MCU vs thread....controversy and chaos

[Luigi]

Ego is smarter than people give him credit for and wouldn't let Vision get anywhere close to his core. I'd imagine he'd be able to stop him in his tracks with his electrical abilities.

 

[Docker2.0]

On the matter of "overpowered", I think to some extent the real issue is design philosophy at DC vs Marvel, both in general and at specific key periods in their history.

Part of the reason that Marvel is generally seen as "not overpowered", for example, is that Marvel has a long history of writing. . . call it 'level appropriate' villains and challenges for their heroes. The Avengers, or the Fantastic Four, or Dr Strange, or the Silver Surfer, may be crazy powerful, but they face challenges at or beyond their limits consistently. They win, because heroes, but they win via courage and cleverness as much as power. They are underdogs, wherein obscene levels of power don't make them invincible gods, so much as just give them the ability to sit at the table and ante up in the first place.

DC, by contrast, had a track record during the really important formative days of having many of its key superheroes radically outpower almost all their opposition. The iconic case being, of course, Superman, where there are entire decades in which Superman was basically God, the only challenge to him resulted from explicit somewhat arbitrary weaknesses like Kryptonite. The underdog needing to use cleverness to overcome a power gap, was his *nemesis*, Lex Luther. . . and he wasn't alone. DC had a somewhat disturbingly large number of cases of "Godlike Hero vs Normal Human Mad Science Genius".

Now, is this necessarily the case today? No, especially since both companies have had crap writing for the past few decades. However, the image still stands. DC is the home of Towering Gods, Marvel is the home of Underdogs.

This!!!

 

[Docker2.0]

Vision wins by a surprisingly wide margin. I'm shocked I tell you! Next up:

Ikaris

vs Bleeding edge Iron Man

Who you got peeps?!

 

[Batmannerism]

Vision wins by a surprisingly wide margin. I'm shocked I tell you! Next up:

Ikaris

vs Bleeding edge Iron Man

Who you got peeps?!

Ikaris 7/10. Make it a protracted battle and Stark's energy source and weapons are finite. Ikaris can't run out of energy, and is definitely more maneuverable - and he'll definitely want to fight off the ground. It's not that his blasts are as powerful as an infinity stone, or that he's as strong as Thanos, but he won't run out of energy.

Something I hated about Eternals is how little thought the writers put into making the characters powers consistent.

If Ikaris can achieve escape velocity and fly to the sun in less than 8 minutes....he's travelling faster than light. If he can operate at that kind of speed...well why doesn't he just travel back in time. Yeah, artistic license in the film...but its dumb.

Similarly Ikaris takes a massive battering from Makaari ( moving at super sonic speeds but with no accompanying pressure wave, because....why not ?) with almost no effect other than being momentarily off balance ( and fighting 2 other Eternals at the same time), but one of the upgraded Deviants actually seems to pose a threat to him ?

The problem is that the writers were idiots whose thought process was " Our genius story needs Ikaris to do X, so he can. In the next scene Y needs to happen so Ikaris can't do ****."


Might I suggest Phastos vs the Bleeding Edge armour, as they're both quite versatile in coming up with different kinds of weapons.

 

[Batmannerism]

On the matter of "overpowered", I think to some extent the real issue is design philosophy at DC vs Marvel, both in general and at specific key periods in their history.

Part of the reason that Marvel is generally seen as "not overpowered", for example, is that Marvel has a long history of writing. . . call it 'level appropriate' villains and challenges for their heroes. The Avengers, or the Fantastic Four, or Dr Strange, or the Silver Surfer, may be crazy powerful, but they face challenges at or beyond their limits consistently. They win, because heroes, but they win via courage and cleverness as much as power. They are underdogs, wherein obscene levels of power don't make them invincible gods, so much as just give them the ability to sit at the table and ante up in the first place.

DC, by contrast, had a track record during the really important formative days of having many of its key superheroes radically outpower almost all their opposition. The iconic case being, of course, Superman, where there are entire decades in which Superman was basically God, the only challenge to him resulted from explicit somewhat arbitrary weaknesses like Kryptonite. The underdog needing to use cleverness to overcome a power gap, was his *nemesis*, Lex Luther. . . and he wasn't alone. DC had a somewhat disturbingly large number of cases of "Godlike Hero vs Normal Human Mad Science Genius".

Now, is this necessarily the case today? No, especially since both companies have had crap writing for the past few decades. However, the image still stands. DC is the home of Towering Gods, Marvel is the home of Underdogs.

Since you like memes so much...

This!!!

