Awesome Arena Tournament of Champions Week 1 Results, Week 2 Discussion

[...] Then go here and put in a comment, make a blog post, mention it, put a note on the facebook, mention it, get points: http://www.fortheloveofcomics.com/2008/03/17/awesome-arena-tournament-of-champions-week-1-results/#r... [...]

Nice. I knew Bats would beat the Tony’s iron.

Round 2 - blog posts, fb note, voted on Flash to kick some green aliens ass on St. Patty’s day!

… and the dreaded RJP moves early to pad his lead.

I’m actually surprised that it came down to only seven votes.

I demand a recount!

Okay…I don’t. But this isn’t over. Not by a long shot. Anyway, I’ll get to work on my essay tonight or tommorow. Anyway, question - if I post again on ViewAskew for the second round, do I get another bonus point? I’m going to regardless, but I figured I’d ask.

I’m going to go with yes; as long as the posts are separated by a week, and are promoting the current week, I’ll award another bonus point; which is why I awarded Robert two more for another post on his blog and facebook.

I’m actually surprised more people aren’t trying to pick up bonus points - I’m purposefully staying away from reposting on message boards, myspace, and all that to give y’all more chances for bonus points.

Also, for week two, I’m voting Martain Manhunter.

It was a really tough decision, as the Flash has evolved from just a superfast emeffer, into a real Force to be Reckoned with.

Still, I have to give it to the giant green man, I have a feeling he’d just clothes-line Wally and stomp on his neck.

And sweet! So if I run off now and post at View Askew/myspace, I’ll get the points? Rad.

Sure, just couch it as an update and hype week two as something people can still get in on.

I’m going with the Big Green, too, but I could see it going either way.

I do have an opinion on who Bats would have a better chance of taking out, though.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=126725421&blogID=367737716

http://www.viewaskew.com/theboard/viewtopic.php?p=2853493#2853493

Word.

Updated on my list. That technically puts you in second place at the moment, but no official updates until the end of the week.

So, AJ, how does it feel to be so utterly wrong? To know that your top pick of round one was defeated? To now have to write an essay about why Batman is better then Iron Man? I wish I could have seen your face when you read the results. Did you cry? Did you cry tears of woe? Did you cut yourself? Do you regret it?

AND

Moving on, I’m Picking Flash. Not so much because I think he can win but because I feel that he will win the popular vote.

Ooooh… TRASH TALK!

I wish I could argue against you on your choice, but I think it really will come down to popularity. I can envision scenarios with either of them winning equally likely.

If it were based on which one of them would actually win a fight I would have definately gone for Martian Manhunter. Unfortunately though, this is more of a popularity contest then anything. Most people did the right thing with Batman though. He would DESTROY Iron Man if it were based on actually fighting skills.

I think there are aspects of it being a popularity contest, and in a close fight, popularity will definitely win out, but you’ll see in later weeks that I’m making it a point not to let my affection for certain characters affect me. I’m voting for who I really think will win. I don’t think I’m the only one.

Gotta go with the Martian on this one. Wally’s abilities make him a tricky s.o.b. but Manhunter’s got the temperment to go the distance. His intagability and telapathy give him the edge in both protection and safe/crafty attacks.

That’s understandable, Crackerbob. And I will be doing the same with the exception of Batman. I will stay faithful to that character for the duration.

I agree for the most part, Xers, but I can’t help but think that if Flash got an opening, he may be able to exploit the hell out of it very quickly.

Midknight, I really really REALLY wish I could back Batman through the whole thing, but there are a few opponents that I think he’d have to get extremely lucky in order to beat.

But also, it’s alot easier for me to stand on principle and not vote based on popularity since I’m not competing for a prize. =op

I am kinda tempted to track Mike’s points and mine, just to see where we rank, though.

In all honesty there is only one other character in the line up that I think could knock out Batman. That being Thor of course. If he can pull through that he can win. We all already know that he could beat Superman. And if it comes down to Sentry what Batman would have to do is exploit Sentry’s weak mind and he has won.

