It actually was upsetting as no one was "allowed" to discuss, share or debate with one another.
For this discussion I would like users to post a feat they think is controversial and discuss it with fellow users. I will post it under a characters name and post where the question was brought up and where it was settled with others. Feel free to share and discuss feats here.
Rules:
1. Respect the persons analysis. If you disagree, explain why. You guys must discuss why the feat is valid or invalid. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT take this personal. Share and educate with one another. If you need to PM and curse at each other then do so.
2. If your feat is debunked or contradicted, then you must, YOU MUST edit your post at the bottom and explain how your feat is valid, invalid, bunked or debunked.
3. Before you challenge a statement from another person, please reread what they wrote. In your own post, before you question it reexplain what that person is trying to convey and then point out what contradicts it. This is how debating should be done, flame wars start from misinterpretations or people refusing to understand where the other person is coming from. Even if you know they are wrong, but yourself in their shoes. Understanding what they are conveying perfectly will only make your counter stronger.
Index:
A
B
Batman
- Batman did not kick a full powered Spectre by Citzenbane PAGE 1
-Batman has never truly beaten Superman with prep. By Citizenbane PAGE 1
-Batman did not defeat Deathsroke straight up head to head by SlimJ87D PAGE 6
Black Adam
-Black Adam and Captain Marvel are not the same power level by Beatboks PAGE 4
-Superman, Black Adam, Captain Marvel, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, etc do not battle (move their limbs) at FTL SlimJ87D PAGE 6
Boba Fett
-Boba Fett did not beat Darth Vader by Silver2467 PAGE 2
C
Captain America
-Captain America is not peak human. He is enhanced human by SlimJ87D PAGE 1, 8
-Black Widow did not ONE SHOT Captain America PAGE 20
Captain Marvel
-Captain Marvel Wields magic that's why he can hurt Superman by Beatboks PAGE 4, 19, 20
-Superman, Black Adam, Captain Marvel, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, etc do not battle (move their limbs) at FTL SlimJ87D PAGE 6
-Captain Marvel can be depowered by lightning by Killemall PAGE 6
D
Dragonball Z
-Dragonball Z characters can or can’t destroy planets PAGE 21, 24, 25, 26
E
F
Flash
-The Flash does have an increase in durability. Deathstroke tagging him is PIS. By SlimJ87D and Citizenbane PAGE 4, 14
G
Gambit
-Gambit can charge Organic matter PAGE 14
H
Hulk
-Hulk is fast, but he does not have the mindset to control his speed by SlimJ87D PAGE 2, 3, 4, 9
-Hulk (green scar, World War Hulk, World Breaker, etc) emits gamma energy when he is angry by SlimJ87D PAGE 2, 9
-Hulk destroyed actually destroyed asteroid PAGE 27, 28, 30
I
Iceman
-Iceman never beat Oblivion by Marksman PAGE 1
J
K
L
M
Mace Windu
-Mace Windu did not beat Palaptine by Silver2467 PAGE 2
Miscellaneous
- How to compare explosion survivals as feats PAGE 22
N
O
Odin
-Odin and Zeus are around the same level by SlimJ87D and Killemall PAGE 7
P
Phoenix Force
-Phoenix Force did not affect whole Universe PAGE 20
Q
R
S
Spider-Man
-Spider-man did not lift the whole daily bugle by SlimJ87D PAGE 6
Silver Surfer
-Silver Surfer gets tagged often by slower people by Killemall PAGE 4
-Silver Surfer can’t switch of X-Gene PAGE 20
Superboy-Prime
-Superboy-Prime does not have Silver Age Superman's powers by SlimJ87D and Killemall PAGE 7, 11
Superman
-Superman didn't move a machine the size of Jupiter. PAGE 1
-Superman does have combat experience and training by Jayfourmines PAGE 3
-Superman (DCnU) can fly FTL by Citizenbane PAGE 5
-Superman, Black Adam, Captain Marvel, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, etc do not battle (move their limbs) at FTL SlimJ87D PAGE 6
-Superman can survive in a black hole unharmed PAGE 20
T
Thor
-Thor did not fight Tutinax at the speed of light by Citizenbane PAGE 1
-Thor does have but a way to fight speedsters by SlimJ87D PAGE 1
-Thor's hammer strikes are not just blunt force but magically amped strikes by SlimJ87D PAGE 1
-Thor lacks speed PAGE 4, 11, 14
-Thor did not lift 1/3 of Earth’s mass PAGE 20
U
V
W
Wolverine
-Adamantium in the 1610 (Ultimate Universe) is not weaker than 616 adamantium. By CadenceV2 PAGE 7
-Wolverine's healing factor indeed relies on his health state by God_Spawn pAGE 10
X
Y
Z
Zeus
-Odin and Zeus are around the same level by SlimJ87D and Killemall PAGE 7
@SlimJ87D: I like this :) i really really like this. You might wanna tag CitizenBane he wanted to debunk few feats on the other thread but was just disappointed by the OP.
I'm posting this because I'm getting tired of people on the battle forums thinking the infamous incident from Tales of the Unexpected #4, where Batman seemingly hurts the Spectre with a kick, is somehow a valid point to raise in an argument. If you haven't read the issue in question or if you're one of the seven or eight people on Earth who haven't seen it floating around on the internet, here it is:
This is most often brought up by people who claim Spectre's a jobber (another point that is erroneous and tiresome, but that's a discussion for another day). I raised it because a user on this site was debating on a Darkseid thread a while back, and tried to claim that the incident in Superman/Batmanwhere he hits Darkseid hard enough to make him bleed (for the love of god, Loeb) is somehow not PIS because "Batman sometimes hurts people he shouldn't be able to". He brought up this incident as proof of that point. That was what prompted me to make this thread, though I took some time to get around to it. As you might expect, there's a context to this incident.
First of all, you need to understand how the Spectre functions. He's literally the Presence's wrath made manifest, and so in his primal form he's perpetually pissed off at everything. In his early days his rage was so all-consuming that he would have destroyed everything if Michael Demiurgos hadn't intervened and placed restrictions on his power. Michael made it such that the Spectre needed to bond with a human host to access all his power. However, the presence of the host was also a clever safeguard against the Spectre going on a rampage. The host would exercise discretion over the Spectre's activities. Therefore, the power of the Spectre was linked to the personality of the host. If the host wasn't queasy about violence, the Spectre's power would face very few limits. It's for this reason that Jim Corrigan is commonly considered the most powerful of the Spectre's three main hosts. Corrigan was a tough-as-nails homicide detective from the 1940's. His father was an evangelist preacher, and he'd been raised with the eye-for-an-eye philosophy and the idea of Old Testament-esque severity in justice. He was fine with the violence the Spectre dished out, and most of the time he supported it. And it's for this same reason that Hal Jordan is commonly considered the weakest of the Spectre's hosts. Hal was a hero, and so he stood in opposition to the Spectre's usual MO. His guilt over all the people he killed as Parallax also played a part. He was opposed to murder, and thus denied the Spectre's true nature.
Point being made is that the host can restrain the Spectre, curtailing the amount of power that flows through him. Moving on to the incident itself:
Spectre's trying to kill a criminal, but his host Crispus Allen is trying to stop him. That's restraining his power right there. Moreover, read Spectre's sentences in the last scan. He says:
a) "I thought it might make you feel better", and
b) "The human already shackles me more than I am willing."
Not only do you have the Spectre's host restraining his power from the inside, but you've got the Spectre himself feeling sorry for Batman and allowing him to vent. If Batman kicking Darkseid is valid (helpful hint: it's not) because Batman "sometimes hurts people he shouldn't be able
to", then why is Batman stunned that he was able to hit the Spectre? Because he hurt someone he shouldn't be able to.
There's no Batfactor at work here. It's just the Spectre letting Bruce vent before turning away to get on with his job. Next time someone raises this point I'm just going to direct them to this blog.
@SlimJ87D: wouldnt it be good to get some debunking from Blinder's thread? He did a good job debunking Megaddon scan, Superman/wonder woman and green lantern moving earth scan etc.
Superman didn't move a machine the size of Jupiter. He was being dominated telepathically and chained. When the telepathic link was severed he broke the chains and flew off to stop Maggedon. It would seem you're going for a record for most feats debunked.
Batman has never once beaten Superman in canon, Post-Crisis or Post-Flashpoint continuity. People like to bring up Batman taking down Superman with prep in stories like TDKR/TDKSA, but none of that is canon. In canon stories, Batman has lost virtually every fight he's ever had with Superman, even when he had prep or real superpowers. Below is a list of most of their fights. I think it might be all of their fights, but I might have missed a few, and either way if I did Batman didn't win those either.
Batman #428
Batman's trying to bring the Joker to justice for beating Jason to death and blowing him and his mother up, but Joker was conferred diplomatic immunity by Iran (don't ask), so Superman's telling him to calm down since there's nothing he can do. Batman gets angry, and...
End result: Batman punches Superman and is saved from being Oracle before Oracle because Superman rolled with the punch. Advantage Kal-El.
JLA #44
The infamous Tower of Babel incident, where Ra's al Ghul steals Batman's contingency plans for bringing down the JLA and employs them against the various members. Turns out Batman's plan for taking down a rogue Superman was a specially engineered form of red kryptonite that wreaked havoc with Superman's ability to metabolize sunlight.
End result: This is probably the only canon incident that could be used to claim any kind of win for Batman over Superman. And it's not even a direct encounter. A lot of people claim that since Ra's could easily pull this off, Batman should also be able to. Couple of points regarding that:
Ra's has resources that dwarf Batman's. In The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul he told Tim Drake that comparing the Wayne fortune to his own wealth would be akin to comparing a drop of water to the ocean or something along those lines. He also has an army at his beck and call that he can deploy to achieve his desired effect. It would be much easier for Ra's to do something like this than it would be for Batman.
Batman is a member of the League, and thus under constant scrutiny from the people he's plotting against. Ra's operates in the shadows, he does not have to worry about Superman finding out about what he's up to. Especially since he's not even a League villain.
I guess if you stretch a little, Batman is potentially capable of this. Very well, advantage Batman.
Batman #612
Probably the most famous fight between the two. Or given that the only image from this fight that ever sees the light of day is the one where Batman punches Superman, it's probably the most famous fight between the two that no one bothers actually reading before posting "LOL SUPERMAN GOT PUNCHED OUT BY BATMAN, SO HULK SMASH PUNY KRYPTONIAN".
End result: First and foremost, this was written by Jeph Loeb. 90% of the things Jeph Loeb writes require a liberal suspension of disbelief, even for comics. He thinks a tiny piece of kryptonite stuck in a ring is enough to lower Superman's durability to the point where Batman can make him bleed. Why Superman even gave Batman that ring, I'll never be able to figure out. If he ever actually went rogue, a kryptonite ring is not going to stop him from simply nuking Bruce with his heat vision. But ok, I'll play along. Note three things: that Batman himself says that if Superman wanted he could kill him with superspeed, that Batman himself says that if he continually punches Superman every bone in his hand will shatter, and that Batman himself says that Superman is holding back as much as he can while fighting Ivy's control. Even so, after hitting Kal with all the electricity in Metropolis, the battle still comes down to Catwoman putting Lois in danger, forcing Superman to break Ivy's control and save her instead of beating Batman to death with a car. Look at that scan. If Catwoman had been a few seconds late, Superman would have brought a car weighing several tons down on Bruce's head, and exactly what could he possibly do about that? Advantage Kal-El.
Superman/Batman #2
The first of a series of fights between the two in this series. Here Superman and Batman fight an alternate future version of Superman. I've included this because technically, it's still Superman vs Batman in canon content.
End result: Evil Supes backhands Batman and is about to throw a car at him, something Bruce a) cannot do anything about, and b) cannot survive. He runs out of time before that happens and fades away to his own timeline. Advantage evil Kal-El.
Adventures of Superman #642
Superman is mind-controlled by Max Lord and placed in an illusion where he thinks he's fighting Darkseid (he says it's Ruin, but that might simply be an error), but in reality he's fighting Batman. He's enraged because he saw Darkseid kill Lois in the illusion, so he's taking it out on Batman.
