The Coming of the Superheros (RAR!)

[FaxModem1]

Freakazoid and Mystery Men are pretty kosher, but I think we'll have to draw a line at Funny Animals.

This is a deep rabbit hole, but not that deep

As to the X-Babies ... When you get down to it, they are just alternate versions of different characters, and since we're snagging "Only the best" as it were, they can be swept aside.

In that case, I foresee Justice doing a big recruitment drive with the League, to try and get as many DC/Marvel/whatever heroes wearing League rings in time for his plans.

A lot of heroes would agree with consolidation, and I'm curious if Thom and the Dark Hero can stop that many brainwashed heroes.

Man, I need to watch Mystery Men...

This is a good hurdle to solve. He'll definitely have more, but there will also be folks like Batman who just refuse outright.

So, they may have more help too.

But man, the collateral damage will definitely be up!

Technically, that's the plot of Hero, not Mystery Men. Mystery Men will add 'dubious' heroes like Captain Amazing, who will release criminals because a lull in crime means no publicity, which means no sponsorship deals. So he'll do what he can to release the most dangerous people out there to try and attract six figure sponsorship deals.

Imagine Booster Gold without all the heart and nobility.

[Jub]

Actually, they can both lower and raise their overall chi/ki. The Sayjans hadn't encountered people who could raise it by and large (though Vegeta had).

If you're going to be pedantic, might as well be accurate.

I always took raising it to simply be the reverse of the suppression, as such the 'powering up' the characters in DBZ do is more shedding any suppression they'd placed upon themselves knowingly or, in Gohan's case, unknowingly.

It's not about the strongest.

I was responding to your critical acclaim comment. Why should we care what the critical acclaim of a series is? That's like caring about the Best New Artist category at the Grammys.

And, again, PYM! PUNCHING! ETERNITY!

There's insane, over the top, no-limits bullshit rife throughout comics and I wanted to avoid it as best as I could.

Why avoid some of the biggest badest moments in comics?

"But that didn't really count!"

That's not what I said at all. I was legitimately asking if there were enough of these outliers without a specific circumstance surrounding them to be worried about. It seems to me that most of the really crazy comic nonsense is a one-off being pulled out to counter some crazy threat.

And those that aren't?

I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Then a powerful person enters the world and we get to talk about how that changes things.

And listen, if all you're going to do is argue against the parameters set, then make your own goddamn thread where you set the parameters.

You don't get to make that call.

Hey, remember that time Roshi blew up the moon? Remember he has a "Power level" of 139/180?

Yeah, I guess you can nuke a moon even at that level of strength. Neato.

Or how about the time in Super when Goku was shot with a hand-held laser weapon and almost died -- and Frieza made fun of him for being felled by something so weak as a hand-held laser!?

You mean after he was exhausted from the battle against the most powerful foe* he'd ever fought? That's a legitimate weakness but few will ever tire him out enough to exploit. That laser could also have had a pretty high power level, a handheld Death Star if you will.

Dragon Ball is not consistent enough with Power Levels to have any real value to them, as far as I'm concerned.

Nobody asked you.

Thank goodness the example of Goku wasn't in the original rar! It was me trying to grapple with Dragon Ball's ridiculousness.

Your rules, and an odd desire to let in Godzilla, let most if not all of the Z=Fighters in. That's not my fault that's 100% on you.

Besides, Superman, especially in animated form, is well known enough to be a very easy point of reference for everyone.

This board is full of nerds. I don't think that's especially required and if something gets brought up that's unknown we get to talk about it. Your restriction doesn't breed interesting conversation except to find out who qualifies. Notice how there has been precious little talk in this thread what this world would look like precisely because nobody is 100% sure who qualifies due to your rules.

The majority of those things don't punch. Fighting them wouldn't be as fun for anyone, not Goku, nor 'readers' as it were.

Of course, now I'm picturing Goku trying to punch Death of the Endless.

Seeing Goku face a foe that doesn't punch could be a very interesting story. Just because you don't think it would be fun is a dumb reason to set a rule as this entire argument is proving.

I wanted Goku to grow because he is a shoenen character, and that is something that defines the 'battle' series stories.

There's more than one way Goku can row. Once he reaches his peak, hits that final wall and doesn't break through, that's an interesting story right there. Does he open his own school, fall into despair, keep struggling futily in the face of his own finally realized limits? I think such a story would be interesting.

Of course, if we just let people have their actual levels of power there's still plenty of room for Goku to grow.

Similarly, Saitama is a gag character and if he loses his joke, it robs him of something fundamental about his character. And the outline was all about being true to the fundamentals of who these characters are.

Is Saitama any less himself for having met his match? I'd say no, he's just a changed character who has to deal with a new reality.

That's the type of story these threads should be telling. The story of what our heroes do once they're not isolated within their own universe. Which heroes retire, their job now being handled by another? Who founds a new school? Do clashes in personality create conflict and create new villains?

Besides, what part of "We're shifting things to a lower overall power scale" makes you think we can do our usual analysis routine?

It changes the whole dynamic in a way which might not allow certain characters to function. This already happens within comics because of some pretty lazy writing so a guy like The Flash or Superman can't just solve every problem, they have the capacity but for some reason don't use it. Why make it the rule of law?

When characters in western media are adapted, they often have their powers tuned down, to be more 'realistic' or 'grounded' in western media. To save our sanity in dealing with the utterly ridiculous bullshit American comics get up to, I chose to implement that as a metafictional limiter onto the scenario.

I reject your limiter and your logic for ever having placed one. Your arguments in favor of such a limiter are basically that you don't like the chaos that such powerful beings would cause. Ignoring that even with the limits in place you probably just caused a massive planet-wide war.

And I walked it back in the spirit of reconciliation. What more do you want?

I'd like you to respect characters from all settings and not put arbitrary limits which favor a watered down version of characters from non-western sources. Why do the characters have to be 'adapted'' for this scenario when we could just take them from the primary source?

-----

Answer me this then: what does a power level of "1" mean? What does a power level of "5000" mean? What does a Power Level of "9000" mean? What are any of these numbers actually referring to? Watts? Joules?

We're never given an amazing scale for what each PL actually translates too. It could be a raw measure of peak force, a measure of peak force combined with some reading about how it's applied. We don't even know if the scale is linear, logarithmic, exponential, but that's what analysis is for?