 

[Batgirl0202]

Because his power levels weren't definitively/consistently defined in the movie, let's go to our trusted Wiki source:

Ikaris' life force is augmented by cosmic energy and he has total mental control over his physical form and bodily processes even when he is asleep or unconscious. As a result, he is virtually immortal, immune to disease and aging, and invulnerable to conventional forms of injury. Should Ikaris be injured somehow, he could regenerate any injured or missing tissue. Cosmic energy bolsters Ikaris's metabolism so that he does not tire from any physical exertion. He can resist temperature extremes through mental concentration.

Uh huh. Bleeding Edge armor or not, Stark don't stand a chance 9/10 times

 

[Batmannerism]

Because his power levels weren't definitively/consistently defined in the movie, let's go to our trusted Wiki source:

Ikaris' life force is augmented by cosmic energy and he has total mental control over his physical form and bodily processes even when he is asleep or unconscious. As a result, he is virtually immortal, immune to disease and aging, and invulnerable to conventional forms of injury. Should Ikaris be injured somehow, he could regenerate any injured or missing tissue. Cosmic energy bolsters Ikaris's metabolism so that he does not tire from any physical exertion. He can resist temperature extremes through mental concentration.

Uh huh. Bleeding Edge armor or not, Stark don't stand a chance 9/10 times

Yeah, that's comic book Ikaris who would definitely demolish most versions of Iron Man - and also has a bunch of powers that MCU Ikaris doesn't have.

Still MCU Ikaris was energy resistant enough to need to fly into the sun to destroy himself. It's tough because his feats are quite inconsistent and his opponents don't provide much of a basis for comparison.

One thing we do see is that Eternals can be killed - rendered inactive, by having their energy drained.

Kind of makes you think - if they had thought about it a little, maybe they could have used a unimind to reactivate Gilgamesh and Ajak. I mean they can't truly die, because they were never alive.

I'm sure Arishem has backup copies though.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

I'll take it that Ike Harris was going easy on his fellow Eternals in the movie, dude can break their ship and fly real quick to the sun.

IKARIS

 

[metaphysician]

Ikaris vs Iron Man ( Bleeding Edge ):

Hmm. I think you all are underestimating Iron Man, but only by a certain degree. I'd say Ikaris takes it 8/10, since while Tony *should* be able to hurt him, the problem is hurting him enough before dealing with fast angry flying brick in face. Ikaris has issues with being relatively unskilled as high end bricks go, but he doesn't really need skill here especially, he just needs "fly up, face tank attacks, punch and blast opponent". Tony is kind of used to being the flying mobile skirmisher, here he gets his own tactics turned against him.

I'd say Tony's best chances come from "I generally have access to backup robots, let me use those to create distractions" and "I am wearing a whole bunch of shapeshifting nanotech, lets see how you like it if I make *you* wear it". But that isn't going to earn him many victories, not on his own without any kind of special preparations.

 

[Batmannerism]

Ikaris vs Iron Man ( Bleeding Edge ):

Hmm. I think you all are underestimating Iron Man, but only by a certain degree. I'd say Ikaris takes it 8/10, since while Tony *should* be able to hurt him, the problem is hurting him enough before dealing with fast angry flying brick in face. Ikaris has issues with being relatively unskilled as high end bricks go, but he doesn't really need skill here especially, he just needs "fly up, face tank attacks, punch and blast opponent". Tony is kind of used to being the flying mobile skirmisher, here he gets his own tactics turned against him.

I'd say Tony's best chances come from "I generally have access to backup robots, let me use those to create distractions" and "I am wearing a whole bunch of shapeshifting nanotech, lets see how you like it if I make *you* wear it". But that isn't going to earn him many victories, not on his own without any kind of special preparations.

Given Ikaris absolutely beats Tony in aerial maneuverability and speed, a fight in the air he's going to win 9/10. Tony's best chance is to get into close quarters and deliver some.unusual nanotech attack.

 

[Docker2.0]

Ikaris wins. Next up:

The Eternals

vs A force

Who you got peeps?!

 

[Batmannerism]

Ikaris wins. Next up:

The Eternals

vs A force

Who you got peeps?!

Depends on the writers. The Eternals kind of underperformed but actually have decent teamwork.
The A force chicks don't actually work as a team and some of them are only human, whereas all the Eternals have a baseline of superhuman durability.



The big problem for them is Captain Marvel- she's so powerful that I'm not sure they could take her down - unless she's susceptible to a non physical attack like Druig's mind control or Sersi's transmutation.

However, with Sprite casting illusions or cloaking them and Ikaris, Kingo, Thena, Makaari and Gilgamesh running amok ( and Druig maybe turning opponents into Allies and Sersi turning them into trees, while Ajak heals anyone whose injured) I can see the Eternals taking this.