End result: While fighting off the Watchtower's defenses, Superman nearly murders Batman, who is saved by the intervention of Wonder Woman. Advantage Kal-El. Duh.
Superman/Batman #23
Bats is possessed by the Kryptonite Man. That's right. He's literally glowing with kryptonite.
End result: While literally glowing with kryptonite, Batman still loses to Superman. Advantage Kal-El.
Superman/Batman #33
Here Batman was under the control of an alien life form called the Blackrock. He had super powers. Legit super powers!
End result: With legit superpowers, Superman still beat him so hard the Blackrock got scared and abandoned him. Advantage Kal-El.
Justice League #2
This fight is the first face-to-face encounter between Superman and Batman post-Flashpoint. I've only included the Batman stuff since the rest of the fight is mostly GL and Flash, so it's irrelevant.
End result: Batman throws literally everything he has at Superman and it doesn't do squat. Who do you think has the advantage here?
Batman: The Dark Knight #5
This is their most recent fight, and already the single image of Batman punching Superman is circulating everywhere as if that's what the fight actually was. Batman is on Bane's new Venom, and with it he somehow hits Superman hard enough to make him bleed. That in itself is PIS, mainly because if this new Venom amps your strength to the point where you can hurt a Kryptonian, then Batman should have been splattered across the wall when Clayface, Deathstroke and Bane hit him while they were on the drug. Towards the end of the fight, Batman starts channeling Frank Miller, so Superman goes like:
End result: Even with the PIS strength and durability increase, Superman still wins with one punch. Advantage Kal-El.
Even with all the prep money can buy, Batman is going to need a whole lot of plot to fight Superman (let alone beat him) even with prep. Am I saying it's impossible for Batman to ever beat Superman, no matter what the circumstances are? No. I'm just saying it's extremely unlikely. Odds are that in 99% of their encounters, there's only going to be one real outcome.
Oblivion took a dive, so that the woman who Bobby loved (Marge), would realised that she was Oblivion's daughter (Mirage). Oblivion gets back up instantly, picks Bobby up and (for want of a better word), consumes him. (Apparently, due to the X-Men traveling back in time, they did something that meant Bobby was never born, so Iceman never existed).
Yes Binder's thread has been locked and a superior replacement has been made! Nice job @SlimJ87D:
@Killemall said:
@SlimJ87D: Page 11.
Superman didn't move a machine the size of Jupiter. He was being dominated telepathically and chained. When the telepathic link was severed he broke the chains and flew off to stop Maggedon. It would seem you're going for a record for most feats debunked.
Well there goes a strength feat I was planning to use for Superman in my upcoming debate with Backflip.
@CitizenBane: Nice. Just wanna add one thing though about the Superman/Batman #33 fight. It actually starts off in issue #32, and originally its Superman (and Supergirl) who are possessed by an Alien life form. Batman slows Superman down with K and merges with Black Rock, freeing Superman from the Aliens control (so one could call that a victory I suppose). The problem is once Superman is freed/back to normal Batman becomes overwhelmed by Black Rock and attacks Superman. So its kind of the classic the hero always wins scenario. As the hero, Batman freed Superman. In reverse, Superman as the hero has to beat Black Rock out of Batman.
People who claim this usually only post one scan (second in the series below) and omit the rest of the fight (from Thor: The Deviants Saga #2).
The fight appeared strange visually (afterimages and pauses and so on) because Thor and Tutinax were fighting in a chamber where an Eternal scientist named Phaestos had slowed down the speed of light, not because the two of them were fighting at lightspeed. If Thor were actually fighting at lightspeed (something he isn't capable of anyway), he would have wrecked Tutinax easily, since the latter is a slow brick with peak human speed at best. Yet Tutinax won the fight quite convincingly.
@Jayfournines: I don't really think that needs debunking lol, Thor can't fight a speedster. But if you want to discuss it, Thor's hammer is sentient. It is capable of moving 2 times the speed of light if it wants to and it's pretty damn heavy too. So if Thor asked it to strike someone at its maximum speed, like the Hulk, it could if it wanted to. Heck it killed the THING posses.
hey, remember awhile back we discussed if Thor's hammer strikes have magic amp to them? They do. This is from a interview from John Byrne, a writer for DC and Marvel.
. Mjolnir hits with its own devastating magical impact regardless of who wields it. If Thor was able to tag Superman with it, which would require Superman not to use his super-speed to easily avoid getting hit, than Mjolnir would knock Superman unconscious. At the very least Superman would always be vulnerable to Mjolnir's magical impacts and would not be able to simply block a full-strength blow with the palm of his hand.
••Being actually ABLE to hit him is, of course, the key problem, but I have said for years -- nay, DECADES -- that if Thor was actually able to hit Superman with Mjolnir, it would be like one very strong guy hitting another very strong guy -- WITH A SLEDGEHAMMER.
e this part here
"Mjolnir hits with its own devastating magical impact regardless of who wields it."
Leob sucks I know but besides that it's pretty clear what Byrne says is also backed up by plenty of feats. Thor's hammer strikes are magically amped, enchanted or whatever one may want to call it. They are not just blunt force trauma.
From the words of Ed Brubaker himself. The man who wrote Captain America for 8 years.
"I agree with parts of a lot of people's comments here and elsewhere. But I think it's a bit funny to see people get so bent out of shape when a guy who's given something called the "Super Soldier Serum" turns out to be a bit more than the average human. He's been leaping out of the windows of eight story buildings and across city streets in NYC, dodging bullets, doing amazing feats of speed and strength, since I started reading the book in the early 70s.
My take has always been that Cap is the peak of human POTENTIAL. What humans might someday be able to do, physically, he already can. If it was just about having an olypic-level athlete, do you really think all these groups and scientists would have been wasting 50plus years trying to replicate the SSS?
All I've done is have him say outloud what's always been pretty clear to me as a fan of the character. He's always been a lot stronger and faster than the average well-trained athlete. And I've always hated the Batman comparisons. Batman trained himself, Cap got given a miracle serum. I'm not making that up or changing anything.
Daredevil is more like Batman, physically, and yet in Born Again, Cap races by him so fast he's a breeze. As for Cap running 60mph. In the comic, I think he says he can run a mile in a little over a minute when he HAS to. It's not even implied that he can keep that up all day. It's a full-on burst of speed, when he has to."
"Daredevil is more like Batman, physically, and yet in Born Again, Cap races by him so fast he's a breeze. As for Cap running 60mph."
Here, this is what Brubaker was talking about.
And finally this is Ed Brubakers writing here where he clearly puts it out there in his own dialogue, no artist is determining an obscure feat here. Cap is clearly running 5 miles in 5 minutes.
Again, what Ed Brubaker is saying is that Steve is not just the peak of man, but evolution wise he is the absolute peak of what a human can be physically in evolution. Whatever physical potential we have in evolution, he already is.
"My take has always been that Cap is the peak of human POTENTIAL. What humans might someday be able to do, physically, he already can."
@SlimJ87D: pretty cool scans. I don't doubt Thor's AoE attacks are capable of taking down speedsters. What I was trying to debunk is that Thor fights and reacts at super speed.
I've been meaning to do this thread for a long long time, then I saw someone else do it and got excited but it wasn't done right. It actually was upsetting as no one was "allowed" to discuss, share or debate with one another.
I've been meaning to do this thread for a long long time, then I saw someone else do it and got excited but it wasn't done right. It actually was upsetting as no one was "allowed" to discuss, share or debate with one another.
And this is why your one is so much better. Once I have time to spare, I might partake in some debunking myself.
I've been meaning to ask all viners who know something about the subject...
Just how good Hulk really is? Does he belong in the top tiers like Supes and Thor? I know there's a lot of "hate" (or so they say) in the Vine for the green guy, but i'd like to see some actual feats that would debunk the myth that Hulk is a slow, useless brick.
Also, i'd like to see if anyone can debunk the whole "Hulk has limitless strength" thing.
This is an irritating topic. Similar to Mace vs Palpatine, I just grow tired of refuting this and will do so here instead. Users frequently claim that Boba has held his own against or, in some cases, defeated Vader. The former is partially true in a certain context; the latter is simply inaccurate. This claim reminds me of the monotonous, false declarations that Batman has beaten Superman, despite the fact that this has never happened. Generally speaking, people who mention this have never read the stories that feature this match up but have instead given cursory views to out of context or ambiguously canon scans floating around. Let me say this: It is true that Boba and Vader have fought one another. Somehow, people ascertain that piece of information and champion it as one of Boba's chief accomplishments without crediting any mention to contextual detail or story canonicity. With that said, let's address the misconception.
There are two consistently listed fights between Boba and Vader, but only one is canon. The canon one, I will cover secondly. The first, the fight that is not definitively canon, is from Tales #11 in the short story Prey. In this story, Grand Moff Tarkin hires Boba to capture Han Solo, but Vader wants the involvement of Imperial forces to advertise a more intimidating message as opposed to deploying a bounty hunter. So while Boba is in pursuit of Han, Vader chases after him as well. Boba, Vader, and Han all meet in a cantina, and when Vader arrives, he intends to kill Han immediately. However, Boba wants the bounty for himself and instead challenges Vader while Han escapes. This is where the fight starts.
Now, let's cover the fight as it transpires. First, Boba fires his pistols at Vader a few times, with Vader subsequently repelling the shots with his lightsaber. When Vader downs Boba, he prepares to throw a downward strike only for his blade to be parried by a lightsaber that Boba ignites. Boba boasts about wielding a lightsaber, and then the two duel, if you can even call it that. All that happens for a couple pages is Vader swinging his lightsaber while Boba's remains seemingly stationary. He is never shown swinging it back at Vader to counterattack. He simply backs out of the cantina, achieving nothing, while Vader presses him back, and then Vader disarms Boba. This really is not much of a fight. How is it interpreted though? People claim Boba has dueled Vader and made the forgone conclusion that this supports the notion of him contending with Vader. Why? Boba literally did nothing here. Vader deflects his shots, he knocks Boba to the ground, Boba draws a lightsaber, Vader forces him back, Boba never hits Vader, and Vader disarms him. How is this even a duel? If this is a duel, this is a pathetically one-sided one. More than that, this story is from Tales, and it has never been brought into continuity. Therefore, even if this story did depict Boba engaging Vader on anything even remotely resembling equal terms (which it didn't), it lacks anything more than S-Canonicity anyway; so the fight has no bearing on anything.
Now for the canon fight. This is from Boba Fett: Enemy of the Empire #4. This fight has far more situational elements in it. First, let's discuss Vader's goal. Vader and other Imperial personnel fly to Vestar so they can gain hold of a chest that carries in it the severed head of a soothsayer, the queen of the Icarri Selestrine. Vader is aware of Selestrine's precognitive visions and has plans for its use in overthrowing the Emperor. Boba is in the Icarri town working on a bounty when he learns of Selestrine's powers also. To uphold the bounty, he resolves to keep the chest. When Vader comes into the area, he orders Fett to deliver it to him, which leads to a fight ensuing between the two.
