Category Archives: Versus

In honor of the upcoming "Thor" movie, I thougth we'd give the God of Thunder the same treatment as Wolverine in our last poll. To wit:

Verily and forsooth, mortal, we shall taketh our discussion to the ends of the jump!

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I'm going low-brow today with a favorite fanboi fantasy:

Let's don our Thinking Caps as we puff on the Pipe of Profundity as we contemplate this Great Philosophical Mystery. And yes, I know some of these have been done before, but let's not let reality get in the way of our fevered imaginations.

This Hulk worst haircut EVER! Die, little man!

• Superman: I know this would be popular, and I further know that regular-human Batman has pulled this off successfully a number of times, but come on. Superman would eat his lunch.
• Batman: I love the idea of unmatched fury and savagery of Wolverine versus the intense discipline and martial artistry of Batman.
• Predator: The ultimate hunter versus what might be the ultimate prey. Very cool.
• Xenomorphs: I'd watch this movie. Screw "Aliens vs. Predator", I want to see adamantium claws slicing through some aliens, baby!
• Martian Manhunter: I like putting MM in these polls because frankly, he's Superman without being as scary for some reason. However, since all Logan would have to do would be to light J'Onn on fire with is cigar, this might not be the best matchup.
• Spawn: I'm not a big Spawn fan, but I would like to see those chains get sliced in half. They bug me.
• Venom: Again, not a huge Venom fan. But he's evil so I wouldn't mind seeing Wolverine get rid of him once and for all.
• Wonder Woman: This would be worth it purely for watching her deflect those claws with her magic bracelets. I wonder which metal would win?

I think the Batman matchup would be the most interesting from an actual storytelling standpoint, but I'd also be keen to read a comic or watch a movie with Logan having to battle through hordes of xenomorphs.

Which would you pick?

A couple of weeks ago we thought about what heroes we'd like to see as villains, so this week we're flipping the question around:

Discussion to follow.

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Your question of the week (a day late) is:

Let's take a closer look, shall we?

• The Batcave: If you'd have access to actual Wayne Manor, this would be pretty cool, because you have to figure Bruce has his own bowling alley, movie theater, stripper pole, etc. If you're stuck in the actual cave with the giant penny and whatnot, I can't think that would be very appealing. Bat guano makes good fertilizer but terrible potpourri.
• Baxter Building: Located in the heart of bustling New York City, the historic Baxter Building offers many amenities any young man or woman on the go would enjoy. Residents, however, are encouraged to note that attack from giant monsters is a constant threat. Remember to wear your clean undies.
• Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum: Also located in New York City, with all the goodness and strangeness that implies. Only moreso, because you'll be sharing a bunk with extra-dimensional demons and whatnot. For instance, you may find that the guest towel you are using to wash up is actually sentient.
• The Fortress of Solitude: In real estate, location is everything. And the Fortress of Solitude, while cool, is in Antarctica folks. Plus, there's no way that key is going to fit on your key ring.
• The Justice League satellite: If you have unlimited use of the teleporter, sign me up. Otherwise, the prospect of overnight watches with B-list heroes like Mister Terrific leaves me cold as space.
• Titans' Tower: The twelfth time you woke up with Beast Boy as a snake slithering up your leg would be more than enough.

I'd have to go with location on this, along with who has the lowest daily weirdness / death quotient. Given that, I'd probably go with the Baxter Building. It's hard to beat that central location.

What about you, which would you choose and why? Did I leave one off you think would be better?

Our Poll Position question this week is pretty basic:

On to the completely fruitless, yet nonetheless entertaining, speculation!

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We have a pretty simple question this week, which this young lady would like to influence:

And that question is:

Just to clarify, those ladies are Lois Lane (Superman); Lana Lang (also Superman); Mary Jane Watson (Spider-Man); Jean Gray (Ms. Marvel, Phoenix, dates either Wolverine or Cyclops depending); Betty Ross (Bruce Banner / Hulk); Carol Ferris (Hal Jordan / Green Lantern, she's also the super villain Star Sapphire); and Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow, dates Iron Man off and on, and Daredevil I think, and maybe Cap?).

Rather than me prejudicing the responses with a long drawn-out discussion, this week I thought I'd leave that to you guys. So have at it in the comments, run through the choices and give the strengths and weaknesses of each, and why you'd choose the one you did. I look forward to seeing how this shakes out, so to speak!

We've talked before about various fictional universes we'd like to live in, but I want to take a slightly different angle on that:

Discussion after the jump.

