Silver Surfer vs. Gladiator + Thor

[Nik Hasta]

Agreed with Pendaran on the Wonder Woman/Superman point.

Wondy's compartmentalised durability is product of her durability stat, for lack of a better term, so Superman's durability stat in a composite would raise said stat to that "weakness" no longer exists.

Gladiator's radiation weakness would be more analogous with Superman's weakness to kryptonite (in fact it is a pastiche of it).

My gut feeling would be that, to remove Gladiator's weakness, I think you'd need to add in someone who is actively empowered by radiation or similar energy absorbing powerset. That would be, in my mind, the appropriate rather than just assuming that an absence of weakness equates to removing a specific weakness.

[big_adventure]

Wonder Woman isn't specifically vulnerable to bullets. Wonder Woman has compartmentalized durability. This isn't a comparable thing. Wonder Woman happens to not be durable to slashing/piercing attacks. If you shoot or stab Wonder Woman she won't scream in agony, convulse and momentarily freak right the hell out for knowing "pain beyond anything (s)he has ever felt before".

This, despite that Gladiator has otherwise been hurt with all kinds of crap in his centuries long career.



Ultraviolet radiation that might give Batman a sunburn later or melanoma is not going to make Batman a helpless pile on the ground for being hit with it from two directions at once. These things are not comparable.

You are trying to handwave the degree of reaction Gladiator has to this with things that are in no way similar.



Your position ignores the context of the depth to which Gladiator's reactions are portrayed in favour of analogies to things that aren't especially analogous.

No Pen, I'm not. You are arguing that, because Glads has compartmentalized durability where he's stupid weak to this particular thing, that applies to Thoriator as well.

Which means that the Superman/Batman comp is gettng skin cancer and sunburn from the sun. Which means that a Hulk/Spider Man composite is getting cut by small knives (Peter being another guy with compartmentalized durability). Which means that a Galactus/Wonder Woman composite is getting perforated by bullets.

To touch briefly on that: it doesn't matter if the effect is instantly incapacitating to make it illogical. A Superman/Batman comp should not, in my opinion, get skin cancer or sunburn.

That's fine, you can argue that position if you like. There are no board rules and OP didn't specify. It's just that it's going to apply in a ton of situations where it doesn't make sense. Space-toss a composite of Superman and Spider Man, and it dies, as Spider Man dies in a vaccuum, being weak to such. Do you see the rabbit hole this goes down?

Generally stacked composites bring the benefits, is what I'm saying, while conveniently leaving behind certain vulnerabilities. Like, if you did a stacked composite of 1000 human beings, in your interpretation, that being could never walk outside as the UV radiation would render them comatose from pain immediately. They could never turn on the lights, as the sensitivity to brightness would overwhem their optic nerves. The sound of their own muscles moving would be a cacaphony what would give an instant migraine.

[big_adventure]

Agreed with Pendaran on the Wonder Woman/Superman point.

Wondy's compartmentalised durability is product of her durability stat, for lack of a better term, so Superman's durability stat in a composite would raise said stat to that "weakness" no longer exists.

Gladiator's radiation weakness would be more analogous with Superman's weakness to kryptonite (in fact it is a pastiche of it).

My gut feeling would be that, to remove Gladiator's weakness, I think you'd need to add in someone who is actively empowered by radiation or similar energy absorbing powerset. That would be, in my mind, the appropriate rather than just assuming that an absence of weakness equates to removing a specific weakness.

Except again, Thor has no specific weakness to that or any other kind of radiation. And he, too, chills in suns. So you'd need to get though Thor's resistance to same before getting to Glad's weakness. It's stacked after all.

Like, I wouldn't say that a Silver Surfer/Superman stacked comp would be crippled by kryptonite either.

Again, this comes to the Batman/Superman UV ray argument. It doesn't matter if it's incapacitating in a Rumble: to me, it doesn't track that a comp of anyone with Superman would be specifically vulnerable to UV radiation.

EDIT: adjusted wording to make it more convivial. Sorry.

[Pendaran]

No Pen, I'm not. You are arguing that, because Glads has compartmentalized durability where he's stupid weak to this particular thing, that applies to Thoriator as well.

