MCU vs thread....controversy and chaos

The Flag Smashers also outnumbered Sam and Bucky, and we don't actually know how trained they were. It's not a contradiction for one outdated, long out of practice supersoldier who clearly let himself go a lot during his years rotting in prison to be less effective than a group of young, modern supersoldiers in their prime.

It is true that he did let himself go, and we don't know how much training the Flag Smashers had - although it didn't seem like much.

I still struggle to believe that even with such a long period of inactivity a highly trained operative, with superhuman strength and speed performed so poorly against a more skillfull but much smaller, lighter and physically weaker opponent.

It is also true that Sam and Bucky were outnumbered, but given Bucky's previous performances against Steve, it's not a stretch to suggest he could have beaten all of them, having Sam there was just overkill.

In any case, you're not changing your mind and you're definitely not changing mine. And as far as an actual serious attempt at logical debate goes, '****ty writing' is a copout argument that could be made by anyone against any character or scene they don't like. And even if we were trying to find some form of consensus among a lot of people, I'm pretty sure - given how people still look down on them - that the Hand would still be on the ****ty writing list alongside Red Guardian.

Just like good writing, ****ty writing is a thing.
There are personal opinions: if you enjoyed the depiction of Red Guardian and disliked the Hand, well that's up to you. But some writing choices are much easier to argue as being stronger than others.

Writers and directors make decisions about how the events onscreen play out. Sometimes those decisions make sense and are clever ( like Cap being massively outmatched by Thanos, but being able to go toe to toe with him by wielding Mjolnir).

However, Red Guardian is explicitly played for laughs which is an odd choice, given that it totally contradicts everything we see about him in the opening of the film.

In contrast, The Hand are taken completely seriously as deadly adversaries - it is Matt's super senses and skills, plus a lot of help from Elektra, and even an assist from the Punisher that allow him to overcome them.

I would argue that this because the DD show was better written than Black Widow.



It's the story itself that gave me the impression Stick demanded Matt devote his entire life to training, meaning Matt had to start his normal adult life after he quit.

Don't remember.

But all of them are there to be ripped apart at the speed of the plot.

Yes, you can make some account for them being intended to have more strength or skill or less (though even if you do it's entirely ridiculous to claim that Ninjas are the highest/most dangerous possible form of generic goon in a universe full of high tech, superstrong aliens). But you can also account for the same thing for a character like Red Guardian, who is no more unimpressive than the generic goons and who is also very explicitly supposed to have that superstrength.

How that reads is that Red Guardian is equivalent to a generic goon. You were the one who said that generic goons are generic goons - which I have demonstrated is incorrect.

I would agree that Ninjas are probably not the most powerful generic goons in the MCU - in fact I dont believe I said that at all.
What I did say was that given their performance
against DD and Elektra, compared to many of the other generic goons ( e.g. the Tracksuit mafia vs Hawkeye) they pose a much more serious threat to the main characters.

You don't get to have it both ways. Either neither of them are worth taking into account because they're fundamentally unimpressive in fact or both of them are for the underlying concepts of the relative strength/skill levels we know they're supposed to have.

You misunderstand.

Generic goons serve a particular purpose in the story within which they exist: usually to provide a degree of threat/challenge to the heroes. However, they generally pose a lot less threat than the main villains.

My point, is that if you remove them from their particular stories so that they no longer have to serve a story purpose, there is a huge difference between them. This is because the generic goons - which is a misnomer really, because generic suggests they're all the same, which is untrue- how about "anonymous henchmen." instead.
You literally said, above:

Generic goons are generic goons, be they Ninja, Alien, Hydra or Tracksuit Maffia.

However, I suggest that a Cadre of ninja or squad of Chitauri are not equivalent to the Tracksuit mafia. How long do you think the Tracksuits would last in a fight against the Hand or Chitauri ?






Are you seriously claiming you'd be happier with the movie if it was a visual lock? Because I'd bet money on the opposite.
Then you would lose your money.

If you're going to assume that a cold can disrupt the pheromone lock (which isn't really a reasonable assumption for a fake sci-fi technology that can't work in reality no matter what), then we also have to assume that a visual lock could be disrupted by:
- eye disease
- a dark room
- a blindfold
- infrared/night vision
- beer goggles
- heavy crying
- Dreykov's face swelling up
- putting a mask or a bag over Dreykov's head
- literally just closing your eyes

And since the red room is supposed to make the best assassins in the world, I'm pretty sure they're capable enough to find and stab a target in the dark. And it would be hilariously absurd to suggest they're unable to point a gun and close their eyes right before they pull the trigger.