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We all probably think we could do a better job than the Powers That Be, so let's imagine you had Ultimate Super-Hero Authority and could put any characters wherever you wanted. Given Marvel's recent teaser campaign about the Avengers, I thought it would be worthwhile to ask:

Discussion after the jump.

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Continuing our D&D style RPG slant these days here at the ol' blog, here's a new question for you:

Discussion after the jump, and you can find further explanations of all these spells (and more!) at the d20 spell index.

I'm going to posit, for the purposes of this hypothetical discussion, that you're a sorcerer and not a wizard, thus obviating the need for a spell book. Which would be darn awkward to lug around the ol' steel factory here in the real world, you know? So you could cast this one spell multiple times in a day, but not an infinite number -- let's call it five times per day that you could cast it, along with the other inherent limitations of each in terms of duration and whatnot.

Now, when I consider these sorts of "magic or powers in the real world" sorts of questions, I have found I tend to think more about what kind of a person I would want to be, given that power, than about the power itself for the most part. So for instance, I tend to wonder how I would hold down a job if I could do this thing, and since I'm not really a mob type guy, "hit man" is not usually on that list. So I don't generally go for the more offensive sorts of abilities.

• Air Walk: This is kind of like levitation, but with the additional bonus of being able to walk around while airborne. Which is kind of neat. I'd think this would be a blast for outdoor explorers, or even for just getting around the city.
• Animate Dead: For those of you with a more sinister bent, this would have to be appealing. Remember, though, you're not reincarnating or raising the dead, you're just animating them -- zombies and skeletons and that sort of thing. If you like the idea but "evil" isn't your bag, you could be the greatest special effects guy ever.
• Charm Animal: Siegfried and Roy are looking for a new partner. Or you could be a great horse trainer, whale tamer, horse jockey, etc.
• Charm Person: Essentially you get to make someone feel like you are their best friend for a while. Excellent for getting out of tickets, getting someone to help you shoplift, scoring a date with that person who never talks to ANYone, etc. You basically could get by almost on your charming personality alone.
• Clairaudience / Clairvoyance: The ability to see or hear through walls, at a distance, as if there were a video camera in the target room. You could be a spy, or a blackmailer, or an investigative journalist, or the greatest employee the National Enquirer ever had, or just kind of a pervert. Endless possibilities!
• Commune: You get to ask your divinity simple one-word-answer questions. Depending on your deity, bugging them from time to time could be either a Good Thing or a Very Bad Thing, so believe wisely. Pretty powerful stuff, though.
• Cure Moderate Wounds: You could help a lot of people a fair bit, but not work miracles. I always loved the idea of healing magic.
• Darkvision: Who doesn't want to see in the dark? It's a spelunker's dream! As an aside, I love that your choice of components for this spell are either a gemstone or a piece of dried carrot.
• Dimension Door: Basically a short-range teleport.
• Ethereal Jaunt: Like being Kitty Pryde for a while.
• Finger of Death: If you DID want to be a hit man, you'd be the best one ever, as within a range of fifty feet or so you can cause instantaneous death.
• Glibness: Unlike Charm Person, this spell would work on multiple people at once, by making you sound inherently more believable. So in other words, it would presumably work through a television camera. I'm just sayin'.
• Levitate: Pretty self explanatory.
• Locate Object: Hey, you could make a living.
• Polymorph: You get to change someone else into almost any other creature you can think of. What I like about this idea is how flexible it is, but that you'd have to rely on others to help you accomplish your goals. If you were creative enough, you could duplicate an awful lot of other spell effects by polymorphing someone into a magical creature with a similar ability.
• Remove Disease: You wouldn't be much good in a trauma ward or combat situation, but think of the great good you could do.
• Speak with Animals: I'm an animal lover, so this would be pretty cool for me. Note that you don't get any special ability to order them about, just to talk. I've always wondered why my dog eats poop, for instance, I'd like to find that out.
• Water Breathing: This would be pretty amazing, but the drawback is that it doesn't protect you from pressure, so you couldn't go all that deep into the oceans, for instance.

So, looking over that list, I'd probably go with either Remove Disease because I love to help people, and hate disease, or with Polymorph for the flexibility it'd give you to do other things with a willing accomplice. Plus, you could make a fortune getting people to pay you so they could experience a few hours as, say, a leopard or gazelle or whatnot.

What about you, what would you choose to be able to do?

Our Poll Position conundrum for this week is:

Blame Hammerknight for getting me off on an RPG kick again. But why should we have that much fun only on paper, right? So my thoughts on the best Real World class are to follow...

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