To start with we could go with raw energy output. We know a farmer with a shotgun was given a power level of 5, assuming that the shotgun is the peak force that farmer could generate and that his weapon was loaded with a 1-oz. slug he could fire at 1,800 fps that pegs PL 5 at 4,200J. Then, assuming that Roshi had to be at maximum power to blow up the moon we'd find out the minimum energy that would take and calculate from there.

Its a trick question, of course. We don't know, and the strangeness of Power Levels only ever increasing during a fight and never decreasing like they would if characters were actually expending energy makes it dubious that's even how the system works. In fact, there obviously is no system. Its all made up, and the only numbers we have are numbers Akira Toryama made up for the story, then promptly forgot about after the Cell Saga when they ceased being functional even for narrative purposes. That means we literally cannot make meaningful statements about a character's Power Level, as the numbers lack any empirical value. Meaning we can't know what Superman's Power Level is, so we can't compare him to Goku on those terms; nor any other character, for that matter, even in Dragonball itself once Power Levels stopped being referred to.

This much is true, however, we can benchmark what characters at a listed power level did and get a guess at relative strengths from there. Roshi had to strain to blow up the moon at 180 PL but a nearly 10x stronger Piccolo did it without breaking a sweat, we also saw him doing stuff like levitating pyramids at a distance at around this power level. We know that Frieza could, fairly casually, destroy a super-Earth in planet Vegeta at his base form's 530,000 PL. It's hard to fill in the scale due to a limited data set for both power levels and calculatable feats of strength, but we know a few fixed points like hits as hard as a shotgun, can blow up the Earth's moon, can blow up a planet with ten times Earth's gravity.

So yes, DBZA's assessment that Power Levels are bullshit is quite apt, and I think this is by design, since the characters stress repeatedly that no matter what the numbers are it didn't reflect an accurate picture of who was most likely to win a fight. As Bardok says in Xenoverse 2 on the matter, "If you put all your trust in numbers, you really are dumber than I thought!" And yes, punching machines like they used before the World Martial Arts tournament to measure the pressure generated by someone's punch are real, and a much better way of determining someone's striking power. But likewise, there really is more to fighting than generating power, and the UFC still has contestants get into a ring to settle the matter properly. Besides, that's what entertains crowds.

We don't use the guns with the highest muzzle velocity to fight wars, nor does the boxer who can throw the highest punch win every fight. I've never argued these facts. My argument is that Frieza used no trickery to destroy Vegeta or Namek while Majin Gojira tried to say he could only barely destroy such a body via some technique and not his raw power.

And saying this about Goku: "The short of it is Goku would operate on the Wonder Woman tier of "Better fighter, but less raw stats" as it were."

I disagree strongly that there should be a cap but if there is one Goku is clearly at it in terms of 'raw stats' toss in actually fighting technique something neither Clark Kent nor Superman has ever been shown to study, and Goku is among the strongest, if not the strongest, face to face fighters in this RAR.

[Majin Gojira]

I always took raising it to simply be the reverse of the suppression, as such the 'powering up' the characters in DBZ do is more shedding any suppression they'd placed upon themselves knowingly or, in Gohan's case, unknowingly.

I always saw it as flexing muscles one way and the other, an active process.

And Gohan's case was psychological more than anything else. I don't think that description really holds.

That's not what I said at all. I was legitimately asking if there were enough of these outliers without a specific circumstance surrounding them to be worried about. It seems to me that most of the really crazy comic nonsense is a one-off being pulled out to counter some crazy threat.

On the Pym example, nope. He can just do that. It strains to go to the "Realm of the Abstracts" both physically and mentally, but otherwise, nothing stops him from doing that again.

And the other examples? Yeah, they're also repeatable by and large.

Yeah, I guess you can nuke a moon even at that level of strength. Neato.

Then why did Vegeta need to power up to 36K+ to blow up the earth when it only has 81 times the mass? Running linearly, he'd only need a power level of 11K to do it. So why?

You mean after he was exhausted from the battle against the most powerful foe* he'd ever fought? That's a legitimate weakness but few will ever tire him out enough to exploit. That laser could also have had a pretty high power level, a handheld Death Star if you will.

That last line is such total bullshit it's funny.

Again, Frieza made fun of him because of how weak that blast was!

The rest isn't so hot either.

Nobody asked you.

You brought it up, and I'm telling you it's insufficient as evidence. You have to make a far better case for its veracity than you have so far, and I'm telling you now, you're better off with a different line of inquiry.

This board is full of nerds.

Never assume everyone knows every bit of nerd ephemera.

I don't think that's especially required and if something gets brought up that's unknown we get to talk about it. Your restriction doesn't breed interesting conversation except to find out who qualifies. Notice how there has been precious little talk in this thread what this world would look like precisely because nobody is 100% sure who qualifies due to your rules.

If I didn't qualify what counted as a Superhero, we'd be arguing the same thing regardless. The word has a very broad meaning.

Seeing Goku face a foe that doesn't punch could be a very interesting story. Just because you don't think it would be fun is a dumb reason to set a rule as this entire argument is proving.

I brought it up because it sounds like that's what you want and the idea of him punching an abstract concept stupid.

Now, trying to outrun the Black Racer might work.

And him interacting with Death would be interesting.

But it sounds like you want punching.

Like you want Goku to be Dah Best Evah.

There's more than one way Goku can row. Once he reaches his peak, hits that final wall and doesn't break through, that's an interesting story right there. Does he open his own school, fall into despair, keep struggling futily in the face of his own finally realized limits? I think such a story would be interesting.

Of course, if we just let people have their actual levels of power there's still plenty of room for Goku to grow.

...

So you want Goku to be Saitama.

Is Saitama any less himself for having met his match? I'd say no, he's just a changed character who has to deal with a new reality.

Read back the bolded part again and think again about how getting the 'true-ist' version of the character was emphasized. Think real hard.

It changes the whole dynamic in a way which might not allow certain characters to function. This already happens within comics because of some pretty lazy writing so a guy like The Flash or Superman can't just solve every problem, they have the capacity but for some reason don't use it. Why make it the rule of law?

To keep things consistent. As you say, they go up and down power wise with the needs of the story. To get a solid appraisal of what may happen, we can remove a random variable and make things easier.

Plus it allows for the mundane governments to pose more of a threat than they might be able to otherwise.

