DTL Season 6-Week 2 (Set 2)

[Aristotle]

It shouldn't be, given that speedsters think faster than others to the same degree that they move faster.

[Khellendros]

It's definitely arguable, I think. People treat moving at light speed like it's suddenly omnipresence, and no amount of hiding or distance matters whatsoever. Still, though, the faster you can prove your guy thinks/fights, the easier it is.

[Aristotle]

Without uber powers in prep, superspeed is much more powerful than it used to be. A Flash can cover an entire battleground in a second, tops, and that's been shown numerous times in the comics. We've seen Flash evacuate entire cities in an instant, but somehow speedsters can't find one guy hiding in a giant house? You need a forcefield erected fully before a speedster finds you, and the speedster will find you. Ubers need prep time to mean something.

Or opponents can just grossly underwrite speedsters and voters can vote for them anyway. That's probably what people would rather go for, because that way, we can still keep Dr. Strange under the tuber bar.

[XFanTim]

Originally Posted by Khellendros

Actually, if you look at the scan, he doesn't notice Lightmaster is on his way back until Lightmaster, basically a human-sized column of light, if visible behind him. Meaning Lightmaster had made almost the entire trip back before Cable noticed him, MUCH LESS began throwing up a TK shield. And Cable says he was early, Cable was not expecting him yet.

And, the guy is made of pure light. He all but says "Hey, man, I'm thinking at lightspeed here". I really do think it was the writer's intent to show Cable beating a guy who moved/thought at light speed, and implied it pretty heavily.

And, I'm sorry, but how do we know he was standing still when before Cable started wrapping him up with metal? In one panel, Lightmaster is obviously in motion, leaving behind afterimages he's moving so fast, then in the very next panel, Cable's already got metal wrapping him up.

They exchanged five total lines of dialogue while Cable was wrapping Lightmaster up, so I took that as evidence that it wasn't happening at superspeed. Unless Cable also talks at superspeed.

And when Cable comments on the approaching speck of light that is Lightmaster, he notes that he's a few milliseconds ahead of schedule. I took this as evidence that Cable had been anticipating Lightspeed's return since the moment he teleported him to the moon. The fact that his predicted time of return was a few milliseconds off wouldn't negate this advantage, I don't think.

I admit that some of this stuff is open to interpretation one way or the other. I guess I just feel that the evidence needs to pretty definitive before I'll assume someone has as big an advantage as near-lightspeed reaction speed.

Originally Posted by Franklin Richards

Faust should be able to whip up some rudimentary protection even from an Uber Telepath.

For others, as well as himself? Because there are a lot of characters who've shown an ability to block telepathic attacks against their own minds but haven't ever given someone else a pre-emptive shield against telepathic attack. (Take Xavier, who can obviously defend himself from telepathy or free someone from telepathic control, but hasn't found a way to make the X-Men preemptively immune to their many telepathic enemies. He's trained them to resist it somewhat, but that's it.) So I don't generally assume that one implies the other.

I don't know Faust's powers that well, though, so maybe he has given psi-shields to others before.

[Franklin Richards]

I remember magical guys in the Marvel Universe like Loki (admittedly Uber) and Enchantress being able to block Xavier. For instance in Secret Wars, Enchantress stops Xavier after he makes initial contact. And Loki did it in the X-Men mini where the X-Men go to Asgard.

Just some instances off the top of my head. I assume Faust is at least around the level of Enchantress.

EDIT - If they can astrally project, I'm pretty sure they could defend themselves and others too.

[Aristotle]

Tim, I see your point about doing it to oneself and others, but Faust has never had any trouble making his magic work on other people. It's really his trademark.

[Khellendros]

Originally Posted by XFanTim

They exchanged five total lines of dialogue while Cable was wrapping Lightmaster up, so I took that as evidence that it wasn't happening at superspeed. Unless Cable also talks at superspeed.

Please. This is comics. Guys can spout out whole paragraphs in the time it takes them to get knocked down. Amount of dialogue is no way to judge these things. Especially when the art so clearly showed he was moving fast enough to leave behind those afterimages.

Originally Posted by XFanTim

And when Cable comments on the approaching speck of light that is Lightmaster, he notes that he's a few milliseconds ahead of schedule. I took this as evidence that Cable had been anticipating Lightspeed's return since the moment he teleported him to the moon. The fact that his predicted time of return was a few milliseconds off wouldn't negate this advantage, I don't think.

He actually says he's three tenths of a second early. And it wasn't a speck of light, he was pretty clearly less than a mile off, I think. When dealing with these kinds of speeds, overestimating an arrival by nearly a whole half a second, and then rectifying your mistake in time to still intercept him still shows an impressive reaction time.

Also, note that Cable says "if he breaks free, do the math". "If". Meaning he didn't even know whether or not the guy would even be able to return, much less that he would get free instantly and start heading back.

