Proudstar brothers Appreciation thread 2024

[Technopriest]

I liked the blue and red costume design. I am a big fan of Jimmy and with his power set, I wish X-writers would use him in more stories. With his strength, speed, durability and agility; he is one of the most dangerous powerhouses in the Marvel Universe. And he is a very skilled combatant. He is so underutilized!!

Yes, and one of my fears is, as much as I love having John back, that that is going to sideline Jimmy even more. Just take the current run in Unlimited and how he got hurt by Crule, to the point that he has to rest and heal, even though John went toe to toe with him and didn't miss a beat. Hopefully he gets to join the rest soon

[Technopriest]

Thunderbird's, John Proadstar's" powers from the old Official Handbook of Marvel Universe:

On top of being a skilled hunter, tracker, and fighter (in both hand-to-hand and small arms combat), Thunderbird’s muscle tissue is three times as dense as that of a normal human’s, distributed in such a way as to give him massive shoulders, arms, and thighs.

Thunderbird can exert himself at peak capacity for several hours before fatigue begins to affect him. His skin is also extremely dense, including an additional layer of leathery epidermis, affording him heightened injury resistance. In addition, his lungs are oversized and his respiratory system is superhumanly efficient, allowing him to hold his breath for extended periods.

I remember reading that John would never get tired during the danger room sessions. I still do not think they have really officially established how strong or fast he is. I would have him have faster reflexes and speed than Jimmy. Give Jimmy the power and give John the speed advantage.

Yeah, the best way to describe John is as a "mutant super soldier". He is, naturally due to his mutation, what they tried to create with Rogers artificially. It was one of the reasons that I was so mad at Pak's Weapon X too, when he gave Jimmy a healing factor (thankfully that has been ignored by pretty much everyone). The brothers do not have a super healing factor, they have super dense muscle tissue and skin, to the point that knives, guns, etc cannot hurt them. The best show of John's powers to me was in The Gifted (the TV show, not the Whedon arc) when he is captured by the Friends of Humanity and they continually have to shoot him with a shotgun to even slow him down. He wasnt super healing a la Wolverine, it was just that his skin/muscles were so dense that he was barely registering damage.

[JudicatorPrime]

Any chance of there being a Proudstar sister?

[JudicatorPrime]

Thunderbird's, John Proadstar's" powers from the old Official Handbook of Marvel Universe:

On top of being a skilled hunter, tracker, and fighter (in both hand-to-hand and small arms combat), Thunderbird’s muscle tissue is three times as dense as that of a normal human’s, distributed in such a way as to give him massive shoulders, arms, and thighs.

Thunderbird can exert himself at peak capacity for several hours before fatigue begins to affect him. His skin is also extremely dense, including an additional layer of leathery epidermis, affording him heightened injury resistance. In addition, his lungs are oversized and his respiratory system is superhumanly efficient, allowing him to hold his breath for extended periods.

I remember reading that John would never get tired during the danger room sessions. I still do not think they have really officially established how strong or fast he is. I would have him have faster reflexes and speed than Jimmy. Give Jimmy the power and give John the speed advantage.

IIRC, the old OHOTMU also indicated that Asgardians were roughly 3 times denser than humans, or something like that. The science doesn't exactly hold up (there are conventional modern arms that can pierce 3x human tissue, which calls into question the notion of being "bulletproof"), but I think that's a fair comparison for the Thunderbirds; they are as dense as the gods and comparatively as strong.

[Technopriest]

Any chance of there being a Proudstar sister?

No, there shouldn't be one. I mean it is comics and they could potentially introduce one (just like they did with Shiro, even though he shouldn't have a sister with the same powers since it was his mother who carried the X-gene and his powers were a product of her exposure to radiation, and she died in childbirth when he was born), but there shouldn't be one because we would have seen her around already (especially considering that the rest of their family is dead except for their grandmother).

