The Daily Debater 113

@majinblackheart@bramvanelteren@mcu_jedi_bob@ghostravage@anthp2000@higherpower@wyldsong@kevd4wg@heirtothekingdom@jashro44@warlockmage@morpheus_@cull_obsidian@owie@lubub55@darth_nimrod @acrokat@full123@major_hellstrom@mickey-mouse@giliad_@jucaslucasa@thedailybagel@deathhero61@ordinaryalan@andromeda101@shade545@underfire47@noobmaster2001@the_magister@KolKent@The_Kidd@Kangconquers@_Logos_@PyroFN@mysticmedivh@thevoidofdeath@straight-fire@baph@soratoumiga@kevd4wg@the_hajduk@noone1996@ouroborik@brucerogers@apex_pretador@battle123axe@vertigo-@supremegeneration@del_torro_@koays@blackspidey2099@pipxeroth@fetts@god_spawn@reaverlation@geekryan@xZone@Ecoblitz@takenstew22@DCandMarvelComicFan@PSI-BITE234@Kryptonianking@BladeOfFury@Mo_Ail@Zetsu-San@lazarus4tempest@Mooty_Pass@Thorthunder98@MorbusGrav@NWName@animehunter@thor-parker@highmantra_x0sp

This thread by newcomer (I assume) @elissas is a well-run tournament of non-bending Avatar/Korra characters. Having just finally finished watching the two shows, I was curious to match up my own perceptions against those of people more lengthily-steeped in the fandom. I was pleased to see that they were fairly consonant, both in my sense of which characters I'd select to be in the tourney, and which ones might win. ElissaS was able to get a good amount of input from other users, keeping the tourney going fairly efficiently. There were some questions about who should first match up with whom, but it all worked out fine. The combatants are Ty Lee, Mai, Suki, Asami, Sokka, and Piandao. Who do you think has the hand to hand skills and athleticism to take the win?

Also-presumably-newcomer @dathvada put together this two-on-two battle between the heroes of the Dyad and the Prequel-era Sith master and apprentice (or, apprentice and sub-apprentice?). Battles with Ben and Rey are always controversial, and there's always a decent amount of discussion about where exactly Dooku and Ventress fit in the hierarchy as well. What especially impressed me here was that we have multiple debaters arguing at civilly-written paragraph length instead of just one-liner retorts. You see some people taking the opinion that the more-proven Dooku solos, but as one debater says, the Dyad is like a "literal cheat code." There is a lot of detailed scaling going on with Luke and the Inquisitors as the debaters try to find an objective bridge between the two trilogies' time scales.

This battle between two pairs of powerful Marvel women, created by @marvelfan1992, gets a little more contentious, but that's partly because these ladies have been around for a long time, and they've all got several different versions, plus decades of feats to be broken down and considered in terms of consistency. Of course, one big question is psychic defenses, and another are the various high-level haxes belonging to Wanda and Sersi (and if they even need their best ones). We also get into an entertaining discussion of PIS and everyday-human-level reaction time feats.

All of these characters have been getting consistent usage these days, and its time for them to come together in this battle created by @bigmoistjunior. The implications of Superboy Prime's feats continue to not be fully agreed-upon, and Final Forum Ultron's are not completely black and white either, but what is clear is that they're not pushovers. There's a lot of in-depth discussion of various DC major events and how they affect Superboy and his scaling, and some extensive consideration of Thanos's telepathy and Ultron's encephalo-ray. Does the Marvel team take out the DC team-buster? Jump in and throw in your two cents.

Bit of self-advertisement here, but I figured it would be very relevant to mention the current HTT (High Tier-Tournament) that I'm operating at the moment. This CaV went really fast, and in terms of debating, doesn't try to go into complicated or confusing argumentations, mostly focusing on if KoL could get past the opposing team's defences with his speedsters. Short and to the point, something I think many people prefer over the bible-spamming that CaV's can be known for.

Next CaV is a LA display between two fairly well respected debaters, this time not debating one or two characters, but two whole teams of them! The dynamic between how both could interact in a actual fight is showcased here, with a lot of focus on what constitutes as "in-character" and what doesn't, as well as team tactics and whatnot. This isn't the biggest debate but it's a very solid read, and worth checking out!

