Wonder Woman vs Invincible

[Jcogginsa]

EDIT: Deleted

[Sharpandpointies]

Edited out.

[Jcogginsa]

Dude, you might want to delete this and send it via PM to the Watcher. In-thread is never the place to discuss with Moderators.

I will do so

[Dark Soul # 7]

Mirror walls apparently made of the same material as his spacecraft. As I recall, that's what his mirror is (a piece of his spacecraft).

If not...that's a pretty tough mirror. I mean, if it's reflecting 99% of the light (which would be insanely good for a bathroom mirror, based on a quick search), the mirror is still absorbing 1% of the energy necessary to burn off some of Superman's hair. AND normal mirrors aren't terribly good at reflecting IR.

A normal bathroom mirror would get wrecked every time he tries to shave.

.....

Typical for Rumbles, we have drifted into bizarre territory.

Based on this then I imagine that Lois' response would be something like...

Lois: Again, I'm all for you embracing more cultural aspects of your kryptonian side, but lining our bathroom with kryptonian mirror slices would probably just lead to our apartment becoming a monster that you'd have to stop or something.

Clark: That's fair. We do live odd lives.

[Sharpandpointies]

Based on this then I imagine that Lois' response would be something like...

Lois: Again, I'm all for you embracing more cultural aspects of your kryptonian side, but lining our bathroom with kryptonian mirror slices would probably just lead to our apartment becoming a monster that you'd have to stop or something.

Clark: That's fair. We do live odd lives.

...niiiice.

[Guy1]

Just because it's epic.

[Cody]

Well, this thread has certainly gone places.

Setting aside the other issues, I just want to address the whole 'Wonder Woman can block Superman's lightspeed heat vision, but not block Superman...what does this mean, and how is it possible that she's not lightspeed herself if she can block lightspeed stuff.' Okay, let's face it, that entire fight was full of PIS and other garbage. It was poorly written on a number of levels. But let's try to look at this specific feat, and (again, setting aside 'is the feat valid?') how the interpretation might run, for those of you who care about getting into the details.

And I'm doing this because this very thing HAS come up before, in different incarnations (this feat, bullet-timers versus bullets and speedsters, etc).

First point - Clark's heat vision travels in a straight line. This is rather important.

Second point - Clark's attacks, in a fight, do not.

Let's work up to why this matters.

Major league pitchers throw approaching 100mph fastballs that get hit (not always, and it takes a good hitter, but they get hit). Their curveballs often do not, even though they're travelling more slowly. And there's a reason why spitballs are disallowed - the change to the surface of the ball makes it behave in an erratic fashion, even if the ball is moving a lot slower than a close-to 100mph fastball. It makes them horribly difficult to control/predict, and people get beaned by them.

The hitter doesn't need to be moving at 100mph himself to hit the fastball. He just needs to be fast enough to hit it. But he runs into problems with the slower curve ball and swings wildly at the spitball because they do weird, unpredictable things (from his point of view) at the last instant. <-- This is a simplification, but bear with me.

Much like people in a fight.

Moving to Rumbles, we've had discussions in the past about 'if Spider-man/Cassandra Cain/whoever can react to bullets at the speed of sound, why is it that a speedster of Mach 1-2 speed would beat all hell out of them?' Reason is, there's a big difference between a bullet flying in a straight line at someone from a distance and a decent fighter standing in front of someone and dodging, weaving, moving around them, hitting them, adjusting to their defenses at super-speed, varying/changing attacks mid-attack, etc. Which is usually followed by 'Doesn't that make Spider-man/Cassandra Cain mach 1 speedsters if they can react to a bullet?' Nope. They don't need to be as fast as the bullet (moving in a straight line toward them), they just need to be fast ENOUGH.

This is without getting into the muddy ground of 'I can react to stuff moving faster than I can run'. We don't run all that fast, but we can sure react to stuff coming at us faster than we can run. So a Mach one speedster in Cass's and/or Peter Parker's face? Is really reacting/attacking a whole hell of a lot faster than they are.