I reject your limiter and your logic for ever having placed one. Your arguments in favor of such a limiter are basically that you don't like the chaos that such powerful beings would cause. Ignoring that even with the limits in place you probably just caused a massive planet-wide war.

Again, then make your own thread!

Besides, I know the answer to it "Superman One Million and a few other literal Overtier characters fix everything."

I'd like you to respect characters from all settings and not put arbitrary limits which favor a watered down version of characters from non-western sources. Why do the characters have to be 'adapted'' for this scenario when we could just take them from the primary source?

Why the fuck do you think that me applying a limiter on every hero on the goddamn planet makes you think I'm picking on non-western properties specifically?!

It's because I'm using western shows as an example primarily? Just ignore Pluto then, an adaptation and expansion of a classic Astro Boy story. Only way for that to fly, I suppose.

Do you think that Japanese heroes are somehow on average stronger than western heroes?

Consider, for a moment, that America accounts for 69.4% of all heroes/power characters I've been able to log, and that's just the ones that are set in America. That's 38,614 characters, by the by. (Yes, I counted, I was very bored and had no job, and reasonably certain those are accurate numbers at least as of last year)

With Japan being a close second with .... 11% of all heroes, 6,147, so not close at all.

Again, that's just what's set there.

So, even if they were stronger on average, there would still be more high tier American characters than high tier characters from any other place in the world.

And a lot of American heroes tend to be Superman clones, expies, or homages. There's also plenty of reality shattering sorcerers. Reality Warpers in full. And then there are guys like Spawn, who at one point was more powerful than both the Devil and God.

Getting an idea of why I wanted limiters yet?

I didn't want a battle between reality warping uber-gods. I wanted Superheroes.

You go on and on about how I'm "limiting non-western characters" when I'm bringing up example after example of western characters whom I wanted to nerf in the first place, and the only Japanese hero you can bring up is motherfucking Goku.

Stop trying to force this canard.

Because Part of me is still wondering if goddamn RahXephon fits the criteria I laid out, and that's a goddamn reality altering Mecha anime! And I love that show, I'd love it to be there, but I know it would only delete itself at the end of the day, along with everything else coming in to make a "Perfect" World.

And note how we went through a whole thing on Madoka where power wasn't even an issue, but whether or not the Kyubey was as big a threat as claimed?

(Which I'm growing more and more convinced I underestimated the devious little shits).

So, have you got anyone who isn't a Z-Fighter that I'm "Holding Back"? Or are you just a pedantic DBZ fanatic without anything else to go on?

[Formless]

We're never given an amazing scale for what each PL actually translates too. It could be a raw measure of peak force, a measure of peak force combined with some reading about how it's applied. We don't even know if the scale is linear, logarithmic, exponential, but that's what analysis is for?

To start with we could go with raw energy output. We know a farmer with a shotgun was given a power level of 5, assuming that the shotgun is the peak force that farmer could generate and that his weapon was loaded with a 1-oz. slug he could fire at 1,800 fps that pegs PL 5 at 4,200J. Then, assuming that Roshi had to be at maximum power to blow up the moon we'd find out the minimum energy that would take and calculate from there.

The problem with analyzing Power Levels is that there are too many assumptions you have to make, and too little evidence within the show/manga to justify any of them. We don't know how a Scouter works, we don't know if it was analyzing the Power Level of the shotgun or merely the human weilding it (if Power Levels are purely a Ki phenomenon, it wouldn't make sense for the Scouter to pay any attention to the shotgun), and most critically we don't know how the shotgun was loaded. That is, we don't know the powder load, which significantly impacts the actual velocity and kinetic energy of the projectile or projectiles (it is equally likely to have been loaded with buckshot as a slug). Thus, we lack critical information to analyze. And this is consistently the case in Dragonball, because like Maijin Gojira pointed out, the franchise has never actually been consistent in how powerful the characters are, despite the unchanging nature of the numbers associated with Power Levels.

This much is true, however, we can benchmark what characters at a listed power level did and get a guess at relative strengths from there. Roshi had to strain to blow up the moon at 180 PL but a nearly 10x stronger Piccolo did it without breaking a sweat, we also saw him doing stuff like levitating pyramids at a distance at around this power level. We know that Frieza could, fairly casually, destroy a super-Earth in planet Vegeta at his base form's 530,000 PL. It's hard to fill in the scale due to a limited data set for both power levels and calculatable feats of strength, but we know a few fixed points like hits as hard as a shotgun, can blow up the Earth's moon, can blow up a planet with ten times Earth's gravity.

This brings us back to the consistency issue, though, because these are all one time events that could be flukes. Sure, Frieza could blow up planets on a consistent basis; we know this because he did it at least twice on screen. Same goes for Beerus. But the other events... look, there are two problems:

1) if you lift weights, you will quickly find out that you can't lift your maximum load every day, nor does anyone recommend it. You will get exhausted if you lift every day even if you change up the excercizes every day. Hence, every excercise routine includes rest days every week, and professionals even do whats known as "de-loading" wher they take an entire week off every month in order to let their body (including the nervous system) recover from the stresses. Point is, if real athletes cannot achieve peak performance every day its dubious to assume these characters can either.

2) as for Roshi and Piccolo blowing up the moon, this is treated in such a blatantly unrealistic way that the only way to reconcile it with real science is to assume that the "Earth" of Dragonball has a much smaller moon than Luna. Maybe something closer to Ceres, Charon, or maybe Saturn's moon Mimas, would make more sense given the lack of apparent tidal disruption or impacts from lunar fragments (like you see in Cowboy Beebop). Alternatively, the blasts merely disturbed the surface enough that it ceased to reflect the radiation necessary to sustain a Saiyan's Ozaru form. Either way, it can't be as impressive a feat as it first appears, because close inspection shows it doesn't have the consequences we expect from such a feat.

...or we could just accept that Dragonball was never meant to be taken this seriously, because it was an adventure comedy, and analyzing it any deeper than that is pointless. Characters during Dragonball blow up the moon casually; characters during Z make a big deal out of blowing up a mere mountain, and even Buu kills all of humanity but does not blow up the Earth to achieve that goal. The show just lacks the consistency needed to come to solid conclusions about the power of its characters.

We don't use the guns with the highest muzzle velocity to fight wars, nor does the boxer who can throw the highest punch win every fight. I've never argued these facts. My argument is that Frieza used no trickery to destroy Vegeta or Namek while Majin Gojira tried to say he could only barely destroy such a body via some technique and not his raw power.

