Results 121 to 150 of 357
-
2014-07-29, 01:04 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2008
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
Y'know, speaking of the Flash... and for the record, I've always had a soft spot for Speedsters- I've liked most iterations of the Flash from Jay Garrick onwards, and Bart Allen (mostly as Impulse) is who I would probably name as my all-time favourite DC character. Although Barry is still far and away my least favourite,which is why I'm somewhat less than thrilled that he's been shoehorned back into the universe.
But I've never really gotten how his 'vibrate his molecules' thing allowed him to phase through directed energy weapon fire, since to the best of my understanding, he's simply shifting his own molecules around the molecules of whatever solid object he's passing through. To my admittedly limited understanding, that wouldn't work with lasers or whatever (and would basically amount to him selectively opening and closing holes in himself, which is just weird).
I will admit I hadn't thought of him going intangible the attosecond he felt the first cut from the razor wire, which would make things more difficult, although the bomb going off on '0:03' might disconcert him slightly
One thing I kind of wonder about, though, Fan- why do you insist on counting the most ludicrously overpowered BS feats- like the Flash hitting 15,000,000,000x the speed of light- as 'canon', yet discount the equally stupid times that he gets hit in the face with a boomerang and taken out? Or the time that Green Lantern gets hit in the head with a model plane and knocked out (yes, that's actually in a Silver Age comic)?Last edited by TeChameleon; 2014-07-29 at 01:05 AM.
-
2014-07-29, 10:02 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2010
- Location
- right behind you
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
As much as I hate to say it, the bomb going off at 3 wouldnt do squat for the same reason the razor wire would fail. The flash is so stupidly, insanely, ludicrously overpowered, between the bomb being triggered and the blast wave leaving the casing of the bomb, the flash could transport the device to the bottom of the marianas trench, do a full forensic workup to figure out you did it, and arrest you, all before the shock wave moves 6 inches.
To paraphrase Animal Farm, "Some infinities are more equal than others" Seriously, thats just hilarious, 15 trillion times infinite energy thats required to just barely break light speed. How do you multiply infinity by 15 trillion? Easy, hire a comic book writer.Last edited by Traab; 2014-07-29 at 10:05 AM.
"Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum"
Translation: "Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe."
"If you don't get those cameras out of my face, I'm gonna go 8.6 on the Richter scale with gastric emissions that'll clear this room."
-
2014-07-29, 01:52 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2011
- Location
- Denver
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
It's true though, some infinities are bigger than other infinities.
Isn't there a time that a bridge is collapsing and instead of zooming everyone off the bridge, he goes to a college library and reads books for years, becomes an architect, zips around the country collectng all necessary supplies, and just rebuilds the bridge before anyone can react?Homebrew PrC: The Performance Artist
Avatar by Kymme
-
2014-07-29, 01:57 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2007
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
First of all, because I also don't count Goku getting taken out by Raditz at the start of DBZ as his peak durability.
A character grows stronger, and performs better the more they learn about themselves and train. This is true for Wally and Barry who spent time physically in the speed force before their best feats and abilities happened. In the Bronze Age of Comics immediately following Crisis on Infinite Earths Wally West's abilities had suffered a massive blow due to the damage done to the Speed Force via Barry's death, and could only barely crack the speed of sound.
Does that mean Barry and Wally can only go that fast today, now that the speed force is stronger than it's ever been? No.
Yet as time went on, and the speed force gradually fixed itself with Barry still being alive (but trapped inside), Wally's abilities and his own breadth of experience with how far they could be taken grew as well. It's for the same reason that Barry Allen was so much stronger than Wally as well, having spent those years inside the speed force imbued him with that much more intimate knowledge and experience with speed itself.
This is like saying Goku can't go Super Sayian because he couldn't do it in Dragonball, or he used Kaioken against the Sayian Elite. It just smacks of a complete lack of understanding in regards to there being an existing comics timeline, or saying that Super Sayian 4 Goku can be messed up by tank fire because it effected him as a kid when he's taken blows that shatter mountains in the series.
The same thing applies to Superman, before he did his training with Mongul the 2nd he couldn't perform the infinite mass punch, and still thought that he had to breathe in space, he also couldn't vibrate through attacks and didn't know that sundipping would give him the insane power boost he'd need to be able to counter act the world engines of War World to push it through the Boom Tube to the beginning of the universe.
Characters grow, and they develop. We don't judge anime characters by the start of their arcs, the same should be said for comic characters.
As for Hal Jordan. Well, he's just an idiot. That's pretty much canon that he forgets he even has the ring sometimes.Last edited by Fan; 2014-07-29 at 02:18 PM.
-
2014-07-29, 02:01 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2010
- Location
- right behind you
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
"Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum"
Translation: "Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe."
