Who's the Fastest Speedster Marvel Hercules could beat?

[CliffHanger2]

Including Marvel/DC speedsters. First fight takes place in the arena. 2nd fight takes place in a confined space. Like the size of a studio apartment.

[Sharpandpointies]

Actual speed isn't so important, as Herc isn't all that fast compared to speedsters.

Herc can win against anyone who ISN'T capable of taking him out immediately with a blitz, and who would be vulnerable to a thunderclap or such in either the arena or a confined space.

Quicksilver or Northstar springs to mind. Northstar, at best, can stagger Sasquatch with his superspeed hits. That's not enough to take out Hercules, and Herc will simply fire off a class 100 thunderclap. And again, if necessary.

[CliffHanger2]

Actual speed isn't so important, as Herc isn't all that fast compared to speedsters.

Herc can win against anyone who ISN'T capable of taking him out immediately with a blitz, and who would be vulnerable to a thunderclap or such in either the arena or a confined space.

Quicksilver or Northstar springs to mind. Northstar, at best, can stagger Sasquatch with his superspeed hits. That's not enough to take out Hercules, and Herc will simply fire off a class 100 thunderclap. And again, if necessary.

Thunderclap that's good one. I didn't think of that.

[Sharpandpointies]

Take that away and there are still plenty of speedsters who can't put Herc down; all he needs to do is wait until they gas out.

[big_adventure]

Take that away and there are still plenty of speedsters who can't put Herc down; all he needs to do is wait until they gas out.

And he's fully immortal, so he can wait a looooooong time.

Agreeing with everything Sharp said here: I don't think that Marvel has any prime-power speedsters (meaning: people who's main/only power is speed) that can take down Herc. Quicksilver and Northstar aren't doing it. Obviously, guys like the Surfer, Runner and Gladiator make mince out of Herc, but none of them even need their speed for that. Makkari maybe could? In any case, there's nothing Herc can do to Makkari - he's just as immortal and just as tireless and gazillions of times faster.

Heading over to DC, any of the "DC flying speedy brick" value-pack holders demolish Herc (though speed isn't, again, their primary/sole power), as would any competent Flash.

[Sharpandpointies]

And he's fully immortal, so he can wait a looooooong time.

Also, as I recall, Herc doesn't tire. At least that's how he has been presented in the past; don't know about now.

[Sharpandpointies]

Take away thunderclap, and I can see Northstar winning. Maybe. He has a multi-punch trick he has used to send Sasquatch reeling; he hits Herc with that enough times and Herc is going to feel it. Enough to put him down? Maybe; hard to say.

But we'd need to limit Herc to do that, which says something.

[Lord Falcon]

With PIS off, would a competent speedster over a certain level ever get hit by a thunderclap they can see coming? In the arena, there's ultimately nowhere to go so I can see a speedster getting caught in the aoe, but in a scenario I'd imagine the clap looks like it's happening in slow motion compared to a bullet.

[Sharpandpointies]

Absolutely right, they could easily dart out of range and back in again.

Sadly, in this thread, the space is at least somewhat confined.

[Beadle]

Also, as I recall, Herc doesn't tire. At least that's how he has been presented in the past; don't know about now.

There was one back-up story (of questionable canon) in… I wanna say The Mighty Thor #400 or something… where Thor and Herc arm-wrestled continuously for a century.

For some reason.

[Sharkerbob]

There was one back-up story (of questionable canon) in… I wanna say The Mighty Thor #400 or something… where Thor and Herc arm-wrestled continuously for a century.

For some reason.

Immortality is a long time to fill. :B

[Captain Smith]

Might a speedster be able to keep tripping up Herc with martial arts moves, just that he ends up on the ground for a time out. Being strong doesn't negate leverage and gravity. Also, one might be able to dodge in and out throwing stuff into his eyes to facilitate such moves. There's more than just pounding on him.

[Sharpandpointies]

Might a speedster be able to keep tripping up Herc with martial arts moves, just that he ends up on the ground for a time out. Being strong doesn't negate leverage and gravity. Also, one might be able to dodge in and out throwing stuff into his eyes to facilitate such moves. There's more than just pounding on him.

So, to clarify, 10-count means 'out of the fight, completely helpless' for a 10-count. Herc getting tripped over and over isn't that, especially since he can still pull off thunderclaps and such, or even ineffectually attempt to catch the speedster with a hand from the ground. He can't, because the speedster is too fast, but he's certainly not immobilized/KO'ed/whatever for a 10-count.

As for martial arts, while being strong doesn't negate leverage, there is a point where leverage fails - speaking from experience (including a bucketload of experience with various sorts of grappling), weight and strength DO matter, they DO make a difference, and Hercules is about a million times stronger than anything a martial artist would normally face. Martial arts are not magic, they don't really allow people to throw around someone who can pick up and tow islands - maybe once if they catch him really off-guard, but after that, Herc just settles himself and nothing human is going to remotely budge him, so long as he doesn't overextend. Herc is a 'martial arts master' himself, with thousands of years of experience and training. He's actually considered highly skilled by comic book standards.

And even if they can throw him or whatever through comic book magic martial arts , they can't lock or choke him, and the throw won't do much except make him laugh.

