MCU CaV: The Defenders (CreoleCuddy) vs the Black Sky (ANTHP2000)

Carl “Luke Cage” Lucas

• Superhuman Strength
• Invulnerability
• Superhuman Speed
• Superhuman Agility
• Healing Factor
• Skilled Combatant

Jessica Jones

• Superhuman Strength
• Superhuman Durability
• Superhuman Speed
• Superhuman Agility
• Healing Factor

Matt “Daredevil” Murdock

• Radar Sense
• Master Martial Artist
• Indestructible Grappling Hook
• Body Armor

Danny “The Iron Fist” Rand

• Master Martial Artist

• Summoned Chi/Iron Fist

A center piece of this debate, we can agree the Defenders (mostly revolving around Luke & Jessica) hold the advantage in this area. We can also agree the formers’ striking will at the very least stun or hurt Elektra if they land. Need to be reminded of such feats? Sure thing. Jessica for starters, is capable of oneshotting and killing a grown woman in one blow sending her reeling over 10 feet.

Sends the 200 lb.+ Diamondback reeling through the air with a single hurl whilst physically exhausted.

As for lifting strength, Luke is capable of tossing a 400 lb. through the air with no considerable strain.

One thing to note about this feat is the amount of time it took the tire to make its way back to the ground. The time it took was Luke tossing the tire, and nearly turning back around to face the camera for the tire to make its way back to earth.

Jessica on the other hand, is capable of tossing Simpson’s body half a mile if not exactly one into the ocean with what looks to be no effort.

Matt isn’t shallow in this area either, especially since he already proved strong enough to toss Nobu into the air with one arm with the help of his grappling hook.

Where does lifting strength come into play you ask? Great question: convenient for ragdolling and knocking Black Sky off balance which’ll leave her vulnerable to many attacks.

I’m not going to post any feats for Luke in this category, until I see some feats showing exploitable ways for Natchios to effectively hurt Cage. As for the other Defenders, they should be more than capable of tanking her strikes as they already have. Matt for example, already took a point blank strike to the chest sending him through a glass panel without his suit.

Matt should also be more than capable of tanking any superficial hits from her sword as he already did so in his first encounter with Nobu when armed with his hook-blade. It should be noted, that he was hit 25 times and even dragged with the same weapon yet he managed to continue fighting.

Danny should be fine too, as he did the same on two separate occasions. The first of which, was in their fight in Cambodia and the second of which was when when they fought in the cave under Midland Circle in New York..

Jessica should deal well with any blunt force attacks from Black Sky too, as she already tanked attacks from a much stronger & bloodlusted adversary (Cage) than herself.

This isn’t taking into consideration Matt’s body armor, which is while susceptible to blades it also depends on the frequency of the angle and the blade itself (as quoted by Melvin Potter) so this could potentially protect him from Elektra’s sais & swords.

I’ll admit, Elektra holds the advantage in reflexes & combat speed but that doesn’t mean she’s an exception to being tagged. Moreover, while Elektra is a formidable opponent Matt should be more skilled than her by an edge or small margin. My statement proves true, as the former not only evaded being hit by her for almost a minute but also while at a physical, and reach disadvantage and having the higher of morals only being tagged twice, and managed to evade her even when she drew a second sword.

Luke should be capable of tagging her too, as he was fast enough to momentarily keep up with Double Dose Nightshade Bushmaster, who bullet-timed in a scene before.

Danny is pretty skilled himself, being able to clear a Hand Gauntlet whilst poisoned and was able to tap into “Zen Mode” allow him to perceive everything in slow motion and fight while distracted which should come in handy here. Also, Matt regularly switches and incorporates different fighting style ranging from boxing to acrobatics which should assist him in this fight.

There are many ways for Matt to assist in Elektra’s downfall. The first of which is, while the rest of the Defenders are busy fighting Elektra he can take this time to utilize stealth, in order to get the drop on the former and give her the courtesy of garroting which has shown to be effective in incapacitating Sowande, a resurrected Hand Leader. He can also buy Danny some time, by stalling her until he hits her with the fist. Or he can take her out with a rather boring method, and tire her up with his grappling hook and let the rest of the Defenders beat her down.

Just like I said before, Matt can prove effective in buying some time and being a mere distraction only for a bloodlusted Danny to turn her head into juice killing her or at the very least KO her.

KO her with blunt force, snap her neck, or choke her out simple as that. They can also buy Danny and Matt time to incorporate the plans above.

One particularly important aspect of her upgraded abilities upon resurrection was Elektra's enhansed physiology. In terms of durability, she has proven she can shrug off hits from peak humans on Matt's level without trouble, as well as survive direct hits from superhumans, like the Iron Fist, while raw strength-wise, I'd say she's a match for Jessica Jones.

For a start, let's take her first encounter with Matthew in her new life as the weapon of the Hand. She proved superior to him physically to a very, very noticable degree. Above we see what happened when he landed a barrage of blows on her in quick succession; it barely bothers her. She's not even staggered, barely phased.

When she retaliates with her own hits, she sends him flying through the room and drops him in two hits.