This is still in the early days, but based on BlackSpidey's first very in-depth post for the underrated Spider-Man of the future in the form of Miguel o'Hara, this is fashioning itself up to be a great CaV, and definitely one worth keeping your eye on. This is a triple threat between three different characters from different formats of fictional media: Elric is from anime/manga, Weiss is from a web series, and Miguel comes from comics. Might not be intentional but it's a great clash of genres in any case.

This is not a new Respect Thread; it already covered Mera's atlantean physiology, combat ability and the highlights of her mighty hydrokinesis. Even so, it was recently updated by @geekryan to include the new showcase of her abilities in Snyder's Cut of Justice League; this mostly consists of a separate stand against Steppenwolf, during which she used what's perhaps her deadliest skill to date, almost literally draining the life out of the creature.

There already was a Respect Thread for John Wick, but @subline took it upon himself to write up an updated version, covering his showings in the departments of stealth, gun use and hand-to-hand combat, from the first movie all the way to Chapter 3. The thread is structured in a classic bullet-point fashion, making it easy to consult and navigate, a welcome addition to the Vine given the growing popularity of the franchise, and the common use of the character in the battle forums.

Rarely will you find you a character this powerful on the basis of a trailer alone, but the King Shark could not go unnoticed after the new promo for James Gunn's Suicide Squad. Our very own @mrsyg impressed with the mighty task of this Respect Thread; strong enough to rip grown men apart and chew on them, resilient enough to survive star level shots and fast enough to race next to olympic level athletes, King Shark's greatest strength appears to be his mind. In any case, we are all looking forward to seeing him on-screen.

1. Hello Raj, welcome to the Humans of the Battle Forum segment. The name HUMANS of the Battle Forum isn't chosen for nothing. We want to know something about the real you. So tell us, who is RajjarsAlt?

RajjarsAlt = Rajjar = Raj, that is who I am. I'm 20 years old, Indian, and I have most of the baggage what comes with that. Currently looking for grad school options both domestic and abroad, and I feel like its going well for me all things considered. I'm a sustainability freak that loves nature, and because of that I am pursuing green energy, resource management, conservation, and the like. Anyone who has seen me beyond these posts can testify that the real me =/= the vine me, but that is true for a lot of people. But the defying singularity and unifying similarity is that I love to bait. I think bait is the "modern" form of trickery, and being a trickster refines the particular strain of chaos inside and around me.

Of course, chaos exists in other ways, ie being scatterbrained and going on a rampage, and I think these are useful to an extent in certain situations. For example, I was bullied alot as a kid, so I learned martial arts and did justifiably brutal things in kind. I believe in karma and dharma, and I think I've fulfilled my duty so far, but that's from how I was raised. From my analysis of history and my own experiences, I think violence is a necessity because humans just don't work any other way, no matter how much they like to pretend otherwise. Of course, I think there has to be a good amount of accountability and responsibility to handle such destructive activities. But humans are even worse at that. I think there's a good factor of "bloodlust" or "seeing red" that makes such actions enjoyable in the moment, but in the end, man is just another munkee. Ook ook.

2. Now back to the keyboard-warrior stuff. Why and when did you decide to join Comicvine?

Well, in this iteration of myself, I joined in early 2020 to dunk on the notorious porn spammer Spike/Ta-Er once more. At that point in time, the reason he kept crying about getting pack trolled is because of me, and me alone. What Ta-Er mistook as getting hunted down by a pack of LA debaters was simply my unrelenting force. Why did I do it? Because it was funny. Plus, considering how dumb LA debates generally get, picking on one of the antagonists of the old vine for even older reasons was a way to establish who I was and what I knew; I meant business.

3. In those years you've been on the site you have encountered and talked to a great variety of users. Which of them are the most memorable?

In no particular order

amcu - hands down best MCU debater

xzone - singlehandedly leveled LAvine b/c Thor

nwname - hands down best calcer I've ever seen

kevd4wg - romance with empress is still a better love story than twilight

supremegeneration - my little brony my little brony

michaeljulius - monitored my rise in the powers of bait

detective_somerset - basically a walking, talking hubris-nemesis complex

kingoflatveria - the one above all

4. You are known as the MCU guy. I'd like to know what you like about it, what your favourite movies and characters are, what got you into debating it, and more importantly, why are you going as far as to use feats from Burger King tie-ins in threads?

