"At the end of the day, Arby is a pretty prolific poster proposing a plurality of proper posts for us."
- big_adventure
In classic Lee/Kirby FF, Surfer had to amp up his strength to beat Ben Grimn. Back then he was clearly below Thor for raw power.
Loki overpowered him, and he isnt someone know for his physical strength
Since, then Surfer doesnt really seem to have gotten the strength feats to suggest he is stronger than Thor although certainly more durable
Glads has some off-panel-but-witnessed stuff that's kind of ridiculous, like destroying a black hole with his bare hands (iirc - cited by his son while his son was lamenting the P5 kicking the snot out of Glads).
But... off-panel stuff stated by someone's son is dubious.
"But... But I want to be a big karate cyborg... ;_;" - Nik Hasta
"Get off my lawn! ...on this forum, that just makes people think of Cyclops." - Sharpandpointies
"...makes me think the Night King just says "Screw the rules, I have magic money" when it comes to physics." -Captain Morgan
Yeah, but once he begins amping it then who knows how strong he can actually get. I recall at one point he absorbed a bunch of energy and got all Hulked out. He definitely doesn't have lifting feats beyond Thor (unless we count that Deadpool thing) and his striking feats are hard to attribute purely to strength when he has glowing fists and what have you.
"Sir, does this mean that Ann Margret's not coming?"
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"One of the maddening but beautiful things about comics is that you have to give characters a sense of change without changing them so much that they violate the essence of who they are." ~ Ann Nocenti, Chris Claremont's X-Men.
I think it's consistent in terms of a couple of things:
- Surfer is fairly consistently portrayed as one of the strongest heralds
- Bill as been shown to be on the level of "able to compete with heralds but ultimately outclassed," [See his performance against Stardust in Stormbreaker - The Saga of Beta-Ray Bill]
- Surfer got a legit powerup in Annihilation and, I think, also in his more recent solo series? (Might be wrong on that but I recall him pulling some fairly ridiculous stuff in there)
Based on that Surfer being able to knock Bill around seems to track just fine.
How it relates to Thor, on the other hand, is a different question. I feel like Thor has been all over the place in the last five years or so. Between his having the Odinforce/Thorforce, losing the Odinforce/Thorforce, Mjolnir being broken and reforged with his soul, losing Mjolnir completely to Jane, doing reasonably well against Surfer in the whole... World Seed bit - he's had a tumultuous time in terms of presentation.
I would personally think that Surfer should be physically stronger than him, if not at base, he could certainly amp himself to be so.
Because you might as well then claim the Hulk is the strongest there is, post-core breach because he beat up a lot of strong people
The Surfer has been around longer and more prominently than Deathstroke. If the Surfer's performances against other folks is all it takes to grant him super strength, then an argument can also be made for Deathstroke/Flash
The Surfer does not have feats like moving the Midgard serpent or shattering and shaking the surface of planets and moons as a side effect of fighting
Also if we are using performances against other people, Surfer was being physically matched by Thor just fine, post-Annihilation
If memory serves, the "power up" Norrin received in Annihilation didnt particularly change his showings or capabilities anyways.
"At the end of the day, Arby is a pretty prolific poster proposing a plurality of proper posts for us."
- big_adventure
So, the first time I remember Surfer using brute strength against anyone was his fight against the Thing. Way back then, Ben was like a 5 tonner if memory serves. Norrin willed himself to become Ben's equal in strength, then surpassed it with "atomic strength", one of the original "Kirby Krackle" instances. Ben threw a punch that didn't even reach the guy as I recall and Surfer chased him into a building or some such. How much of "atomic strength" was actually just energy damage coupled with brute strength was unclear to me then and still is now.
Which leads me to
I suppose I interpreted that showing (against Bill) as indicative that the Surfer was drawing from the ambient energies, blah, blah, to the effect of "anything you can do, I can do better Bill" as regards a show of raw brute strength. If I understand you Arbs, you're saying (that Captain Morgan is saying) the showing against Bill was as much an energy discharge as it was raw brute strength? If so, I'd never considered that perspective before.
