Why does Captain Cold wear a jacket?

[Carabas]

Seriously? That's like saying "you can believe a guy who knows all kinds of martial arts is a threat, but not that he's a threat against an Abrams tank?"

This is the DCU. The guy that knows all kinds of martial arts usually IS a very real threat to an Abrams tank.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Except as Cold's finger tighte-

"Flash is already by Cold, knocks the gun out of his hand, and kicks him in the ice cubes before he can do anything"

OR

"Flash super speeds next to Cold, but finds that as he gets closer, he's involuntarily slowing down to a near standstill"

"Cold already knows and grabs Flash by the throat, freezing him"

OR

"Cold points his gun to the ground, freezes it and Flash loses traction and goes careening into the nearest wall."

Fights can go an infinite amount of ways. Any writer can write Flash or Cold in any way they want. By your logic, no villain should ever be a threat to Flash because he's too fast to be stopped by anyone. The scenario could just as easily go this way if Cold had inherent powers.

"Flash speeds up next to Cold and before Cold could do anything because he's slowed by his merely human reaction time, Flash punches him superspeed and causes massive internal hemorrhaging and Cold just dies."

You're simply picking and choosing scenarios based on your personal preference. It takes no more or less time for Cold to pull a trigger than it does for him to call on biological ice powers. In both scenarios, he's still subject to the same time it takes for any human to register information and then react to stimuli. So, in all actuality, it would make no difference. Saying it does is just an excuse for you to push what you prefer.

[Lee]

He lowers the temperature of his immediate surroundings to absolute zero. Why WOULDN'T he wear a coat?

[LordTrump]

He lowers the temperature of his immediate surroundings to absolute zero. Why WOULDN'T he wear a coat?

Then how the **** can Snart shoot it? Shouldn't it slow him down? More reason to have powers.....

[SuperiorIronman]

From actually reading Snart with powers I prefer the cold gun. From a writing standpoint it does make things more interesting because it can't simply devolve into a superhuman brawl. It forces the Flash to change things up when fighting him because I doubt the Flash is that interested in killing him. It also forces more creative scenarios since if Snart has a limited amount of resources, he needs to be quick in making the Flash slower and use his head. This is to me what the CW show gets right with Snart. It isn't just a gun, it's the timer and how much time he gets is by using his resources intelligently. It shows just how much of a threat a regular guy.

As far as the coat goes, it makes sense in that he probably would cool down an environment enough that he would need one, but Captain Cold also has a costume beyond the coat, he isn't always using that.

[LordTrump]

From actually reading Snart with powers I prefer the cold gun. From a writing standpoint it does make things more interesting because it can't simply devolve into a superhuman brawl. It forces the Flash to change things up when fighting him because I doubt the Flash is that interested in killing him. It also forces more creative scenarios since if Snart has a limited amount of resources, he needs to be quick in making the Flash slower and use his head. This is to me what the CW show gets right with Snart. It isn't just a gun, it's the timer and how much time he gets is by using his resources intelligently. It shows just how much of a threat a regular guy.

As far as the coat goes, it makes sense in that he probably would cool down an environment enough that he would need one, but Captain Cold also has a costume beyond the coat, he isn't always using that.

There can't be mind games if he has powers? Except this time, Barry's on the offensive and has to plan around him.

[SuperiorIronman]

There can't be mind games if he has powers? Except this time, Barry's on the offensive and has to plan around him.

He has less of a limit if he has powers. He froze the better part of Central City bay and tore apart a ship with powers, he couldn't do that with just the gun. And that being said Barry and Wally always have to plan around him. He is on no more the offensive in either case so it mostly becomes the Rogues ingenuity that has to get around the Flash.

[LordTrump]

He has less of a limit if he has powers. He froze the better part of Central City bay and tore apart a ship with powers, he couldn't do that with just the gun. And that being said Barry and Wally always have to plan around him. He is on no more the offensive in either case so it mostly becomes the Rogues ingenuity that has to get around the Flash.

Cold is a joke, there's no grand scheme to thwart with him and little gun. Him being the big man on campus suddenly is like crooks having the keys to the kingdom.

[Coal Tiger]

Cold is a joke, there's no grand scheme to thwart with him and little gun. Him being the big man on campus suddenly is like crooks having the keys to the kingdom.

Did you just start reading comics or something?

[SuperiorIronman]

Cold is a joke, there's no grand scheme to thwart with him and little gun. Him being the big man on campus suddenly is like crooks having the keys to the kingdom.

Except it is schemes. The Rogues aren't in the business of taking over the world, they are criminals and that's where the aspirations typically end. Cold can be a threat in that he doesn't have to kill the Flash to get what he wants. As well as he could never be the "big man on campus" since even with powers he still can be defeated quickly as once the Flash got a hold of him he took him down with only a few punches. If being the "big man on campus" means just having powers than Metropolis has got to be College.

[Vanguard-01]

The Rogues are products of the Silver Age. In the Silver Age, every supervillain didn't have to be a raging murderer, out to kill everyone with whom they cross paths.