Compartmentalized durability is not the same thing as having what boils down to an adverse allergy to something, no matter how many times you keep saying it is.

Which means that the Superman/Batman comp is gettng skin cancer and sunburn from the sun. Which means that a Hulk/Spider Man composite is getting cut by small knives (Peter being another guy with compartmentalized durability). Which means that a Galactus/Wonder Woman composite is getting perforated by bullets.

If Batman ever reacts to the sun by crumpling into a pile on the ground or briefly losing all coherent thought, this would definitely make sense to say as logical ramifications. If Spiderman ever reacts to being cut with a small knife by registering pain beyond anything he's ever felt such that his instincts take over and make him briefly run, this would definitely make sense to say as logical ramifications.

You are trying to compare Gladiator's weakness, to things that are nothing more than the absence of a particular ability to bounce something. Gladiator's is an active condition that screws him up near instantly, and not because his body lacks something, or is otherwise not built to resist something. Instead because the radiation is uniquely ruinous to him despite everything else about him.

To touch briefly on that: it doesn't matter if the effect is instantly incapacitating to make it illogical.

Then you've decided context is meaningless. Spiderman isn't straight up allergic to knives, he just has no particular durability that can't be spun off blunt force trauma. That you feel that doesn't matter is the problem with the things you say.

That's fine, you can argue that position if you like. There are no board rules and OP didn't specify. It's just that it's going to apply in a ton of situations where it doesn't make sense. Space-toss a composite of Superman and Spider Man, and it dies, as Spider Man dies in a vaccuum, being weak to such. Do you see the rabbit hole this goes down?

Not especially, as it's a rabbit hole that only exists if you pretend that things that are nothing like each other, are instead alike.

Generally stacked composites bring the benefits, is what I'm saying, while conveniently leaving behind certain vulnerabilities.

Seems to be pretty much "because I say they do" coupled with some really far stretching of what you think can be compared to each other. You keep trying to reduce this to issues of durability, you keep trying to ignore the nature of a unique specific reaction to something. You keep trying to compare stuff that doesn't compare.

Like, if you did a stacked composite of 1000 human beings, in your interpretation, that being could never walk outside as the UV radiation would render them comatose from pain immediately. They could never turn on the lights, as the sensitivity to brightness would overwhem their optic nerves. The sound of their own muscles moving would be a cacaphony what would give an instant migraine.

No, that's nothing like what I've said. You've now decided to argue with something never mentioned. To get even close to what I'm saying, it would be like if you stacked a thousand human beings who, if individually hit with a specific frequency of radiation, had an aggressively immediate, hugely debilitating reaction, despite other frequencies being basically meaningless to them.

Which is to say, nothing in there is anything like what I have said.

[Pendaran]

Again, this comes to the Batman/Superman UV ray argument.

Which is an argument that requires, again, ignoring the actual circumstances of Gladiator's reaction to the specific frequency of radiation and comparing it to nothing even remotely similar.

Your entire argument keeps boiling down to "things people are just not built to be able to resist the effects of." Whereas Gladiator, who is built to normally resist even that thing in a broad sense otherwise when it is not the one specific flavour of it, goes to a place of screaming, crippling agony for being hit with it.

You keep treating this detail as optional.

[Pendaran]

Just while I'm there, even the term allergy falls short for this and it's why the most viable things to compare it to are certain depictions of faeries and cold iron, or, once again, Superman and kryptonite (well, Superman and eras where kryptonite actually screws him up). This is a thing, depicted in a way, that does not intersect with any number of other things, be they real world things, or fictional world things. This is a thing depicted in a way that only really intersects with a handful of fictional world things.

[Captain Morgan]

Gonna agree with Pen and Nik on this one. I'm reminded of the Justice League episode where Amazo is using Superman's powers and they manage to put him on the ground using kryptonite. Amazo later adapts and overcomes the weakness, but at that point he's basically ascended to full godhood and is blinking planets into other dimensions.

Edit: yeah, just researched the Amazo clips. It is a pretty solid example, given the dude is mainlining the entire League at this point and only one of them is weak to Kryptonite.