Years later (after the fight with Ben in FF 55), he would fight Gladiator who is upper echelon strength wise, although I don't recall if that fight was canon honestly.
Still later after that, Norrin fought Hulk with the obedience disk that as I recall was keeping Norrin from doing anything but using brute strength, otherwise not allowing him to use esoterics, energy discharges and such? At least that's what I took away from IH 95.
And Surfer did quite well against Hulk until of course as far as showings of raw brute strength, after the disc was removed he got the shit kicked out of him. This seems to actually track if we keep in mind that Surfer may well have already amped his strength to considerable levels knowing, that's all he had to roll with.
Edit: I guess I'm saying I agree with you that the showing with Bill with glowy shiny fists was more an indication that of him amping raw brute strength and not strength coupled with an energy discharge.
And then (cont.)
Aside from Thor's showings (pre-Jane Thor), I'm inclined to write the majority (if not all?) of Thor's showings post Jane, completely off. It was so obvious he was just trying to make Jane shine to the extent of, "let's call the super hero insurance company and declare this one (unworthy Thor) a disaster" because....damn. Utterly embarrassing for Thor (Odinson). How did Joker put it? "I mean, what happened? D'your balls fall off?"
And then to this
Mmm, but I don't recall Hulk's performances against enemies post warp core explosion to be anything above stuff he did prior to the same enemies? Can you think of any examples? I mean, the basis is there, but I don't recall anything remarkable beyond what he had already done against the same opponents. With the Surfer (post-Annihilation), he fought Bill who is a bona fide planet buster. When he fought Hulk in planet Hulk, that was pre-warp core breach and around the same time Annihilation happened, although, honestly, I'm not sure what took place first, Annihilation or Planet Hulk. It would make it track easier if Annihilation happened prior to Planet Hulk, but I'm unsure is what I'm saying.
I mean, I feel like an apples to oranges comparison is being made here? Deathstroke AFAIK, was never powered up and most certainly not powered to the tune of "I'm as fast as Wally West", so I'm thinking the comparison might not be there.
Mmm, I see what you mean, but at the same time Surfer is not known for routinely using raw brute strength and expressing it through fisticuffs routinely. I mean, dude has how many super powers? Crazy. But when he does, it's usually not a terrible showing. I mentioned the fight with Gladiator. I'll see if I can track down an issue and check continuity.
This is a pretty fair point and one I can't really argue against. On the other hand, if Rumbles interprets Norrin's showing against Bill, as Arbs put it (Capt Morgan was saying...), "his hands were all glowy shiny zappy", more of an energy discharge coupled with physical strength, then I suppose we'd have to dismiss my assertion which is that was more the artist showing that Norrin's showing against Bill was indeed powered up, but expressed purely as raw brute strength. We could then dismiss the lower showing you mention against (Fraction's) Thor because he did not rely on amping his strength.
IDK. Thoughts?
Last edited by Cronus; 07-09-2020 at 07:18 PM.
"Sir, does this mean that Ann Margret's not coming?"
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"One of the maddening but beautiful things about comics is that you have to give characters a sense of change without changing them so much that they violate the essence of who they are." ~ Ann Nocenti, Chris Claremont's X-Men.
His fight with Gladiator is non continuity, to note.
Anyway, here is the problem with the Surfer and strength showings. Like, say, Thanos, for the most part all we really have are fights to go with trying to figure something out from. He's presented as being powerful and crap with some degree of strength as part of that package.
Where you go from there is thorny.
The bigger problem compared to Thanos is that the Surfer has shown up so many more times in comics and done stuff to the point that not having what to work with outside of fights is almost kind of infuriating and baffling.
Here are the clearest strength feats I can think of for the Surfer, and one of them is kinda not that clear:
He did a one handed overpower of the Rhino, grabbing him by the horn casually. He sort of.. embedded his board into a moon, and then got on the moon, and then surfed said moon into Galactus. It was weird honestly. When weakened, he threw Galactus' incubator ship across interstellar distances.
So, is the Surfer in some kind of place of class 100 strength? Sure.
Where in that place?
Bleahgh. Good luck.