And I’m not actually playing for a prize either, I’m really just playing for the sake of playing.

That’s what I like to hear!

There are a couple of combatants that I would worry about for Bats. Let me go pull up the bracket and I’ll explain.

Stand by…

Ok, let’s see here.

Martian Manhunter seems to have gotten over most of his pyrophobia, but Bats could probably take him down with a flamethrower.

The Flash… I honestly don’t know how Bats could take him out. This is one of the battles I’d be worried about for Batman.

Batman has stood up to a few New Gods, but nobody on Thor’s level. I can’t see Batman winning this one.

Spiderman may be able to be tricked into making a mistake, giving Batman a win, but I don’t think Spiderman is going to beat Thor.

Iron Fist would be a good battle against Batman. Two very skilled fighters throwing down. Iron Fist is mystically enhanced, so he’d have a theoretical edge, but Batman has overcome greater odds. Again, I don’t see him getting past Thor, so I doubt this will even come up.

Red Tornado would, I think, go down via methods as Iron Man, but he also wouldn’t make it past Thor. Moot point.

Obviously, I don’t see Batman making it past Thor, so the OTHER side of the bracket is probably irrelevant, but let’s check it out anyway.

Booster Gold is a much cooler and more skilled hero than he used to be, but he’s still a rookie next to Batman. Pure experience and skill give Batman all the edge he needs.

Captain America and Batman would be an AWESOME fight, similar to the Bucky/Nightwing fight. It could really go either way and come down to a lucky punch or lost footing. I was actually very disappointed that Cap and Bats weren’t on the same side of the bracket.

Green Lantern’s ring no longer has the yellow weakness, so - barrring a lucky shot or psyche-out (which isn’t impossible) -
Batman would go down against the Lantern.

Green Arrow would, in theory, be another interesting combatant against Batman, but I believe Batman has the superior training. He could probably neutralize the arrows, bringing it to a hand-to-hand fight which he would inevitably win.

Wolverine could be interesting. Batman is the better fighter, but, with Wolverine’s healing factor, could Batman incapacitate or kill Wolverine? That’s the big question here.

To my knowledge, there’s no way to make the Hulk revert to Banner short of getting him to calm down. Even then, Hulk seems to have some measure of control over whether he reverts or not. In theory, Batman may be able to hit him with some kind of sleeping gas, but Hulk also has a healing factor and, if Batman didn’t make the only shot he’s likely to get, Hulk would rip him apart in mere seconds.

Batman has a kryptonite ring and several plans in place to take down Superman if he ever needed to. Superman helped him make alot of those plans. Because of literally decades of planning, Batman would take down Superman.

Sentry is a bit unstable. Batman (hopefully) could mess with Sentry’s mind enough to get him to take himself out. If Sentry’s mind didn’t buckle, Batman’s body would.

I think out of all the possible fights in this tournament, two stick out the most as ones I would actually like to see in comics. First of all, Superman and Sentry. I want to say that Sentry would win but Superman has never displayed his power to it’s fullest extent so that would be great to see. And Batman vs. Wolverine. They would really test each other’s limits that’s for sure.

You know, neither of those fights really interest me for some reason. I figure Batman would find some way to subdue Logan, even if it meant drugging his ass and Superman would just lay out Sentry.

you really think sentry would go down that easily? i’d like to see how

I was going to wait till the Sentry and Superman actually fought to discuss either of them, but since its being discussed, here it goes.

Sentry is a powerhouse. And unlike Superman, he has no discernable physical weaknesses. Sure, since both are so powerful, they could beat the hell out of each other, but it would be pretty even.

The other point I have to make, is while Superman has kryptonite, theres a pretty good chance that there isn’t going to be any laying around for this battle. On the flipside, Sentry’s equivalent to kryptonite is is crippling agrophobia. Seeing as how this is a mental problem, rather than physical, it wouldn’t be too hard for Supes to talk Sentry out of fighting.