That being said, we can put this argument to bed if Arbiter weighs in, because he has the ability to toggle that switch on or off by adjusting the OP.

[Pendaran]

I mean, Gladiator, even walking just into the vicinity of a source of said radiation on one occasion started losing the ability to form coherent sentences and started staggering around. There's a specific context here and non applicable comparisons don't handwave that away.

[big_adventure]

OK, maybe we can get the OP to step in here? I'm not remotely arguing whether or not Gladiator is hurt by this radiation. He is. It's a fact. It's known. It's canon. It's official.

But here, we're talking about how stacked composites (things that don't exist in comics) work specifically on this board, and more specifically still, in this thread. There are no rules or guidelines official for the board.

You claiming or deciding that my comparisons are non-applicable do not make them so.

There is no comic feat you can point to that clarifies this rule, because this is not a comic book thing we're talking about.

And again, human eyes are weak to flashes of bright light. So a stacked composite of 5 humans would be much more vulnerable. Hell, Superman isn't really generally vulnerable to bright light (given that the dude loves him some sunlight), so if you make, again, a composite of Batman and Superman, that composite is now vulnerable to flashes of bright light? Humans are vulnerable to that. It's a species-specific weakness. Humans are vulnerable to bones breaking at a certain pressure - so that vulnerability transfers to a comp of a human and a Daxamite, in your eyes.

Let's ask specific questions you can answer with yes or no answers:

1. Comp Batman and Superman: does the comp get sunburn? This is a species-specific weakness we're talking about.

2. Comp Spider Man and Hulk: does the comp get cut by knives? This is a specific weakness for Peter: he gets chucked through buildings without a scratch, but stabbed by a small knife, that's to much for him.

3. Comp Wonder Woman and Thanos: do bullets hurt the comp? Again, this is a specific weakness for Diana: she survives nukes, but a .38, oh hellz no.

So again, for me, a stacked comp means you get the good stuff from both halves of the comp but you don't stack the bad stuff. If not you get things like composite stack of the X Men being unable to go outside without roasting in the sun and being permanently blinded by the light.

This isn't a thing that comics can tell us about: Amazo absorbing abilities is not the same as the theoretical fusison potential of the CBR Rumbles forum, and thus, cannot lead us to a solution.

EDIT: I'm going to stand down until Arby decided to visit and tell us what the intends by the composite here.

I'll just say that, in my opinion, if he decides that the vulnerability stays, then sure, Surfer wins. If the vulnerability is protected, then no, the Thoriator wins.

[Nik Hasta]

You're conflating specific weakness with normal limits of durability.

Peter has conventional human durability and is therefore vulnerable to knives. Hulk has massively higher durability to his stat would overwrite that in a composite.

Batman is "vulnerable" to ultraviolet light again because it's an aspect of his durability. Superman not only is durable enough to ignore it but he's also powered by solar radiation so a composite would have no issue with it.

Thanos' durability is not only non-compartmentalised but is so wildly beyond Diana's that the Composite would obviousy be immune to bullets. It's still within the purview of the durability stat.

Gladiator's weakness is a specific frequency of radiation that causes him pain and makes his powers wig out. It is distinct from his durability, it is tied to the function of his overall powerset. It is a part, even if negative, of the powerset he brings to the composite. As I said before, if you had someone whose powers included empowerment by radiation or something that is hard counter to the weakness then it would be ignored.

[The Arbiter]

When making the thread, I did have this thought.

In my mind I was treating it like an allergy. Someone allergic to peanuts getting fused with someone without the allergy would still have the reaction imo, just diluted to about 50% of whatever it was.

I was expecting it to still be a thing, but curious if it were reduced, could the fusion muster a defence in time to make a fight of it.

I dont want to kill discussion, so feel free to agree/disagree but I was called upon for my opinion and intention with the thread, so there it is.

[The Arbiter]

Also, Nik is right on the money with his latest post.

WW wouldn't drag Superman's durability to bullets down to her level. The stacked would be /stacked/ after all. It would be Superman's durability towards knives + Wonder Woman's durability towards knives. It would never go DOWN as that's not how stacking durability works. It's a facet of their stats package, not a specific allergy/weakness.