Originally Posted by XFanTim

I admit that some of this stuff is open to interpretation one way or the other. I guess I just feel that the evidence needs to pretty definitive before I'll assume someone has as big an advantage as near-lightspeed reaction speed.

I think it's more of a stretch to make your point than mine. It seems very clear, taking into consideration Lightmaster's powers, and the dialogue, that the writer intended to show Cable fighting at these kinds of high speeds.

[Aristotle]

And yet you still thought that a character being able to move at lightspeed was worth mentioning in descriptions. I love that you get to say I'm addicted to pathological lying when we disagree, but when you tell some baldfaced ******** like this, no one calls you on it.

[Khellendros]

He doesn't move at lightspeed (except when going FTL while teleporting, y'know), his opponent did. And, again, this is the first time I've been called on it, and it's been promptly rectified.

[Aristotle]

No. If he can thwart an opponent moving at lightspeed by thinking at lightspeed, he must also move at lightspeed in order to carry out those lightspeed thoughts. And you withheld that.

[wiegeabo]

The Authorititans

Even though I think Ari overwrote the Titans somewhat, I think Khell underwrote them a lot more. Honestly there was over and under writing on both sides. As for the whole Cable superspeed not being listed, I see it as a non-issue because I don't think (and wasn't convinced) Cable has superspeed anyway. Either physically or mentally. If Cable had access to his powers from the start, he could be a threat to Kent. But he didn't, and since Khell didn't address Kent's superspeed, the advantage goes to the Kryptonian.


I'll vote for the other match when I read Franklin's match. Corp's got such a strong lineup, I want to how Franklin addresses it before voting.

[Aristotle]

Ah, don't be that guy. Voting for the guy who didn't show up is so It's-Season-5-And-I-Just-Don't-Want-To-Vote-For-AnnoyingSilence.

[wiegeabo]

I've done it before in previous seasons, and I've got no problem doing it again. It's just that AS made an art form of it and ruined it for everyone.

[XFanTim]

I still need to vote in Ari and Khell's match, don't I?

Hmm . . . Khell didn't list Cable's superspeed, but then again I'm not all that convinced he even has superspeed. But if he has Deadpool's healing factor, I'd think that might at least let him survive Superman's initial attack long enough to teleport away and regroup. I guess I'll buy that Faust can shield Ari's team from telepathy, since Khell never raised any objections to it. So ultimately this comes down to who has better telekinesis. I'm not really convinced by Ari's argument that since Superman manipulated energy, therefore his power is "quantum" telekinesis, and therefore it's better than regular telekinesis. For one thing, hasn't Cable telekinetically manipulated energy too? (Albeit perhaps not in as weird a way as "grabbing heat vision".) And Cable has a much longer list of really massive scale telekinetic feats. Yes, Superman will be using his TK faster, but even so, I think I have enough question marks about this match to at least call it a wash. As for the other ubers, yes Spartan has a major speed advantage, but Khell's idea of having Surfer do an omnidirectional blast is a pretty good counter. You can't dodge an omnidirectional blast. Spartan could teleport out of the way, but if Surfer makes it a blast of electromagnetic radiation then it will move at lightspeed (perhaps too fast to dodge) and could perhaps mess Spartan up pretty well.

But ultimately I think the uber battles could go either way, which leaves the lower levels to decide things. In Ari's he just had Quicksilver take Death Wolverine out with his speed, but since Death can go invisible I don't really see Quicksilver getting the drop on him so easily. Likewise, like Khell said Iceman can go through the water in the pipes so I think he'd more likely get the drop on his opponents than vice versa. (By the way, regarding whether we can use kitchens and such, Nightwing had suggested we stick to parts of the house that were actually shown in the movie, but that was never made an official rule, so I think anything you could reasonably expect a house to have is fair game.)

Ultimately, I think I'm giving this one to the Immortals, although I could really see a decent case for going either way.

[wiegeabo]

Ok, I guess I'm going to do it. But I'm not convinced Franklin's team can win it. The potential's there. I especially like the way he's using a Reed that Doom can manipulate. But I don't think there's enough resources for them to use.


The Polka Dot Fuchsia Lantern Corps

[TheCorpulent1]

Aw shucks, that's awful kind of you right there, wieg.

[wiegeabo]

Well, maybe if Franklin wasn't a known criminal and had to be locked up for the protection of those around him he could have gotten a more convincing match up.

[TheCorpulent1]

[DTL Commish]

Voting is now over.
Final Results:


The Polka Dot Fuchsia Corps 1
The Yancy Street Gang 6

The Immortals 4
The Authorititans 1

[Aristotle]

Originally Posted by TheCorpulent1

Caption Contest!
Here are my entries:

"This is for Batman!"

"That blowjob was TERRIBLE!"