Have any of you played KOTOR II? Where you can fight Darth Sion all you want, but he won’t die? Instead you have to convince him to let himself die. I think it’d be like that. Superman could just fuck with Sentry’s head, like “oh, look what you’re doing, beating up another Super hero! Looser”. Either he’ll break the Sentry’s spirit…or piss him off.

That’s going to be an awesome imaginary fight.

Sidenote - Are you guys going to write up a fight?

Ok, to be fair, this may be the one time I’m voting on favorites since I just dislike the entire concept of Sentry. He’s a lame character, thus he must be a lame fighter.

And he’s just so incredibly fragile mentally that even Superman could psyche him out.

AJ, I love the KOTOR games even though I’m still upset about all the stuff the cut out of II.

Writing up fights sounds like a cool idea, but this was originally Mike’s baby so I’m hesitant to make any decisions about things other than point distribution. Thus my answer at the moment is… maybe.

Yeah man, KOTOR II was kinda beat, and it could’ve been pretty gnarly. Still, that was my favorite part of the game.

Also, I kinda dig the Sentry. He just seems like the insanely powerful character everybody wants to create (including myself), but his “mental Krytonite” as I’ll call it just makes him a fascinating character to me.

I liked him in his original MAX series, it was an interesting idea, but he is incredibly boring as a recurring character, BECAUSE he is this insanely powerful character with no apparent weakness.

I’m also bored by most Superman stories, so it was inevitable that I would be both bored and annoyed by Marvel trying to create their own Superman.

As a tragic, forgotten hero who has to make himself not exist, he was interesting. As a recurring character, I loathe him.

LOATHE!

Also, Hulk fought him to a draw, so I think Superman could take him, too.

The only thing about the draw in World War Hulk, was that, considering the whole book was focused on Hulk stomping colons, it comes off a little biased. Hulk and his entourage beat a lot of characters I don’t think they would have under normal circumstances.

Honestly, all it comes down too is the book its happening in. If Banner gets repowered and breaks free in a new Mighty Avengers issue, I’m sure Sentry will be all “Round 2″ and pummel him into submission.

Who did Hulk beat that you don’t think he could otherwise?

I thought WWH was a bit biased against the Hulk, casting him in the light of someone attacking blameless heroes, when the Illuminati betrayed him, kidnapped him, exiled him, and then - just when he had finally found peace - killing his wife and all of his people.

The argument has been made that the Illuminati didn’t MEAN to send him to the wrong planet and did not MEAN for his ship to explode, but they are to blame just as much as a kidnapper whose victim dies when the trunk of the car they are locked in is crushed by someone rear-ending it.

I think YOU are biased towards the Sentry and thus think he could just beat anyone, good sir!

For the record, I don’t think Hulk makes it past round 2, so no accusations of bias towards the Hulk.

I voted for the manhunter to win week 2. Flash got speed but the Manhunter has the abilities to stop anyone in his way

That seems to be the general consensus, Naimad - I seem to be the only one with any doubts about it.

Other than Robert, who thinks the Flash will win because he broke his nose or something. =op

Okay, AJ - here’s how I see the Superman/Sentry fight going down, if Superman doesn’t mind being a little cruel.

All Superman really has to do is ask the Sentry “Dude, you do realize that your wife is a Skrull, right? You didn’t resurrect her; Ultron never really broke her neck because Skrulls are flexible. Your wife has been dead for over (insert length of time that Sentry has been “back”)!”

The Sentry, seeing the truth in this, snaps and goes ballistic, at which point Superman starts questioning out loud if the destruction he is causing indicates that the Vortex is the real personality and Sentry is the sub-identity.

Sentry is a mess and easy pickings for Superman.

…or Supes could just kick his butt outright.

By the way, Sentry’s wife is totally a Skrull and has been as long as Sentry’s been “back”.

I may write up a quick synopses of how I see the Batman/Iron Man battle playing out later today.