I read the thread, I know what he said. He never argued the characters canonically can do those things. He said that, for the sake of a fun little thought experiment certain characters in the Superhero genre should either have limits placed on them or just be excluded outright because they would actually ruin the fun of considering the consequences of the scenario. Seriously, do I have to explain why its stupid that Superman Prime once punched reality because he hated how things had gotten after Crisis on Infinite Earths? Because if anything, Maijin Gojira is being harshest on western superheroes. They actually get away with some of the most heinous bullshit in fiction by a mile.

Your restriction doesn't breed interesting conversation except to find out who qualifies. Notice how there has been precious little talk in this thread what this world would look like precisely because nobody is 100% sure who qualifies due to your rules.

Because arguing about Goku's power level is soooooooooo interesting and vital to establishing the impact of superheroes appearing all over the world.

There are actually a ton of conversation hooks in this thread despite why you say. In fact, there wasn't any really major disagreement about who is and isn't a superhero until page 3. Back on page 1 we were talking about the potential environmental impacts of Stark Industries having fusion power and other technologies. There is the question of how everyone (both heroes and governments) will react exactly to those few villains who slipped through the cracks via the origin story clause. There is the question of how the Earth will react to the knowledge of Alien life existing. And of course there is the question of what happens when governments and private entities inevitably try to replicate superpowers via the half dozen methods already identified (magic, super science, radiation, super tech...). Maybe you could talk about those things instead. I would absolutely be game for it.

[Formless]

In that case, I foresee Justice doing a big recruitment drive with the League, to try and get as many DC/Marvel/whatever heroes wearing League rings in time for his plans.

A lot of heroes would agree with consolidation, and I'm curious if Thom and the Dark Hero can stop that many brainwashed heroes.

Man, I need to watch Mystery Men...

This is a good hurdle to solve. He'll definitely have more, but there will also be folks like Batman who just refuse outright.

So, they may have more help too.

But man, the collateral damage will definitely be up!

Technically, that's the plot of Hero, not Mystery Men. Mystery Men will add 'dubious' heroes like Captain Amazing, who will release criminals because a lull in crime means no publicity, which means no sponsorship deals. So he'll do what he can to release the most dangerous people out there to try and attract six figure sponsorship deals.

Imagine Booster Gold without all the heart and nobility.

So basically, when The Joker inevitably gets thrown in jail, this guy will break him out because he thinks turning him back in again is good for business?

Boy will he be in for a shock...

[Jub]

And Gohan's case was psychological more than anything else. I don't think that description really holds.

Then you've never been in a fight. Just a test for you to see how the mental side changes the physical, go throw a punch at a pillow held against a wall then throw a punch at the bare wall. You'll see how much your mind holds your body back or how much mental effort it takes to hit something that you know is going to hurt.

That's what's holding Gohan back only in his case it's more that he doesn't want to hurt other people.

On the Pym example, nope. He can just do that. It strains to go to the "Realm of the Abstracts" both physically and mentally, but otherwise, nothing stops him from doing that again.

And the other examples? Yeah, they're also repeatable by and large.

That's fine by me then. I'd be up for allowing it even knowing that opens the debate about why he usually doesn't go that large or small even when it would likely help him to do so.

I'd do the same for the other outlier examples.

Then why did Vegeta need to power up to 36K+ to blow up the earth when it only has 81 times the mass? Running linearly, he'd only need a power level of 11K to do it. So why?

Either the scale is non-linear slowing down at higher PL's, which would fit what we see in the show, or he didn't know how much it would take and wanted to be sure he'd get the job done. Without calculating out a full graph of feats mapped to PL I'd guess it's more the latter than the former.

That last line is such total bullshit it's funny.

Again, Frieza made fun of him because of how weak that blast was!

The blast could have reasonably been from a weapon rated for a few thousand PL which would make it a moon killer scaling off of Roshi and Piccolo. Weak by Goku and Frieza's standards, especially seeing as Golden Frieza seems to take hits especially well.

Nice rebuttal to the actual meat of the argument though. I can't wait to see 'Not so hot' win the next major court case or sway a political debate.

You brought it up, and I'm telling you it's insufficient as evidence. You have to make a far better case for its veracity than you have so far, and I'm telling you now, you're better off with a different line of inquiry.

If your only claim for scaled back Goku not being a match for Superman is "durr-hurr lasor pistol killed teh Gokuz" you're not worth the effort.

Never assume everyone knows every bit of nerd ephemera.

Hence the second bit where we get an explanation about what said character or universe does... Do you even read my posts?

If I didn't qualify what counted as a Superhero, we'd be arguing the same thing regardless. The word has a very broad meaning.

You're probably right on that one.

I brought it up because it sounds like that's what you want and the idea of him punching an abstract concept stupid.

Nah, I'd be curious to see a lot of matchups.

Now, trying to outrun the Black Racer might work.

Can he instant transmission away, assuming he can lock onto a ki signature far enough away? Otherwise, DBZ Speed is one of those areas that can be, sketchy at best due to the use of unreal time in fights. We know their vastly supersonic, and based on some lines of dialogue and feats some try to calculate them at beyond light speed but again that debate gets messy.

And him interacting with Death would be interesting.

Goku would probably great death as a friend at this point but Death would be another story.

But it sounds like you want punching.

Like you want Goku to be Dah Best Evah.

Yeah, the guy who admitted there are stronger forces in comics and manga than Goku wants him to be the best ever.

Look, I know that I'm arguing hard for him but that's mostly because people always undersell how powerful Dragon Ball actually gets especially in the east vs. west type character debates that were common in the big anime and manga boom. It sucks when one of your favorite franchises gets shit on by people that last watched an episode in middle school.

So you want Goku to be Saitama.

I want Goku to have a story where even as strong as he is he fails or at least has to use a different approach. He's had a long career of punching and blasting things and I enjoy the hell out of it but I also find the idea of what he'd do when that fails interesting. Goku has a lot of charisma and even if he's more than a little slow he figures things out in his own way, paired next to some of the people he'd meet in this crossover, even ones he's stronger than he'd be forced to adapt.

Read back the bolded part again and think again about how getting the 'true-ist' version of the character was emphasized. Think real hard.

Oh no, I must be less myself now than I was in high school because I've changed!

