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recent feats--marvel vs dc
from a different thread. it feels to me like dc guys have been getting OP of late--something i am personally not especially happy with. maybe i'm wrong? here is a place to post some recent feats by both of the major companies. try and stay within the last 5 years. my feeling is the dc side will be able to post more outlier style feats than their marvel counterparts by a significant margin.
what's the implication? that dc's characters are in general, simply portrayed as more powerful more often. as i said, maybe i'm wrong. hopefully this thread can shine a bit of light on the subject and open the subject for discussion.
I don’t have the scans to prove it, but reading comics from both houses equally has led me to believe that:
(1) On average, your standard DC character is more powerful than your standard Marvel character. If not in terms of direct power, then it terms of having multiple powers in one character. For example, Colossus and Thing are strong heavy-hitters. Donna Troy and Wonder Girl are also strong heavy-hitters, who can also fly, have super speed, and carry magically imbued weapons ...
(2) However, in aggregate both houses are more or less equal. Additionally, at the extremes, both houses are also equal. So, while Hulk may not be able to fly or shoot cosmic blasts from his nostrils or whatnot, when he gets sufficiently angry he can literally make the earth tremble and/or even break the rules of physics (eg breaking through glass tempered with chrono particles that should have teleported him), and we have obviously seen what Sentry can do when he really wants to get something done. Throw in all the reality manipulators, some who are children with universes as toys, and you see that at the extremes Marvel may even be more powerful.
The heroes of DC started out (DCnU) inferior to their Pre-Flashpoint counterparts, but that didn't last long. You have Superman
Superman: Bench pressing the weight of a planet and moving Brainiac's ship (With the help of Martian Manhunter) that was a LOT bigger than Earth.
Wonder Woman: Who temporarily became the God of War, but has a lot more power than her Pre-Flashpoint self.
Hal Jordan: Who became the god of Will and basically owned Pre-Zero Hour Parallax, among other crazy shit.
Sinestro: Who can completely control Parallax now.
Kyle Rayner: Who mastered ALL the rings in the spectrum and temporarily became Jesus. lol
Even street characters like Batman, Body Doubles, Nightwing, Midnighter, Grifter etc... are all more superior to their Pre-Flashpoint, Wildstorm selves.
Gender: Male Location: Planning to take over the WORLD!
@phil--his FEATS make me think he should beat zod. i mean is zod trans too now?? if so, that only furthers my point. he had great stories BEFORE superman was trans. the escalation makes no sense, and is not necessary. and in its wake, ALL superman's enemies need to be amped somehow.
you're right, to each his own, but this continual escalation seems unnecessary and detracts from the characters imo.
as regards flash: i like flash too, but when reading it i can't help but feel many of the plots are...ridiculous. i find it frustrating when he is knowingly lessened by plot. with him it's always been that way though so you live with it. but like i said, i think we need LESS of that, and more creative writing when it comes to letting heroes solve problems. this increase in power feels like lazy writing to me. /shrug
@the french guy: actually what i advocate is the exact OPPOSITE. i want better plots, that require LESS suspension of disbelief with problems that are solved in ways OTHER than a character suddenly exceeds their limits, or gets more powerful somehow as a way to solve things.
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this discussion is more focused to the major heroes in each, and i'm not sure it's really close at all in terms of which group of characters over the last few years has had a bigger push. the dc staples (gl's, ww, superman) have been prone to some crazy feats over the last group of years. aside from hulk on occasion, i don't think many marvel characters can be said to have done the same--at least not with the regularity of their dc counterparts. perhaps as a WHOLE the universes are equal, but looking at just the staple characters? i don't see it being very close atm, though i am open to being proven wrong.
Power creep is an issue across iterative fictiondom, not just comics. It's a famously well-known DBZ issue, for instance, and has even inspired parodies of the phenomenon like One Punch Man.
If it's happening in comics - or DC in particular - it's definitely a (potential) hindrance to consistent storytelling. The entire medium is predicated on powers and their interactions, and how those relate to more human problems. The further the powers get from the believable and consistent, the more they threaten to undermine plots that serve the characters. And the more we'll notice "PIS" instead of the other creative aspects of a book.
We're having this discussion on a board almost exclusively devoted to the dissection of power levels, so issues of this nature can be magnified artificially because of that slant. It's probably not as big a deal as Leo thinks, but that doesn't mean problems from this don't exist. We can also get hung up on non-arguments like whether DC or Marvel is more powerful as a whole. Our vs. threads can be great intellectual fodder, but no one should legitimately care about such things; it's schoolyard f*ckery at its most adolescent. But even ignoring that debate, I do agree it's an issue.
The companies do this to themselves. Fans froth at feats, yet when we talk about the "best" writing, it's invariably NOT because of power levels. Yet they cater to the former a lot.
My personal solution is not to give af about the big companies anymore, or when I do to basically ignore power displays and their consistency or lack thereof, but I realize that won't suffice for many readers. I don't know that there's a broader solution, but I'd tend to side with teh idea that it's not ideal for either company.