I honestly don’t think Superman would be smart enough to realize Sentry’s mental weaknesses. No offense or anything but I just don’t feel that Superman is the most intelligent cape out there.

Also, you guys are nerds. I have never even heard of KOTOR and I hate Star Wars. But I think you guys are still cool. lol

It depends on who’s writing Superman. He’s sometimes written to have a brain as enhanced as his physique. Other times, he’s written to be of about average intelligence.

And KOTOR is a pretty cool game. If you want to play something equally as cool without having to deal with the Star Wars angle, check out Jade Empire. Same designers, similar style of game play, set in ancient China with a kung-fu angle.

Speaking of KOTOR II… AJ, do you know about the exploit in the temple where you can basically level up continuously with minimal risk? It only works for Dark Side, though, since you have to use that Dark Side power Force Drain or whatever it’s called.

Its the Void, Cracker, not Vortex.

Also, I have played Jade Empire, its pretty gnarly. And yeah, I know about the exploit in KOTOR II, but when I played I played light side, and since II was lame and you couldn’t get DS powers on the Light Side, I couldn’t do it. Now, every time I try and replay the game, I get frustrated and give up on Peragus Mining Facility. As much as the story was cool, the gameplay leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

As for people unjustly defeated in WWH, I think Hulk was pretty justifiably strong, but considering he beat half the fucking Marvel Universe, it just seemed kinda rediculous.

Vortex, Void… however you spell it, I pronounce it “LAME”.

It doesn’t seem ridiculous to me, since Hulk is more powerful than over half of the Marvel Universe.

Also, I agree with you about the gameplay on KOTOR II. It was fun for maybe the first two play-throughs and then I was bored.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve played KOTOR and Jade Empire, though…

Likewise. I bust out KOTOR every few months, never gets old.

Meh, we’ll have to agree to disagree on Void/Sentry. I kinda dig him. I’d dig him a lot more if they’d firmly planted their tounges in their cheeks and named him “Gary Stu” though.

At least we can agree on the awesomeness of KOTOR!

Hell yeah!

Oh man oh man….I’ve read so many comments & I wanna jump in, but not to interrupt that is! I just want to throw a few things out there about a couple/few characters.

Sentry: ….he’s been called the “Superman” of the Marvel universe—but let’s not forget that with the power of a billion exploding stars/suns that he has the ability to altar reality (on par with the Scarlet Witch!!!!!). I mean: think about his origin/introduction into the Marvel Universe…Yeah, we’ve seen him in action but there is still a shit load of mystery that surrounds the extent of his abilities.

Batman: …same old same old; as long as he’s prepared for a battle he has an impressive ability to overcome crazy circumstances. However: for some reason I keep remembering him teleporting into the JLA’s watch tower as Zatana and a few others where getting ready to wipe out the memories of the villains that learned the secret id’s of superheros—-what I’m getting at is that the few folk there (any one of them) could have been beaten by Bats (and some of them have been) on a normal/str8 up brawl/superhero showdown. But the group was able to simply able to hold him back and wipe his mind of the event he walked in on {thus leading to the whole Omac/Big Brother thing–remember that?}. So, remembering that he cried like a baby in that issue and some other thangz (like his relationships)….Batman is very difficult to defeat intellectual and physically; but we’ve seen him fall pretty hard when it comes to issues/situations that rouse him emotionally/go against his beliefs and philosophies.

And as for the Hulk: damn, where do you begin?? ….well, let’s just say that there have been multiple manifestations of the Hulk besides the regular “Hulk Smash!” Hulk (Grey Hulk is only ONE of the few: and it is possible that WWH is a separate level/different Hulk than the regular ole green dude: but that’s not been officially confirmed yet. As for the “Red Hulk”….I don’t think it’s Doc Strange; I don’t even think it’s Banner/even related to the regular Hulk—maybe it’s his son?—either way I’m gett’n off of the subject.) Anyway…..the Hulk has been able to rip the earth/time and space/magical matter in half BUT he’s also been taken down like a pansy in a few other comics (e.g. …Spider man knocked him out with a truck once upon a time, Deadpool cut him with is regular/steel sword when adamantium had a hard time cutting him at other times. And there’s some other crazy stuff…..). Jeeze….but based on his development over the past several years (well, damn, just the past few years), I’d still have to tip my hat to the green guy. He’s been kick-ass on both the “lower” and upper level power scales that writers have placed him on.

