Freefa11

He wasn't as good as (most versions of) comic Ultron.

He wasn't as good as MCU Loki.

He wasn't as good as he looked like he was going to be from the trailer or first scene with him.

But he still wasn't actually bad, just disappointing, and not what was expected (or advertised).

Ronan, in GotG, was garbage, IMO. Ultron, for all his faults, was still leaps and bounds beyond that guy.

The "weak" power level kind of bothered me, but I could tell they were emphasizing his hive mind and turning him into more of a swarm than a single unstoppable juggernaut, which I can handle.

I think what bothered me the most though, is that, for a brand new form of intelligence, with some odd built-in daddy issues and massive narcissistic genocidal tendencies, there's a ton of psychological stuff they could have explored with him (Vision too), but they really never did more than scratch the surface, and now he's dead. Just a lot of wasted potential there (and damn, we've even got the guy from freaking Jacob's Ladder to work with!). Then again, deep exploration of psychological issues relating to the nature of consciousness is probably a bit too high brow for the kind of audience they're looking to entertain with these movies.

I'm guessing you're too young to remember the greatest Batman of all time

@jigen879: IMO, no, he hasn't. I haven't kept up completely with Thor, so I'm not sure about anything that's come up in the last few years, but classically, there were 2 main examples used to "prove" he was a galaxy buster. The first was from Thor 185

Now, if you're not in "Battle Forum" mentality, i.e. that hyperbole actually exists, and all levels of characters use it on a regular basis, since it is a normal part of the english language (and frankly, Asgardians tend to use it more than most), then the first issue with this immediately becomes that it doesn't actually show him destroying one, it is just some flowery speech that could very well be hyperbole.

However, even apart from that, a bigger problem for the feat is that it was simply retconned years later in Quasar 19

Yes, it is pretty clunky as retcons go, but it gives an editorial citation of the specific issue involved, so there is really no mistaking exactly what it refers to, so the feat from Thor 185 just doesn't count.

The other feat usually cited comes from Journey into Mystery 513

Again though, I really feel this is a case of hyperbole. And yes, the "omniscient narrator" can engage in hyperbole just as much as characters. The reason I would call it hyperbole here is because it just doesn't scale with anything else going on in the fight. Consider earlier

He is staggered by both Red Norvel and Loki. For a guy who supposedly eats at least one "galaxy shattering" blast from Odin, something seems pretty wrong with that. Not to mention Norvel's almost casual blocking of Seth's own attack. Sorry, but blocking galaxy-level attacks is not within Thor's power tier.

Also this

So one panel describes it as "distant planets quiver," while another is "dead galaxies are shattered!" Come on, the difference in scale between shaking planets and destroying galaxies is astronomical. That would be one good reason to view it as hyperbole (i.e. colorful but ultimately meaningless exaggerations designed to sound impressive and evocative without being literally true).

Also, what is a "dead" galaxy, anyway? That's not really a normal term used for galaxies that I'm aware of. They don't really have life cycles the way stars do. Although I suppose it might just be a convenient term tossed in to prevent Odin from suddenly and casually being a mass-murderer on a scale rivaling Galactus (except Odin has always ostensibly been a good guy, except maybe when Fraction is writing him, whereas we already know Galactus just doesn't care about exterminating civilizations).

Another thing to notice, is that while distant planets are quivering, the streets below him? Totally fine. Apparently these blasts that are blowing away galaxies (but also somehow reigniting certain individual stars) are not doing much of anything at all to anything within a few hundred feet of him. Pretty convenient there.

Ultimately, I suppose my biggest complaint with the scene is just that it feels too lazy, and too casual. Anyone can toss out a phrase like "shattering galaxies!" without any real thought behind it. But there is no acknowledgement of consequences, and everyone else around him is fine. And characters of vastly, vastly weaker power are also able to contribute against the same villain. It just doesn't hold up. If you want me to believe a character just smashed a galaxy, at least show it happening. They couldn't even bother to illustrate any of the crazy stuff stated to be going on there. If the narration boxes were gone, no one would ever have even the faintest suspicion these guys were affecting anything more than 1,000 feet away. For me, if you want me to believe someone just destroyed a galaxy, you better make it clear and unambiguous. Like so

That's pretty damn clear. The words help, but even without any dialog at all, you'd have to be pretty stupid to not figure out what just happened. And the expression on Thor and Iron Man's faces is about what you'd expect a hero to look like after seeing something of such a monstrous scale happen right in front of them.

Anyway, that's just my own take on the matter. Colorful language, without much real weight to it.