You can make all of those assumptions and it still makes the pheromone lock much easier to circumvent.

Eyesight is the primary sense for human beings, it's how we navigate our world.
Try hitting, stabbing or shooting someone with your eyes closed. Then try the same thing with a blocked nose. Which do you think would be easier? I've never tried shooting with my eyes closed, but it wasn't easy even with them open. Ive never tried to stab anyone, so I can't speak to that, but I've fought people without being able to see them properly, it wasn't easy.

As good as the Black Widows are, not being able to see a target would make it much more difficult to kill them, than merely not being able to smell them.



Of course it would hurt like hell and make her less effective. That's kind of the point of a heroic sacrifice in fiction.

And I don't think Nat is all that concerned about 'less effective' when the target is a single arrogant old guy in a chair who relied on the false assumption she would be physically unable to hurt him.

If that works for you, fair enough. Although she perfectly reconfigures her nose immediately afterwards, don't know if her sense of smell ever returned.
 
No tie this time. Daredevil wins 4-3. Next up:
Deadpool
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vs Hawkeye and Black Widow
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Who you got peeps?
 
DEADPOOL is one sneaky goofball who can win this fight with a couple of surprise attacks and lots of wits.

Deadpool uses his own dismembered limbs to beat Hawkeye and Kate into submission and then ruins Kate's self esteem with his sarcasm, and she runs away.


Deadpool for the win against Widow and Hawkeye as well. What good are assassins against a man who cannot be killed ? Even if they cut him into pieces or blow him up, he can keep coming and bite their legs off.
 
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Then you would lose your money.



You can make all of those assumptions and it still makes the pheromone lock much easier to circumvent.

Eyesight is the primary sense for human beings, it's how we navigate our world.
Try hitting, stabbing or shooting someone with your eyes closed. Then try the same thing with a blocked nose. Which do you think would be easier? I've never tried shooting with my eyes closed, but it wasn't easy even with them open. Ive never tried to stab anyone, so I can't speak to that, but I've fought people without being able to see them properly, it wasn't easy.

As good as the Black Widows are, not being able to see a target would make it much more difficult to kill them, than merely not being able to smell them.

I'll leave the rest of the argument alone since there's a new fight anyway, but I really have to point out that this is an incredibly ridiculous assessment of the abilities of these characters and doesn't even make sense even if your assessment of the characters were accurate to begin with.

Yes, killing people is hard and killing people you can't see is harder, but that's exactly the type of hard thing characters like Black Widow do *all* the time.

And the list of weaknesses you casually glossed over there also shows that your visual lock idea doesn't even require Nat to close her eyes at all. She's more than skilled enough to toss a bag or a blanket over the man's head so she can't see his face and then kill him. Or she can target him using night vision or infrared, which will show everything she needs to see to target him without showing his face.

Switching to a visual lock would make the scene literally effortless for her.

--

Re the fight,

I said Deadpool in a fight like this before and was soundly lectured that being dismembered counts as losing even if he can eventually come back from it, so if that still is the standard then DP has to lose since he certainly doesn't have the skill to beat Hawkeye and BW in a fair fight.
 
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Yeah but that Daredevil is different from the one from Netflix. It's a varient. Look at Kingpin on Disney Plus as compared to Netflix. He is way stronger and appears to be on some kind of super soldier formula.

This is true, but until and unless we get actual evidence otherwise, the Netflix portrayal is all we have to go on. You don't get to invent entirely non-existent feats for "MCU Daredevil" just because no feats for him actually exist outside Netflix. Its either "use Netflix" or "there is nothing to go on".

And Netflix Daredevil is a dude who consistently takes on lower quality opposition, has to fight harder, and takes more injury and fatigue in the process, compared to Black Widow. Which is why, yes, he is a considerably lower level, less capable character. Which is different from the comics, but too bad. Lots of things in the MCU are different from the comics.
 
And then he lost a fight to a 120 lb girl, and displayed less fighting skills than the stay puff marshmallow man.

... if by "lost a fight" you mean "Was utterly unaffected by anything she did to him, and casually sent her flying, with her only winning when she detonated all the trick arrows at once". Because frankly, "getting a whole bunch of trick arrow warheads detonated under my feet" would probably take out some of the earlier Iron Man armors, too.
 