Vader states at the very beginning that he is after the chest with Selestrine inside it. Boba is adamant about withholding it and shoots at Vader unsuccessfully (he probably meant this as more a distraction than a real attack; Boba is hardly ignorant of Vader's power) and flies away in attempt to retreat. He throws a grenade at Vader that projects a colossal amount of smoke to keep Vader misled while he heads for his speeder, but when Boba lands at the speeder, Vader is already there. So Vader cuts the speed in half. Since Boba is unwilling to release the chest, he begins shooting at Vader again, and, as before, nothing comes of it. Vader reflects his bolts, one of which strikes Boba. Now, this really is where the fight actually takes place. Initially, Boba is just fleeing, not fighting. Vader gives mild chase but is fairly overconfident in his chances against Boba. The instant Boba is out of options for escaping after Vader dismantles his speeder, that is the part where they actually begin to fight, and it proceeds poorly for Boba. Vader has him dropped in a matter of panels without even directly attacking Boba. Boba fires off multiple forms of projectiles to no effect while Vader evades and blocks the attacks, yet Vader still briefly downs Boba by redirecting one of his blaster bolts back toward him. Boba is not incapacitated to be sure, but the ease of Vader's dominance in this scene is telling, because, again, this is the real fight. However, when Boba is next to the cliff, Vader halts his advance out of concern for the chest Boba carries should it fall over the edge. While Boba is trying to regain his composure, Vader elects a "safer" tactic by manipulating his mind instead of barraging him physically. But when Boba falls over the edge in an apparently planned maneuver, he catches Vader off guard when the latter fears the condition of Selestrine. When Vader looks over the edge, Boba lands a blaster bolt on Vader's forehead. Following this, Boba proclaims himself the victor, but it takes little time for Vader to recover and decides to use Choke on Boba to subdue him (why he neglected this option in the first place is anyone's guess). To save himself, Boba kicks the chest off the cliff, which prompts Vader to release his hold on him and retrieve it. As a result, Boba escapes.
This is the battle between Vader and Boba that people consider so indicative of Boba's abilities? There are a mess of issues to recognize here. Boba had an item that Vader wanted which stopped Vader from finishing Boba in the middle of the fight and caused Vader to let Boba go at the end of the fight; Boba fled originally and only fought Vader when he had no other choice; Vader very casually handled Boba twice in this, once when Boba unleashes a variety of weaponry on him, all of which fails, and once when he just TK'd Boba; and the only singular blow that Boba ever manages to connect on Vader, out of all of the seemingly dozens of projectiles he launches, had to be a surprise shot just to tag Vader (a shot which ignores Vader's Force senses, but we'll let that go). Please, let me ask sincerely: How is this an impressive combat feat for Boba? All it did was show Vader's superiority without him having to even overwhelmingly beat Boba, and this was in Boba's own title. Let's be honest with ourselves: Boba lasted in this fight because he had a plot device. Really, let's just call it what it is. It was a plot device, a possession that Vader craved that obstructed him from utilizing the full measure of his abilities against Boba.
Now having said that, does that mean I see nothing impressive for Boba here? No. I find his adaptive tactics impressive enough. They were brief but still useful. I find his exploitation of Vader's attitude toward him and his mentality toward the chest to gain leverage impressive. Boba may have lost the chest, but he managed to use it to escape Vader. But this is all I can credit him for. Boba never beat Vader, not in a way that was meaningful at least. He knocked him to the ground with a surprise shot to the head, but Vader had Boba on the ground more than once without many people claiming Vader conclusively won. It would be a stretch to even say Boba held his own against Vader here. He fled, was caught, attacked, was dropped, landed a surprise attack, was dropped again, and was let go. If people want to elucidate on this event as a demonstration of Boba's strategic affinity, there is nothing wrong with that. But the problem is that this is usually mentioned as a combat feat to further an argument for Boba defeating an unrelated character in a battle thread in spite of the fact that this fight necessitated a myriad of circumstantial factors for Boba to survive. To disregard those circumstances is to be disingenuous. There is no other way to put it. That out of the way, am I saying that Vader would stomp Boba in every encounter with no substantial opposition whatsoever? Not necessarily. Vader knows and at some length even respects Boba; so odds are, he would restrain his peak power against him. And under that scenario, Boba could probably hold out for a period before losing. Could Vader well stomp Boba? I see no reason why not. He certainly has the raw power output to do so, but again, I doubt he would very often, or at least not unprovoked. Are there no situations, no matter how strenuous or complicated, under which Boba could beat Vader? I wouldn't take it that far. Given the proper setup, Boba could probably win, but the setup would have to be creative to be viable. But at the very least, there are situations wherein Boba could present a substantive danger to Vader.
In conclusion, yes, Boba has fought Vader. Is it impressive? Yes. Does it hold water in a battle thread against a character who is not Vader with setups that are not equivalent to this one? No.
Addendum: There is a page at the end of Enemy of the Empire #4 where the narration attempts to lend some minuscule level of credence to Boba's capacity to beat Vader. It mentions that while Vader was telekinetically pulling the chest up to himself after Boba kicked it off the cliff, Boba could have shot at Vader and killed him then. People repeatedly isolate this as a means of relegating the fight to Boba's favor. This is, for self-evident reasons, flawed. If Boba has to shoot Vader in the back while Vader is preoccupied with another task just to win, that should tell you something about Boba's chances, in the same vein that if Boba needs a collection of specific factors to balance the fight that should tell you something about his chances as well. Moreover, who is to say that would have killed Vader? Vader has survived blaster bolt wounds on several occasions, one of them being this same issue. If the comic intended it to mean that Vader would fall into the lava pit, that might be more plausible, but this then resorts to Boba winning by a BFR. And even then, what prevents Vader from levitating himself down or back up? What prevents Vader from sensing Boba's incoming shot through the Force and responding in kind? What prevents Vader from rendering himself immovable to ensure that he never falls over the cliff face? All of these are powers within Vader's arsenal. So if you feel the need to bring up that scan in the near future to "substantiate" anything about Boba's threat level, don't. It's a fairly desperate point to make.
Mace Windu has beaten Palpatine under his own power
This is a heated topic, and one which both myself and JediXMan have become rather tired of. But I want to write this out here so I can avoid having to re-explain it ad nauseam on the forums. The debate over whether Palpatine truly lost to Mace Windu in Revenge of the Sith or whether he allowed Mace to win in order to win over Anakin is a complex subject. In this blog, I will describe (and provide proof of) the circumstances of the duel, clear up misconceptions, and give my opinion on it. I will say that my perspective on the matter may not be perfectly accurate, but if nothing else, mine is the most evidentially supported. I can respect if others disagree with my assessment, but I would also appreciate it if you consider the case I present here and make an objective consensus on it. If in doing that, you still disagree, fair enough, but if I challenge you in the forums about it, you will need to be able to provide reasoning for it.
Let me start by posting their duel. I believe everyone has seen the movie; so allow me to post the sequence from the novel, as that grants a better view of the whole picture.
The Coruscant nightfall was spreading through the galaxy. The darkness in the Force was no hindrance to the shadow in the Chancellor's office; itwas the darkness. Wherever darkness dwelled, the shadow could send perception. In the night, the shadow felt the boy's anguish, and it was good. The shadow felt the grim determination of four Jedi Masters approaching by air. This, too, was good. As a Jedi shuttle settled to the landing deck outside, the shadow sent its mind into the far deeper night within one of the several pieces of sculpture that graced the office: an abstract twist of solid neuranium, so heavy that the office floor had been specially reinforced to bear its weight, so dense that more sensitive species might, from very close range, actually perceive the tiny warping of the fabric of space-time that was its gravitation. Neuranium of more than roughly a millimeter thick is impervious to sensors; the standard security scans undergone by all equipment and furniture to enter the Senate Office Building had shown nothing at all. If anyone had thought to use an advanced gravimetric detector, however, they might have discovered that one smallish section of the sculpture massed slightly less than it should have, given that the manifest that had accompanied it, when it was brought from Naboo among the then-ambassador's personal effects, clearly stated that it was a single piece of solid-forged neuranium. The manifest was a lie. The sculpture was not entirely solid, and not all of it was neuranium. Within a long, slim, rod-shaped cavity around which the sculpture had been forged rested a device that had lain, waiting, in absolute darkness—darkness beyond darkness—for decades. Waiting for night to fall on the Republic. The shadow felt Jedi Masters stride the vast echoic emptiness of the vaulted halls outside. It could practically hear the cadence of their boot heels on the Alderaanian marble. The darkness within the sculpture whispered of the shape and the feel and every intimate resonance of the device it cradled. With a twist of its will, the shadow triggered the device. The neuranium got warm. A small round spot, smaller than the circle a human child might make of thumb and forefinger, turned the color of old blood. Then fresh blood. Then open flame. Finally a spear of scarlet energy lanced free, painting the office with the color of stars seen through the smoke of burning planets. The spear of energy lengthened, drawing with it out from the darkness the device, then the scarlet blade shrank away and the device slid itself within the softer darkness of a sleeve. As shouts of the Force scattered Redrobes beyond the office's outer doors, the shadow gestured and lampdisks ignited. Another shout of the Force burst open the inner door to the private office. As Jedi stormed in, a final flick of the shadow's will triggered a recording device concealed within the desk. Audio only. "Why, Master Windu," said the shadow. "What a pleasant surprise." Shaak Ti felt him coming before she could see him. The infra-and ultrasound-sensitive cavities in the tall, curving montrals to either side of her head gave her a sense analogous to touch: the texture of his approaching footsteps was ragged as old sacking. As he rounded the corner to the landing deck door, his breathing felt like a pile of gravel and his heartbeat was spiking like a Zabrak's head. He didn't look good, either; he was deathly pale, even for a human, and his eyes were raw. "Anakin," she said warmly. Perhaps a friendly word was what he needed; she doubted he'd gotten many from Mace Windu. "Thank you for what you have done. The Jedi Order is in your debt—the whole galaxy, as well." "Shaak Ti. Get out of my way." Shaky as he looked, there was nothing unsteady in his voice: it was deeper than she remembered, more mature, and it carried undertones of authority that she had never heard before. And she was not blind to the fact he had neglected to call her Master. She put forth a hand, offering calming energies through the Force. "The Temple is sealed, Anakin. The door is code-locked." "And you're in the way of the pad." She stepped aside, allowing him to the pad; she had no reason to keep him here against his will. He punched the code hungrily. "If Palpatine retaliates," she said reasonably, "is not your place here, to help with our defense?" "I'm the chosen one. My place is there." His breathing roughened, and he looked as if he was getting even sicker. "I have to be there. That's the prophecy, isn't it? I have to be there—" "Anakin, why? The Masters are the best of the Order. What can you possibly do?" The door slid open. "I'm the chosen one," he repeated. "Prophecy can't be changed. I'll do—" He looked at her with eyes that were dying, and a spasm of unendurable pain passed over his face. Shaak Ti reached for him—he should be in the infirmary, not heading toward what might be a savage battle—but he lurched away from her hand. "I'll do what I'm supposed to do," he said, and sprinted into the night and the rain.