I think those are pretty different situations. I mean, I've never seen an exact quote of those statements, but I'm betting they basically revolve around the idea that humans would never develop a power source strong enough to propel a manned aircraft faster than sound (after all, bullets and canons already fired objects faster than sound). This would also fall under the definition of conjecture, rather than true theoretical physics.

Conversely, in Relativity, it isn't an issue that we won't be capable of breaking the light barrier. Rather, it is an intrinsic, mathematically provable fact of nature that nothing can break the lightbarrier (at least, not by accelerating from sub-light to superluminal). It would literally require infinite energy to accelerate a an object of non-zero rest mass from any sublight speed to lightspeed, let alone beyond it.

Also worth noting is that Einstein's theory is now 100 years old, making it a few decades older than the belief you cited, and yet it has stood inviolate this whole time, and all our advances in science and technology have done nothing but reinforce its validity, over and over and over.

Protege

Scathan

Abraxas

Chaos King

Infinity

Oblivion

Yeah, I'll jump on the Damian bandwagon too. Terrible idea.

Spider clones. Or any other clones or simulacrums that have anything to do with Spiderman.

Well, in theory all Sentry actually have to overpower Imperiex, he just has to crack his armor a little bit to force a self-destruct, resulting in a stalemate, and he might be up for that.

Yeah, Imperiex was designed in kind of a dumb way.

No. Galactus is a figure of godlike power and presence. However, a very, very key point here (IMO, anyway) is that he is completely and utterly indifferent to the well-being of humanity on any level. The Biblical God, regardless of if you're going with a "nice" New Testament version, or a "vengeful" OT version, is strongly characterized by a profoundly vested interest in how human beings behave, and in particular how they behave towards himself. He has an essentially obsessive need to reinforce a particular relationship between himself and humanity (or at least a particular group of humans). And even apart from the personality differences, God is also famous for being the ultimate creator of everything, whereas Galactus was not shown to be a creative force at all.

So I would say I see pretty much no connection there, though I would be open to hearing the opinions on why some people do.

I think the odds of Comixology abruptly disappearing without a trace are basically non-existant. Even if they did go under (which would probably require both Marvel and DC pulling their material, and even then I suspect it would still stay up), I'm pretty sure such a move would be well documented months in advance. And even if they did suddenly disappear, I don't know that they could actually remove my downloaded content without permission (I've heard things like this happen, mainly with Kindle, but I haven't seen it confirmed yet).

Also, the HD versions of older comics from before 2000 or so look stunning, and are typically vastly superior in image quality compared to the original issues, or even all but the best reprints.

Oh god, and no freaking advertisements. Seriously, I forgot those things existed until I flipped through an old back issue a little while ago. It is amazing how many pages are filled with that junk constantly interrupting the story.

But as to the OP's original point, yes, I think 4-5 for a single issue is absurd. Especially since most issues feel like they can be read in about 10 minutes these days. This is regardless of the medium; I'm not paying that much for an issue on a regular basis. Even back in the late 90's, when comics started reaching $3 an issue, I just quit buying them for years, and now they cost even more, but have a smaller page count (and the average page seems to contain fewer panels and significantly less dialog).

Yeah, I've always heard it had a lot to do with red providing a better contrast to other colors on the page than yellow did back in the day. I've never really tried counting, but I always felt like older comics had a disproportionately large number of brunettes and redheads to blondes (and I don't even mean just named characters, I mean background ones as well).

Also, I think Mystique would look terrible as a blonde.

You're splitting hairs, as well as jumping to conclusions. Cell absorbs life forces. He absorbed them from the normal humans and from Piccolo. He absorbed 17 and 18 more fully, because Dr. Gero's computer told him their especially strong life forces would help make him "complete." He couldn't get anything at all out of 16, because 16 isn't alive at all. No life force. You're acting as if sucking down 16's entire body will somehow change things and make 16 digestable to Cell all of a sudden. I see no basis for this whatsoever. Android 16 is a dry well, as far as Cell is concerned. It doesn't matter if he tries to drink him with a straw, or gulp him down whole, there's nothing there for Cell to work with.

If anything, the body-swallow technique would seem to be specific to 17 and 18, otherwise, why not use it on the equally powerful Piccolo, or the considerably stronger 16?

He jabbed him in the neck with his tail spike. It's the same way he absorbed all the humans, and began to absorb Piccolo. It didn't work on 16 because he was fully mechanical; Cell can only absorb cells. If that doesn't ring a bell, I'll go find the scans. I really can't believe this is becoming a point of contention; I thought it was a fairly obvious part of the story, especially considering Android 16 only ever gets into the one fight.