"If you don't get those cameras out of my face, I'm gonna go 8.6 on the Richter scale with gastric emissions that'll clear this room."
-
2014-07-29, 02:03 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2007
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
The Presence is the being in DC who you'd need to take down, and to take him down you'd have to get past Michael Demiurgos and Lucifer Morningstar. Two of the only beings I'd give a solid chance at annihilating The Flash.
And then you'd need to kill an Omnipotent being at the height of his power.Last edited by Fan; 2014-07-29 at 02:04 PM.
-
2014-07-29, 02:53 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2014
-
2014-07-29, 03:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2007
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
The stories make plenty of sense, given that most of the people flash fights these days have tricks to slow him down or fight at his level, Gorilla Grodd fights via mental illusions and being a speed force user himself now, even Captain Cold got a rework in that he now has an aura that slows the movement of atoms around him making Flash slower the closer he gets to him, Captain Boomerang hasn't been taken seriously by himself in decades, though when working with Captain Cold he has the capability to tag Flash pretty consistently.
Aside from that he fights Mirror Master who fights Flash by never actually being there and having semi instant movement via his travels through the mirror world, and Dr.Zoom is another speed force user who siphons off the speed force to make Barry / Wally slower as he fights them.
Also, generally I consider them at their most powerful because /that's only fair/, if you're going to take Goku when he's at Super Sayian 4 and also give him access to The Super Kaioken, you need to take his opponent at their best.
It's completely illogical to give one side their best stuff and ignore the other's simply because one gets juggled by a bunch of writers who occasionally forget ****, or omit things for the sake of the plot. The only way I can really justify that would be blatant favoritism.Last edited by Fan; 2014-07-29 at 03:13 PM.
-
2014-07-29, 03:19 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2008
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
*headshake*
Not what I meant, although it does call to mind some other stuff that raises some questions as to how speedsters work, exactly- more on that in a sec.
The Flash, right up until the Nu52 started (dunno about after, don't really care, honestly) was consistently portrayed as having a hard time fighting a collection of twits in funny pyjamas with silly weapons (aka The Rogues), when by all rights they should have been in jail the second he became aware of their whereabouts. Well after the fifteen billion times C silliness, and long after Wally beat instantaneous teleportation across multiple galaxies in the Human Race storyline, and all that kind of thing.
I mean, how is Heat Wave still even a thing? If the Flash can steal momentum, shouldn't he be able to absorb heat as casually as breathing? And if he can lend momentum, then Captain Cold should be as much of a threat as a guy holding an unplugged hair dryer... bleah, the physics of the Flash are painfully stupid sometimes >.<
And for that matter, he's often been shown as having fairly serious trouble if he loses traction or trips. The whole 'redirect momentum into a flip' thing is a pretty rare exception.
Anyways, the questions that occurred as to the exact mechanics of speedsters were: if the Flash has to search an area where it's raining, or snowing, or has any kind of precipitation or fog... how does he keep from drowning? Or for that matter, how does he even run? He should be having to swim... and speeding through hail should result in him beating himself to death with his own speed, or possibly turning himself into a colander. I get that his aura protects him from lesser stuff, like atmospheric dust and whatnot, and I guess probably fog as well, but anything heavier has to interact a bit strangely with his speed. For that matter, what about bugs?
And for that matter, how do the Flash's (any of them) perceptions of time and movement and whatnot work? By rights, he should have a great deal of difficulty seeing anything on any sort of screen. And how quickly can he swap between 'talking to a normal person' and 'world o' statues' perception levels? Is he likely to kill himself if he's sprinting and he gets a call on his earpiece, since he'd have to maintain two levels of perception at the same time, or else be forced to either stop/slow down drastically to listen or have to put up with a subsonic drone that takes subjective years to complete?
His aging is going to be fairly weird too, since he's going to have experienced the subjective equivalent of decades, if not centuries, at superspeed, and his whole 'hypermetabolizing wounds' thing is going to do similar to his physical aging as well. Speaking of which, that must seriously mess with his perception of pain as well, since it would compress all the pain of the healing injury into a few seconds.
The worst one, though, at least for me, is exactly how he sees time passing on a longer run. If he's zooming cross-country, does it seem to him to take months, since he perceives it as if he were running at a normal speed? Or is it some kind of weird technicolour blur so that he has to slow down/accelerate his perception every once in a while to get his bearings? For that matter, how does searching at superspeed work? It must feel like it takes months, or even years, to him, unless the technicolour blur thing includes 'plot device here' tags...
Hmm... one other thought occurs for killing the Flash- just one more layer to the trap might do the trick. Fill the room with colourless, odorless poison (or anaesthetic) gas, or maybe an airborne pathogen of some sort. His aura will protect him at first, of course, but when he goes intangible to dodge the razor wire, then becomes tangible again to interact with the bomb, he'll end up with a couple of lungfulls of the stuff since he'll materialize with it already inside him. If he gets a lethal dose, hypermetabolizing it will just kill him faster.