[the following is a transcript of an audio recording presented before the Galactic Senate on the afternoon of the first Empire Day; identities of all speakers verified and confirmed by voiceprint analysis] PALPATINE: Why, Master Windu. What a pleasant surprise. MACE WINDU: Hardly a surprise, Chancellor. And it will be pleasant for neither of us. PALPATINE: I'm sorry? Master Fisto, hello. Master Kolar, greetings. I trust you are well. Master Tiin—I see your horn has regrown; I'm very glad. What brings four Jedi Masters to my office at this hour? MACE WINDU: We know who you are. What you are. We are here to take you into custody. PALPATINE: I beg your pardon? What I am? When last I checked, I was Supreme Chancellor of the Republic you are sworn to serve. I hope I misunderstand what you mean by custody, Master Windu. It smacks of treason. MACE WINDU: You're under arrest. PALPATINE: Really, Master Windu, you cannot be serious. On what charge? MACE WINDU: You're a Sith Lord! PALPATINE: Am I? Even if true, that's hardly a crime. My philosophical outlook is a personal matter. In fact—the last time I read the Constitution, anyway—we have very strict laws against this type of persecution. So I ask you again: what is my alleged crime? How do you expect to justify your mutiny before the Senate? Or do you intend to arrest the Senate as well? MACE WINDU: We're not here to argue with you. PALPATINE: No, you're here to imprison me without trial. Without even the pretense of legality. So this is the plan, at last: the Jedi are taking over the Republic. MACE WINDU: Come with us. Now. PALPATINE: I shall do no such thing. If you intend to murder me, you can do so right here. MACE WINDU: Don't try to resist. [sounds that have been identified by frequency resonances to be the ignition of several lightsabers] PALPATINE: Resist? How could I possibly resist? This is murder, you Jedi traitors! How can I be any threat to you? Master Tiin—you're the telepath. What am I thinking right now? [sounds of scuffle] KIT FISTO: Saesee— AGEN KOLAR: [garbled; possibly "It doesn't hurt"(?)] [sounds of scuffle] PALPATINE: Help! Help! Security—someone! Help me! Murder! Treason! [recording ends] A fountain of amethyst energy burst from Mace Windu's fist. "Don't try to resist." The song of his blade was echoed by green fire from the hands of Kit Fisto, Agen Kolar, and Saesee Tiin. Kolar and Tiin closed on Palpatine, blocking the path to the door. Shadows dripped and oozed color, weaving and coiling up office walls slipping over chairs, spreading along the floor. "Resist? How could I possibly resist?" Still seated at the desk Palpatine shook an empty fist helplessly, the perfect image of a tired, frightened old man. "This is murder, you Jedi traitors! How can I be any threat to you?" He turned desperately to Saesee Tiin. "Master Tiin—you're the telepath. What am I thinking right now?" Tiin frowned and cocked his head. His blade dipped. A smear of red-flashing darkness hurtled from behind the desk. Saesee Tiin's head bounced when it hit the floor. Smoke curled from the neck, and from the twin stumps of the horns, severed just below the chin. Kit Fisto gasped, "Saesee!" The headless corpse, still standing, twisted as its knees buckled, and a thin sigh escaped from its trachea as it folded to the floor. "It doesn't..." Agen Kolar swayed. His emerald blade shrank away, and the handgrip tumbled from his opening fingers. A small, neat hole in the middle of his forehead leaked smoke, showing light from the back of his head. "...hurt..." He pitched forward onto his face, and lay still. Palpatine stood at the doorway, but the door stayed shut. From his right hand extended a blade the color of fire. The door locked itself at his back. "Help! Help!" Palpatine cried like a man in desperate fear for his life. "Security—someone! Help me! Murder! Treason!" Then he smiled. He held one finger to his lips, and, astonishingly, he winked. In the blank second that followed, while Mace Windu and Kit Fisto could do no more than angle their lightsabers to guard, Palpatine swiftly stepped over the bodies back toward his desk, reversed his blade, and drove it in a swift, surgically precise stab down through his desktop. "That's enough of that." He let it burn its way free through the front, then he turned, lifting his weapon, appearing to study it as one might study the face of a beloved friend one has long thought dead. Power gathered around him until the Force shimmered with darkness. "If you only knew," he said softly, perhaps speaking to the Jedi Masters, or perhaps to himself, or perhaps even to the scarlet blade lifted now as though in mocking salute, "how long I have been waiting for this..."
Anakin's speeder shrieked through the rain, dodging forked bolts of lightning that shot up from towers into the clouds, slicing across traffic lanes, screaming past spacescrapers so fast that his shock-wake cracked windows as he passed. He didn't understand why people didn't just get out of his way. He didn't understand how the trillion beings who jammed Galactic City could go about their trivial business as though the universe hadn't changed. How could they think they counted for anything, compared with him? How could they think they still mattered? Their blind lives meant nothing now. None of them. Because ahead, on the vast cliff face of the Senate Office Building, one window spat lightning into the rain to echo the lightning of the storm outside—but this lightning was the color of clashing lightsabers. Green fans, sheets of purple— And crimson flame. He was too late. The green fire faded and winked out; now the lightning was only purple and red. His repulsorlifts howled as he heeled the speeder up onto its side, skidding through wind-shear turbulence to bring it to a bobbing halt outside the window of Palpatine's private office. A blast of lightning hit the spire of 500 Republica, only a kilometer away, and its white burst flared off the window, flash-blinding him; he blinked furiously, slapping at his eyes in frustration. The colorless glare inside his eyes faded slowly, bringing into focus a jumble of bodies on the floor of Palpatine's private office. Bodies in Jedi robes. On Palpatine's desk lay the head of Kit Fisto, faceup, scalp-tentacles unbound in a squid-tangle across the ebonite. His lidless eyes stared blindly at the ceiling. Anakin remembered him in the arena at Geonosis, effortlessly carving his way through wave after wave of combat droids, on his lips a gently humorous smile as though the horrific battle were only some friendly jest. His severed head wore that same smile. Maybe he thought death was funny, too. Anakin's own blade sang blue as it slashed through the window and he dived through the gap. He rolled to his feet among a litter of bodies and sprinted through a shattered door along the small private corridor and through a doorway that flashed and flared with energy-scatter. Anakin skidded to a stop. Within the public office of the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, a last Jedi Master battled alone, blade-to-blade, against a living shadow.
Sinking into Vaapad, Mace Windu fought for his life. More than his life: each whirl of blade and whipcrack of lightning was a strike in defense of democracy, of justice and peace, of the rights of ordinary beings to live their own lives in their own ways. He was fighting for the Republic that he loved. Vaapad, the seventh form of lightsaber combat, takes its name from a notoriously dangerous predator native to the moons of Sarapin: a vaapad attacks its prey with whipping strikes of its blindingly fast tentacles. Most have at least seven. It is not uncommon for them to have as many as twelve; the largest ever killed had twenty-three. With a vaapad, one never knew how many tentacles it had until it was dead: they move too fast to count. Almost too fast to see. So did Mace's blade. Vaapad is as aggressive and powerful as its namesake, but its power comes at great risk: immersion in Vaapad opens the gates that restrain one's inner darkness. To use Vaapad, a Jedi must allow himself to enjoy the fight; he must give himself over to the thrill of battle. The rush ofwinning. Vaapad is a path that leads through the penumbra of the dark side. Mace Windu created this style, and he was its only living master. This was Vaapad's ultimate test.
Anakin blinked and rubbed his eyes again. Maybe he was still a bit flash-blind—the Korun Master seemed to be fading in and out of existence, half swallowed by a thickening black haze in which danced a meter-long bar of sunfire. Mace pressed back the darkness with a relentless straight-ahead march; his own blade, that distinctive amethyst blaze that had been the final sight of so many evil beings across the galaxy, made a haze of its own: an oblate sphere of purple fire within which there seemed to be dozens of swords slashing in all directions at once. The shadow he fought, that blur of speed—could that be Palpatine? Their blades flared and flashed, crashing together with bursts of fire, weaving nets of killing energy in exchanges so fast that Anakin could not truly see them—but he could feel them in the Force. The Force itself roiled and burst and crashed around them, boiling with power and lightspeed ricochets of lethal intent. And it was darkening. Anakin could feel how the Force fed upon the shadow's murderous exaltation; he could feel fury spray into the Force though some poisonous abscess had crested in both their hearts. There was no Jedi restraint here. Mace Windu was cutting loose.
Mace was deep in it now: submerged in Vaapad, swallowed by it, he no longer truly existed as an independent being. Vaapad is a channel for darkness, and that darkness flowed both ways. He accepted the furious speed of the Sith Lord, drew the shadow's rage and power into his inmost center— And let it fountain out again. He reflected the fury upon its source as a lightsaber redirects a blaster bolt. There was a time when Mace Windu had feared the power of the dark; there was a time when he had feared the darkness in himself. But the Clone Wars had given him a gift of understanding: on a world called Haruun Kal, he had faced his darkness and had learned that the power of darkness is not to be feared. He had learned that it is fear that gives the darkness power. He was not afraid. The darkness had no power over him. But— Neither did he have power over it. Vaapad made him an open channel, half of a superconducting loop completed by the shadow; they became a standing wave of battle that expanded into every cubic centimeter of the Chancellor's office. There was no scrap of carpet nor shred of chair that might not at any second disintegrate in flares of red or purple; lampstands became brief shields, sliced into segments that whirled through the air; couches became terrain to be climbed for advantage or overleapt in retreat. But there was still only the cycle of power, the endless loop, no wound taken on either side, not even the possibility of fatigue. Impasse. Which might have gone on forever, if Vaapad were Mace's only gift. The fighting was effortless for him now; he let his body handle it without the intervention of his mind. While his blade spun and crackled, while his feet slid and his weight shifted and his shoulders turned in precise curves of their own direction, his mind slid along the circuit of dark power, tracing it back to its limitless source. Feeling for its shatterpoint. He found a knot of fault lines in the shadow's future; he chose the largest fracture and followed it back to the here and the now— And it led him, astonishingly, to a man standing frozen in the slashed-open doorway. Mace had no need to look; the presence in the Force was familiar, and was as uplifting as sunlight breaking through a thunderhead. The chosen one was here. Mace disengaged from the shadow's blade and leapt for the window; he slashed away the transparisteel with a single flourish. His instant's distraction cost him: a dark surge of the Force nearly blew him right out of the gap he had just cut. Only a desperate Force-push of his own altered his path enough that he slammed into a stanchion instead of plunging half a kilometer from the ledge outside. He bounced off and the Force cleared his head and once again he gave himself to Vaapad. He could feel the end of this battle approaching, and so could the blur of Sith he faced; in the Force, the shadow had become a pulsar of fear. Easily, almost effortlessly, he turned the shadow's fear into a weapon: he angled the battle to bring them both out onto the window ledge. Out in the wind. Out with the lightning. Out on a rain-slicked ledge above a half-kilometer drop. Out where the shadow's fear made it hesitate. Out where the shadow's fear turned some of its Force-powered speed into a Force-powered grip on the slippery permacrete. Out where Mace could flick his blade in one precise arc and slash the shadow's lightsaber in half. One piece flipped back in through the cut-open window. The other tumbled from opening fingers, bounced on the ledge, and fell through the rain toward the distant alleys below. Now the shadow was only Palpatine: old and shrunken, thinning hair bleached white by time and care, face lined with exhaustion. "For all your power, you are no Jedi. All you are, my lord," Mace said evenly, staring past his blade, "is under arrest." "Do you see, Anakin? Do you?" Palpatine's voice once again had the broken cadence of a frightened old man's. "Didn't I warn you of the Jedi and their treason?" "Save your twisted words, my lord. There are no politicians here. The Sith will never regain control of the Republic. It's over. You've lost." Mace leveled his blade. "You lost for the same reason the Sith always lose: defeated by your own fear." Palpatine lifted his head. His eyes smoked with hate. "Fool," he said. He lifted his arms, his robes of office spreading wide into raptor's wings, his hands hooking into talons. "Fool!" His voice was a shout of thunder. "Do you think the fear you feel is mine?" Lightning blasted the clouds above, and lightning blasted from Palpatine's hands, and Mace didn't have time to comprehend what Palpatine was talking about; he had time only to slip back into Vaapad and angle his blade to catch the forking arcs of pure, dazzling hatred that clawed toward him. Because Vaapad is more than a fighting style. It is a state of mind: a channel for darkness. Power passed into him and out again without touching him. And the circuit completed itself: the lightning reflected back to its source. Palpatine staggered, snarling, but the blistering energy that loured from his hands only intensified. He fed the power with his pain. "Anakin!" Mace called. His voice sounded distant, blurred, as if it came from the bottom of a well. "Anakin, help me! This is your chance!" He felt Anakin's leap from the office floor to the ledge, felt his approach behind—And Palpatine was not afraid. Mace could feel it: he wasn't worried at all. "Destroy this traitor," the