Deadpool vs Hawkeye and Black Widow:

Clint and Nat in a walk. Deadpool is good, but he has at best skill parity with either of them. He's outnumbered, and they have much better gear. That's not a winning combo.
 
Deadpool uses his own dismembered limbs to beat Hawkeye and Kate into submission and then ruins Kate's self esteem with his sarcasm, and she runs away.


Deadpool for the win against Widow and Hawkeye as well. What good are assassins against a man who cannot be killed ? Even if they cut him into pieces or blow him up, he can keep coming and bite their legs off.

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... if by "lost a fight" you mean "Was utterly unaffected by anything she did to him, and casually sent her flying, with her only winning when she detonated all the trick arrows at once". Because frankly, "getting a whole bunch of trick arrow warheads detonated under my feet" would probably take out some of the earlier Iron Man armors, too.


Yup. I completely mean that. Kingpin from the Daredevil series was a smart, tough and ruthless opponent, who beat down Punisher on one occasion and crippled Bullseye. A single blow from that character should have incapacitated Kate.

Yet in that fight he literally fights like the staypuff marshmallow man.

Given how much damage those arrows did to the surrounding environment. And that Iron Man mk 2, shrugged off a high explosive tank shell, I cannot see even that pile of arrows taking out Iron Man.
 
This is true, but until and unless we get actual evidence otherwise, the Netflix portrayal is all we have to go on. You don't get to invent entirely non-existent feats for "MCU Daredevil" just because no feats for him actually exist outside Netflix. Its either "use Netflix" or "there is nothing to go on".

And Netflix Daredevil is a dude who consistently takes on lower quality opposition, has to fight harder, and takes more injury and fatigue in the process, compared to Black Widow. Which is why, yes, he is a considerably lower level, less capable character. Which is different from the comics, but too bad. Lots of things in the MCU are different from the comics.
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I'll leave the rest of the argument alone since there's a new fight anyway, but I really have to point out that this is an incredibly ridiculous assessment of the abilities of these characters and doesn't even make sense even if your assessment of the characters were accurate to begin with.

Yes, killing people is hard and killing people you can't see is harder, but that's exactly the type of hard thing characters like Black Widow do *all* the time.

And the list of weaknesses you casually glossed over there also shows that your visual lock idea doesn't even require Nat to close her eyes at all. She's more than skilled enough to toss a bag or a blanket over the man's head so she can't see his face and then kill him. Or she can target him using night vision or infrared, which will show everything she needs to see to target him without showing his face.

Switching to a visual lock would make the scene literally effortless for her.
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Have you got some onscreen evidence of Black Widows killing specific targets without seeing them ? Other than planting bombs? If you're going to tell us they do these things all the time, it would be great if you could provide some examples of eyes closed assassinations. Tell you, what I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

If a visual lock works the same way as the pheremone lock i.e. she can't take any action against him once she's seen or smelled him, that creates some problems for your scenarios, if you stop and think about it a bit.

So, if she tosses a bag over him or covers him up ....that means she's seen him, so she knows it's him, and she's still looking at him. It seems unlikely that she now suddenly thinks he's someone else, for the purposes of her mental programming to now allow her to kill him.

Given that tossing the bag or covering him is a precursor act to shooting him - it's an aggressive act against him, can she even do that?

It is possible to visually recognize, and identify people while their faces are partially sometimes even totally obscured - especially if you're the person who covered them.

If she looks at him through a night vision or infrared scope, well she's still looking at him, and she knows its him - so, probably unlikely to circumvent a visual lock.

Okay, so she walks into the room draws her gun and closes her eyes, so she cannot see him at all and starts shooting. Maybe she hits him, but if he moves even slightly (and he's a soldier and spymaster) , she misses, he can now counterattack or run away and she's got no visual reference to adjust her aim......good luck Nat. Or
is that an "incredibly ridiculous " assessment of her abilities ?

Daredevil, BTW could still hit him, even it he was moving with a thrown weapon, because of his supersenses, just saying....( as evidenced in the season 2 episode of Daredevil, when he rescues the Punisher from the Irish mob)

Not sounding too effortless there.

Here's effortless....with the pheremone lock. She opens the door, is too far away to smell Dreykov, and shoots him dead. Roll credits.
 
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I will say it until the cows come home: Black Widow was the most overrated MCU character ever! No way should she have been able to go toe to toe with Proxima Midnight but.................here we are!
 