-
2014-07-29, 04:11 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2007
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
This is all changed New 52 side, Heat Wave can accelerate the movement of atoms, and Captain Cold can slow them down.
He has the same speed feat thanks to an issue of Captain Atom where Atom sets off a nuclear explosion and Flash has to save the two warring armies and the villagers before the blast wipes them all out.
Though it has been made distinguished that Flash has trouble vibrating through materials that are microlayered over eachother, such as the Sunstone of Superman's Fortress of Solitude.
Speed force protects him from the aging effects of experiencing hyper time, and he's been able to juggle multiple sets of perception as well when moving at super speed and communicating with someone who has no powers (IE. Batman.)Last edited by Fan; 2014-07-29 at 04:12 PM.
-
2014-07-29, 04:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
Hey, lets not sell the rogues short here. Remember, they have killed before. In basically every continuity there's always some idiot who can go really fast and think that makes him good enough to fight them, and it usually results in a painful death.
I mean remember, Cold's gun isn't just a chemical reaction, it's an energy weapon that creates absolute zero using a beam, somehow. He's not just some mister freeze level loser, he's a cut above that and is considered as such.
-
2014-07-29, 04:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2011
- Location
- Denver
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
Even when he's only moving close to light speed, how would a cell phone conversation work?
A. If he's moving the speed of light, time would move so slow for him relative to everyone else, how could he carry on a conversation? It's not a matter of changing perceptions, its how his time actually flows. Or can he manipulate that at will?
B. How would radio waves reach him? Speed force might answer the first question, but he can't just make all radio waves in the world move magnitudes faster than light speed, can he?Homebrew PrC: The Performance Artist
Avatar by Kymme
-
2014-07-29, 04:54 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2008
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
That still begs the question of how!
Unless the Flash is cut loose from time on a fundamental level, there is no way he should be able to communicate with someone moving at normal speed while Flash is doing complex stuff at superspeed, since his two perception tracks would be moving at speeds that differed by so many orders of magnitude you'd need scientific notation just for that! He would, in essence, be perceiving two entirely separate timelines. And what would happen if something happened on the superspeed track that caused him to go and interrupt Batman (for example) before he was finished saying something that the Flash had already perceived as having happened in the past on his 'normal speed' track?
And as far as Captain Cold goes... he may be good, but he's still fighting someone that has time to sprint around the world several dozen times, drop Cold in a prison cell naked, pick up his dry-cleaning, do his taxes, build a village in the Sudan for charity, climb Everest a few times, calculate Pi to six trillion decimal places, and read the library of Congress in its entirety half a dozen times before Lester has time to finish a single blink. (Please note that this is for pre-nu52 Captain Cold; I neither know nor care what NuCold can do to prevent this, since I seriously question whether that nonsense will last past even one Editorial regime change).
And yet, somehow, the Rogues manage to give the Flash difficulty despite the fact that they shouldn't have a snowball's chance in Hell.
-
2014-07-29, 08:13 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2007
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
Is he? I've always thought Freeze was considered the more dangerous of the two. Perhaps not from a technological perspective, but at least from a characterization, and general intelligence standpoint. I admit that I don't follow Flash closely though. (I haven't been a fan of Barry since identity crisis. Wally is ok, but they don't tend to focus on him.)
Didn't Cold just steal his gun in the current continuity?
-
2014-07-29, 08:20 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2007
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
His gun has always been absolute zero generating though, it's always been explained that Flash can pretty much solo the entire rogue's set up sans Zoom.
I mean the guy straight up does it in his last Post Crisis Appearance in Flashpoint, it takes direct intervention from Professor Zoom for them to shut him down, before that he was straight up punking them all at once, it took Zoom providing them all with upgraded equipment from the far future, and a special adhesive that didn't care about friction to set that up.
Flash's interaction with the lesser rogues is more Barry / Wally taking the time to try and help them through their problems and give them new direction outside of evil. Which is honestly one of my favorite parts about the character, is that he recognizes his opponents are mentally ill and he tries to help them when he can.Last edited by Fan; 2014-07-29 at 08:32 PM.
-
2014-07-29, 09:46 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2008
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
Mmph- not saying that the Flash can't solo the Rogues, just that they're consistently portrayed as being at least a mild workout for him, when the fight should really be closer to 'Superman vs. random mugger'.
-
2014-07-29, 09:51 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2011
- Location
- Denver
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
Has anything else in the DCU hit 15 trillion times the speed of light or at least close?