The reason I am known as the MCU guy is because I bothered applying my unique set of skills to live-action verses. I do it for every verse I debate. My favorite MCU movies are Infinity War, Thor: Ragnarok, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and the Guardians of the Galaxy. My favorite characters are Loki, Thor, and Iron Man.

What got me into debating it? I just thought it would be a cool thing to try out. My expertise is in the reproduction and delivery of evidence. That includes creating media and exploring its visual effects (images/videos) which is honestly my favorite part of LA debating. I'd say the stuff I make for LA is the creme of the crop in terms of quality. LA is also good to apply the calcer's mindset, and I have had fun with that as well. LAvine is its own thing and I feel it forms the lifeblood of current CV, for better or for worse.

Burger King is unsubstantiated. Never did anything of the sort. It is a bit of a reactionary response via Detective's rumor-spreading. I just looked at what was before me, and thought, "hmm, if LA debaters like using headcanon so much, then why don't they use it from people whose opinions are actually worth something?" People like to say "boohoo wah wah on-screen/on-panel" as if the screen is without ambiguity; they actually think it is an objective source of information that should be set as a standard above all other forms of evidence. Worse still, there is no place, no alternate world, no chance of even a remote possibility that debaters themselves are objective, either. That's why intent is important, because it kills headcanon, shortens room for interpretation, and establishes the truth. This isn't anything new. Look at the Star Wars fandom.

5. A new thing about the MCU are the Disney + shows. We've already seen WandaVision and parts of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but beyond that, which shows (and movies) are you looking forward too? And what do you think about this TV expansion of the MCU? Is it a good thing?

I'm looking forward to Loki, Dr Strange: Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love and Thunder. I think the TV expansion is a good thing as it really allows us to explore the world of the MCU after Thanos's decimation and its reversal at the hands of the Avengers. I think it is worthy, especially with the MCU itself being expanded with institutions like the Time Variance Authority being introduced.

6. As I mentioned, you are mainly known as an MCU guy on ComicVine, but I know that you also read comics quite often. What was your first comic, and when and how did you get it? Also, what is your favourite series and your favourite character?

First comic was given to me by my grandfather. It was an Amar Chitra Katha edition of the Hindu epic known to the world as the Ramayan. I think I was like 6 when I first read it. Amazing stuff. Favorite series is vol 1 of Thor: God of Thunder. Favorite character would be Thor because of that. Thor is the crux of where my interests in mythology and comics intersect. What he said of how gods should act and what he did to save the gods in that arc strongly resonated with me.

7. As people who have recently browsed the battle forum might know, you are going to prove your talents on comic book debating in the "Pure High Tier Tourney" against @kevd4wg. Would you mind giving us a sneak peak of the strat you will be using?

Kev is one of those really good comic debaters. But he's split like his dad in several ways. In identity, there's Kevd0ng, KevSchl0ng, Kevc4t Warlockmage, etc.Therefore, I will be using the trident formation. My three prongs will be feats mindset, raw intent, and scientific predictions. I feel this trident's power is that wherever it lands, it incurs self-destruction. Given Kev's tendency to argue himself into a concession, I have confidence that this will work on him. I will say that Kev's comic debating is tried and tested on a formal level. Though it's not enough to overcome me if I was in the LA element, where I feel I bear more power due to the rigor I've set in that arena.

8. Do you have anything to tell new ComicViners? Debating tips, something they should desperately know?

Make your opponents angry. They'll inflate and grandstand, they'll be full of hot air. And when the time is right, dive in like a needle and pop that balloon.

9. Lastly, do you have anything else to say?

Who am I?

Comic Vine's past teems with quality reading. Though we always focus on the here and now, it's crucial that we put aside a time to inculcate, entertain and overall ameliorate ourselves with the relics of this nerd haven's history. This segment is proudly stalwart in the firm edification of all who read, with a strong desire to wont self-education. By making this short, we hope to not waste the time you should be using to read the threads we discuss in this segment.

The debut of this segment will highlight possibly the most popular thread on Comic Vine: @mysticmedivh's iconic A Closer Look at Superman Prime (One Million). The relative obscurity of Comic Vine accounted for, it should be scoff-worthy to state that a thread from this site is "well known", but Mystic's thread has become ubiquitous in discussions on the 853rd century's Superman on more familiar, prominent and august websites, including YouTube, Quora, and Reddit. Listen to no aspersions framing this as a fluke; the hard work Mystic put into his magnum opus is evident by even a cursory glance, setting the standard for debunks with a strong structure to support his thorough, veridical denunciation of a widespread misconception about Kal-El's power in this future, and it was this determination that rocketed Mystic's remarkable project to fame. If you want to learn how to debunk-- no, how to construct anything more formal than a casual post, this thread will prove a valuable inspiration, and if you simply like good reading, get comfortable and read on.