I bring this up because in the past we've needed actual rulings on this (to keep people from claiming bullet-timers are, again, mach one speedsters or something of that sort, and ALSO on the Wonder Woman/Superman fight scene currently in discussion), and the above was the reasoning behind the ruling (which also dovetails nicely with feats like 'Quicksilver beats all hell out of Spider-man until he forgets he has superspeed/runs in circles around Peter for some unknown reason and doesn't notice Peter is sticking out an arm').

Where I'm leading is this:

1. Diana doesn't need to be lightspeed to block Clark's heat vision. She just needs to be fast enough to get her arms in the proper place to block each 'bolt' in the volley (as I recall, that was the art, Clark for some reason eschewing just doing a wide beam assault on her entire body). Like the major league player trying to hit the 100mph fastball.

Diana blocking his heat vision does NOT show her to be in the lightspeed range of fighting speed, any more than Cass dodging bullets at close range means she breaks the sound barrier every time she throws a punch (substitute any 'bullet-timer' in that equation for Cass, if you like) and is capable of fighting someone moving at mach one.

It's perfectly feasible for Clark - if he's operating at 'near light' - to get his hands on Diana with physical attacks if she's at some speed below him ('decent fraction of lightspeed' is I believe where we used to put her). Especially when she has to deal with a barrage of heat vision bolts as he closes, which she is capable of blocking even without being lightspeed herself.

So wait, is Kals heat vision a bit faster than him? If so, and assuming it moves at light, wouldn't Wondey reacting to it at close range then mean she is a significant fraction of it's speed, and thus making her near light like Kal?

[Jcogginsa]

So wait, is Kals heat vision a bit faster than him? If so, and assuming it moves at light, wouldn't Wondey reacting to it at close range then mean she is a significant fraction of it's speed, and thus making her near light like Kal?

Here's the scene in question.

I can't offer my own interpretation because of the ruling, but you can look at the art on your own.

[big_adventure]

In that scene, it's pretty overwhelmingly clear that Clark is faster than Wondy. Not Quicksilver v. Mister X faster, but faster. She can barely get her bracelets up to block his HV while he's rushing her, and can do something between "jack" and "squat" about his grasp on her neck. And as any fighter who has ever trained at anything will tell you, it's exceedingly hard to get your hands on someone's neck as opposed to other body parts, if they are expecting an attack. We're naturally wired to prevent attacks on vital spots.

[big_adventure]

So wait, is Kals heat vision a bit faster than him? If so, and assuming it moves at light, wouldn't Wondey reacting to it at close range then mean she is a significant fraction of it's speed, and thus making her near light like Kal?

I would suggest reading Sharp's excellent analysis a few posts above you.

[Cody]

I would suggest reading Sharp's excellent analysis a few posts above you.

I did, it's why I asked the question, but now I realize that the scene is just stupid and contradicts itself.

Heat vision is moving faster than Supes, Wondy can block it in the scene in question, right? Yet fails to react to a charging Superman who is flying slower than his heat vision. How does that even happen when she is showing to block projectiles moving faster? Wouldn't she just be able to roll out of the way if she were that fast? She is in a great position to do so if she were fast enough, but didn't because she is slower than Superman, while simultaneously being fast enough to block something moving faster than Superman, somehow.

The hell does that make any sense?

It's like Cassandra dodging a bullet, then immediately getting punched by the shooter who is both slower than the bullet, and slower than her, in the exact same scene.

That doesn't make any sense. That shouldn't be a thing, it's stupid, contradicting, and thus shouldn't be used as proof for anything. It's a mess of a scan. We only have Wonders more or less admitting she isn't as fast as Supes, which is the only useful thing about it. The drawing itself is a messy showing of contradiction.

[big_adventure]

I did, it's why I asked the question, but now I realize that the scene is just stupid and contradicts itself.

Heat vision is moving faster than Supes, Wondy can block it in the scene in question, right? Yet fails to react to a charging Superman who is flying slower than his heat vision. How does that even happen when she is showing to block projectiles moving faster? Wouldn't she just be able to roll out of the way if she were that fast? She is in a great position to do so if she were fast enough, but didn't because she is slower than Superman, while simultaneously being fast enough to block something moving faster than Superman, somehow.

The hell does that make any sense?

It's like Cassandra dodging a bullet, then immediately getting punched by the shooter who is both slower than the bullet, and slower than her, in the exact same scene.

