Is Moon Girl really smarter than Victor Von Doom and Reed Richards?

[Tiamatty]

she's smart, leave it at that. Have her come up with cool gadgets and strategies to save the day.

Lunella really does come up with the best gadgets. The fact that they're makeshift stuff made out of random junk makes them so awesome.

Bendis said RiRi would have been bored out of her mind staying in high school and leap frogged her to MIT.

Meanwhile poor Lunella gets stick with kids her age group and teachers who are vastly inferior.

Why does Marvel mistreat the smartest person in the world with her age group? Can't even skip one grade. Tsk Tsk.

Not that unrealistic, actually. A school administration that simply doesn't understand how to handle a child of her intelligence, parents who likewise have trouble with her, and a desire by parents and administration both for Lunella to socialize with kids her own age. I'll bet you could find a ton of geniuses out there who had experiences like that in school.

Once she's older, she might start skipping grades.

[JasonEsta]

she's smart, leave it at that. Have her come up with cool gadgets and strategies to save the day.

How can I leave it at that when she's promoted as the 2017 smartest character?

[JasonEsta]

Always thought the Leader should be the smartest since that was the power he got from the Gamma Rays. It's pretty bad if he's been overtaken by a bunch of people who are just naturally smart. What would happen if the top 10 smartest was boosted intellectually by Gamma Rays?

Leader is smart but has he gotten away with the things Magneto, Beast, Dark Beast, Sinister, or Valeria has done? I can't recall..He usually gets punked out in record time and sent on his way.

[kilderkin]

Leader is smart but has he gotten away with the things Magneto, Beast, Dark Beast, Sinister, or Valeria has done? I can't recall..He usually gets punked out in record time and sent on his way.

I suppose it's possible to be smart but tactically poor, after all some super smart people make very poor real choices due to poor "common sense" often because they think they can't be wrong and no one is smart enough to outsmart them

[Oberon]

This.

Intelligence is not the same as education or training or any other way that people can gain knowledge.

I can accept Lunella has some how having highest IQ, but it doesn't mean that she understands or can deliver on all the various disciplines in science or elsewhere.

for example Reed at his age may have studied and understand history better Lunella may not have read or digested these facts. Of course any person that smart would be reading and learning constantly so....

[Da Boat]

They always want to create a new female character that is smarter than the dudes.

[Tiamatty]

This.

Intelligence is not the same as education or training or any other way that people can gain knowledge.

I can accept Lunella has some how having highest IQ, but it doesn't mean that she understands or can deliver on all the various disciplines in science or elsewhere.

for example Reed at his age may have studied and understand history better Lunella may not have read or digested these facts. Of course any person that smart would be reading and learning constantly so....

That's the thing that pisses me off about the whole argument. People seem to think Intelligence=Education. It doesn't. There's probably a janitor out there who's smarter than Stephen Hawking, and just never got the chance to do anything with it. Lunella has more raw brain power. She's better at logic, pattern-recognition, creativity, problem-solving, maybe a better memory (no way to tell right now), all that stuff. No, of course she doesn't know as much about physics as Reed Richards, or as much about engineering as Tony Stark, or as much about biochemistry as Hank McCoy. She's still a kid. But she has greater potential than any of them.

Plus, she lacks the resources most of the geniuses did. She built an entire lab beneath her school, out of whatever junk she could salvage. IT'S PRETTY FRIGGING IMPRESSIVE.

They always want to create a new female character that is smarter than the dudes.

Mostly because, for the majority of its history, Marvel simply did not have lady adventurer-scientists. They seemed downright hostile to the very idea that a woman could be both a scientific genius and a superhero. They always had to be one or the other, never both. Reed, Tony, Bruce, two Hanks, Peter, and plenty of other guys could be both smart and strong. But no women.

Which was misogynistic bullshit. It really was. Marvel's total lack of any female character who could occupy the same sorts of roles as those guys was misogynistic bullshit and it needed to end.

So hell yeah Marvel's creating female characters who are smarter than the guys who were always held up as the smartest. It's a correction of a massive imbalance that goes right back to the start of Marvel comics.

Give it a few years, when the female genius-heroes are more firmly established, and there's likely to be less of the direct comparisons and competitions going on right now. Once women are consistently used as consultants that other heroes call on when they need scientific help.




