Manchester Black vs Jenny Sparks

[Agent Z]

The respective leaders of the Elite and the Authority clash. Who wins?

[Muadib]

The respective leaders of the Elite and the Authority clash. Who wins?

Which Jenny Sparks? The one from Wildstorm 1.0, or the one from The Wild Storm mini?

If 1.0 i must ask how much electricity is available to Jenny. Her power level depended on her nearness to grids to be manipulated, so she was more powerful in cities than in rural areas.

Even at max tho i want to give it to Manchester. He's a legit threat to some of the most powerful version of Superman, whose feats leave Apollo in the dust and are only rivalled by Majestic.

I cant see Jenny taking out Majestic, or Suoerman, even with a city at her disposal.

I'd give it to Manchester 6 out of 10 at least and probably more.

[Sharpandpointies]

I feel like this is a quickdraw.

Sparks is limited, as I understand, to the energy around her. So in the arena, she's having a problem. However, apparently she can mess with the electricity in people's heads, so there's that.

Black can take her out with telepathy or PK. Buuuut...not if she's messing with his head.

Black's forcefield doesn't seem to be impervious to energy - Clark zapped him in the eyes when they were going at it, and I'd be hard-pressed to say Black didn't have his PK screens up at the time.

I guess it comes down to a few things:

1. If Sparks has any kind of good speedfeats, she wins the quickdraw and steals the electricity from Black's head, end;
2. If there are no speedfeats and Black's PK screens work against her powers, he should win a little more often than not (I tend to give a small nod to 'shields up!' versus 'target something and fire/do something complex');
3. If Black's PK screens don't work on Sparks' power, we're at a 50/50 quickdraw.

Mileage, it may vary, and I'm always open to people ponying up the feats. ^_^

[greatmetropolitan]

I feel like this is a quickdraw.

Sparks is limited, as I understand, to the energy around her. So in the arena, she's having a problem. However, apparently she can mess with the electricity in people's heads, so there's that.

Black can take her out with telepathy or PK. Buuuut...not if she's messing with his head.

Black's forcefield doesn't seem to be impervious to energy - Clark zapped him in the eyes when they were going at it, and I'd be hard-pressed to say Black didn't have his PK screens up at the time.

I guess it comes down to a few things:

1. If Sparks has any kind of good speedfeats, she wins the quickdraw and steals the electricity from Black's head, end;
2. If there are no speedfeats and Black's PK screens work against her powers, he should win a little more often than not (I tend to give a small nod to 'shields up!' versus 'target something and fire/do something complex');
3. If Black's PK screens don't work on Sparks' power, we're at a 50/50 quickdraw.

Mileage, it may vary, and I'm always open to people ponying up the feats. ^_^

I'm sure there's a panel in the Superman/Manchester fight that explicitly shows Manchester's shields dropping /because/ of Clark zapping him in the eyes, so shields definitely aren't impervious to energy, or at least heat vision.

Black does have this feat of reacting to heat vision after it's fired and using it to...light his cigarette. Not sure if he's physically moving his cigarette in the way or if he's using his TK to aim the HV, but either way it's probably decent enough to give him the speed edge here.

manchester.jpg

[Sharpandpointies]

Is he reacting to it? It looks like it is hitting a shield he already has up. It's stopping in mid-air, making a fzzzt sound, and there's smoke where it's stopping. Then he sticking his cigarette into it in the next panel.

I mean, if he's actually REACTING to it, that's lightspeed reaction speed and I've never seen that kind of speed from Black before. But it really does look like he's blocking it with a PK shield that was likely already up and running.

Which makes things really confusing about whether or not his shields can block energy. Bleah.

[Captain Morgan]

Is he reacting to it? It looks like it is hitting a shield he already has up. It's stopping in mid-air, making a fzzzt sound, and there's smoke where it's stopping. Then he sticking his cigarette into it in the next panel.

I mean, if he's actually REACTING to it, that's lightspeed reaction speed and I've never seen that kind of speed from Black before. But it really does look like he's blocking it with a PK shield that was likely already up and running.

Which makes things really confusing about whether or not his shields can block energy. Bleah.

A few things to keep in mind about the lobotomy move Superman pulled.

1. Clark may have pulled a Monica Rambeau there. He attacked Black through the optic nerve. Even if he can block energy, Black can see/be seen, so presumably he's letting visible light through.

2. Black might have just dropped his defenses at that point. Superman was fighting a psychological battle which eventually reduced Black to tears. Black probably wasn't thinking straight at this point after seeing his team "murdered." There's also some weird green energy which we see gathered and dispersed across the panels.

3. That cigarette lighting scene seems to be a later encounter between the two. Black might have patched that hole in his defenses by now.

Edit: Basically, I think it is safe to assume Black can block energy, given the heat vision manipulation, standing around through Cold Cast's detonation, and so on. But he's also overly cocky and his shields aren't auto adjusting like Dr. Strange or a Green Lantern, so it is possible to find a gap in his coverage. We saw Superman do the same thing against the Hat's forcefield via vacuum. Black was protecting against that, but not the lobotomy trick.

Double edit: Which leaves the question of whether Jenny can bypass his shields... It seems possible, but given his history of physically attacking brains, having his own brain attacked, and palling around with an energy manipulator... I think he'd probably protect his electrical impulses when fighting someone named Sparks.

[Fallman]

Important note: Supes didn't actually pull a lobotomy. He just said he did to scare Black. What he actually did was pop him with a focused concussion. I don't think that we ever got details, but presumably Superman very carefully poked him in the head at super speed.

Point is, the most we can say is that Manchester Black didn't think it was impossible for heat vision to get through his defenses, but that was at a point where Black was kinda panicking and breaking down.

[Captain Morgan]

Important note: Supes didn't actually pull a lobotomy. He just said he did to scare Black. What he actually did was pop him with a focused concussion. I don't think that we ever got details, but presumably Superman very carefully poked him in the head at super speed.

Point is, the most we can say is that Manchester Black didn't think it was impossible for heat vision to get through his defenses, but that was at a point where Black was kinda panicking and breaking down.

I assumed the concussion was still administered by heat vision through Black's eye, but... Hard to say, and probably not worth reading into that much because of the various asterisks.

[Sharpandpointies]

I assumed the concussion was still administered by heat vision through Black's eye, but... Hard to say, and probably not worth reading into that much because of the various asterisks.

It's what I thought as well. The 'equivalent' of a focused concussion. But...either way, it's pretty clear Black's shields work just fine against energy, so...I give an advantage to Black here, myself.

He's not winning every quickdraw, but due to him 'just' needing to shields up, I'd give him the majority.