I will say it until the cows come home: Black Widow was the most overrated MCU character ever! No way should she have been able to go toe to toe with Proxima Midnight but.................here we are!


It's a tough one. I'm not sure the problem is that she's overrated, it's more like Widow just has Batman levels of plot armour.

Proxima wasn't particularly tough in the MCU ,but she clearly had the upper hand, even when unarmed against Nat who still had her batons. Had Wanda not intervened Nat would have been killed.

To me it seemed more outlandish that she could take on hordes of Chitauri, even when she used their weapons against them. She doesn't have super strength, speed or durability- so any hit should have just about dropped her, and the Chitauri were able to land shots on Cap, who had those benefits plus an indestructible shield.

There are plenty of Black Widow plot armour moments are in her own film:

She survives falling off a building, without significant injury.

She walks away unscathed from her first fight with Yelena, which should have left some pretty serious.

During the prison scene she stands exposed on a bridge, for any number of soldiers to shoot her, but luckily no one thinks of that.

And then there's the falling through fields of debris off the floating fortress, very low altitude parachute jump.

All of those scenes could have been tweaked to make them sustain, rather than shatter the suspension of disbelief.

But having said all that, Scarjo still makes her a charming and interesting character who we can cheer for.
 
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Have you got some onscreen evidence of Black Widows killing specific targets without seeing them ? Other than planting bombs? If you're going to tell us they do these things all the time, it would be great if you could provide some examples of eyes closed assassinations. Tell you, what I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

If a visual lock works the same way as the pheremone lock i.e. she can't take any action against him once she's seen or smelled him, that creates some problems for your scenarios, if you stop and think about it a bit.

So, if she tosses a bag over him or covers him up ....that means she's seen him, so she knows it's him, and she's still looking at him. It seems unlikely that she now suddenly thinks he's someone else, for the purposes of her mental programming to now allow her to kill him.

Given that tossing the bag or covering him is a precursor act to shooting him - it's an aggressive act against him, can she even do that?

It is possible to visually recognize, and identify people while their faces are partially sometimes even totally obscured - especially if you're the person who covered them.

If she looks at him through a night vision or infrared scope, well she's still looking at him, and she knows its him - so, probably unlikely to circumvent a visual lock.

Okay, so she walks into the room draws her gun and closes her eyes, so she cannot see him at all and starts shooting. Maybe she hits him, but if he moves even slightly (and he's a soldier and spymaster) , she misses, he can now counterattack or run away and she's got no visual reference to adjust her aim......good luck Nat. Or
is that an "incredibly ridiculous " assessment of her abilities ?

Daredevil, BTW could still hit him, even it he was moving with a thrown weapon, because of his supersenses, just saying....( as evidenced in the season 2 episode of Daredevil, when he rescues the Punisher from the Irish mob)

Not sounding too effortless there.

Here's effortless....with the pheremone lock. She opens the door, is too far away to smell Dreykov, and shoots him dead. Roll credits.

I didn't say Black Widow in the MCU has fought in the dark. She hasn't had the opportuntity that I recall. I said characters like her do it all the time. It's a stock expectation of the master assassin trope. And I'd pretty much guarantee she's done various similar things in the comics plenty of times.

Also, congratulations on proving the point that there's nothing wrong with the pheromone lock, because if the pheromone lock actually worked the way you're describing your visual lock then *she wouldn't have been able to hurt him even after she broke her nose.*
 
I didn't say Black Widow in the MCU has fought in the dark. She hasn't had the opportuntity that I recall. I said characters like her do it all the time. It's a stock expectation of the master assassin trope. And I'd pretty much guarantee she's done various similar things in the comics plenty of times.

Sooooo, that's a no then.

There's evidence of Elektra doing stuff like that in the comics ( e.g. in Elektra Assassin 1988) but then she is a ninja after all.

Also, congratulations on proving the point that there's nothing wrong with the pheromone lock, because if the pheromone lock actually worked the way you're describing your visual lock then *she wouldn't have been able to hurt him even after she broke her nose.*

Opens door, draws gun, takes careful aim, shoots Draykov dead, end of story. Yup, highly effective.
 
I will say it until the cows come home: Black Widow was the most overrated MCU character ever! No way should she have been able to go toe to toe with Proxima Midnight but.................here we are!
I think the cows have been home for quite some time AND you're still saying it. BW thanks you for getting her all those extra votes. LOL.
 

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