Composite X-Men Character vs. The Hulk

[big_adventure]

Oh yeah that's how he beat Shingen

Which was always stupid. Shingen had no explanation at all for being able to stick in combat with someone like Logan. And Shingen's sword had no reason at all to be able to resist getting sliced and diced by Logan's claws.

But that's not the first or the last time that trick/trope/cliché has been used in fiction.

But that was low-end Logan by far: earlier in the mini, Logan was beaten nearly to death by the same guy wielding a freaking bokken. Yes, a normal dude with a wooden practice sword nearly killed Wolverine, who absolutely had a healing factor, skills that let him fight Captain America without being decisively beaten and an adamantium skeleton at that time.

[Sharpandpointies]

Maybe a better example would be to compare Wolverine to a man in armor fencing someone who isn't. Even if the guy in armor knows a bunch of plays and counters, or capable of dodging, it makes more sense to let the armor do it's job and just shank the other guy.

That's actually the best way I've seen it described yet.

Which was always stupid. Shingen had no explanation at all for being able to stick in combat with someone like Logan. And Shingen's sword had no reason at all to be able to resist getting sliced and diced by Logan's claws.

But that's not the first or the last time that trick/trope/cliché has been used in fiction.

But that was low-end Logan by far: earlier in the mini, Logan was beaten nearly to death by the same guy wielding a freaking bokken. Yes, a normal dude with a wooden practice sword nearly killed Wolverine, who absolutely had a healing factor, skills that let him fight Captain America without being decisively beaten and an adamantium skeleton at that time.

Logan's healing factor runs on plot. In the early days it was...iffy, mind. Him winning over Shingen involved him getting pretty badly hurt in the doing; he didn't just casually tank everything, and it didn't just disappear two seconds later. He was pretty badly messed up through most of that fight, and basically won by allowing Shingen to skewer him, trapping the sword in his own body so he could snickt the old guy.

The bokken thing was...bleah, I admit.

I take issue with this.

An Orc doesn't need to be drunk to charge in like a blithering idiot.

I'm just paraphrasing a poster who is no longer with us here. You could track him down and take it up with him. ^_^

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

I'm just paraphrasing a poster who is no longer with us here. You could track him down and take it up with him. ^_^

If I was sober enough to remember where the door is, maybe !

[big_adventure]

That's actually the best way I've seen it described yet.



Logan's healing factor runs on plot. In the early days it was...iffy, mind. Him winning over Shingen involved him getting pretty badly hurt in the doing; he didn't just casually tank everything, and it didn't just disappear two seconds later. He was pretty badly messed up through most of that fight, and basically won by allowing Shingen to skewer him, trapping the sword in his own body so he could snickt the old guy.

The bokken thing was...bleah, I admit.



I'm just paraphrasing a poster who is no longer with us here. You could track him down and take it up with him. ^_^

Oh, I definitely recall the Wolvy mini. I read that series a number of times, and still have the originals in some bags somewhere, among the last of about 25 comics from childhood.

It's just that Shingen was a normal dude running a criminal and business empire who was better than Logan for... Reasons that were never even touched on. Hell, Logan took months to recover from the beating he took.

[Sharpandpointies]

Oh, I definitely recall the Wolvy mini. I read that series a number of times, and still have the originals in some bags somewhere, among the last of about 25 comics from childhood.

It's just that Shingen was a normal dude running a criminal and business empire who was better than Logan for... Reasons that were never even touched on. Hell, Logan took months to recover from the beating he took.

That's exactly it. Logan, back in the day, wasn't at ALL the powerhouse he would become. Stuff stuck, healing factor or not. Shingen, for all we know, was some super-star martial artist in his own right; in comics, for all we know he was the equivalent of Wilson Fisk, only in Japan. And not huge.

The dude was supposed to be one of the absolute best users of a sword in comic book Japan, so right there we have a level for his sword skill, comic book wise. He was capable of hitting lethal comic book pressure points with a bokken, so more information about his skill. He absolutely casually beats all hell out of Yuriko -- barehanded -- and Yuriko, while not exactly being a hand to hand monster, is at least creeping into low-level comic book martial artist area. She's trash to Shingen, and that's without him using his mainstay (a sword).

It's worth noting that in the first duel, the one with the bokken, Logan was also poisoned all to heck.

People in Marvel do get this good, just based on skill. There are plenty of scary Marvel martial artists who are fantastically good on the basis of 'because they're skilled' (Daredevil and Elektra are two examples...obviously far beyond Shingen, but if they can be there by skill, Shingen can be where he is). Having a swordsman who is noted as being one of the best in Japan being on Logan's level, especially back in the day when Logan wasn't being presented as the total unstoppable monster he is these days, isn't out of the question for me. That he was an 'unknown' in world before now? America-centric, and maybe Shingen was more interested in being a secret crime boss than a supervillain (which he was).

Basically, I'm pretty cool with it all. But mileage may vary. ^_^

[big_adventure]

That's exactly it. Logan, back in the day, wasn't at ALL the powerhouse he would become. Stuff stuck, healing factor or not. Shingen, for all we know, was some super-star martial artist in his own right; in comics, for all we know he was the equivalent of Wilson Fisk, only in Japan. And not huge.

The dude was supposed to be one of the absolute best users of a sword in comic book Japan, so right there we have a level for his sword skill, comic book wise. He was capable of hitting lethal comic book pressure points with a bokken, so more information about his skill. He absolutely casually beats all hell out of Yuriko -- barehanded -- and Yuriko, while not exactly being a hand to hand monster, is at least creeping into low-level comic book martial artist area. She's trash to Shingen, and that's without him using his mainstay (a sword).

It's worth noting that in the first duel, the one with the bokken, Logan was also poisoned all to heck.

People in Marvel do get this good, just based on skill. There are plenty of scary Marvel martial artists who are fantastically good on the basis of 'because they're skilled' (Daredevil and Elektra are two examples...obviously far beyond Shingen, but if they can be there by skill, Shingen can be where he is). Having a swordsman who is noted as being one of the best in Japan being on Logan's level, especially back in the day when Logan wasn't being presented as the total unstoppable monster he is these days, isn't out of the question for me. That he was an 'unknown' in world before now? America-centric, and maybe Shingen was more interested in being a secret crime boss than a supervillain (which he was).

Basically, I'm pretty cool with it all. But mileage may vary. ^_^

That's all so well written and clear and collected that I retract all but 5% of my objections. Those stay, in honor of my 10-year-old self in 1982 thinking that was really unfair to Logan.

[Sharpandpointies]

That's all so well written and clear and collected that I retract all but 5% of my objections. Those stay, in honor of my 10-year-old self in 1982 thinking that was really unfair to Logan.

Cool, cool.

I rather liked Shingen. He sort of echoed Fisk for me (hence me bringing Wilson into it), but in a more Japanese style.

[big_adventure]

Cool, cool.

I rather liked Shingen. He sort of echoed Fisk for me (hence me bringing Wilson into it), but in a more Japanese style.

I had nothing against Shingen - I enjoyed the series, I enjoyed the characters (except Mariko - I get the cultural points they tried to make, but they went a bit heavy-handed on them for me, and I'm speaking as a ten year old in 1982), etc. Buuuuuuut I just thought, at the time, that it didn't really fit with the image Marvel was always trying to give us of Logan. Fisk had feats going back years and years of, for no apparent reason, being capable of throwing down with Kid Spiderman and Daredevil and such, so that never really bugged me. Shingen was just dolloped onto us like week-old warm whipped cream. I mean, there really wasn't any other option: this was Logan's first ever solo stuff, and it was only a 4 issue run, so there wasn't really time for astonishing levels of character development.