Alrighty, here we go with the segment that is only marginally less painful than sticking your hand into a running blender...another Indie Side for you=)

With the release of Invincible on Amazon, I've noticed Supreme's name getting thrown around the boards a bit thanks to his fight with Omni-Man. Supreme is one of these characters that a lot of people have heard something about, and there are a ton of respect threads out there, mixing and matching feats from a bunch of different versions of Supreme, oftentimes with little to no context behind them...which has lead to a metric c4@p ton of misinformation about the character. So for this Indie Side, we are going to talk a little bit about Liefeld's angry Superman homage and the various versions that sprung from his creation...let's take a look at Supreme.

So there is quite a bit of convoluted history with this guy. So much so to the point that no one really knows where to place him power wise. There are claims of him being anywhere from Gladiator to Silver Age Superman levels, yet as mentioned before, there are scenes with him fighting evenly with Omni-Man...who is decidedly not Silver Age Superman level. So...I will attempt to paint a better picture of Supreme, and clear some of this up. Hopefully by the time I am done, you will all have an understanding of just what we are dealing with here when we are discussing the mantle of Supreme.

The Many Faces of Supreme

This will be a brief rundown on the various versions without getting too heavily bogged down in the discussions of feats. I will also attempt to clear up on just how we go from roughly Gladiator to Silver Age Superman-esque to Invincible power levels. For starters, Supreme has mainly gone through the hands of four major writers: Rob Liefeld, Alan Moore, Erik Larsen, and Warren Ellis.

I will of course start with the OG created by Rob Liefeld, the original Supreme...

In the original run, we are introduced to Ethan Crane, who was imprisoned for killing two men and was offered the chance to become part of a government program that gave Crane powers, and he eventually became a Superman-like being, with a bit of a god complex and a penchant for quoting scripture. This is possibly the most brutal version of Supreme. He has no issues with killing his foes whatsoever. After a series of adventures, he loses his powers, gains the hammer of his universe's Thor and is powered by that (what I call the "Hammer of Supreme"), is later thought to be killed, then later found to be alive but hidden away thanks to Loki, where in a jerk move he switched bodies with an alternate reality version of himself to regain his powers, and is last seen flying back to Earth after defeating Loki with the aid of his daughter (Lady Supreme) and the alternate reality version of himself. Sometime during his trip back to Earth, is the crossover where he faces Gladiator in a little one on one brawl.

In Liefeld's run, there was Lady Supreme, two different alternate reality versions of Supreme (one of them being the Deathmate Supreme), a Supreme clone, Kid Supreme, Val-En (a descendant of Supreme), and the main Supreme himself. Liefeld's main Supreme caps out somewhere around the level of Gladiator overall on the power scale.

Phew...that is a very abridged version of events, and as you can see, there are already several versions of Supreme in the Liefeld run. Now let's take a look at Moore's run on Supreme...

With Moore's run, we are introduced to the idea of "reality revisions", and we see Supreme returning to Earth, somewhat confused by things changing around him. He is approached by four other Supremes, who state that his powers appear to be unlimited, and they caution that he needs to go with them before the revision happens...intoning that it would be unwise to be "revised" along with the rest of reality. Supreme seems to have been affected by the revision regardless, as his costume is different, his personality changes, he appears to be younger in looks, and he experiences changes to his powers. He basically becomes more of a Silver Age themed character, and discovers that he has a new life with this reality revision, with a whole new backstory. We are introduced to the idea of a place called the Supremacy, which is a reality that houses various other Supremes from different reality revisions and some of the supporting cast of these various Supremes exist there as well.

Needless to say, there are a ton of Supremes to be found in this run, but the most notable ones to bring up beyond the main man himself are Radar, who is his "Hound Supreme", and his sister, Sally Crane aka "Suprema", whom I will talk about in a bit. These are meant to be nearly Silver Age Superman characters in power level...so Supreme definitely takes a pretty big leap in overall power levels. Prior to the end of Moore's run, we also get introduced to the idea of a separate reality for the various versions of Darius Dax, who was basically Moore's equivalent to Lex Luthor in the Supreme-verse and was Supreme's main nemesis.