[Captain Morgan]

When making the thread, I did have this thought.

In my mind I was treating it like an allergy. Someone allergic to peanuts getting fused with someone without the allergy would still have the reaction imo, just diluted to about 50% of whatever it was.

I was expecting it to still be a thing, but curious if it were reduced, could the fusion muster a defence in time to make a fight of it.

I dont want to kill discussion, so feel free to agree/disagree but I was called upon for my opinion and intention with the thread, so there it is.

Well, in that case: no. Gladiator has been laid low by extremely modest amounts of this radiation. The Silver Surfer can output the radiation in massively more powerful attacks. Even if his weakness was still only 50% as bad, the Surfer can crank that output past the stuff that cripples Gladiator by at least 1000%. And that is probably underselling it.

The fusion can try to absorb it with Mjolnir, but tying up the hammer doing that really opens him up to whatever else the Surfer wants to do, like the old "smack them with my board from behind" trick he used on Bets Ray Bill." And any amount of radiation that gets through will severely **** up the fusion, where as a stray lightning bolt or dose of heat vision won't do the same to Surfer.

[big_adventure]

You're conflating specific weakness with normal limits of durability.

Peter has conventional human durability and is therefore vulnerable to knives. Hulk has massively higher durability to his stat would overwrite that in a composite.

Batman is "vulnerable" to ultraviolet light again because it's an aspect of his durability. Superman not only is durable enough to ignore it but he's also powered by solar radiation so a composite would have no issue with it.

Thanos' durability is not only non-compartmentalised but is so wildly beyond Diana's that the Composite would obviousy be immune to bullets. It's still within the purview of the durability stat.

Gladiator's weakness is a specific frequency of radiation that causes him pain and makes his powers wig out. It is distinct from his durability, it is tied to the function of his overall powerset. It is a part, even if negative, of the powerset he brings to the composite. As I said before, if you had someone whose powers included empowerment by radiation or something that is hard counter to the weakness then it would be ignored.

I'm not conflating anything at all. Pete's durability to many kinds of trauma is thousands of times greater than a normal human's. He's been smashed through buildings and still making quips after. He has been punched in the face by people who juggle busses and kept right on going. But he's as vulnerable to a stab wound or a bullet as you or me. Diana is the same thing: she's got MASSIVE levels of durability, except a housewife(househusband) with a snubnose .38 cal pistol would wreck her life, if she didn't get out of the way or deflect it. Those are both compartmentalized durability. I'm not conflating anything at all.

You have the idea that durability means one thing. You are entitled to that idea. I don't agree with your interpretation in this case, but here, I'll use your own examples:

Thor has no weakness at all to this kind of radiation. And the dude has chilled in suns for extended periods, takes pleasure cruises across the universe under his own power at vastly superluminal speeds with no ill affects, as far as how much radiation he can take. So, based on your own example of what a stack situation would entail, Surfer would need to generate so much of this energy that it bypasses all of the "durability" towards this energy that Thor brings to the table, while at the same time ensuring that Thoriator doesn't just use his own prodigious ability to manipulate energy to drain that, to transform it, to block it. Usually, Thor wouldn't have the chance against Surfer, but Thoriator is every bit a fast as Surfer, so he gets to do that kind of thing.

[big_adventure]

Well, in that case: no. Gladiator has been laid low by extremely modest amounts of this radiation. The Silver Surfer can output the radiation in massively more powerful attacks. Even if his weakness was still only 50% as bad, the Surfer can crank that output past the stuff that cripples Gladiator by at least 1000%. And that is probably underselling it.

The fusion can try to absorb it with Mjolnir, but tying up the hammer doing that really opens him up to whatever else the Surfer wants to do, like the old "smack them with my board from behind" trick he used on Bets Ray Bill." And any amount of radiation that gets through will severely **** up the fusion, where as a stray lightning bolt or dose of heat vision won't do the same to Surfer.

And given Arby's interpretation, yeah, that's probably enough to get Surfer the win.

Though, to be fair, the board to the back of the head isn't going to work nearly as well against this comp as against Bill: the comp is significantly more durable and just as fast as Surfer or his board.