The Rogues were just blue collar criminals. They didn't necessarily want to hurt anybody. They just wanted to steal things and get away with them. They weren't trying to kill Flash in most of their battles back then. This is why they had their famous code against killing.

Thus? Look at the design of most of the Rogue's weapons. They are "area of denial" weapons, designed to blanket an area. Cold's freeze gun can quickly blanket an entire area. Heatwave's gun can spray fire all over a target area. Weather Wizard can turn the entire atmosphere into a weapon. Many of Trickster's tricks involve the use of multiple small objects, spread over a wide area.

Alone, none of these weapons are much of a threat to Flash. Their strength was in their teamwork. No, Cold can't hit Flash directly. But Heatwave can lay down a corridor of fire to funnel Flash into a predictable path so that Cold can lay down a wall of ice in his path. Keep in mind that extreme cold can slow Flash down. He can vibrate through it, sure. But it slows him down long enough for one of the other Rogue's to draw a bead on him. Fire still burns Flash. He can't just run through Heatwave's fire. He has to go around it. Lightning is still damnably fast, and even Flash can't dodge it perfectly.

The Rogues are at their most effective when they're back to their original format of working together. Not to kill Flash. Not to defeat him in battle. But just to slow him down or keep him away from them long enough for them to get away with their loot. Yeah, Cold looks ridiculous in modern times because modern writers try to make him into something he's not: a solo act who can inexplicably take on one of the most OP superheroes in the DCU despite his utter lack of powers.

And why does he wear a jacket? His gun generates a lot of cold. He's only human. He'd be wise to dress warmly.

[LordTrump]

The Rogues are products of the Silver Age. In the Silver Age, every supervillain didn't have to be a raging murderer, out to kill everyone with whom they cross paths.

The Rogues were just blue collar criminals. They didn't necessarily want to hurt anybody. They just wanted to steal things and get away with them. They weren't trying to kill Flash in most of their battles back then. This is why they had their famous code against killing.

Thus? Look at the design of most of the Rogue's weapons. They are "area of denial" weapons, designed to blanket an area. Cold's freeze gun can quickly blanket an entire area. Heatwave's gun can spray fire all over a target area. Weather Wizard can turn the entire atmosphere into a weapon. Many of Trickster's tricks involve the use of multiple small objects, spread over a wide area.

Alone, none of these weapons are much of a threat to Flash. Their strength was in their teamwork. No, Cold can't hit Flash directly. But Heatwave can lay down a corridor of fire to funnel Flash into a predictable path so that Cold can lay down a wall of ice in his path. Keep in mind that extreme cold can slow Flash down. He can vibrate through it, sure. But it slows him down long enough for one of the other Rogue's to draw a bead on him. Fire still burns Flash. He can't just run through Heatwave's fire. He has to go around it. Lightning is still damnably fast, and even Flash can't dodge it perfectly.

The Rogues are at their most effective when they're back to their original format of working together. Not to kill Flash. Not to defeat him in battle. But just to slow him down or keep him away from them long enough for them to get away with their loot. Yeah, Cold looks ridiculous in modern times because modern writers try to make him into something he's not: a solo act who can inexplicably take on one of the most OP superheroes in the DCU despite his utter lack of powers.

Them defeating flash is to finish the job. Going to the above college analogy, powers are them "bettering themselves" to perform better at what they love. It just happens that what they love is stealing $hit.

[Lee Stone]

This might help...

Comic Book Logic
4-Color Genre Conventions

One of my favorites:
W9.1 Buildings are made of a material that is hard enough to stop bullets, but soft enough that a hero's arrows / boomerangs / grappling hooks/etc. will dig into the surface.

[Lightning Rider]

Why? It's a nonsense analogy. That's not even how video game fights work.

It's not nonsense. There are clearly people who ignore the character depth and stories of a character because their abilities aren't "super" enough.

I'd say that's how a lot of fighting games work. You pick the character with the move list/power set that tickles you the most. It's not an insult to well-made video games, with or without storylines.

And having the powers of their guns doesn't give them more powers. It gives them the exact same powers in a better way.

And I'd argue that it gives them the powers in a more generic way, one that must fundamentally change the outlook of the characters.

Also, how 'everyman' is any criminal using an elemental gun exactly?
It isn't the shape their powers take that make the rogues 'everyman'. It's their personalities.

In a world filled to the brim with demigods, magicians, and aliens, having an elemental gun is the criminal equivalent of having a handgun. It only gets the job done if you pick your target right, use your numbers, and plan one step ahead of the much more capable opposition.

It's hard to think of the Rogues personalities as believably "everyman" with powers when they can't conceivably be held in an ordinary prison and can destroy any human enemy with nothing more than a touch of their fingertips. It may be the same power conceptually but internalizing an elemental ability is simply a different beast. You street level criminal uses his smarts and his tools, even if those tools are quite impressive. Screw up and they could be toast. The same can't be said for someone who can radiate cold or heat or control the weather from their flesh just by thinking about it at any time.

[Alan2099]

It's not nonsense. There are clearly people who ignore the character depth and stories of a character because their abilities aren't "super" enough.

These people shouldn't be humored.