Chancellor said, his voice raised aver the howl of writhing energy that joined his hands to Mace's blade. "This was never an arrest. It's an assassination!" That was when Mace finally understood. He had it. The key to final victory. Palpatine's shatterpoint. The absolute shatterpoint of the Sith. The shatterpoint of the dark side itself. Mace thought, blankly astonished, Palpatine trusts Anakin Skywalker... Now Anakin was at Mace's shoulder. Palpatine still made no move to defend himself from Skywalker; instead he ramped up the lightning bursting from his hands, bending the fountain of Mace's blade back toward the Korun Master's face. Palpatine's eyes glowed with power, casting a yellow glare that burned back the rain from around them. "He is a traitor, Anakin. Destroy him." "You're the chosen one, Anakin," Mace said, his voice going thin with strain. This was beyond Vaapad; he had no strength left to fight against his own blade. "Take him. It's your destiny." Skywalker echoed him faintly. "Destiny..." "Help me! I can't hold on any longer!" The yellow glare from Palpatine's eyes spread outward through his flesh. His skin flowed like oil, as though the muscle beneath was burning away, as though even the bones of his skull were softening, were bending and bulging, deforming from the heat and pressure of his electric hatred. "He is killing me, Anakin—! Please, Anaaahhh—" Mace's blade bent so close to his face that he was choking on ozone. "Anakin, he's too strong for me—" "Ahhh—" Palpatine's roar above the endless blast of lightning became a fading moan of despair. The lightning swallowed itself, leaving only the night and the rain, and an old man crumpled to his knees on a slippery ledge. "I... can't. I give up. I... I am too weak, in the end. Too old, and too weak. Don't kill me, Master Jedi. Please. I surrender." Victory flooded through Mace's aching body. He lifted his blade. "You Sith disease—" "Wait—" Skywalker seized his lightsaber arm with desperate strength. "Don't kill him—you can't just kill him, Master—" "Yes, I can," Mace said, grim and certain. "I have to." "You came to arrest him. He has to stand trial—" "A trial would be a joke. He controls the courts. He controls the Senate—" "So are you going to kill all them, too? Like he said you would?" Mace yanked his arm free. "He's too dangerous to be left alive. If you could have taken Dooku alive, would you have?" Skywalker's face swept itself clean of emotion. "That was different—" Mace turned toward the cringing, beaten Sith Lord. "You can explain the difference after he's dead." He raised his lightsaber. "I need him alive!" Skywalker shouted. "I need him to save Padme!" Mace thought blankly, Why? And moved his lightsaber toward the fallen Chancellor. Before he could follow through on his stroke, a sudden arc of blue plasma sheared through his wrist and his hand tumbled away with his lightsaber still in it and Palpatine roared back to his feet and lightning speared from the Sith Lord's hands and without his blade to catch it, the power of Palpatine's hate struck him full-on. He had been so intent on Palpatine's shatterpoint that he'd never thought to look for Anakin's. Dark lightning blasted away his universe. He fell forever. Anakin Skywalker knelt in the rain. He was looking at a hand. The hand had brown skin. The hand held a lightsaber. The hand had a charred oval of tissue where it should have been attached to an arm. "What have I done?" Was it his voice? It must have been. Because it was his question. "What have I done?" Another hand, a warm and human hand, laid itself softly on his shoulder. "You're following your destiny, Anakin," said a familiar gentle voice. "The Jedi are traitors. You saved the Republic from their treachery. You can see that, can't you?" "You were right," Anakin heard himself saying. "Why didn't I know?" "You couldn't have. They cloaked themselves in deception, my boy. Because they feared your power, they could never trust you." Anakin stared at the hand, but he no longer saw it. "Obi-Wan—Obi-Wan trusts me..." "Not enough to tell you of their plot." Treason echoed in his memory. ...this is not an assignment for the record... That warm and human hand gave his shoulder a warm and human squeeze. "I do not fear your power, Anakin, I embrace it. You are the greatest of the Jedi. You can be the greatest of the Sith. I believe that, Anakin. I believe in you. I trust you. I trust you. I trust you." Anakin looked from the dead hand on the ledge to the living one on his shoulder, then up to the face of the man who stood above him, and what he saw there choked him like an invisible fist crushing his throat. The hand on his shoulder was human. The face...wasn't. The eyes were a cold and feral yellow, and they gleamed like those of a predator lurking beyond a fringe of firelight; the bone around those feral eyes had swollen and melted and flowed like durasteel spilled from a fusion smelter, and the flesh that blanketed it had gone corpse-gray and coarse as rotten synthplast. Stunned with horror, stunned with revulsion, Anakin could only stare at the creature. At the shadow. Looking into the face of the darkness, he saw his future. "Now come inside," the darkness said. After a moment, he did. Anakin stood just within the office. Motionless. Palpatine examined the damage to his face in a broad expanse of wall mirror. Anakin couldn't tell if his expression might be revulsion, or if this were merely the new shape of his features. Palpatine lifted one tentative hand to the misshapen horror that he now saw in the mirror, then simply shrugged. "And so the mask becomes the man," he sighed with a hint of philosophical melancholy. "I shall miss the face of Palpatine, I think; but for our purpose, the face of Sidious will serve. Yes, it will serve."
--Taken from Revenge of the Sith
Now, there are some very particular issues that need to be noted here, and despite the intended outcome being somewhat unclear, there are certainties, such as the following:
Mace's speed/power was dramatically amped. He was operating on an exceptionally higher level than he ever has before, due to the events that took place.
In terms of sheer skill, even with a huge speed and power amp, he still only fought Sidious as a perfect equal.
Mace beat Palpatine by exploiting fear in him, but this fear was never there to begin with.
Palpatine could have killed Mace with Force Lightning anytime he wanted.
Yoda is factually a superior duelist to Mace, yet Palpatine fought evenly with him.
For the first point, let me show how this happened. Mace received a temporary, critical speed augmentation for this one duel. This happened because of the nature of Vaapad. Vaapad is an off-shoot of the Juyo form of lightsaber combat. Juyo is an aggressive and erratic fighting form, much more than even Ataru is, and it is this aggression that has made it a matter of discussion among Jedi whether Juyo is a safe style to learn. It relies on simply relentless strokes thrown continually until the user's opponent is defeated. The notable difference between Juyo and Vaapad is that Vaapad is a channel for darkness. It takes the user "through the penumbra of the dark side." Vaapad affords the practitioner the ability to harness their own inner darkness as a ferocity and drive in combat but does so without them falling victim to their darkness. Basically, Mace or Sora or Depa could draw on their darkness and still stay true to the light. Vaapad also works to turn the darkness of the enemy against them, but this has its limitations. It does not equate to an instant victory against any dark sider; if it did, Mace would not have lost his fight with Kar Vastor. The more darkness in the user, the more potent Vaapad will be. However, in Mace's duel with Palpatine, he achieved a fighting state he had never accomplished before, and this happened because, at that time, the darkness within him had been monumentally increased. It was increased because Mace had an attachment to the Republic that was shattered when Anakin told him that Palpatine, the Republic's Supreme Chancellor, was the Sith. The Republic he had been fighting for had already fallen under the Sith's influence, and this affected him at his core, heightening his darkness. On account of that, Mace managed to wield his own immensely accentuated darkness, Sidious' darkness, and Anakin's fear in order to enhance his speed so much that Anakin was unable to see the movements of Mace's blade and instead only saw the dozens of afterimages of it and the "nets" and "oblate sphere" he blurred from his lightsaber. Mace has never shown to be faster than Anakin or anyone of Anakin's speed class.
The novel and other sources state this very plainly, pointing out that the focal point of Mace's existence has been a waste. The novel then describes that Anakin felt fury poor into the Force and that Mace endured with a "poisonous abscess" in his heart, a result of his attachment crumbling. More, it exposits on how Mace is immersed in Vaapad to a degree that had never been before, articulating that he was losing his individual being within it. Lastly, the novel outlines that in this fighting state, Mace was capable of absorbing Palpatine's darkness into himself and funneling it back out at him, which abounded Mace's power and speed.
Anakin's revelation—that Palpatine and Darth Sidious are one and the same—hollows Mace to the core. Not days earlier, he and other Jedi had risked their lives against Grievous's droid forces to prevent Palpatine from being abducted. Grasping that the abduction and the war itself has been nothing more than a deception, Mace leaps into action, promising to take Palpatine into Jedi custody, dead or alive.
--Taken from The Complete Visual Dictionary
Because Mace, too, has an attachment. Mace has a secret love. Mace Windu loves the Republic. Many of his students quote him to students of their own: "Jedi do not fight for peace. That's only a slogan, and is as misleading as slogans always are. Jedi fight for civilization, because only civilization creates peace." For Mace Windu, for all his life, for all the lives of a thousand years of Jedi before him, true civilization has had only one true name: the Republic. He has given his life in the service of his love. He has taken lives in its service, and lost the lives of innocents. He has seen beings that he cares for maimed, and killed, and sometimes worse: sometimes so broken by the horror of the struggle that their only answer was to commit horrors greater still. And because of that love now, here, in this instant, Anakin Skywalker has nine words for him that shred his heart, burn its pieces, and feed him its smoking ashes. Palpatine is Sidious. The Chancellor is the Sith Lord. He doesn't even hear the words, not really; their true meaning is too large for his mind gather in all at once. They mean that all he's done, and all that has been done to him— That all the Order has accomplished, all it has suffered— All the Galaxy itself hasgone through, all the years of suffering and slaughter, the death of entire planets— Has all been for nothing. Because it was all done to save the Republic. Which was already gone. Which had already fallen. The corpse of which had been defended only by a Jedi Order that was now under the command of a Dark Lord of the Sith. Mace Windu's entire existence has become crystal so shot-through with flaws that the hammer of those nine words has crushed him to sand.
Anakin blinked and rubbed his eyes again. Maybe he was still a bit flash-blind—the Korun Master seemed to be fading in and out of existence, half swallowed by a thickening black haze in which danced a meter-long bar of sunfire. Mace pressed back the darkness with a relentless straight-ahead march; his own blade, that distinctive amethyst blaze that had been the final sight of so many evil beings across the galaxy, made a haze of its own: an oblate sphere of purple fire within which there seemed to be dozens of swords slashing in all directions at once. The shadow he fought, that blur of speed—could that be Palpatine? Their blades flared and flashed, crashing together with bursts of fire, weaving nets of killing energy in exchanges so fast that Anakin could not truly see them—but he could feel them in the Force. The Force itself roiled and burst and crashed around them, boiling with power and lightspeed ricochets of lethal intent. And it was darkening. Anakin could feel how the Force fed upon the shadow's murderous exaltation; he could feel fury spray into the Force though some poisonous abscess had crested in both their hearts.
Mace was deep in it now: submerged in Vaapad, swallowed by it, he no longer truly existed as an independent being. Vaapad is a channel for darkness, and that darkness flowed both ways. He accepted the furious speed of the Sith Lord, drew the shadow's rage and power into his inmost center— And let it fountain out again. He reflected the fury upon its source as a lightsaber redirects a blaster bolt.
--Taken from Revenge of the Sith
As can be seen, Mace's own abilities were elevated for that one battle. If there is any doubt that Mace is not normally as powerful or fast as he was in that duel, another issue to consider is this: that Windu has fought many opponents without operating on the speed level he did against Sidious. Sidious fought so fast that Anakin could never even track his blows. Sidious similarly killed Saesee and Agen before they could react. Mace and Saesee have dueled one another before. How is it Mace was not faster than Tiin's eye could follow here, yet he could compete with Sidious, who blitzed Tiin? Mace has lost to Dooku before. Dooku was portrayed as roughly parallel to Anakin respective of their adroitness in Force Speed when they dueled one another in RotS. How is it Mace never moved faster than Dooku's eye could follow?
Master Windu was also known within the Order for his unusual fighting style, one that he developed after studying the dueling styles of various lightsaber masters. His attacks consisted of relentless, unpredictable blows, like shots from an autoblaster. Master Windu himself remained perfectly balanced and centered. In the history of the Jedi Order, only two opponents ever overcame him in battle. One was Master Yoda, who some said was the Order's true master of lightsaber combat. The other was former Master Dooku, whose own fighting style was archaic, yet stunningly effective.
--Taken from the Power of the Jedi Sourcebook
Mace has fought equally with Sora Bulq. Bulq lost to Count Dooku. How is it Mace never moved faster than Bulq's eye could follow? Mace fought and drove back Asajj Ventress. Ventress has lost to Anakin, whose vision was too slow to follow Palpatine's strokes. How is it Mace never moved faster than Ventress' eye could follow? Mace dueled General Grievous, whom he only beat by exploiting Grievous' restricted mobility in that duel and the Force hurling him off the mag-lev train they fought on. How is it Mace never fought overwhelmingly faster than Grievous?