I'll go Eternals 6/10 assuming Captain Marvel can be either mind controlled or turned into a tree.

 

[Holy Slapper]

Depends on the writers. The Eternals kind of underperformed but actually have decent teamwork.
The A force chicks don't actually work as a team and some of them are only human, whereas all the Eternals have a baseline of superhuman durability.



The big problem for them is Captain Marvel- she's so powerful that I'm not sure they could take her down - unless she's susceptible to a non physical attack like Druig's mind control or Sersi's transmutation.

However, with Sprite casting illusions or cloaking them and Ikaris, Kingo, Thena, Makaari and Gilgamesh running amok ( and Druig maybe turning opponents into Allies and Sersi turning them into trees, while Ajak heals anyone whose injured) I can see the Eternals taking this.

I'll go Eternals 6/10 assuming Captain Marvel can be either mind controlled or turned into a tree.

If the writers from Raised By Wolves were writing it....

 

[Spider-Aziz]

ETERNALS

Just to make things simpler.

 

[Batgirl0202]

Hmmm this is a tricky one...

Just to be contrarian here I'm gonna go with A Force. We've got Captain Marvel, an Asgardian, a Wakandian, pus a couple daughters of Thanos. That more than balances out the humans on the team...

Having said that, I can see The Eternals putting up one helleva fight. I'll go A Force 6/10

 

[metaphysician]

Eternals vs "A-Force":

Hmm. On one hand, Makkari should be able to blitz the crap out of a *lot* of the opposition, removing almost everyone who touches or comes within reach of the ground. OTOH, I'm kind of doubtful that any of them can *do* anything against Captain Marvel. I think she gets overrated a tad here, but she's still a fast flying brick in the Thor/Dr Strange power tier, that is well above the opposition. I feel like it mostly hinges on Druig, and the exact parameters of his telepathy. If he can hit Carol in the brain for at least a ten count, they win. If not, they lose.

( Possibly alternate plan: Makkari steals a sword from either Valkyrie or Gamora, and sees whether either of those can hurt Carol when used as a speedblitz weapon. )

 

[Docker2.0]

Eternals vs "A-Force":

Hmm. On one hand, Makkari should be able to blitz the crap out of a *lot* of the opposition, removing almost everyone who touches or comes within reach of the ground. OTOH, I'm kind of doubtful that any of them can *do* anything against Captain Marvel. I think she gets overrated a tad here, but she's still a fast flying brick in the Thor/Dr Strange power tier, that is well above the opposition. I feel like it mostly hinges on Druig, and the exact parameters of his telepathy. If he can hit Carol in the brain for at least a ten count, they win. If not, they lose.

( Possibly alternate plan: Makkari steals a sword from either Valkyrie or Gamora, and sees whether either of those can hurt Carol when used as a speedblitz weapon. )

You going to make a pick or what?!

 

[Batmannerism]

Eternals vs "A-Force":

Hmm. On one hand, Makkari should be able to blitz the crap out of a *lot* of the opposition, removing almost everyone who touches or comes within reach of the ground. OTOH, I'm kind of doubtful that any of them can *do* anything against Captain Marvel. I think she gets overrated a tad here, but she's still a fast flying brick in the Thor/Dr Strange power tier, that is well above the opposition. I feel like it mostly hinges on Druig, and the exact parameters of his telepathy. If he can hit Carol in the brain for at least a ten count, they win. If not, they lose.

( Possibly alternate plan: Makkari steals a sword from either Valkyrie or Gamora, and sees whether either of those can hurt Carol when used as a speedblitz weapon. )

Don't you think Sersi's transformation attack factors in ? That's an attack which seems impossible to defend against, even before being boosted by the unimind she was able to turn a big section of a Celestial ( a literally god) to stone.

Given that Sprite can literally make them invisible or distract/confuse the opposition
there are plenty of ways to create an opportunity to disable Captain Marvel.

Thena's weapons might be able to hurt Captain Marvel, and while I'm not sure that Ikaris ( although his blasts took down a huge spaceship), Makaari, Kingo and Gilgamesh could hurt her much, they could at least distract her while Phastos whips up some restraints.

What makes the Eternals so dangerous here is their variety of powers and literally thousands of years of fighting together- albeit vs far less intelligent enemies.

 

[Docker2.0]

You know who I think is really underrated? Wasp. I really think she can do damage with her shrinkage ability.

 

[Batmannerism]

You know who I think is really underrated? Wasp. I really think she can do damage with her shrinkage ability.

Not sure she could actually harm the Eternals, watch her film, she's great against humans and no name Thanos Goons, but who has she actually fought who was superhuman?