[Technopriest]

IIRC, the old OHOTMU also indicated that Asgardians were roughly 3 times denser than humans, or something like that. The science doesn't exactly hold up (there are conventional modern arms that can pierce 3x human tissue, which calls into question the notion of being "bulletproof"), but I think that's a fair comparison for the Thunderbirds; they are as dense as the gods and comparatively as strong.

Which is why things like this type of seudocience needs to be kept as ambiguous as possible. I would just say going forward that their muscle tissue and skin are just denser than normal humans and just leave it at that, without trying to give numbers or stuff like that

[taozen]

Yes, and one of my fears is, as much as I love having John back, that that is going to sideline Jimmy even more. Just take the current run in Unlimited and how he got hurt by Crule, to the point that he has to rest and heal, even though John went toe to toe with him and didn't miss a beat. Hopefully he gets to join the rest soon

How did Crule hurt Jimmy? I mean Jimmy is way more powerful than Crule. Unless they have increased his abilities recently. And John goes toe to toe but Jimmy gets injured? Are they trying to establish that John is the better hand to hand combatant between the 2 brothers? Jimmy should be portrayed as an extremely skilled fighter.

[Technopriest]

How did Crule hurt Jimmy? I mean Jimmy is way more powerful than Crule. Unless they have increased his abilities recently. And John goes toe to toe but Jimmy gets injured? Are they trying to establish that John is the better hand to hand combatant between the 2 brothers? Jimmy should be portrayed as an extremely skilled fighter.

Crule clawed his leg out and crippled him momentarily, but enough so that now he has to heal and sit part of the mission out. And both brothers should be pretty good fighters, the thing is that Jimmy got taken out and John pretty much went toe to toe till the end but was also defeated. My issue was more with the fact that Jimmy got conveniently taken out the rest of the mission, which in part I understand from a story point of view as they want to establish John's relationships with the rest of the characters without Jimmy acting as a buffer, I just didn't like the way it went down.

[Technopriest]

Thunderbird's, John Proadstar's" powers from the old Official Handbook of Marvel Universe:

On top of being a skilled hunter, tracker, and fighter (in both hand-to-hand and small arms combat), Thunderbird’s muscle tissue is three times as dense as that of a normal human’s, distributed in such a way as to give him massive shoulders, arms, and thighs.

Thunderbird can exert himself at peak capacity for several hours before fatigue begins to affect him. His skin is also extremely dense, including an additional layer of leathery epidermis, affording him heightened injury resistance. In addition, his lungs are oversized and his respiratory system is superhumanly efficient, allowing him to hold his breath for extended periods.

I remember reading that John would never get tired during the danger room sessions. I still do not think they have really officially established how strong or fast he is. I would have him have faster reflexes and speed than Jimmy. Give Jimmy the power and give John the speed advantage.

Weirdly enough, they portrayed Jimmy as the more agile of the two brothers and John as more of a tank, which I actually thought was funny/clever considering their sizes.

[taozen]

Crule clawed his leg out and crippled him momentarily, but enough so that now he has to heal and sit part of the mission out. And both brothers should be pretty good fighters, the thing is that Jimmy got taken out and John pretty much went toe to toe till the end wit was also defeated. My issue was more with the fact that Jimmy got conveniently taken out the rest of the mission, which in part I understand from a story point of view as they want to establish John's relationships with the rest of the characters without Jimmy acting as a buffer, I just didn't like the way it went down.

You need them on different teams IMO. Jimmy's strength is still in the 70 ton range? Right? So maybe John is now stronger with his resurrection?

[Technopriest]

You need them on different teams IMO. Jimmy's strength is still in the 70 ton range? Right? So maybe John is now stronger with his resurrection?

I don't know where Jimmy currently sits at in terms of raw strength, his powers were continuously evolving during Counter-X, but it seemed that the Steves were going out of their way to show that John's powers have been augmented. He definitely seems stronger now, and he survived a point blank explosion, big enough to worry Jimmy (which makes sense, since John originally died in one), and he pretty much just walked it off after saying that it momentarily knocked him out. I would say both his strength and resistance to damage have been greatly increased.

