There's nothing to indicate it was literal either.
The repetition of a figurative phrase doesn't make it literal.
If little Abhi was a fast sprinter when he was a kid he might've been called "as fast as lightning," multiple times. But that doesn't imply that he was breaking world records.
It's just not a throwaway statement. There's an in-depth explanation of that Gladiator has to cross this distance in the time it takers Heimdall to blink.
I think Galan007 covered this, so I'm not going to repeat what he said.
It's not about whether it you can question it, it's whether or not you can reasonably question it.
A rule of thumb I go by is that if it takes more effort to discredit a claim than it does to defend it then it's admissible. If the converse applies then it's inadmissible.
It's from Superman: Doomed (2015) #5 but rereading it I see no mention of the distance he flew.
I tried to look up where the argument came from, and I found this Comicvine thread where it seems to bring up a picture (the image is dead) of an interview or social media post where the author allegedly said that Superman flied from the end of the universe back to earth.
So this is a worse case than I thought it was.
Last edited by Astner on Aug 6th, 2023 at 08:49 PM
That's because Azrael 1M's wings are borderline metaphysical, thought-based super-tech. All he has to do is think of a destination, and the wings simply *zip* him there. He does not need to build up speed to do this.
You can see this function of the wings very clearly represented here: https://ibb.co/rc10JZM
Azrael just disappears(ie. flies to) to the Sirius system and back, in the middle of Sister Dumas' monologue. He moves so fast that it almost comes off as teleportation, but as multiple panels showcase, he is flying: hence the reason why he has wings.
So as mentioned, the stated timeframe is logically just in reference to Azrael's flight time between planets. For context: Azrael was upset that there were no villains to fight on Pluto, but that was okay because in "another nanosecond" he'd already be on Mars to see if any criminals needed to be dealt with there.
__________________
"I am tired of Earth. These people.
I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives."
Last edited by Galan007 on Aug 6th, 2023 at 09:00 PM
If you didn't have these kind of speeds, then characters throughout the world, galaxy, universe would need plot devices to interact.
One thing I noticed when reading through old Avengers and Defenders titles was the incessant need to have a random plot device to get the characters to where they were going. Like... Doctor Strange would show up for one panel and the Avengers would thank him for teleporting them to the destination they wanted. This happened so much I was getting deja vu.
But getting characters to where they need to go is a logistical problem that authors had to deal with. I think they just got tired of it. So they started making stuff like Fantasticars, Quinjets and giving other characters teleportation abilities.
But if it's just one character and they can fly. Just give them travelling superspeed. Who cares if they break relativity? If it doesn't ruin the plot, so be it.
I'm not a high-end absolutist. I wouldn't argue that Gladiator is a trillion times faster than Superman (and that a fight between them would play out like a fight between the Flash and a bank robber) just because Gladiator has this one feat and Superman doesn't have anything that's directly comparable.
To me, consistency is more important, and we do occasionally see Gladiator struggle with characters that are not particularly fast more often than we get feats like these.
While I do consider them roughly equal I would probably put my money on Superman over Gladiator because Gladiator's power varies with his confidence whereas Superman's powers are permanent.
That said, if Gladiator frequently had feats like this and no real anti-feats then I'd think of him as a souped-up Superman.
Registered: Jun 2011
Location: Always second place
If I was a silver surfer fan, I'd use this to argue that Surfer can react at the same speed because he's flying fast on the board and she's flying fast on a horse.
Also end of the universe, that pesky statement again.
Aug 6th, 2023 08:45 PM