That doesn't make any sense. That shouldn't be a thing, it's stupid, contradicting, and thus shouldn't be used as proof for anything. It's a mess of a scan. We only have Wonders more or less admitting she isn't as fast as Supes, which is the only useful thing about it. The drawing itself is a messy showing of contradiction.

OK, so, two things:

1. I don't think you really got one of the main points Sharp was making: distance and direction obviously matter. If I throw a baseball at you from 3 feet away, there is literally no chance you can hit it. If I throw it from 60 feet, sure, you might, and a major league player definitely could. And, of course, a thing arriving on a straight line, directed at you, from 15 feet away, will be easier to stop than a hand launched at you from 2 feet away, even if it's moving 50% more slowly. In the second case, you have more than 3 times LESS time to react, and that's before considering that, as a person and not a beam of light, I can adjust my attack to get around your attempts to stop me.

2. You seem to be trying to apply real-world rules to comics, and they just don't work that way. In the real world, the Flash runs around blind because the light bouncing off of things takes too long to get to him. A laser moves as fast as visible light, so it's impossible to block it after it is fired. You sure as hell can't hear a gunshot from across town and get to the bullet before it hits a target - in almost every case the bullet moves faster than sound. Comics ignore that to give us silly stories.

[Pendaran]

Once again though a reminder with Superman and his heat vision. He shaves with it with accuracy. I really don't think the comparisons to guns and baseballs can go that far unless you're talking about pitchers who can shave with their own fastballs.

This is why comics and analogies to real world things can only bear out so far.

[big_adventure]

Once again though a reminder with Superman and his heat vision. He shaves with it with accuracy. I really don't think the comparisons to guns and baseballs can go that far unless you're talking about pitchers who can shave with their own fastballs.

This is why comics and analogies to real world things can only bear out so far.

Right, I agree with you, line two above specifically states that one shouldn't go too far applying real world rules to comics.

The way I'm reading your analogy is not what I was going for, however: I was specifically trying to address how it's easier to avoid (or hit) something coming from relatively much further away moving somewhat faster than it is to avoid (or hit) something moving somewhat more slowly but coming from relatively much closer AND capable of having it's flight path altered after launch. Also, Supes isn't trying to dodge or block his HV when he shaves with it. At least I don't think so.

[Sharpandpointies]

So wait, is Kals heat vision a bit faster than him? If so, and assuming it moves at light, wouldn't Wondey reacting to it at close range then mean she is a significant fraction of it's speed, and thus making her near light like Kal?

As noted above, she's a significant fraction of light. She's fast enough that she can fight Clark without getting OMGBlitzed by him, though Clark enjoys a speed advantage. Diana < Clark < Light.

I did, it's why I asked the question, but now I realize that the scene is just stupid and contradicts itself.

Well, it's true that the whole fight is stupid and contradicts what we know about Superman. It's not just that scene; there are a bunch of things in the fight that simply don't make sense ('turning on his superhearing', picking up a rock to use as a weapon against what he feels is Doomsday, getting stalled by a bunch of birds...).

Heat vision is moving faster than Supes, Wondy can block it in the scene in question, right?

Yes.

Yet fails to react to a charging Superman who is flying slower than his heat vision. How does that even happen when she is showing to block projectiles moving faster? Wouldn't she just be able to roll out of the way if she were that fast?

Potentially no, similar to a major league battler who can hit 50mph 'slow' pitches all day long, but gets taken down by a NFL linebacker moving at far slower speed.

Again, we're talking about the difference between blocking/dodging a projectile and actually fighting someone who is moving, adjusting, and trying to get their mitts on the character. In this case, Diana is blocking all sorts of stuff and then Clark is right in her face, coming in behind his heat vision attacks, and bum-rushing her with a 'give no shits' attempt to get his hands on her.

It's like Cassandra dodging a bullet, then immediately getting punched by the shooter who is both slower than the bullet, and slower than her, in the exact same scene.

Shang-Chi fires a rifle at Cassandra. She finds this very amusing and dodges the Mach 2 projectile with ease. Does this mean Shang Chi has no chance of hitting her, despite not being someone who 'fights at Mach 2'?

The drawing itself is a messy showing of contradiction.

You've encapsulated a chunk of that fight in your sentence. ^_^