Kit's bulging black eyes indicated Palpatine. "They want to take him alive." The words had scarcely left his mouth when something hit the train with sufficient force to whip everyone from one side of the car to the other, then back again. The Red Guards were just regaining their balance when the roof began to resound with the cadence of heavy, clanging footfalls, advancing from the rear of the train. "Grievous," Mace grumbled. Kit glanced at him. "Here we go again." Hurrying into the vestibule between the two lead cars, they launched themselves to the roof. Three cars distant marched General Grievous and two of his elite droids, their capes snapping behind them in the wind, pulse-tipped batons angled across their barrel chests. Farther back, clamped by animal-like claws to the roof of the train, was the gunboat from which the frightful trio had been released. Without pausing, Grievous drew two lightsabers from inside his billowing cloak. By the time they were ignited, Mace was already on and all over the cyborg, batting away at the two blades, swinging low at Grievous's artificial legs, thrusting at his skeletal face. The lightsabers thrummed and hissed, meeting one another in bursts of dazzling light. In a corner of Mace's mind he wondered to which Jedi Grievous's blades had belonged. Just as the Force was keeping Mace from being blown from the mag-lev's roof, magnetism of some sort was keeping the general fastened in place. For the cyborg, though, the coherence hindered as much as it helped, whereas Mace never remained in one place for very long. Again and again the three blades joined, in snarling attacks and parries. Grievous was well trained in the Jedi arts. Mace could recognize the hand of Dooku in the general's training and technique. His strikes were as forceful as any Mace had ever had to counter, and his speed was astonishing. But he didn't know Vaapad—the technique of dark flirtation in which Mace excelled. To the rear of the car, where Grievous's pair of MagnaGuards had made the mistake of pitting themselves against Kit Fisto, the Nautolan's blade was a cyclone of blazing blue light. Resistant to the energy outpourings of a lightsaber, the phrik alloy staffs were potent weapons, but like any weapon they needed to find their target, and Kit simply wasn't allowing that. In moves a Twi'lek dancer might envy, he spun around the guards, claiming a limb from both with each rotation: left legs, right arms, right legs... The speed of the train saw to the rest, ultimately whisking the droids into the canyon like insects blown from the windscreen of a speeder bike. The loss of his confederates was noted by whatever computers were slaved to Grievous's organic brain, but the loss neither distracted nor slowed him. His sole setting was attack. Successful at analyzing Mace's lightsaber style, those same computers suggested that Grievous alter his stance and posture, along with the angle of his parries, ripostes, and thrusts. The result wasn't Vaapad, but it was close enough, and Mace wasn't interested in prolonging the contest any longer than necessary. Crouching low, he angled the blade downward and slashed, guiding it through the roof of the car, perpendicular to Grievous's stalwart advance. Mace saw by the surprised look in the cyborg's reptilian eyes that, for all his strength, dexterity, and resolve, the living part of him wasn't always in perfect sync with his alloy servos. Clearly, Grievous—onetime courageous commander of sentient troops—realized what Mace had done and wanted to sidestep, where General Grievous—current commander of droids and other war machines—wanted nothing more than to impale Mace with lunging thrusts of the paired blades. Slipping into the gap made by Mace's saber, Grievous's left talon lost magnetic purchase on the roof, and the general faltered. Mace came out of his crouch prepared to drive his sword into Grievous's guts, but some last-instant firing of the general's cybersynapses compelled the cyborg's torso through a swift half twist that would have sent Mace's head hurtling into the canyon had the maneuver prevailed. Instead Mace leapt backward, out of the range of the slicing blades, and Force-pushed outward, just at the instant of Grievous's single misstep. Off the side of the car the general went, twisting and turning as he fell, Mace trying to track the general's contorted plunge, but unsuccessfully. Had he fallen into the canyon? Had he managed to dig his duranium claws into the side of the car or grab hold of the mag-lev rail itself? Mace couldn't take the time to puzzle it out. One hundred meters away, the gunboat retracted its landing gear and rose from the roof on repulsorlift power. Reckless shots from one of the pursuing gunships obliged the Separatist craft to skew, then dive, with the gunship following close behind.
--Taken from Labyrinth of Evil
Example after example of that sort could be elucidated on. In none of Mace's fights did he ever accelerate his movements to the degree that he did against Palpatine, because Vaapad has limits; Vaapad's limit is the darkness within the user. To further solidify this point, Palpatine killed Agen Kolar and Saesee Tiin before either could react, but another source even states that Palpatine killed Tiin, Kolar, and Fisto before Mace realized it, showing the difference in speed between Palpatine and Mace and showing that had Mace not tapped into a greater speed level/fighting state, he would have similarly been unable to match Palpatine's speed.
Before Mace realizes what has happened, Kolar, Tiin, and Fisto have fallen to Sidious's blade.
--Taken from The Complete Visual Dictionary
The novel stated that Mace's powers were increased, sources stated that Mace failed to see Sidious' attacks, and Mace never moved that fast before. So no matter how you look at this, if Mace never improved his fighting capabilities, he would have been cut down just as quickly as Saesee, Agen, and Kit were.
Next point: Mace only fought as a perfect equal with Palpatine. The novel is very clear that Mace, even when his speed and combat efficiency are so acutely aggrandized, is still only an equal with Palpatine in a duel.
Vaapad made him an open channel, half of a superconducting loop completed by the shadow; they became a standing wave of battle that expanded into every cubic centimeter of the Chancellor's office. There was no scrap of carpet nor shred of chair that might not at any second disintegrate in flares of red or purple; lampstands became brief shields, sliced into segments that whirled through the air; couches became terrain to be climbed for advantage or overleapt in retreat. But there was still only the cycle of power, the endless loop, no wound taken on either side, not even the possibility of fatigue. Impasse.
--Taken from Revenge of the Sith
Another source even bears mention that Palpatine forced Mace back.
In the inner recesses of his private office, the Jedi confronted the Chancellor. Palpatine produced a lightsaber hidden in his sleeve and let the dark side flow through him. It granted him unnatural dexterity and speed—enough to quickly kill three Jedi Masters and force the mighty Mace Windu back.
--Taken from The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
This proves that Mace is incontestably not a better duelist than Sidious regardless of what some may think.
Which leads us to the next point: If Mace isn't a more skilled duelist, how did he win? Setting aside the possibility that Palpatine allowed him to, the novel shows that Windu won by exploiting Palpatine's fear which caused him to become distracted and slow down. Mace felt fear emanating around the office, which he believed was Palpatine's, and abused it by breaking the window, resulting in Palpatine hesitating when he stood near it for fear of falling down. This allowed Mace to land a blow that disarmed him.
Mace disengaged from the shadow's blade and leapt for the window; he slashed away the transparisteel with a single flourish. His instant's distraction cost him: a dark surge of the Force nearly blew him right out of the gap he had just cut. Only a desperate Force-push of his own altered his path enough that he slammed into a stanchion instead of plunging half a kilometer from the ledge outside. He bounced off and the Force cleared his head and once again he gave himself to Vaapad. He could feel the end of this battle approaching, and so could the blur of Sith he faced; in the Force, the shadow had become a pulsar of fear. Easily, almost effortlessly,he turned the shadow's fear into a weapon: he angled the battle to bring them both out onto the window ledge. Out in the wind. Out with the lightning. Out on a rain-slicked ledge above a half-kilometer drop. Out where the shadow's fear made it hesitate. Out where the shadow's fear turned some of its Force-powered speed into a Force-powered grip on the slippery permacrete. Out where Mace could flick his blade in one precise arc and slash the shadow's lightsaber in half. One piece flipped back in through the cut-open window. The other tumbled from opening fingers, bounced on the ledge, and fell through the rain toward the distant alleys below.
--Taken from Revenge of the Sith
So Mace capitalized on the fear. However, the fear he felt was not Palpatine's; it was Anakin's. Sidious seemed to somehow project Anakin's fear out through himself (either that, or Mace's Force senses are incredibly inaccurate, but it makes no sense to me that Mace would simply "miss" in detecting whose fear it was; it makes more sense that Palpatine misdirected it).
"For all your power, you are no Jedi. All you are, my lord," Mace said evenly, staring past his blade, "is under arrest." "Do you see, Anakin? Do you?" Palpatine's voice once again had the broken cadence of a frightened old man's. "Didn't I warn you of the Jedi and their treason?" "Save your twisted words, my lord. There are no politicians here. The Sith will never regain control of the Republic. It's over. You've lost." Mace leveled his blade. "You lost for the same reason the Sith always lose: defeated by your own fear." Palpatine lifted his head. His eyes smoked with hate. "Fool," he said. He lifted his arms, his robes of office spreading wide into raptor's wings, his hands hooking into talons. "Fool!" His voice was a shout of thunder. "Do you think the fear you feel is mine?" Lighting blasted the clouds above, and lightning blasted from Palpatine's hands, and Mace didn't have time to comprehend what Palpatine was talking about; he had time only to slip back into Vaapad and angle his blade to catch the forking arcs of pure, dazzling hatred that clawed toward him. Because Vaapad is more than a fighting style. It is a state of mind: a channel for darkness. Power passed into him and out again without touching him. And the circuit completed itself: the lightning reflected back to its source. Palpatine staggered, snarling, but the blistering energy that loured from his hands only intensified. He fed the power with his pain. "Anakin!" Mace called. His voice sounded distant, blurred, as if it came from the bottom of a well. "Anakin, help me! This is your chance!" He felt Anakin's leap from the office floor to the ledge, felt his approach behind—And Palpatine was not afraid.Mace could feel it: he wasn't worried at all.
--Taken from Revenge of the Sith
But if Mace won by manipulating Palpatine's fear, how did he win if he was never afraid in the first place? This to me seems like the greatest implication from the book that Palpatine had set it all up, but it can be interpreted different ways.
Next: Palpatine could have killed Mace with Lightning at any point. When Sidious started firing Lightning at Mace after losing his lightsaber, he generated so much power with his Lightning that Mace's blade was being contorted. It literally bent back toward his face and would have slashed him if Palpatine continued. The book even goes so far to say that Vaapad is of no consequence; he just lacked the power to defend against it.
Lightning blasted the clouds above, and lightning blasted from Palpatine's hands, and Mace didn't have time to comprehend what Palpatine was talking about; he had time only to slip back into Vaapad and angle his blade to catch the forking arcs of pure, dazzling hatred that clawed toward him. Because Vaapad is more than a fighting style. It is a state of mind: a channel for darkness. Power passed into him and out again without touching him. And the circuit completed itself: the lightning reflected back to its source.
Palpatine still made no move to defend himself from Skywalker; instead he ramped up the lightning bursting from his hands, bending the fountain of Mace's blade back toward the Korun Master's face.
Mace's blade bent so close to his face that he was choking on ozone. "Anakin, he's too strong for me—"
This was beyond Vaapad; he had no strength left to fight against his own blade.
--Taken from Revenge of the Sith
With this, we can conclude that even if Mace could beat Palpatine in a duel (which is reaching because Mace is not only severely outclassed in speed but is not a better duelist than Sidious), Palpatine could still kill him with Lightning if he so chooses.
Last fact: Yoda is a better duelist than Mace. Nick Gillard, who was designated by Lucas to choreograph the duels in the movies and conversed with Lucas about character abilities, has stated twice that Yoda is superior to Mace. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m2yIAxeBHA&feature=player_embedded (5:28 to 5:35)
"We've not seen Mace fight yet, and we know that he's second only to Yoda."
"Mace Windu's fighting abilities are second only to Yoda."
Yoda has also beaten Mace before. More than that, he has beaten Dooku twice, who was an equal to Mace.
Master Windu was also known within the Order for his unusual fighting style, one that he developed after studying the dueling styles of various lightsaber masters. His attacks consisted of relentless, unpredictable blows, like shots from an autoblaster. Master Windu himself remained perfectly balanced and centered. In the history of the Jedi Order, only two opponents ever overcame him in battle. One was Master Yoda, who some said was the Order's true master of lightsaber combat. The other was former Master Dooku, whose own fighting style was archaic, yet stunningly effective.
--Taken from the Power of the Jedi Sourcebook
These are canon facts. Whether Mace beat Palpatine or not, these points cannot be overlooked.