If you hate that Moon Girl is declared The Smartest There Is, then just . . . stop caring about it? Do you hate the idea of female geniuses? Do you hate the idea of female superheroes showing up as scientific consultants in other books? If you're fine with that happening, then just . . . shut up. You want to believe Reed is smarter than Lunella? Well hey, guess what, there's actually literally nothing in the comics to contradict that, what with Reed not being on Earth right now. And hey, it's likely Doom never played with that test Banner came up with, so if you want to think Doom is smarter than Lunella? No one is stopping you. You're allowed. No one cares. The rankings don't actually matter worth a damn. They're irrelevant. What matters is that, for literally the first time in Marvel's entire 50+ year history, they actually have female superheroes who also do science, and who get used outside their own comics as scientific consultants, and who get to be defined equally as superheroes and as geniuses.

This **** matters. Representation matters. So when girls get to see characters who look like them, filling the same sorts of roles that male characters have always gotten? This **** matters. And the complaints about it are just petty.

[Kintor]

If you hate that Moon Girl is declared The Smartest There Is, then just . . . stop caring about it? Do you hate the idea of female geniuses? Do you hate the idea of female superheroes showing up as scientific consultants in other books? If you're fine with that happening, then just . . . shut up. You want to believe Reed is smarter than Lunella? Well hey, guess what, there's actually literally nothing in the comics to contradict that, what with Reed not being on Earth right now. And hey, it's likely Doom never played with that test Banner came up with, so if you want to think Doom is smarter than Lunella? No one is stopping you. You're allowed. No one cares. The rankings don't actually matter worth a damn. They're irrelevant. What matters is that, for literally the first time in Marvel's entire 50+ year history, they actually have female superheroes who also do science, and who get used outside their own comics as scientific consultants, and who get to be defined equally as superheroes and as geniuses.

This **** matters. Representation matters. So when girls get to see characters who look like them, filling the same sorts of roles that male characters have always gotten? This **** matters. And the complaints about it are just petty.

The only one being petty here is you, when you tell people to shut up and go away just because they disagree with how a new character is being handled. Nobody would care about Moon Girl at all, save for the fact that Marvel has been trying to shoehorn her into the rest of the Marvel universe. When Moon Girl takes up several issues of Venom's new book people take notice. When Moon Girl is thrown into the middle of Secret Empire people take notice. When Moon Girl is placed on a pedestal and declared better than characters with over 50 years of history, people take notice. So, when Moon Girl gets all this undeserved attention don't act surprised that much of the reaction in return is decidedly hostile.

[Tiamatty]

The only one being petty here is you, when you tell people to shut up and go away just because they disagree with how a new character is being handled. Nobody would care about Moon Girl at all, save for the fact that Marvel has been trying to shoehorn her into the rest of the Marvel universe. When Moon Girl takes up several issues of Venom's new book people take notice. When Moon Girl is thrown into the middle of Secret Empire people take notice. When Moon Girl is placed on a pedestal and declared better than characters with over 50 years of history, people take notice. So, when Moon Girl gets all this undeserved attention don't act surprised that much of the reaction in return is decidedly hostile.

Other creators enjoy her and want to use her, so what? She appeared in Venom because the writer wanted to use her. She wasn't in Secret Empire at all, but Rosenberg is using her in Secret Warriors because, again, he likes her and wants to use her.

So what? There's still a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot of other books out there that don't make any mention of her at all. She hasn't joined the Avengers or anything. There's still plenty of straight white dudes filling the scientist/adventurer role, so you can keep reading about them if the idea of a woman being as smart as any guy pisses you off that much.

[phantom1592]

Honestly, I think that would have been the better way to take things having that she has the potential to be the smartest person in the world rather than flat out saying it. It wouldn’t even be the first time that it’s been done as Peter Parker has even been stated by Reed to have potential that rivals his own. Hell it doesn’t even really make all that much sense how a puzzle from Banner (who while one of the smartest, isn’t above Reed) gages someone as being the smartest.

yeah... I don't buy that either. Reed and Doom will always compete for the biggest geniuses. Parker awesomely created a fancy glue when he was a teenager... Reed and Doom build spaceships, portals, discover dimensions and create Time machines. If they don't have the necessary tools to complete a job... they invent the tools first.