More seriously, so what if his paradigm changes in this new world, that'll happen to a lot of people. Some of the weaker characters would probably end up retiring no longer able to keep up with the powerful characters streaming into this strange new world. Are they any less themselves because they're no longer special? Nah, so why should Saitama be any different?

To keep things consistent. As you say, they go up and down power wise with the needs of the story. To get a solid appraisal of what may happen, we can remove a random variable and make things easier.

Plus it allows for the mundane governments to pose more of a threat than they might be able to otherwise.

I think you should have just limited it to feats we've seen them do more than once and you'd cut a good 70% of the really silly stuff without putting a hard cap on things.

Even capped at mid-tier Supes level no military on Earth can touch a lot of these characters, so that's probably out the window unless a lot of heroes are loyal to modern Earth governments.

Besides, I know the answer to it "Superman One Million and a few other literal Overtier characters fix everything."

That's not even close to true. I think that even the best-intentioned people at that power scale would have different views on fixing things. That clash of power and egos would be dramatic even in a world where we just got a heap of very powerful beings dumped on us in less than 6 months.

Why the fuck do you think that me applying a limiter on every hero on the goddamn planet makes you think I'm picking on non-western properties specifically?!

When you specifically peg the power scale to a Western hero, use the term sidekicks, reference Western adaptations it comes off a certain way. Why not peg power levels to greater than planet busters less than galaxy busters definitely no universe busters and call it a day?

It's because I'm using western shows as an example primarily? Just ignore Pluto then, an adaptation and expansion of a classic Astro Boy story. Only way for that to fly, I suppose.

A whole one example.

Do you think that Japanese heroes are somehow on average stronger than western heroes?

I don't especially care. I'd be happy to have the Flash, Hank Pym, or Madoka at full power as well.

I didn't want a battle between reality warping uber-gods. I wanted Superheroes.

Tell that to the people writing Superhero fiction then. They're the ones who've written most of the stuff you want to exclude.

And note how we went through a whole thing on Madoka where power wasn't even an issue, but whether or not the Kyubey was as big a threat as claimed?

(Which I'm growing more and more convinced I underestimated the devious little shits).

Yeah, tricksters are always strong independently of their own power tricksters with actually power behind them are just... Oof.

So, have you got anyone who isn't a Z-Fighter that I'm "Holding Back"? Or are you just a pedantic DBZ fanatic without anything else to go on?

Most of the other really powerful stuff I've read/watched isn't a fit for this thread or is already of an appropriate power level even with the cap.

I could probably argue that Alucard from Hellsing counts as a hero by your criteria because he has powers, is in the correct time frame, doesn't go by his real name, and takes care to remain out of the public eye. I don't think he breaks the power cap though even if he is one nigh unkillable son-of-a-bitch.

Negi from Negima doesn't count because he doesn't use an alias to hide his powers and doesn't wear a costume.

The My Hero Academia crew are all well under the power limit though some of them could cause trouble for high powered characters regardless. With Ochako and Eraserhead come to mind as examples of such disruptors.

Ichigo probably counts. He transforms into a new outfit to fight Hollows, fits the time frame, and has powers. I stopped reading at the end of the Soul Society arc but I still followed along enough to know he gets pretty nuts power wise by the end of that series. He probably still stays well under the cap though.

Lina Inverse would be fun but doesn't count.

I wonder if Tanya von Degurechaff would count if the show wasn't alt-universe WWII?

I watch a lot of stuff that wouldn't care, nerfing Goku is just a sore spot because of how often people do it.

-----

The problem with analyzing Power Levels is that there are too many assumptions you have to make, and too little evidence within the show/manga to justify any of them. We don't know how a Scouter works, we don't know if it was analyzing the Power Level of the shotgun or merely the human weilding it (if Power Levels are purely a Ki phenomenon, it wouldn't make sense for the Scouter to pay any attention to the shotgun), and most critically we don't know how the shotgun was loaded. That is, we don't know the powder load, which significantly impacts the actual velocity and kinetic energy of the projectile or projectiles (it is equally likely to have been loaded with buckshot as a slug). Thus, we lack critical information to analyze. And this is consistently the case in Dragonball, because like Maijin Gojira pointed out, the franchise has never actually been consistent in how powerful the characters are, despite the unchanging nature of the numbers associated with Power Levels.

I guess NecronLord should never have put all that time into analyzing 40k then given that it suffers from these same issues only sometimes harder. Yet, he's still made a go of it and nobody here denied that it should or could even be attempted to useful degree of accuracy.

1) if you lift weights, you will quickly find out that you can't lift your maximum load every day, nor does anyone recommend it. You will get exhausted if you lift every day even if you change up the excercizes every day. Hence, every excercise routine includes rest days every week, and professionals even do whats known as "de-loading" wher they take an entire week off every month in order to let their body (including the nervous system) recover from the stresses. Point is, if real athletes cannot achieve peak performance every day its dubious to assume these characters can either.

I don't know if that holds for Saiyans given what we see of Vegeta and Goku, it would also help explain why Humans just couldn't keep up.

And yes, before you say any more I do understand what you're saying here.

2) as for Roshi and Piccolo blowing up the moon, this is treated in such a blatantly unrealistic way that the only way to reconcile it with real science is to assume that the "Earth" of Dragonball has a much smaller moon than Luna. Maybe something closer to Ceres, Charon, or maybe Saturn's moon Mimas, would make more sense given the lack of apparent tidal disruption or impacts from lunar fragments (like you see in Cowboy Beebop). Alternatively, the blasts merely disturbed the surface enough that it ceased to reflect the radiation necessary to sustain a Saiyan's Ozaru form. Either way, it can't be as impressive a feat as it first appears, because close inspection shows it doesn't have the consequences we expect from such a feat.

They literally never show the moon again until it's restored so it is actually destroyed. As for the bad effects, that is a tough one that isn't ever covered. I've always assumed that North Kai just took care of it quietly off screen but it's a bit of a sore spot in the power level debate to be sure.

I read the thread, I know what he said. He never argued the characters canonically can do those things. He said that, for the sake of a fun little thought experiment certain characters in the Superhero genre should either have limits placed on them or just be excluded outright because they would actually ruin the fun of considering the consequences of the scenario. Seriously, do I have to explain why its stupid that Superman Prime once punched reality because he hated how things had gotten after Crisis on Infinite Earths? Because if anything, Maijin Gojira is being harshest on western superheroes. They actually get away with some of the most heinous bullshit in fiction by a mile.