Homebrew PrC: The Performance Artist
Avatar by Kymme
-
2014-07-29, 10:01 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2007
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
The Black Racer, I'd say a bunch of feats in Sandman are at least that fast. Solar the Man of Atom is hyper technically a part under the loosest definition and he's truly beyond infinity on a multiversal scale including the story boards for his unpublished issues (he got canceled.).
Hmm. That's about it. Flash is the fastest non cosmic entity in DC by a large margin.
And yeah, the Rogues are a mild workout because he doesn't want to kill them. Limiting him in speed of approach and in what techniques he can use.
When the Flash wants to kill someone he vibrates the atoms inside their head to make their brains into jelly.
Just like when Superman wants to kill someone it's heat vision lobotomy, or IMP time.Last edited by Fan; 2014-07-29 at 10:07 PM.
-
2014-07-29, 10:11 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
He kind of needs to be, because Speed is basically all he's got going for him, in it's various forms.
Superman isn't as fast, but he's stronger and has more powers, so it evens out. Someone like Green Lantern is even slower(I don't think he can even go double lightspeed, unless I'm missing a feat), but a lantern makes Superman look like a rock next to a swiss army knife, so he'll also balance out(when you've got a time machine and a terraformer on hand, speed isn't super important). The only one that doesn't really balance out is Wonder Woman, simply because she's not as fast or strong as the top tiered ones, but the writers keep taking her fun toys away so she can't compensate.
-
2014-07-29, 10:17 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2011
- Location
- Denver
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
But that level of speed has many applications. Time travel, phasing, blowing people up. Presumably he could choose not to contain the energy and blow up every conceivable level of reality in the universe, since the energy levels hes dealing with would make destroying the multi-verse a mind numbingly easy task. Even more powerful beings, unless they could predict he was going to do it ahead of time and prevent him from going that fast in the first place, would probably not be able to stop it.
Maybe there is some entity powerful enough to just survive and recreate the whole universe, though. Point being, that level of speed gives an absurd breadth of powers.Homebrew PrC: The Performance Artist
Avatar by Kymme
-
2014-07-29, 10:18 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2007
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
Eh, I feel the opposite way about Wonder Woman. With The God Wave She's faster than The Flash, and has a toolbox of powers so varied and ridiculous that she borders on god hood.
I will say that I preferred it back when she did super science stuff to go with her powers though. That was definitely cooler, if less thematic.
Also Flash does use the time travel angle, everyone with super speed at that level can time travel. Superman, Wonder Woman, hell Green Lantern does, albeit not through going fast.Last edited by Fan; 2014-07-29 at 10:26 PM.
-
2014-07-29, 10:26 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2012
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
Geeze. I haven't been reading DC comics for a while (Cause reasons), but this is Gurren Lagann Levels of ludacrist.
I donno. Go with the classic "Make them fight each other", but put allot of effort into ensuring it works. Target primarily Wonder Woman. She is stupid and stubborn enough to fight with least amount of staging. Just make a bull**** prophecy combine it with some stupid law and she will totes do it.
-
2014-07-29, 10:30 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2011
- Location
- Denver
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
Homebrew PrC: The Performance Artist
Avatar by Kymme
-
2014-07-29, 10:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2012
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
That I find is kinda bold. The world would be a better place if every diplomat did that.
Still being stupid and stubborn is still a major part of WW character despite "Genius Level IQ". She rolled a 3 on her Wisdom score.
-
2014-07-29, 10:40 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2011
- Location
- Denver
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
Homebrew PrC: The Performance Artist
Avatar by Kymme
-
2014-07-29, 10:43 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2012
-
2014-07-29, 10:49 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
- Gender
-
2014-07-29, 10:56 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2008
- Gender
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
Thanks to Dirty Tabs for the Travis pony.
Spoiler
Thanks to A Thousand Words for the My Little Simhata avatar, and thanks to Trixie for fixing the cropping.
Breakdown Twilight from Pony Halloween celebration, thanks to Thanqol.
Thanks to Akrim.Elf for the awesome Laharl pony.
-
2014-07-29, 11:05 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2012
-
2014-07-30, 02:26 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2014
Re: Killing the JLA, or, How Are These People Still Alive?
I wasn't talking about Flash specifically, I was talking about you deciding what is canon and what isn't.
Like the attosecond nonsense - it doesn't make sense even when it was introduced (because it's simply used as a boast, isn't it?). Why is that more canon than that time Flash was running towards Batman but there was enough time for Batman to draw a smoke bomb, to throw it in Flash's way, for the smoke bomb to explode and for the smoke to blind Flash? Both situations are equally stupid (one because the writer clearly does not understand what an attosecond is, the other because Flash is supposed to be superfast instead of superslow). Why is one canon while the other isn't? Why do you get to be the judge?