Additionally, I always thought she wasn't going all out against him in that fight (note the distinction between holding back and not going all out), for one he never posed a threat to her, he was merely a nuisance, an unarmed human that couldn't even hurt her. He's groaning and struggling to keep up throughout the fight whereas she doesn't imply struggle in any way, simply trying to slice him down in a rather robotic manner. It's worth noting that when she drops him, she's simply twirling her swords above his floored body for over 10 seconds, again implying that she wasn't trying too much to take him out. Now that we've established this, I feel confident that this fight wasn't representative of her higher end speed or strength, because she wasn't pushed to her limit like in other situations (in her training session or against the Defenders as a team). And I brought it up in this section because I want to note that she has shown herself capable of dropping Matt dead unconscious with a single hit when she wants, or needs, to.

Of course that's not enough to say she can compete with Luke Cage or Jessica Jones, but this is something she has also proven she can do;

Gallery

When she encountered the Defenders again on her mission to kidnap the Iron Fist, she showed she can knock out Jessica Jones with 1 hit, as well as take take down Cage with another - obviously Luke going down in a one shot from her is neither consistent nor without context. He was drugged and knocked out by Stick beforehand, but this is still sufficient to say she can physically content with him, which is something I'll elaborate on in the below section where I'll highlight her final fight with the Team.

Elektra's stats are a crucial factor in this fight, as they automatically render Daredevil, the one person who can properly keep up with her, almost useless.

Elektra is on the upper layer of martial artists on Earth-199999. After seeing her in training, Alexandra praised her skills as "more than anyone can learn in a single life". Her skills in combat, in particular, along with her enhansed speed and reflexes, will allow her to once again outfight the entire roster of the Defenders barring Murdock.

Elektra's fighting style is unlike anyone else's in New York, the Hand or the Chase. Her small but athletic build allows for easy maneuvers and fluidity beyond that of any of the Defenders. Unarmed or with her arsenal of bladed melee weapons, she's a force to be reckoned with, but her use of the blades in particular is extremely impressive.

In the final part of her trainning session with Alexandra, Elektra demonstrated just how dangerous she is with her weapons of choice. A team of 10 Hand Ninjas surrounds her at 360 degrees, they charge at her with extreme co ordination, as one unit, and she slaughters all of them in 10 seconds straight. In order to parry blows from and land direct hits on a group of trained fighters like that with such efficiency, a great deal of skill and speed is required.

Elektra's reactions are also on a different level than that of any Defender; deflecting a bullet after it's been fired qualifies as low level casual bullet timing. The reason I think this showing is, in fact, bullet timing is that we hear the shot going off, a noticable span passes, and then we see Elektra deflecting the bullet with her sword.

Moving on to what's probably going to be the most debated part of this CaV, her final fight with the Defenders. The one time she faced all of them at once, is the main reason I'm convinced she's more than capable of winning this fight;

Through her combination of skill and enhansed physiology, Elektra showed that she can take on Luke, Jessica, Danny and Matthew and do exceptionally well. She garrotes Cage and draws him back, dodges an attempt from him while knocking down Jess, and uses him as leverage to counter Rand who is fully utilising the Iron Fist trying to attack her.

Then, she is seen staggeting Luke, again using him as leverage to knock down Danny and then do the same to him. Matt manages to tag her, but it doesn't do much, and her mindset against him, which I'll note below, is worth noting. After a good more while of fighting, she is still seen controling the fight, countering every single one of them;

She easily outpaces Danny, knocks him down, does the same to Jessica and once again the same to Luke. This fight shows that Elektra is more than capable of taking on all of them, keeping up with and even outmaneuvering them. Once again, this on its own isn't enough to say she can solo this team, but there's context that is very noteworthy;

1. Elektra didn't use her bladed weapons, her Swords or her Sai, here, she was in a very significant disadvantage without her weapons, which she had here
2. Elektra wasn't going all out against Matt - this time, for a different reason; do note their conversation later on.

- If this is who you truly are, why haven't you killed me yet? You've had your chance.

- I've had many.

- If I truly mean nothing to you, if there's truly no light inside of you, why not just do it?

- Because the game is fun.

Elektra and Matthew, "The Defenders"

She explains how she doesn't go all out on Matt ever since realising who he is because she wants to have her fun with him - or so she claims.

So with all that taken into account, the former in particular, I think she has what it takes to win this. Bladed weapons are a game changer; change all these directs kicks, punches and pokes she landed on the Defenders with slashes, cuts, stabs and slices - she will behead or gut Danny and Jessica before long, she can take out Matt without a lot of struggle, and she can leave Luke for last to take out, something I'll elaborate on below.

Elektra is not untouchable, but she won't get tagged by the people that matter. Jessica and Cage, who have no real formal training, and Danny, who while pretty formidable on a right head, has proven directly incapable of competing with her.

Elektra's initial weapon of choice is her twin Sai, with which she's extremely skilled. Upon her resurrection, Elektra mastered dual wielding a pair of Wakizashi, and utilised a hidden garrote in battle, as shown above. Both dual wielded blades of hers offer 2-3 foot long additional reach and the ability to instantly take out any of the Defenders with well placed hits. Her Sai are also a highily versatile weapon, can be used for stabbing, poking and ragdolling, while her swords make up for the lack of direct lethality of the former.