Dodging in and out is easy when one is a speedster, obviously. One doesn't need to throw stuff in Herc's eyes to do that, and even if one does throw stuff in Herc's eyes, what then? Barring the speedster being capable of hurting Herc or 10-counting him, once again we're back to them being incapable of doing anything while Herc cleans out his own eyes and learns to squint.

Or, again, in an enclosed area, just thunderclaps over and over and over again until the pitter-patter of tiny fast feet just...stops. He can do that blind, as well, or while blinking the sand out of his eyes.

Basically, the speedster needs to be capable of hurting Herc at the least to start racking up damage (hopefully before being thunderclapped into insensibility). Or have some kind of weird trick they do (speedforce shennanigans, whatever) that might allow them to take Herc right out of the fight.

Otherwise, we have someone of ridiculous speed who can't actually hurt or 10-count Herc, and is likely sadly vulnerable to being hit by Class 100 created shockwaves.

Here's Grey Hulk - someone a chunk weaker than Hercules, actually - dealing with Quicksilver. Granted, it's Quicksilver doing the silly 'run circles around people' thing, but the thunderclap is a good demonstration.

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[Jcogginsa]

The comment about Herc's weight has me wondering how strength and weight intersect with martial arts skill in fictional contexts.

Because unlike real life, here his strength is vastly out of proportion with his weight. He's canonically only 325 pounds.

(None of this is an argument against Herc btw, I'm just using this as a jumping off point to be curious)

[Sharpandpointies]

So comic books DO play somewhat fast and loose with weight and strength wrt martial arts, just as they do with magical comic book pressure points. Cap flips the Hulk. Batman flips Solomon Grundy. Lest those get the notation of 'But Batman and Cap are pretty big fellows themselves', Cass (also very strong, but not as LARGE) flips Road Hog. By grabbing him by his tusks (I facepalmed when reading that scene, but it was a very bad filler issue/OMAC tie-in anyway).

However, even then the martial artist talks about 'using their weight against them' (whatever that means - it's more likely that it's a very imprecise way of saying 'using their momentum - created by their mass already in motion in a direction - against them'). Or 'using their strength against them', which is a bizarre comment that likely basically boils down to, again, using their momentum against them. Or clearly the smaller person catches the larger person moving or off balance or mid-punch, over-extended, and THEN hurls them.

This is at least partly realistic. Back when I was doing Judo, I couldn't just walk up to a big person, grab them, and throw them, if they were skilled and immobile and deciding 'No' (I could if they were compliant, obviously, or at least not resisting). They'd just resist, laugh, and likely pick me up and drop me on my head (at the time, I was about 5'8" and 130-145 lbs, it was in my teens). However, Judo has a concept named 'Kuzushi' (no 'bless you' jokes, I've heard them and I'm sure any Japanese people in the crowd wouldn't appreciate them) that basically boils down to 'unbalance the other guy FIRST', usually by manipulating their bodies in specific ways to either actually unbalance them or tricking them into unbalancing themselves. At which point it's perfectly possible to throw them.

Flash-forward to recent times, and in my classes with my current teacher I've been taught a chunk about very subtly leading one's opponent to allow the same thing, with seemingly magical results. They're not magic; the other person is simply off-balance, I'm not, and I'm employing the biomechanics of my entire body properly, so anything done to them gives results that can appear grossly exaggerated.

So it IS possible, certainly, to throw someone a lot bigger and stronger - humanly! - than oneself.

However, getting these kinds of results when someone is trying to push your face in with a gameplan of their own is...difficult. Especially when the other person has some skill and can work towards cancelling whatever you're doing. So this subtle stuff tends to become nothing more than a few more little edges one might have in a tussle, that may or may not have any actual bearing on who wins or loses. It's not some magical 'I win!' card, because those don't actually exist. ^_^

And throwing someone who weighs more than me is one thing. Throwing someone who weighs THAT much more than me is another. And throwing someone who weighs that much more than me and is so strong that them flicking a finger would break all of my ribs...no. Like, I try to throw them and their arms go around me and...yikes, no, I'm jelly. Or one hand just kind of smacks against my shoulder mid-throw and...I'm jelly. Or they just grab me when I grab them and, despite being off-balance, simply using their wrist and forearm muscles flick me such that I fly 40' and slam into a wall. Etc.

You get the point - if he's THAT strong, Herc doesn't have to be on-balance to resist a throw from someone. He doesn't need to use his entire body, he's so strong. He could use his pinky finger.

But this is comics, so.

In comics, would it be possible for a small, fast 'martial artist' to throw Herc? Absolutely, as noted in my above post; comic books play really flexibly with reality.

However, also as noted above, I would then expect the writer to have Herc roar with laughter because it does all of nothing to him (getting dumped on his head? The guy eats hits from Thor...). And, being a master grappler himself and a gazillion times stronger than the superfast martial artist, simply not allow them them to throw him again by keeping on his balance and actually using that vast strength against any attempts to throw him (and grabbing him is likely a bad plan for a speedster anyway).

I concede that they might manage it occasionally after that with superspeed - catching him at exact moments and such - but again, it's going to accomplish nothing, and not stop him from thunderclapping all heck out of the area. ^_^