Yeah, Superman Prime is all kinds of OP. Punching and tearing holes in reality, coming back to life because he was sick of being dead, it was a wild ride. I wouldn't mind seeing him interact with the rest of the Superhero universe though.

Because arguing about Goku's power level is soooooooooo interesting and vital to establishing the impact of superheroes appearing all over the world.

If Majin Gojira hadn't tried to cap Goku at Wonder Woman power next to Superman I was ready to shrug my shoulders and move on. As it is I'm still about there because the debate is proving pretty pointless.

There are actually a ton of conversation hooks in this thread despite why you say. In fact, there wasn't any really major disagreement about who is and isn't a superhero until page 3. Back on page 1 we were talking about the potential environmental impacts of Stark Industries having fusion power and other technologies. There is the question of how everyone (both heroes and governments) will react exactly to those few villains who slipped through the cracks via the origin story clause. There is the question of how the Earth will react to the knowledge of Alien life existing. And of course there is the question of what happens when governments and private entities inevitably try to replicate superpowers via the half dozen methods already identified (magic, super science, radiation, super tech...). Maybe you could talk about those things instead. I would absolutely be game for it.

I wonder what Stark would think of Capsule Corp tech, gravity manipulation, and ass-pulled time machines?

[Majin Gojira]

Technically, that's the plot of Hero, not Mystery Men. Mystery Men will add 'dubious' heroes like Captain Amazing, who will release criminals because a lull in crime means no publicity, which means no sponsorship deals. So he'll do what he can to release the most dangerous people out there to try and attract six figure sponsorship deals.

Imagine Booster Gold without all the heart and nobility.

Can you give me more info on "Hero" then? It's a rather generic title, so I would like to narrow it down. I want to look into it.

On Mystery Men/Captain Amazing, I can see Booster clashing with Captain Amazing ... Over said Sponsorship deals. Won't that be a wrinkle!

[Majin Gojira]

Then you've never been in a fight. Just a test for you to see how the mental side changes the physical, go throw a punch at a pillow held against a wall then throw a punch at the bare wall. You'll see how much your mind holds your body back or how much mental effort it takes to hit something that you know is going to hurt.

That's what's holding Gohan back only in his case it's more that he doesn't want to hurt other people.

Fair, I forgot the exact reasons for him holding back in the first place.

But I still hold that raising and lowering is basically like morning your arm left or right. Or, using posture to disguise your identity,

That's fine by me then. I'd be up for allowing it even knowing that opens the debate about why he usually doesn't go that large or small even when it would likely help him to do so.

I'd do the same for the other outlier examples.

Again, sounds like you want your own thread and are annoyed I didn't do things exactly as you would.

Either the scale is non-linear slowing down at higher PL's, which would fit what we see in the show, or he didn't know how much it would take and wanted to be sure he'd get the job done. Without calculating out a full graph of feats mapped to PL I'd guess it's more the latter than the former.

Sounds more like we shouldn't even consider it in the first place.

Look, work out that chart and meaning of the Power Level numbers before you even try to use it to justify anything. Without a frame of reference, it's useless.

Otherwise, you're talking out of your ass.

Hell, figuring out what they mean in a practical sense on top of that. How does it relate Speed vs. Strength vs Durability vs energy output? Can they vary within the individual for calculation, or are they uniform?

More seriously, so what if his paradigm changes in this new world, that'll happen to a lot of people. Some of the weaker characters would probably end up retiring no longer able to keep up with the powerful characters streaming into this strange new world. Are they any less themselves because they're no longer special? Nah, so why should Saitama be any different?

Two things:
1) You're probably right in the broad aspects, but the specifics have it that he's so high up the 'ranking' that it's effectively the same.
2) You have to remember something about Saitama: we never see him at his peak, so we don't know how he actually operates. We can determine what he can do when he's not even trying, but we don't know how deep the rabbit hole goes. Or even an effective lower limit.

It's like trying to quantify Bugs Bunny.

I think you should have just limited it to feats we've seen them do more than once and you'd cut a good 70% of the really silly stuff without putting a hard cap on things.

Even capped at mid-tier Supes level no military on Earth can touch a lot of these characters, so that's probably out the window unless a lot of heroes are loyal to modern Earth governments.

You've obviously never read Kingdom Come.

That's not even close to true.

You're right.

I should have said: "Superman uses the Miracle Machine by singing Your Favorite Song to give everyone a happy ending."

There's also: "Superman uses the Sword of Superman to become The Presence and makes everything better," "Scarlet Witch uses reality warping Lifeforce power to rewrite reality as she sees fit on a multiversal scale," "God Emperor Doom gets to God Emperor-ing," "Franklin Richards Heroes Reborns Reality again," and "Spawn destroys the world and remakes it a new to be better."

This is just off the top of my head. If I dug deeper, I'm sure I could find more.

When you specifically peg the power scale to a Western hero, use the term sidekicks, reference Western adaptations it comes off a certain way. Why not peg power levels to greater than planet busters less than galaxy busters definitely no universe busters and call it a day?

Gee, it's almost like Superheroes originated and developed primarily in western media or something!

I pegged it below planet busting, down to "Continent lifting" and/or "KT Boundary Blast" because it prevents the utter blowing up the planet and ending the scenario early. Bit of a problem for later characters who port into an empty void where the earth once was if that happens.

It was an effort to maximize the potential of events. Because, again, stupidly OP beings waving their hands to fix everything is a distinct possibility if we do not.

A whole one example.

Mazinger Z Manga vs Mazinger Z Anime vs Mazinkaiser Anime vs Shin Mazinger Anime vs Shin Mazinger Manga vs Innumerable Super Robot Wars entries.

Getter Robo Anime vs Getter Robo Manga vs Getter Robo Go vs Getter Robo Hein ... etc.

Fullmetal Alchemist manga vs Fullmetal Alchemist Anime vs Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.

Guyver manga vs Guyver OVA vs Guyver Anime vs Guyver movies

Devilman anime vs Devilman manga vs Devilman Crybaby vs Shin Devilman vs etc.

And this is off the top of my head.

I could probably argue that Alucard from Hellsing counts as a hero by your criteria because he has powers, is in the correct time frame, doesn't go by his real name, and takes care to remain out of the public eye. I don't think he breaks the power cap though even if he is one nigh unkillable son-of-a-bitch.