[JudicatorPrime]

Which is why things like this type of seudocience needs to be kept as ambiguous as possible. I would just say going forward that their muscle tissue and skin are just denser than normal humans and just leave it at that, without trying to give numbers or stuff like that

Honestly, the lure of the Marvel Universe used to be that the company presented a more realistic fiction than DC, which is why so many of us absolutely loved OHOTMU, despite several instances where the math wasn't mathing. DC's version, which Marvel later devolved into, was far more ambiguous and abstract. The good thing about that is writers could take more liberties with characters and feats. The bad thing about it is that consistency and continuity suffered. More to the point, the minute you establish that everyone is Superman-level without actually giving a true metric, well, surprise, a bunch of writers take their pet characters right up to that ambiguous threshold...and they never have to justify it. Same happens with the Hulk. He's supposed to be "the strongest one there is" but based on some of the feats of some of Marvel's strongest characters -- especially the Superman homages -- you'd be hard-pressed to prove that fact. Sometimes, it really is better to have the numbers.

[JudicatorPrime]

No, there shouldn't be one. I mean it is comics and they could potentially introduce one (just like they did with Shiro, even though he shouldn't have a sister with the same powers since it was his mother who carried the X-gene and his powers were a product of her exposure to radiation, and she died in childbirth when he was born), but there shouldn't be one because we would have seen her around already (especially considering that the rest of their family is dead except for their grandmother).

And yet, how long had Charles Xavier been around until we found out that he had a twin sister? If it's one thing we know about Marvel writers, someone is always looking to explore family trees, even create characters who we never knew existed.

And I'm not saying necessarily that there needs to be a sister. I just like the idea of expanding the family, even if it's just a female cousin, or other relative. Plus, there's something to be said about reimagining and immortalizing someone like Susan La Flesche Picotte, Maria Tallchief, Wilma Mankiller or even Krystal Two Bulls in the lore of the Marvel Universe. You can never have too many.

[Technopriest]

Honestly, the lure of the Marvel Universe used to be that the company presented a more realistic fiction than DC, which is why so many of us absolutely loved OHOTMU, despite several instances where the math wasn't mathing. DC's version, which Marvel later devolved into, was far more ambiguous and abstract. The good thing about that is writers could take more liberties with characters and feats. The bad thing about it is that consistency and continuity suffered. More to the point, the minute you establish that everyone is Superman-level without actually giving a true metric, well, surprise, a bunch of writers take their pet characters right up to that ambiguous threshold...and they never have to justify it. Same happens with the Hulk. He's supposed to be "the strongest one there is" but based on some of the feats of some of Marvel's strongest characters -- especially the Superman homages -- you'd be hard-pressed to prove that fact. Sometimes, it really is better to have the numbers.

I don't mind limits and differentiations among actual characters, I just feel like in the Proudstar brothers case, you don't need to say "their skin tissue and muscle tissue is 3x stronger than a normal human", you can just say is denser and leave it at that, there's no need to give it a number that is going to be inconsistent among writers anyways. In any case, the Steves already showed that John's is more resistant to damage than before, as the explosion didn't even leave a scar this time around.

[Technopriest]

And yet, how long had Charles Xavier been around until we found out that he had a twin sister? If it's one thing we know about Marvel writers, someone is always looking to explore family trees, even create characters who we never knew existed.

And I'm not saying necessarily that there needs to be a sister. I just like the idea of expanding the family, even if it's just a female cousin, or other relative. Plus, there's something to be said about reimagining and immortalizing someone like Susan La Flesche Picotte, Maria Tallchief, Wilma Mankiller or even Krystal Two Bulls in the lore of the Marvel Universe. You can never have too many.

In Xavier case though there was a built in explanation in the story as to why we hadn't heard of Cassandra before. As I said, it is comics, if they want to introduce a new Proudstar they will. I mean they introduced Lozen and just said that she separated from their grandfather and didn't live with the rest of the family so she didn't die with them, so a sister is not impossible to introduce, just that by this point it would stretch suspension of disbelief to say she was not mentioned before; but, since both brothers are relatively young, they could say she is their older sister I guess.