And, as for Superman: Yeah, yeah, yeah; krypto-this-krypto-that; we know Batman can (and has) beat him. But I think back to Superman’s mind being taken over and fighting Shazam—yeah Shazam almost killed him. Superman doesn’t do well against psyonic or magical attacks. So, to hear everyone say that Thor will whoop up on him is interesting: Thor’s powers are not alien (like Superman’s) so I wander if everyone thinks that Thor’s just more powerful physically or have we taken into account that Thor’s powers aren’t necessarily physical, but mystical? …yeah he’d whoop up on ole Red Cape though.

K, I talk too much.

Interruptions and long comments are always welcome! That said, if we keep having threads like this I’m going to have to look into making that threaded comments plugin work!

Ok, going to try to address these point by point.

Sentry - yes, he’s been hyped as someone coming out of nowhere and becoming not only the most powerful person on Marvel’s Earth, but his powers aren’t even really defined. I don’t buy it all for a second. Either this is incredibly lazy and shitty writing, which Bendis isn’t known for, or Sentry isn’t really who or what he’s being presented as. The more thought I put into Sentry, the more I believe that he’s a Skrull or some kind of scam. Supes could take him.

Regarding Batman, please note that it took a GROUP of superpowered individuals taking him by surprise to take Batman down - these are one on one fights and Batman knows they’re coming. Also, Batman gets pissed when he sees bullshit going down. I think that’s pretty understandable.

Red Hulk is… I don’t know. It COULD be Banner, it could be Thunderbolt Ross. It could be alot of people. The theory is that Hulk becomes stronger as he becomes angrier. WWH was supposedly the most angry and most focused he’s ever been, so it doesn’t surprise me that he stomped mudholes.

I think Thor is both more powerful than Superman and his godly powers qualify as magical, allowing him to beat the shit out of Superman.

But I don’t think that’s going to be the Final battle in our little tournament here…

Good point about WWH being Hulk at his angriest.

And I don’t think Red Hulk is Bruce. I really hope it isn’t Bruce, because I dig the idea of someone else shouldering that burden for awhile. I hadn’t thought of Ross…that would be pretty sweet.

Okay - now that I’m sitting still, here’s my vision of how the Batman/Iron Man battle went down.

They’re both pretty intelligent guys, so you have to figure that they did some homework on their opponents. Tony likely knows that Batman has both the means and methods to use his wonderful toys, including an EMP, and is a great hand to hand fighter. Figure that Tony has made preparations for this.

Figure that Batman knows that Tony mostly relies on his armor for both offense and defense. Figure he knows about the Extremis making Tony and his armor basically one. Figure he knows that Tony is an arrogant prick, incredibly sure of himself, and looks down on basically everyone as less intelligent than himself. Figure that Batman can find disgruntled employees of SHIELD or other sources and get some of those power-nullifying nanites that were used on She-Hulk and Tony during his current forced leave.

With those things given, here’s how I see it.

Batman arms himself before the battle with the nanites and armor under his costume, though Tony doesn’t realize this, and the EMP, which Tony figures he has. Tony comes with just his armor, figuring it should be enough.

Against anyone else, it would be.

Bats surprises Tony by bumrushing him and seemingly trying to take him down with hand-to-hand combat. Tony punches Batman, sending him flying. The armor that Batman is wearing under his costume takes most of the impact and Batman just looks at Tony, raises a remote, and smiles.

This is when Tony realizes that the EMP is planted on his armor. Tony already made allowances for this and reboots the armor right as Bats pushes the button, keeping the armor from being fried.