Oh, he's kosher, and there's a neat trick to him that doesn't make him as powerful as you might think. It's why Schrodinger was used against him.

Ichigo probably counts. He transforms into a new outfit to fight Hollows, fits the time frame, and has powers. I stopped reading at the end of the Soul Society arc but I still followed along enough to know he gets pretty nuts power wise by the end of that series. He probably still stays well under the cap though.

Just trying to integrate the Soul Society into the afterlife cycles of other series would be funny all by itself without getting into how strong things are.

"Soul Society member tries to get Deadman to move on, Rama Kushna blocks hard. The Norse Gods who run Valhallah get pissed at them for stealing their Einherjahren and several other pantheons get involved on top of that with their realms of the dead.

A mystical 5 car pileup!

I wonder if Tanya von Degurechaff would count if the show wasn't alt-universe WWII?

I heard that series was veiled Nazi propaganda.

Sort of like what happened to Attack on Titan.

I watch a lot of stuff that wouldn't care, nerfing Goku is just a sore spot because of how often people do it.

That, at least, I can understand. But do you understand that he's not being targeted, but just hitting the same road block as many, many others?

[Majin Gojira]

If Majin Gojira hadn't tried to cap Goku at Wonder Woman power next to Superman I was ready to shrug my shoulders and move on. As it is I'm still about there because the debate is proving pretty pointless.

I'm not one to reply in regards to other posts, so I skipped this one in my reply, but I really need to clarify something.

Wonder Woman is one of my favorite characters. She also gets that treatment, when the truth is -- she could take Superman in a fight if she had to. And she has. Several times.

She is physically weaker than Superman, and has less overall durability, but can keep pace with Kryptonians, can match muscles with ones of similar mass to her own, and has vastly more skill than Clark has ever accumulated.

Or Bruce for that matter.

That's why I made the comparison. Basically, Goku weighs 62 kg. Clark weighs 102kg. The only real difference in their power is their difference in weight when it comes to a straight fight.

And Goku has far more training in the Martial Arts than Clark.

Comparing Goku to Wonder Woman isn't an insult.

It's praise.

[FaxModem1]

Technically, that's the plot of Hero, not Mystery Men. Mystery Men will add 'dubious' heroes like Captain Amazing, who will release criminals because a lull in crime means no publicity, which means no sponsorship deals. So he'll do what he can to release the most dangerous people out there to try and attract six figure sponsorship deals.

Imagine Booster Gold without all the heart and nobility.

Can you give me more info on "Hero" then? It's a rather generic title, so I would like to narrow it down. I want to look into it.

It's a coming of age LGBT novel written back in 2007 by Perry Moore. I linked to it in my initial post. Essentially, Thom Creed is a teenage boy living in a city full of superheroes. His father is a retired superhero, who is rather bitter about the fact that he was kicked out of the League, and has contempt for those with superpowers. His father is also rather contemptuous of those who are gay as well. Guess what two boxes we can check about Thom?

Thom can heal things with touch, though this gives him seizures. The novel is him going through League training with a bunch of other trainees who are all considered below par power wise, while some of the League members are ending up getting murdered. One of the Superman expies(there are two), Justice, is secretly killing off those who wouldn't be turned by the League ring when he activates the switch to make them his own personal army. Thom gets implicated in the whole mess due to him being with one of the villains who is being framed at the time of the murder.

A lot of stuff happens, and eventually it leads to an epic battle at the top of the city with Thom mastering his powers. It's not a bad read.

On Mystery Men/Captain Amazing, I can see Booster clashing with Captain Amazing ... Over said Sponsorship deals. Won't that be a wrinkle!

The big companies won't sponsor him if he's not getting into big fights with supervillains:

[Majin Gojira]

Technically, that's the plot of Hero, not Mystery Men. Mystery Men will add 'dubious' heroes like Captain Amazing, who will release criminals because a lull in crime means no publicity, which means no sponsorship deals. So he'll do what he can to release the most dangerous people out there to try and attract six figure sponsorship deals.

Imagine Booster Gold without all the heart and nobility.

Can you give me more info on "Hero" then? It's a rather generic title, so I would like to narrow it down. I want to look into it.

It's a coming of age LGBT novel written back in 2007 by Perry Moore. I linked to it in my initial post. Essentially, Thom Creed is a teenage boy living in a city full of superheroes. His father is a retired superhero, who is rather bitter about the fact that he was kicked out of the League, and has contempt for those with superpowers. His father is also rather contemptuous of those who are gay as well. Guess what two boxes we can check about Thom?

Thom can heal things with touch, though this gives him seizures. The novel is him going through League training with a bunch of other trainees who are all considered below par power wise, while some of the League members are ending up getting murdered. One of the Superman expies(there are two), Justice, is secretly killing off those who wouldn't be turned by the League ring when he activates the switch to make them his own personal army. Thom gets implicated in the whole mess due to him being with one of the villains who is being framed at the time of the murder.

A lot of stuff happens, and eventually it leads to an epic battle at the top of the city with Thom mastering his powers. It's not a bad read.

Gonna add it to my Audible wish list, thanks!

The big companies won't sponsor him if he's not getting into big fights with supervillains:

He's going to be even worse off with even fewer villains, and a lot of reformed ones running around too.

And now I'm picturing him going after the Punisher and I'm grinning ear to ear!

And him trying to get some ex-villains "Off the Wagon" intentionally. Which is just sad to think of.

[Jub]

Given that the Mask is in this universe, which character would be the most dangerous if they got a hold of it? The other question is who could resist its allure and actually do some good with it?

[Formless]

Just trying to integrate the Soul Society into the afterlife cycles of other series would be funny all by itself without getting into how strong things are.

"Soul Society member tries to get Deadman to move on, Rama Kushna blocks hard. The Norse Gods who run Valhallah get pissed at them for stealing their Einherjahren and several other pantheons get involved on top of that with their realms of the dead.

A mystical 5 car pileup!

This is where it becomes a good thing, then, that the Endless are around, because in the DC comics universe there are also multiple afterlives. However, fortunately there is only one Death, and she has plenty of experience negotiating with various gods over who belongs where based on their religion in life, and she even takes care of atheists and agnostics by simply appearing to them as herself (as she once did with Lex Luthor). And, even is she could be killed, her function would just be passed on to a new incarnation of Death who would be equally powerful and authoritative, but possibly a different personality and way of handling things. After all, the previous incarnation of Despair had a much more talkative personality and grander machinations: while the current Despair is a very personal force, the original incarnation is ultimately responsible for the destruction of Krypton and the birth of Superman. Seriously.