One misconception I feel I should address is Lucas' remarks on the fight during the Revenge of the Sith commentary.
"Okay, well, this sequence always started out with Mace overpowering Palpatine, and then Palpatine using his powers to try to destroy Mace, and Mace deflecting his rays with his lightsaber. And it always was that Anakin cut the lightsaber out of his hand. But this part where he pretends to lose his power and be weak was something that I added later, 'cause this is, it moved the point where Anakin turns down to this moment right here, and you can see now, that it's very clear that he's, he, he wants him to go on trial so he can pump him for information about how to get these powers."
--Taken from the Revenge of the Sith commentary
If you fail to pay attention to context, this sounds like Lucas said that Mace in fact did defeat Palpatine. However, you need to notice the comment as a whole. Lucas starts off by offering a description on a certain scene, but then he moves on to tell how he fitted details in with one another. But this is the distinction: He describes a sequence of events as the viewer sees them at first, giving a brief background on what sequence in particular he is talking about, but then his focus shifts from what the audience sees to what the characters' intentions are and what they experience and think. So from the context of simply a perceivable sequence, no, this does not constitute proof that Lucas stated that Mace did really defeat Palpatine.
A last point respective to the duel itself, in the direct sequel novel to Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine, in his musings, notes that all of his plans for leading Anakin to the dark side had been successful. Anakin aiding him in the holding office, choosing Palpatine over the Jedi, was a crucial moment in his fall. It is entirely possible this indicates that Palpatine had set the entire incident up.
Darth Sidious had had most of his beloved Sith statues and ancient bas-reliefs removed from his ruined chambers in the Senate Office Building, where four Jedi had lost their lives and one had been converted to the dark side. Relocated to the throne room, the statues had been placed on the dais, the sculptures mounted on the long walls. Swiveling his throne, Sidious gazed at them now. As some Jedi had feared from the start, Anakin had been ripe for conversion when Qui-Gon Jinn had first brought him to the Temple, and for well over a decade all of Sidious's plans for the boy had unfolded without incident.
As often as Plagueis maintained that the Rule of Two had ended with their partnership, the Muun remained the powerful one, and Palpatine the covetous one. Bane’s dictum notwithstanding, denial was still a key factor in Sith training; a key factor in being “broken,” as Plagueis put it—of being shaped by the dark side of the Force. Cruelly, at times, and painfully. But Palpatine was grateful, for the Force had slowly groomed him into a being of dark power and granted him a secret identity, as well. The life he had been leading—as the noble head of House Palpatine, legislator, and most recently ambassador-at-large—was nothing more than the trappings of an alter ego; his wealth, a subterfuge; his handsome face, a mask. In the realm of the Force his thoughts ordered reality, and his dreams prepared the galaxy for monumental change. He was a manifestation of dark purpose, helping to advance the Sith Grand Plan and gradually gaining power over himself so that he might one day—in the words of his Master—be able to gain control over another, then a group of others, then an order, a world, a species, the Republic itself.
--Taken from Darth Plagueis
That warm and human hand gave his shoulder a warm and human squeeze. "I do not fear your power, Anakin, I embrace it. You are the greatest of the Jedi. You can be the greatest of the Sith. I believe that, Anakin. I believe in you. I trust you. I trust you. I trust you." Anakin looked from the dead hand on the ledge to the living one on his shoulder, then up to the face of the man who stood above him, and what he saw there choked him like an invisible fist crushing his throat. The hand on his shoulder was human. The face...wasn't. The eyes were a cold and feral yellow, and they gleamed like those of a predator lurking beyond a fringe of firelight; the bone around those feral eyes had swollen and melted and flowed like durasteel spilled from a fusion smelter, and the flesh that blanketed it had gone corpse-gray and coarse as rotten synthplast. Stunned with horror, stunned with revulsion, Anakin could only stare at the creature. At the shadow. Looking into the face of the darkness, he saw his future. "Now come inside," the darkness said. After a moment, he did. Anakin stood just within the office. Motionless. Palpatine examined the damage to his face in a broad expanse of wall mirror. Anakin couldn't tell if his expression might be revulsion, or if this were merely the new shape of his features. Palpatine lifted one tentative hand to the misshapen horror that he now saw in the mirror, then simply shrugged. "And so the mask becomes the man," he sighed with a hint of philosophical melancholy. "I shall miss the face of Palpatine, I think; but for our purpose, the face of Sidious will serve. Yes, it will serve."
--Taken from Revenge of the Sith
"Always two there are"—not only master and apprentice, but persona and true face. Unmasked by deflected lightning during his duel with Mace Windu, the Sith Lord's true face is revealed to the world.
--Taken from The Complete Visual Dictionary
Having gone through all of this, I think my opinion is obvious: I believe Sidious allowed Mace to win to persuade Anakin to help him. The events are too convenient. In the movie, Palpatine communicated with Anakin through the Force while Anakin was in the Council Chamber, goading him to come to the chancellor's office. In the novel, Palpatine sets up a recording device which he alters to make it sound as if he was the victim. Also in the novel, Palpatine notes that it is good that Windu, Kolar, Tiin, and Fisto are coming, just as it is good that Anakin is coming. In the novel, Mace won by exploiting a fear in Palpatine that never existed in him at all. All of it just leads me to believe that Palpatine restricted himself purposefully. If you disagree, I can understand. This is only my opinion, not a fact. Do I believe this is a credible and logical assessment of the occurrences? Obviously, or else I wouldn't believe them. But the fact is that there is no fact on this. I don't believe we will ever really know without a doubt who won that duel, as I doubt it will ever be stated in any canon source or by anyone from Lucas Licensing. But we can draw a reasonable conclusion from it, and this is mine. However, simply because we have no irrefutable fact on whether Sidious lost on purpose or not, we do still have to acknowledge what the facts we do have that surround that ambiguity, such as the facts I covered above. The fact is that even if Mace did win legitimately without Sidious intending that outcome, it speaks nothing of Mace's standard abilities because of the amplification he received for that one duel, a resource he does not have access to under normal circumstances.
I've been meaning to ask all viners who know something about the subject...
Just how good Hulk really is? Does he belong in the top tiers like Supes and Thor? I know there's a lot of "hate" (or so they say) in the Vine for the green guy, but i'd like to see some actual feats that would debunk the myth that Hulk is a slow, useless brick.
Also, i'd like to see if anyone can debunk the whole "Hulk has limitless strength" thing.
Well I had a reasonable explanation for Hulk. He is strong and he is actually fast. And he emits gamma energy when he strikes.
Hulk's is fast, but he does not have the mindset to control his speed like Flash, Superman and Sentry, etc.
Here I wanted to discuss how fast the Hulk is. I would like to hear some feedback. Often times we wonder how the Hulk manages to go toe to toe with enemies who have marginal speed advantages over him. Enemies such as the Silver Surfer, Sentry, etc. The first and foremost response we hear from users around here is that it is obvious plot/writer/artist induced stupidity [PIS, WIS and AIS (PWA)]. My proposal is that the Hulk isn't at a speed disadvantage but rather his reflexes and mind set are not on par with speedsters. This proposal sets a means for consistency rather than we claim PWA all the time. Now to further ado, I give scans for us to discuss.
The Evidence
Hulk performs a Thunderclap with such force, the pressure from the sonic boom sends cars and people (through concrete walls) flying:
The amount of speed Hulk would require would be dozens that of the speed of sound. There is absolutely no way someone of the Hulk's stature can perform such a feat moving at normal or even 10 to 100 times faster. It would have to be tremendous. It is absolutely impossible for the Hulk to perform a feat with strength alone.
The Hulk leaps to escape velocity:
For an object to escape the earths atmoshphere, it must have an initial velocity of Mach 34. Reference:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity. For Hulk to perform such a feat, his legs would have to accelerate and propel someone of his weight, which is approximately 2000 pounds, at even greater speeds than so. It is absolutely impossible for the Hulk to perform a feat with strength alone.
Objects to the moon:
Back to escape velocity. Fin Fang Foom weighs 40,000 lbs (20 tons). The Hulk's arm would have to propel Fin Fang Foom at those speeds in order to make him escape. Fin Fang Foom actually ended up on the moon which is much further than just escaping the earths atmosphere. Much like a baseball pitchers arm swinging at the same speed he releases the ball, the Hulk's arm would have to be moving at much greater speeds than so. There is absolutely no way the Hulk could have performed such a feat with strength alone.
The Reason (then why does the Hulk have difficulties tagging street levelers at times)
So if the Hulk is so fast, why does he have such difficulty tagging street leveler fighters with great dodging ability such as the Captain America, Spider-man, etc? Part of your answer is that they are great at dodging. How often are they hit with bullets? Not quite often. The other part is the Hulk lacks the ability to speed up his thought process and mindset in addition to his reflexes possibly being a few magnitudes above average. The Hulk's powers stem from being physically amped. His powers do not affect his mindset. A great example would be how Superman and the Flash whom are capable of such feats. Here is a scan.
So what is the excuse? Why is it not PAW when the Hulk fights foes such as the Sentry?
This is a fairly simple answer. It's because the Sentry who we all know moves at extreme super speed with a sped up mindset (collects multiple I-Beams and builds a structure within a matter of seconds) has chose to downplay his mindset to Hulk's levels. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to have a conversation. If Sentry's mindset was sped up to super speeds, he wouldn't be able to understand a word the Hulk said along with Hulk not being capable of understanding a word the Sentry said. This is the sole reason why the Hulk and Sentry and trading blows near evenly due to their mindsets being at the same pace.
Hulk emits gamma radiation as energy projectile when he is really angry. Thus making his strikes stronger.
From his most updated bio, Hulk is shown to actually emit energy projectile via gamma radiation.
This rating is actually very high and backs up the reason why his stops broke the eastern seaboard.
And why Red She Hulk and He broke a planet.
So with all this together, Hulk is actually pretty damn deadly. He can move his limbs fast, it makes absolute sense for him to perform these feats. With him being able to move his limbs quickly, he also emits ENERGY PROJECTILE at a rating of 5. This puts him on levels as these guys.
@SlimJ87D: thanks a lot for the debunks you did it right the other guy who did it was an idiot. but i disagree about spider man it seemed that with the help of his web he was able to hold up the building.
I've been meaning to ask all viners who know something about the subject...
Just how good Hulk really is? Does he belong in the top tiers like Supes and Thor? I know there's a lot of "hate" (or so they say) in the Vine for the green guy, but i'd like to see some actual feats that would debunk the myth that Hulk is a slow, useless brick.
Also, i'd like to see if anyone can debunk the whole "Hulk has limitless strength" thing.
Hulk can hang with Thor in character. He has on multiple occasions. They just haven't had many decisive conclusions. Thor KO'd Hulk once with a lightning bolt and almost killed him Hammer and Sinew. Likewise, Hulk once KO'd Thor in a rather embarrassing fight in Let the Battle Begin and in Avengers Assemble, he grabbed Thor's hand under Thanos' telepathic control and smashed him in the face with Mjolnir keeping him out of the fight for a bit before he got back up. So whether he briefly KO'd him or stunned him long enough while he recovered seems to be open to interpretation. However, in Let the Battle Begin and Hammer and Sinew, we don't really know when the story takes place or what versions of characters were really being used. Outside of those, one usually ends up running away or someone gets beat up but an outside occurrence happens and stops it. Outside of character morals though and due to how big of a plot device and variety Mjolnir has, Thor could potentially beat Hulk every time if he used his upper attacks or energy drain attacks.
I personally don't think he can hang with Superman and that is a speed thing which I will get to. To answer one of your questions, Hulk is slow but he has some decent reflex feats for a brick. He's caught tank shells before, jets flying at him and someone will always post the Quicksilver one. But in a fight, he is slow compared to the likes of Spider-Man, Wolverine and Captain America who have all danced around him. They would probably get hit eventually being the keyword. Superman's combat is far above Hulk's and he should be able to land more hits and faster than what Hulk defend against. Superman should realistically have Hulk beat before he realizes what happens. Just my opinion on that though. No sense in why Superman seeing faster than Hulk by quite a bit should have to throw punches at his speed considering Superman has fought and traded blows with people close to his own level of speed like Wonder Woman for example, whom is undoubtedly faster than Hulk. Their perceptions and ability to attack are at very different speeds.