 

[metaphysician]

You going to make a pick or what?!

I mean, didn't I? Team A-Force most likely takes it, because I'm dubious they can stop Captain Marvel.

 

[metaphysician]

Don't you think Sersi's transformation attack factors in ? That's an attack which seems impossible to defend against, even before being boosted by the unimind she was able to turn a big section of a Celestial ( a literally god) to stone.

Given that Sprite can literally make them invisible or distract/confuse the opposition
there are plenty of ways to create an opportunity to disable Captain Marvel.

Thena's weapons might be able to hurt Captain Marvel, and while I'm not sure that Ikaris ( although his blasts took down a huge spaceship), Makaari, Kingo and Gilgamesh could hurt her much, they could at least distract her while Phastos whips up some restraints.

What makes the Eternals so dangerous here is their variety of powers and literally thousands of years of fighting together- albeit vs far less intelligent enemies.

Actually, I don't think Sersi will matter, because it was fairly explicit in the movie that her transmutation powers *don't* work on living things, not normally. It was an artificial powerup resulting from being connected to the soon-to-be-Emerging Celestial which let her do so. I don't consider such temporary powerups normally. Even if she *could*, though, it probably still wouldn't matter. She has fairly limited range, no mobility, and is a relatively squishy non-combatant by Eternal standards. Basically, she's almost certainly going to be a casualty in the initial exchange of fire well before she'd get the chance to actually do anything.

As for the teamwork, sure, that's a valid point. I just don't think its going to be enough against someone whose basically "Like Ikaris only buffer", especially when so much of their ability to even potential win hinges on a few fairly squishy people.

( And all this is, natch, assuming that it almost immediately turns into Eternals vs Captain Marvel. Every single A-Force member whose either too durable or too airborne for Makkari to quickly blitz makes the odds even worse. )

 

[metaphysician]

You know who I think is really underrated? Wasp. I really think she can do damage with her shrinkage ability.

Under normal circumstances, I'd agree. A fast flying shrinker with ranged attacks and esoteric gadgets is a nasty threat. In this case, she's just somewhat lost in the static against the Makkari blitz. If she starts at normal size, then she goes down immediately. If she starts shrunk but is in anything resembling an identifiable location, then she goes down immediately. Even if she's not spotted, if she's at ground level she might go down immediately anyway from being run over by Makkari. Etc. It doesn't help that she's a perfectly normal human underneath the gear, meaning she'd also be highly susceptible to Druig.

I just don't see a lot of scenarios where Wasp would end up being a linchpin in victory or defeat, here. If all the hard counters to her on Team Eternals are down, it means that Team Eternals has already lost, essentially. And I tend to think that Makkari would be the last Eternal to go down, because Team A-Force doesn't actually have a good counter to her other than "brute force area attacks and wait for her to get tired".

( Before you say "Wanda Maximoff", let me point out that Wanda is the glassiest of glass cannons and has zero enhanced reflexes or passive durability. She even has a public reputation via being an Avenger, there is no plausible argument for Makkari not beelining to punch her out in the first microsecond of the fight. And yes, this does mean that if the Eternals *didn't* have Makkari, this fight would be *massively* more one-sided. )

 

[Docker2.0]

Under normal circumstances, I'd agree. A fast flying shrinker with ranged attacks and esoteric gadgets is a nasty threat. In this case, she's just somewhat lost in the static against the Makkari blitz. If she starts at normal size, then she goes down immediately. If she starts shrunk but is in anything resembling an identifiable location, then she goes down immediately. Even if she's not spotted, if she's at ground level she might go down immediately anyway from being run over by Makkari. Etc. It doesn't help that she's a perfectly normal human underneath the gear, meaning she'd also be highly susceptible to Druig.

I just don't see a lot of scenarios where Wasp would end up being a linchpin in victory or defeat, here. If all the hard counters to her on Team Eternals are down, it means that Team Eternals has already lost, essentially. And I tend to think that Makkari would be the last Eternal to go down, because Team A-Force doesn't actually have a good counter to her other than "brute force area attacks and wait for her to get tired".

( Before you say "Wanda Maximoff", let me point out that Wanda is the glassiest of glass cannons and has zero enhanced reflexes or passive durability. She even has a public reputation via being an Avenger, there is no plausible argument for Makkari not beelining to punch her out in the first microsecond of the fight. And yes, this does mean that if the Eternals *didn't* have Makkari, this fight would be *massively* more one-sided. )

Whatever.........



I'm kidding buddy. You are alright in my book.

 

[Docker2.0]

Eternals win. Next up:
Makkari

vs Savage Hulk

Who you got peeps?!