Quote Originally Posted by Jonathan View Post
How small are the groups, how much is he struggling, and what makes these people ordinary as opposed to at least comic book level henchmen?
They're crooked cops, so sure, call them comic book level henchmen. The point is, he's getting tagged, beat up, and struggling hard against groups of crooked cops. Like, he catches four of them by surprise, and one of them gets him in a choke hold and almost puts him out (Matt ends up fleeing that fight, not winning it). Another time, he jumps in to help a good cop fight some of the crooked ones, gets tagged a couple of times, and is visibly winded. Again, this is against four to five people, with an ally helping him out.

Also, he fights against that ally (the good cop) in an earlier issue. The guy is a cop. He's a skilled boxer. He's not a peak human; he's not even Silver Sable level, given three or four guys are shown later to be too much for him. He beats all hell out of Matt.

Matt jumps in a room with four street thugs. That's all they are - young dudes with baseball bats and such. He is actually shown using pressure points to take two of them out. However, he gets beat up pretty badly - they land hits on him, tackle him, etc.

Again, these aren't even CBPH types. They're not even below CBPH, skilled comic book martial artists (like Silver Sable level). They're nobodies: crooked cops and street thugs. And they're landing hits on Matt. They're making work hard. He might have even lost the last fight I mention if the kid he was trying to rescue from the street thugs hadn't stepped in and taken out the final thug (who was beating Matt up and almost broke his arm by punching it, that's how far down Matt has come) with a baseball bat.

Compare this to the Matt who is shown fighting evenly or even better than evenly against Captain America. The Matt who takes on roughly 100 Yakuza hopped up on a drug that increases their physical capabilities.

Matt really isn't doing so hot right now.