And Hulk's strength is limitless but dependent on his anger as like most of his stats are. But, he has to constantly find a stimulus to reach that point of anger. And to debunk how some of his fanatics think he can't he can't be KO'd. Just because he is mad doesn't mean he can't be KO'd when people like Iron Man, Thor, Namor, and even Colossus have knocked out Savage Hulk and Rhino KO'd Grey Hulk. So he can be knocked out, even if for brief periods of time and dependent on the incarnation of course.
Hope this helps and if you want scans on these instances, I will find some.
@god_spawn: thanks so much for the analisis; I know his base level is far inferior than Superman, but his healing factor is actually one of the best (if not the best) in the Marvel U.
From the words of Ed Brubaker himself. The man who wrote Captain America for 8 years.
"I agree with parts of a lot of people's comments here and elsewhere. But I think it's a bit funny to see people get so bent out of shape when a guy who's given something called the "Super Soldier Serum" turns out to be a bit more than the average human. He's been leaping out of the windows of eight story buildings and across city streets in NYC, dodging bullets, doing amazing feats of speed and strength, since I started reading the book in the early 70s.
My take has always been that Cap is the peak of human POTENTIAL. What humans might someday be able to do, physically, he already can. If it was just about having an olypic-level athlete, do you really think all these groups and scientists would have been wasting 50plus years trying to replicate the SSS?
All I've done is have him say outloud what's always been pretty clear to me as a fan of the character. He's always been a lot stronger and faster than the average well-trained athlete. And I've always hated the Batman comparisons. Batman trained himself, Cap got given a miracle serum. I'm not making that up or changing anything.
Daredevil is more like Batman, physically, and yet in Born Again, Cap races by him so fast he's a breeze. As for Cap running 60mph. In the comic, I think he says he can run a mile in a little over a minute when he HAS to. It's not even implied that he can keep that up all day. It's a full-on burst of speed, when he has to."
"Daredevil is more like Batman, physically, and yet in Born Again, Cap races by him so fast he's a breeze. As for Cap running 60mph."
Here, this is what Brubaker was talking about.
And finally this is Ed Brubakers writing here where he clearly puts it out there in his own dialogue, no artist is determining an obscure feat here. Cap is clearly running 5 miles in 5 minutes.
Again, what Ed Brubaker is saying is that Steve is not just the peak of man, but evolution wise he is the absolute peak of what a human can be physically in evolution. Whatever physical potential we have in evolution, he already is.
"My take has always been that Cap is the peak of human POTENTIAL. What humans might someday be able to do, physically, he already can."
I believe there was a bio released some time after siege which actually was labeled cap super human. I can't confirm if cap was labeled super human but black panther was labeled super human and in the same bio Cap states they are equals.
Yeah, honestly Thor has a lot of different attacks he can take the Hulk with like GS said. He could send the hammer at 2 times the speed of light if he wanted to. He can BFR the Hulk. But Thor has great sportsmanship and respect to fight on even levels with hulk. But we'll see what happens when Hulk starts to use technology. Banner is going to start putting tech on the Hulk, the Hulk might start flying too, or hovering who knows. But Hulk with Banner Tech might be something to be excited about.
@jashro44: That's interesting. It would probably be Ed Brubaker who wrote the bio. But it just explains why Steve has all these high end feats and people like to deny them and say that Steve should only be an olympic athlete. Bucky is like an olympic athlete and he commented that Steve is about 3 times everything he is, speed, strength and durability. I have that scan at home.
@SlimJ87D: i don't think it was written by Brubaker. it was the heroic age card (basically what is supposedly in shields files according to steve rogers) which listed black panther as super human and in the same file he stated they were equals.
I'm still trying to find Steves. All though i have found this which labels him as an enhanced human being.
@SlimJ87D: You've put to much real world logic behind the idea that the Hulk can move fast, yes a fist would have to go at a tremendous speed as well as be incredibly durable to be considered to be a super powered punch in real life but when it comes to bricks like the Hulk powers are simply those that fall within the theme, thunderclaps, space tosses and super jumps are all staples but a street leveler will still be fast enough to dodge the punch as real world science doesn't apply to their actions.
For example anyone with a healing factor should have a power that works like the Flash where they would need to consume large quantities of food to explain where this extra flesh comes from but as it is they currently regrow flesh and limbs from thin air.
I'd like to somewhat debunk the fact that Pre-N52 Superman had no fighting experience.
Superman had AT LEAST a thousand years of experience along with Wonder Woman since they were trapped and took part in a war in Valhalla. This was referenced in following Superman and Wonder Woman titles as well. Apologies, Scans are out of order.
I've been meaning to do this thread for a long long time, then I saw someone else do it and got excited but it wasn't done right. It actually was upsetting as no one was "allowed" to discuss, share or debate with one another.
It was done how i felt it should be done. I didn't have a problem with people discussing the feats mentioned. I had a problem with people using faulty physics and logic to try and wank their way into saying a feat is valid. People were debating on whether a moon could be considered a planet, just to say Superman could destroy a planet. Some users lied about feats and people were discussing things that never happened in the first place. One guy argued that picoseconds aren't sued to measure distance, another argued it did, and somehow they both thought they were agreeing with each other. Not exactly the type of productive debating you're trying to imply was happening. Which is why I asked for it to be locked. I wish your thread the best of luck.
@SlimJ87D: You've put to much real world logic behind the idea that the Hulk can move fast, yes a fist would have to go at a tremendous speed as well as be incredibly durable to be considered to be a super powered punch in real life but when it comes to bricks like the Hulk powers are simply those that fall within the theme, thunderclaps, space tosses and super jumps are all staples but a street leveler will still be fast enough to dodge the punch as real world science doesn't apply to their actions.
For example anyone with a healing factor should have a power that works like the Flash where they would need to consume large quantities of food to explain where this extra flesh comes from but as it is they currently regrow flesh and limbs from thin air.
Flash can punch with great amounts of force due to his speed. Flash facts state this in his dialogue.
Hulk performs thunderclaps, and that can't just be due to strength alone. There has to be some speed behind his feats. Spider-man even has pre-cog is in his bio he is 16 times faster than a human. With his reflexes and pre-cognition he could dodge and do things about 40 times that of a person.
Hulk can vibrate his hands so fast that he can mix something that would take a centrifuge 40 hours to mix in about 8 minutes. For all we know he could have did it faster.
So I do not think it's fair to say that the Flash gets to perform his feats even though he has strength but Hulk doesn't perform his feats due to speed. So if we accept one of these we have to accept the other. Otherwise it absolutely does not make sense for Hulk to perform a Thunderclap if he clapped his hands at 90 mph (arbitrary number) like a normal human. You have a guy here that escapes orbit with his legs, throws objects that are multiple tons to the moon, mixes a formula that would take a centrifuge 40 hours in a few minutes by shaking his hand, thunderclaps cars and people threw buildings. Then we have to ignore it and say he's slow. I don't think that's right.
I've been meaning to do this thread for a long long time, then I saw someone else do it and got excited but it wasn't done right. It actually was upsetting as no one was "allowed" to discuss, share or debate with one another.
It was done how i felt it should be done. I didn't have a problem with people discussing the feats mentioned. I had a problem with people using faulty physics and logic to try and wank their way into saying a feat is valid. People were debating on whether a moon could be considered a planet, just to say Superman could destroy a planet. Some users lied about feats and people were discussing things that never happened in the first place. One guy argued that picoseconds aren't sued to measure distance, another argued it did, and somehow they both thought they were agreeing with each other. Not exactly the type of productive debating you're trying to imply was happening. Which is why I asked for it to be locked. I wish your thread the best of luck.
You've got a great idea, but You can't limit people in this way in debate thread. When I've said that You should have made a blog I wasn't joking. There were people who were making respect threads in blogs and they were pretty popular.
@SlimJ87D: In the real world yes you would be correct but moving quickly is not part of the Hulk's powerset or fit in with his characters theme it is part of Spiderman's, he is faster and more agile because he's not just a brick like the Hulk. You would have been better comparing him with quicksilver who has rarely shown the ability to throw more than the standard punch, when they introduced the speedforce there was almost no limit to what the Flash couldn't do as long as it had some vague connection to superspeed
The Flash doesn't lift buildings or mountains because it doesn't fit in with his theme much like superspeed doesn't fit in with the Hulk's, you are trying to apply real world logic to comic book superstrength and if it worked that way it would mean every brick is capable of superspeed but countless examples of them throwing sluggish punches against more agile street levelers show that they are not.
I've been meaning to do this thread for a long long time, then I saw someone else do it and got excited but it wasn't done right. It actually was upsetting as no one was "allowed" to discuss, share or debate with one another.
It was done how i felt it should be done. I didn't have a problem with people discussing the feats mentioned. I had a problem with people using faulty physics and logic to try and wank their way into saying a feat is valid. People were debating on whether a moon could be considered a planet, just to say Superman could destroy a planet. Some users lied about feats and people were discussing things that never happened in the first place. One guy argued that picoseconds aren't sued to measure distance, another argued it did, and somehow they both thought they were agreeing with each other. Not exactly the type of productive debating you're trying to imply was happening. Which is why I asked for it to be locked. I wish your thread the best of luck.
You've got a great idea, but You can't limit people in this way in debate thread. When I've said that You should have made a blog I wasn't joking. There were people who were making respect threads in blogs and they were pretty popular.
Why can't I? It solves so many problems. Despite my pleas people were debating in the thread anyway. One of the longest debates were about Superman and the black hole feats. I informed everyone that in one instance it wasn't a black hole and superman accelerated to light speed only to escape the gravity. The other was about a mini black hole. I informed people that mini black holes are very different from astrophysical black holes; miniature black holes could have the event horizon the size of an atom and wouldn't be able to suck superman in. People continued using these arguments anyway. Some users said one thing in my thread and the complete opposite in another. People were lying about feats and getting debates started. Some changed their arguments to the complete opposite of views they held in another thread. Some didn't know the science behind the things they were saying. You cant have a productive debate this way. Who would have seen this blog? I didn't have any followers.
@Dextersinister: Again, it is the Hulk's mindset that doesn't classify him as a speedster of any sort. For example, we humans have millisecond reaction times, but it's not like we live in those realms. I could ask you to rapidly poke a piece of paper as fast as you can, it could be so fast that cameras back in the days (the ones that couldn't catch Bruce Lee's punches) could not catch it, but there would be no control or accuracy to your pokes. You can swing your hands faster than a fly can fly, yet it's not like you can catch the fly easily or most times at all.
That's how the Hulk is. He can move his limbs fast, he doesn't have the control or ability to control it. That's why he does things like thunderclaps and uses objects to throw at people because that's where he can use that brute strength and speed. It doesn't need accuracy.
It's not something expressed in his power set because it's not something useful for him to use. His mind is slowed down, like the human struggling to catch a fly even though we can swing our arms faster than them. It's something he can do but it's something that is not consistent or controllable for him to do.
Refer back to the medical device example again. There are shakers that can shake 100s if not 1000s of times faster than us. Yet this mixer would take 40 hours to mix something where with the Hulk's ability to shake his hands very fast reduced 40 hours of mixing to a few minutes.
So again, your argument is just like the Captain America one. People pointing out that Captain America shouldn't be able to perform all of his feats, they are PIS. He should only be peak human, yet he runs sprints at 60 MPH for 5 minutes straight. So now it's the Hulk who performs thunderclaps that levels cars, buildings and sand off of beaches but he's not suppose to be fast because "I don't want him to or think he should" even though there are plenty of feats and instances that show so.
@Mr_Ingenuity: Thanks, I have those scans right in front of me, and those were the ones I was about to post. he blitzes through and rips two machine apart before the people a few feet behind him can see what is going on. This is indestructible Hulk #1
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