I welcome dramatic submissions of the sort I posted in my first message, but assuming DarkSaint's explanation of it is accurate, and I have no reason to think it isn't, it's probably a good idea to post a showing that illustrates the premise better.
So the following is taken from Mark Waid's run on The Legion of Super-Heroes from several years ago, Volume 3 issue 25, if memory serves, though by then it had been renamed Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes, in honor of Kara's re-debut in the DCU.
Note that the Inertron they describe here is a metal renowned even more than primary adamantium at Marvel for its strength and durability. Even the godlike might of Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Kryptonians were sorely put upon to bend it, though such people were literal, acknowledged world movers.
The stuff here is even MORE durable than Inertron, and, at first, even Supergirl finds she can't breach it. Fortunately, as he does later (earlier?) on in Brave and the Bold, where 3 suns of Rann multiply her power past normal bounds, Waid finds a way for Kara to "Level Up" here, too, and free herself and her friends from enemy imprisonment:
KMC Community Forums
Dec 22nd, 2016 02:46 PM
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I needed that today.