This version of Supreme housed the lifting the weight of the universe (which Suprema performed), massive black hole level durability, MTFL feats, and so on.

Onto Larsen's run...

Here, Larsen takes over and continues the story of Supreme. He picks up where Moore leaves off, gives us a story of the "Daxes" (multiple versions of Darius Dax from the "Daxia" dimension) attacking and bringing down Supreme's flying citadel, drawing out the Supremes from the Supremacy, and utilizing supremium -- a reality warping substance used in the backstory of every "Supreme" other than the Liefeld version, weakening the Supremes and killing them off using high tech weapons from Moore Supreme's flying citadel, and they seemingly destroy the Supremacy to boot. Moore's Supreme is lead by the Original Supreme (in Moore's stories, Original Supreme is not a reference to the Liefeld Supreme, but was basically the first Supreme to come into existence) to a prison of sorts, and they free the Liefeld Supreme. Basically, due to whatever reality revision shenanigans that happened, Moore's Supreme was not just a changed version of the Liefeld Supreme, they actually became separate entities, and the Supremes in the Supremacy locked him away for over a decade for being too violent and unpredictable. Liefeld Supreme aka "Mean Supreme", kills all of the invading Daxes, and then using supremium, permanently de-powers all of the surviving Supreme's that were stranded from the Supremacy, becoming the only Supreme besides Suprema.

This is the story that has Mean Supreme as having had become the most powerful Supreme, and where he beats down Suprema, who was still roughly Silver Age levels. Right after he does this, a reality revision hits, and Omni-Man appears to challenge Mean Supreme. Now bear in mind, Omni-Man did not exist in the Supreme stories until this reality revision. There was a character called Omniman in Moore's stories, which was a character that Moore's Supreme created and wrote a best selling comic about.

This reality revision basically took Mean Supreme from Silver Age levels to being equals to Omni-Man, basically the Invincible comic levels of power. By the end of this run, Mean Supreme absorbs a ton of energy, and pretty much becomes a solo planet buster:

Again, this happens after the Omni-Man fight. This whole series ends with the de-powered Supremes making plans to try and take down Mean Supreme, and possibly trying to get back to the Supremacy to see if there were powered versions of themselves to be found there after the last reality revision happened.

Now, we get to the run of Warren Ellis...

This series mainly focuses on a version of Diana Dane (Supreme's main love interest in many reality revisions), who is basically hired by Darius Dax to unravel the mystery of Supreme. As the story progresses, we learn that the story of the reality revisions is continuing and something was corrupted with this particular revision. Basically, Ellis gives us a very trippy and surreal story, with very little of the actual Supreme, and it ends with Dax needing to kill that revision's version of Supreme to revise reality again and fix whatever was corrupted. In the new reality after Dax completes his mission, Diana is shown as the editor of some publication, and is being told that something is going on in the town of Littlehaven...which basically lets us know that Supreme's story did not end with the last revision, and thus ends that run.

Which leads us to the last iteration of Supreme to be seen on the printed page...

We find out that in a short lived 2017 run of Liefeld's Youngblood, that Moore's Suprema has survived a few reality revisions, and has now taken the title of Supreme:

Unfortunately, Liefeld lost the rights over Youngblood, and now the future of Supreme is really up in the air...so without a finished tale, there is very little to say about Sally's run as Supreme. Somehow the world was made to forget about her existence, and everything about how she survived the reality revisions and ended up in the newest Youngblood continuity ends up being a mystery that will never be explained. Woot.

Clear as mud yet? Yes, there is a lot going on with Supreme, and the only way to get the complete picture is to find the issues and read up. I promise, it does make some sort of sense when you read it all, but I don't have the time in this bit to lay it all out. There is just too much to delve into...that said, a great resource for some Supreme intel comes from this blogspot, which has a ton of information on it. Worth checking out if you want to learn a little more about all things Supreme.

In Closing

And yes, that was a bit of a departure from the usual Indie Side stuff, but I wanted to try a little something different this time around. Next time, we'll do a little review of a comic by the cosplay diva, Cara Nicole aka AZ Powergirl called Firebitch...basically a story about what happens when a self styled "instahoe" and social media influencer gains powers and has to defend an alien planet from deadly invaders...

Till next time, peace out=)