Matt isn’t shallow in this area either, especially since he already proved strong enough to toss Nobu into the air with one arm with the help of his grappling hook.

Luke and Jessica can certainly hurt Elektra, but Matt can't do anything of significance to her. As I showed, his hits barely phased her.

Where does lifting strength come into play you ask? Great question: convenient for ragdolling and knocking Black Sky off balance which’ll leave her vulnerable to many attacks.

This is exactly what Luke tried to do against her half the time, and she used him as leverage to take out his teammates. This strategy clearly won't work.

Matt should also be more than capable of tanking any superficial hits from her sword as he already did so in his first encounter with Nobu when armed with his hook-blade. It should be noted, that he was hit 25 times and even dragged with the same weapon yet he managed to continue fighting.

That's a great feat of pain tolerance, but the moment Matt gets tagged by her blade, it's over. Nobu was toying with Matt, if he wasn't he would have taken him out instantly, which is what a bloodlusted Elektra will do.

This isn’t taking into consideration Matt’s body armor, which is while susceptible to blades it also depends on the frequency of the angle and the blade itself (as quoted by Melvin Potter) so this could potentially protect him from Elektra’s sais & swords.

I think it's worth noting that Elektra herself can swing her swords with such speed and strength that she can pierce walls by merele slashing them.

I don't think Matt's suit will protect him against this level of force. It's possible, but I wouldn't put my money on it. That's a secondary point, but Elektra's output is something I felt like pointing out.

Moreover, while Elektra is a formidable opponent Matt should be more skilled than her by an edge or small margin. My statement proves true, as the former not only evaded being hit by her for almost a minute but also while at a physical, and reach disadvantage and having the higher of morals only being tagged twice, and managed to evade her even when she drew a second sword.

As I noted, I'm not convinced at all that Elektra was going all out in that fight, whereas we know this is Matt's absolute, upper limit (as he was groaning and visibly struggling to keep up with an emotionless Elektra and lost at the end). There are many parts of the fight where Elektra dodged Matt's attempts and there are parts where she also straight up outpaced him; for instance, in the beginning of the fight, she is repeatedly dodging and blocking hits from him until she lands a clean, direct hit on his chest. Overall, I'd give Matt a marginal skill edge over her because of the reach disadvantage he faught her in, but nothing that will make him an actual threat to her.

Danny is pretty skilled himself, being able to clear a Hand Gauntlet whilst poisoned and was able to tap into “Zen Mode” allow him to perceive everything in slow motion and fight while distracted which should come in handy here.

And as I showed, Danny's no match for her on that category either. Putting aside the fact that she easily outmaneuvered him consistently even with the aid of his teammates, we can look at it in their second 1 on 1 duel underneath Midland:

Elektra was litteraly just toying with him throughout this whole fight. She was taunting him, and needed him alive and conscious to open the vault for her. She's dancing around him and landing repeated hits, then uses her Sai to poke the Fist away (another effective way to counter him), grab it and direct it on the wall behind her.

There are many ways for Matt to assist in Elektra’s downfall. The first of which is, while the rest of the Defenders are busy fighting Elektra he can take this time to utilize stealth, in order to get the drop on the former and give her the courtesy of garroting which has shown to be effective in incapacitating Sowande, a resurrected Hand Leader. He can also buy Danny some time, by stalling her until he hits her with the fist. Or he can take her out with a rather boring method, and tire her up with his grappling hook and let the rest of the Defenders beat her down.

Honestly, Billy Club or not, Matt might as well not be here; he can't factor significantly in fighting Elektra as his hits are futile. And while the fiber wire on his Club is a very interesting function, it shouldn't bother Elektra much either. She could always simply overpower the person behind the wire and take him down, in a similar fashion to how the Winter Soldier could overpower the Black Widow when she tried to garrote him before, and Matt hasn't shown any high level unarmed techniques such as pressure points, practical ability or high end chokeholds that would allow him to hurt a superhuman of Elektra's caliber if he had to.

A last point I'd like to raise is the fact that Elektra can certainly put down Luke Cage. His "unbreakable" skin might be too strong to be pierced by her weapons, but his eyes are still as exposed as it gets. I think it's clear that he cannot keep up with a fighter of her level, regardless of wether or not he can keep up with the similarly fast, but exceptionally less skilled, Bushmaster. Her blades should sufficient perfectly in gouging his eyeballs out after dispatching his teammates;

This kind of savagery is something Elektra is trained in too, by word of the Daredevil choreographers, she's a lethal assassin trained by Stick to never hold back, and use the most lethal of techniques. She has even gone for this strategy against the Hand - and I'm confident a handful of trained Hand operatives is harder to keep up with and tag or pinpoint than a mere street fighter like Cage. It's also worth noting that unlike most of Luke's opponents, she has the strength to phase him with blunt force too, poking him and throwing him around before finishing him off.