Batman planned on this, though. The EMP was just a way to trick Tony into having his armor shut down, even for a second. Moving quickly, Batman rips Tony’s faceplate off and injects him with the nanites, cutting off his connection with this armor. Now it’s just a hand-to-hand fight.

Tony surprises Batman by being a better hand-to-hand fighter than he expected. You have to figure Tony has had SOME training by Cap, even though he never took to it like Hawkeye or Bucky since he had his armor to fall back on.

Batman is actually slowed down by his armor. This, combined with Tony’s better than expected fighting skills, makes this fight pretty damn close, but Bats’ superior skills eventually win out and he delivers the knockout blow.

Yeah, Ross would probably be the most interesting prospect for being the Red Hulk.

That seemed like a pretty accurate write-up. Kudos.

Thankya

Yeah, I’d agree with your write up; no matter how Batsy and the Iron Bitch meet up I think it would’ve boiled down to a good physical brawl between the two—especially with Tony surprising Batman with his fighting skills. However surprising, he wouldn’t be good enough though…Tony has been defeated with regular martial arts while in his armor btw.

******************************************************

Oh yeah, I’m hoping that Ross is the Red Hulk too: it makes perfect since in SO many ways (especially the Red’s constant attacks on S.H.E.I.L.D/the use of a special gun. But I’ve got the feeling that the house of ideas is gonna throw a curve ball on us. And maybe (just maybe) it’ll be a big idea that wont fizzle out in the end; I’d really like to see it cross over into a story arch that seems unrelated somehow.

But anyway, I’m kinda mad….I had the idea of a red Hulk (with black hair, eyes, and finger nails) way back in the day ….well, a little more beastly looking too, (resembling the PITT…actually I could see him looking like a red Pitt with the ferocity of Sabertooth but with a seclusive temperament—not like Wolverine, but kinda in a way I guess.)

They could have revamped him in the Ultimate universe but….::yawn::…we’re stuck in there with the same-shit-different-package Hulk…..as is the deal with most of the Ultimate character versions. What differences there are between the Ultimate and mainstream Marvel universe don’t really account for much. So far their Secret War was about the most interesting thing to me…and that’s just ’cause Magneto broke into the Ultimates HQ and handed Thor his Majorin; and Cap’s shield right back too them; it was just a bad-ass scene!

Okay, so I’m guessing the Martian Manhunter wins this week. Also, I pimped the contest on my blog, which will also push out to my Twitter. Is that like double points? I can at least get the blog points (see post at http://www.patricksays.net/2008/03/19/like-superheroes-play-this-contest/). Later folks.

Sure, we’ll call that double points.

Red Hulk is Bruce. Bruce is a Skrull who was like, “WTF?! Here I go impersonating The Hulk and they shoot me off into space?! Well fuck that!” then he crashes and forgot he was a Skrull till he came back to Earth and had a world war (which true world effect was in 3 panels. 3 PANELS of the last fricken issue! Again, The world is not AMERICA!) upon which he was then captured back by his Skrull cohorts.

Yah… yah… I like how that sounds. Off to break another nose pretending I am the Flush!

Silly Canadian…

The U.S. is the only part of the world that matters. The sooner the rest of you realize that, the easier things will be.

America… FUCK YEAH!

Here to save the muthafuckin’ day YEAH!

Damn straight.

Then lets hope when the Skrulls take over THE WORLD, they stay on that side of the border. I don’t want to see any when I go for coffee ’round here.

*Robert rides away on his chair with drink in hand*

Skrulls are already in Canada… they hate you for your maple syrup.

[...] fact, the Vol. 1 trade is among the prizes in our Tournament of Champions Pool. If you haven’t already started participating, there’s no time like the [...]

Much more quiet this week than last week - just not as much to argue about this week or are y’all getting bored with the whole concept?

[...] already did Batman vs Iron Man in the comments to the Week 1 Results post, which means that I owe you Martian Manhunter vs Flash and Thor vs Spider-man, so let’s get [...]