Imagine a character coming to Marvel and roflstomping Silver Surfer with ease (who Hal has been at least an equal and I'd wager visibly more powerful for a while now), one-shotting Thor (who Supergirl is, again, at least phyislcally comparable), and generally trampling everybody he comes across? He'd make Nefaria seem like a warm-up.
I have to be honest, I don't get exactly what is bothering you. It can't be that power is inconsistent with the needs of the plot - that is literally the history of comics. All Flash comics. All Superman comics. All Wonder Woman comics All etc. would be over in a panel. 99% of mid-high heralds are broken in terms of power, for decades, so why now?. Why do you suddenly point it out now? Story dictates power-usage, not the reverse. So what's left? That Superman Villains are overpowered? That Superman is? That Hal is overpowered and yet Zod beats him? That Marvel can't no longer compete?
Does it make that much of a different for you that Superman can bench a planet or a Sun? That Hal can one-shot a planet or ten? That Flash can run a trillion times the speed of light, or a trillion trillion times the speed of light? Because in terms of story, it doesn't. Once you move at planetary range, or lightspeed (+), everything beyond that is redundant. Whether you're lightspeed, or a trillion times that, none of them work in a logical setting. Whether you can move a planet, or ten, same thing.
You know I'm not trying to be facetious, but I'm not following.
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Last edited by Philosophía on Feb 28th, 2018 at 10:17 PM
i have to disagree because the situations they are put it requires the higher level that they normally don’t get to show. This forum has been saying Superman can easily survive a planet exploding. Superman issue 41 shows exactly that.
Now, I’m fine with these situations because Superman for example has been put in a situation where one may wonder how does demo squad give him issues when he just survived a planet exploding. DC luckily has been able to use decent excuses like prayers, or Superman being extremely laid back about getting hit.
That said, there are a few of them that I feel have been shown to be weaker than averages . In fact, WW does feel a bit weaker despite being put in storylines involving Darkseid. It feels weird because Superman was always considered DS equal. Yet, WW is clearly insignificant
Now without a doubt, Kryptonians have been put on a level that I’d argue is higher than High Herald. More recently, it feels like Superman would destroy majority of HH with ease.
Marvel is going the same thing but they are doing it the wrong way. Too much inconsistency for the sake of a story. You got Jane matching Odin, who loses to Mangog in 3 panels. You got Thanos killing Galactus yet SS with Mjolnir is a match?
Yes DCs characters feats are high now but it’s in relation to those around them.
DC has always shown a general tendency to be over-the-top, in part because DC is the Icon's (Superman's) home, and well, Big Blue more/less always saves the day, no matter the scale of the threat. This is the essence of the character.
But also -- I've brought this up many a time; I wish I could remember who made this point initially -- because DC doesn't have as developed a cosmic / abstract hierarchy as Marvel, often it is DC's finest who have to rise to the cosmic challenge, wherein in Marvel, it's not as essential (still happens, but not as often).
Marvel (at least at first) always went for the generally "more realistic" power portrayal. If they do go over-the-top, my impression is that they have DC in mind, especially since crossovers began and sides had to seem more even.
Again, just my impression.
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@phil--you sort of answered your own question regarding the WHY i brought this up. you just said that supes is pretty clearly trans, made a case zod could easily take out thor or ss and that gl has now well surpassed ss. in the past all those dc guys were firmly entrenched in the herald tier--zod wasn't even high herald, now you're saying he could be seen as trans? the power scaling then affects others around them, dragging them up in their wake--villains, corollary heroes, etc. seems unnecessary and like the company is pandering to the forum crowds--which, let's face it, is the low common denominator (in general) when it comes to fans.
this isn't adversely affecting my life or anything (lol) nust an observation and a realization that it's a trend i don't much like.
It doesn't affect me much because I ALWAYS saw Superman as trans. I always saw Wonder Woman as Thor equivalent, GLs as Surfer equivalents etc. I think what changed most significantly is the push the WW & GLC has gotten, to the point where even Jessica does crazy shit, and Wonder Woman one-shots Shaggy Man and whatnot.
In my case, this was basically everybody else seeing it, due to DC also ramping up on showing it insistently, to the point where it can't really be denied anymore (well, there's still people as always arguing to the contrary, but you know...)
It's why I always pointed out that I never really argue Superman at his best on the forum -- him and Flash are kind of broken from the start.
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Last edited by Philosophía on Mar 1st, 2018 at 02:25 PM
Hulk absorbs energy that would kill ANY being on the planet (we have people like Zeus that is walking earth). Not only does he withstands it, the attack was getting more powerful by the second and he still endured it...
The In Betweener who was operating at insane levels (controlling an IG user and the Phoenix Force and ripping reality to shreds with his presence) nearly depleted himself holding Hulk in place.
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Feb 28th, 2018 08:19 PM