Pym has potential with the combination of bug control, size control and even AI (though I consider Doombots and HERBIE to be contenders there too... after all even the Doombots think they are the real thing until the master comes in the room) But he's very focused and inconsistent.

Banner isn't even in the running. He's specialized in ONE field... Gamma Radiation, and has consistently put that intellect toward one goal. Curing himself... and Failing at it.

Even Stark is vastly focused on his suit and suit based tech to truly hit 'SMARTEST DUDE EVAR...'

Reed and Doom? They are the pinnacles of all knowledge. Whatever they need to know, they are JUST on the verge of discovering. The fact that Reed constantly needs the rest of the team to win, and Doom has mastered time travel, magic and on more than one occasion usurped the powers from godlike beings using just his intellect... I still give the nod to him.

[Child of the Atom]

They always want to create a new female character that is smarter than the dudes.

Nah...I think it has to do with the fact that she is an Inhuman..Marvel are still desperately trying to make them a big deal and play up their importance within the Marvel Universe. No one seems to be buying it though.

[Crimz]

I've said this before in a a similar thread. It doesn't effect Reed negatively to not be the smartest, he will still do the same reality breaking things he always does. He doesn't need an arbitrary title and if it elevates another character then good for them.

They always want to create a new female character that is smarter than the dudes.

Because there is a lack of them in the MU, which needed to change. Before Moon Girl, there wasn't a single woman in the top 10 smartest list. That's pretty crappy.
My only problem is that there are no adult women geniuses on the list.

[Kintor]

Other creators enjoy her and want to use her, so what? She appeared in Venom because the writer wanted to use her. She wasn't in Secret Empire at all, but Rosenberg is using her in Secret Warriors because, again, he likes her and wants to use her.

So what? There's still a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot of other books out there that don't make any mention of her at all. She hasn't joined the Avengers or anything. There's still plenty of straight white dudes filling the scientist/adventurer role, so you can keep reading about them if the idea of a woman being as smart as any guy pisses you off that much.

I find it hard to believe that any of Marvel's writers would request Moon Girl as a character of their own free will. Just think about the books she's been shoe-horned into and you'd realise how obnoxious and tone deaf her appearances have been.

Associating her with Venom was bad enough, the Symbionts are supposed be some of Marvel's darkest characters, synonymous with madness and body horror. So, who thought it was a good idea to throw the precious child hero into a horror sideshow? On one hand Venom readers are frustrated by having their stories dumbed-down to accommodate Moon Girl. While any of Moon Girl's readers are the wrong target audience for Venom. It's a lose, lose situation.

Then you have Moon Girl in Secret Empire. Need I remind you that a large part of Secret Warriors was about liberating Inhumans from Hydra run concentration camps. So, who thought it was a good idea to make the innocent child hero witness to Marvel's holocaust pastiche? By all rights Moon Girl should be suffering from some hardcore PTSD after that experience, so say nothing of scarring her readership for life. Oh well, just another example of how Marvel had no idea what they we're doing with Secret Empire.

I said it before but I think things would've been better if Moon Girl was not part of the shared Marvel Universe. Let her own book be an isolated story, separate from everything else, where it can't bother anybody. Otherwise it just doesn't make any sense; the Marvel universe is not a friendly place, with horrors lurking around every corner, Moon Girl just doesn't fit in.

[JasonEsta]

I've said this before in a a similar thread. It doesn't effect Reed negatively to not be the smartest, he will still do the same reality breaking things he always does. He doesn't need an arbitrary title and if it elevates another character then good for them.



Because there is a lack of them in the MU, which needed to change. Before Moon Girl, there wasn't a single woman in the top 10 smartest list. That's pretty crappy.
My only problem is that there are no adult women geniuses on the list.

You didn't think Dr. Cecilia Reyes was up there? She's no Sinister level genius of course...not too many earth characters are but she's had her moments.

And if Moon Girl is ahead of Tony, Reed, and Doom, where does Riri rank now??

[KOSLOX]

What difference does it make? It's not like it negates all the cool stuff Reed has invented.