Death of the Endless might also be the same Death that exists in the Marvel comics universe, because not only is that Death also female, one story had her appear at the wedding of one of the superheroes after they had a near death experience, complete with an outfit that payed clear homage to The Sandman, and gave the guy a humorous gift of a hairbrush (GET IT?). In fact, the one difference is that that Death has a much colder personality, BUT at the same time, in the earlier era when Delirium was still known as Delight, Death of the Endless also had a really cold and humorless personality then too. This isn't a case of her being killed and replaced, though, this seems to be a development of her character into a warmer, more personable being after many millions of years.

Thom can heal things with touch, though this gives him seizures. The novel is him going through League training with a bunch of other trainees who are all considered below par power wise, while some of the League members are ending up getting murdered. One of the Superman expies(there are two), Justice, is secretly killing off those who wouldn't be turned by the League ring when he activates the switch to make them his own personal army. Thom gets implicated in the whole mess due to him being with one of the villains who is being framed at the time of the murder.

Fun fact I found out: TVTropes has an entire page devoted to Superman expies, in case anyone wanted a list. Plus another page for characters who fit the "flying brick" archetype, which seems to be about the same damn thing except that they don't have to qualify as an homage/parody/plagiarism of the old Man of Steel.

He's going to be even worse off with even fewer villains, and a lot of reformed ones running around too.

And now I'm picturing him going after the Punisher and I'm grinning ear to ear!

And him trying to get some ex-villains "Off the Wagon" intentionally. Which is just sad to think of.

Right, until Batman kicks his ass over his handling of The Joker.

World's Greatest Detective, after all. Except how he has to compete with Sherlock Holmes, so I don't know who really holds that title here...

I wonder what Stark would think of Capsule Corp tech, gravity manipulation, and ass-pulled time machines?

Well, in comics he's upgraded the suit with Asgardian technology, and apparently pulling a time machine out of their ass is the premise of Avengers: Endgame. Seems to me more like a matter of time before someone is going to figure out how to do it, given that again, the Flash can time travel and Hiro Nakamura's entire super power is time travel. The real question is whether Capsule Corp can protect its trade secrets from him by legal means, or whether Tony and Vegeta will have to have a "talk" about his wife's IP rights.

Yeah, Superman Prime is all kinds of OP. Punching and tearing holes in reality, coming back to life because he was sick of being dead, it was a wild ride. I wouldn't mind seeing him interact with the rest of the Superhero universe though.

...wait, did I say Superman Prime? *rereads* Yeah, I meant to say Superboy Prime did that. Infinite Crisis. Really stupid climax to a really stupid story. And, I disagree. Stupidly powerful entities like that just lead to stupid interactions with the rest of the superhero universe, and are what drag down the reputation of the genre. Watchman is the only exception on account that Dr. Manhattan is specifically a deconstruction of that kind of nonsense.

Given that the Mask is in this universe, which character would be the most dangerous if they got a hold of it? The other question is who could resist its allure and actually do some good with it?

Most dangerous might just be The Joker. I say that because the answer to the second question is also probably The Joker (well, save for the part about using it for heroic purposes). The reason is that The Joker is already insane and obsessed enough to use the powers of The Mask as merely an extension of his usual antics, but now with magic. In fact, Wikipedia says there was a crossover comic in which this exact thing happened.

I don't know if anyone in the Superhero world would risk using The Mask as it is. Some might want to collect it as a dangerous item to be locked away, such as John Constantine. But its most likely to end up in the hands of someone from our world, and there is no telling how that person will use it. Or, maybe Loki will just drop by and either take it back with him as its his to begin with (technically), or engineer for someone to obtain it who will cause Loki the most amusement.

[Jub]

<snip paragraphs about Death and thge afterlife>

I just realized that we get Piers Anthony's entire Incarnations of Immortality crew in here. Each of the aspects was once a mortal chosen for the office, they have special powers, special outfits, and go by the name of their office when on duty and exist in a modern-ish Earth where magic happened to come back as an equal to technology at some point in the setting's past.

That means we get the aspects of Death, Time, Fate, War, Nature, Good (debatably unless we take these characters from the end of the series), and Evil as literally personified forces of the universe. They have weaknesses, but they worked together to literally vote in a replacement for God because the current God was so up his own ass he stopped interacting with anybody and just bathed in his own perfection.

I wonder how other versions of these characters would react to them as well as the reverse?

Well, in comics he's upgraded the suit with Asgardian technology, and apparently pulling a time machine out of their ass is the premise of Avengers: Endgame. Seems to me more like a matter of time before someone is going to figure out how to do it, given that again, the Flash can time travel and Hiro Nakamura's entire super power is time travel. The real question is whether Capsule Corp can protect its trade secrets from him by legal means, or whether Tony and Vegeta will have to have a "talk" about his wife's IP rights.

Bulma is pretty stingy with giving away her secrets but would probably be willing to set up a mutually beneficial agreement with Tony for both the good of the world and her own profits. She suddently has a lot of tech wizards as competition and everybody is probably down a good deal of their manufacturing facilities unless we want all of Stark Industries, Capsule Corp, Wayne Enterprises, etc. to be brought over in which case we get one hell of a buyers market.

...wait, did I say Superman Prime? *rereads* Yeah, I meant to say Superboy Prime did that. Infinite Crisis. Really stupid climax to a really stupid story. And, I disagree. Stupidly powerful entities like that just lead to stupid interactions with the rest of the superhero universe, and are what drag down the reputation of the genre. Watchman is the only exception on account that Dr. Manhattan is specifically a deconstruction of that kind of nonsense.

I feel like a good writer could make those concepts work even if they probably wouldn't have written them in the first place. That's more why I want to see them than for the sheer lulz of it all.

Most dangerous might just be The Joker. I say that because the answer to the second question is also probably The Joker (well, save for the part about using it for heroic purposes). The reason is that The Joker is already insane and obsessed enough to use the powers of The Mask as merely an extension of his usual antics, but now with magic. In fact, Wikipedia says there was a crossover comic in which this exact thing happened.

I don't know if anyone in the Superhero world would risk using The Mask as it is. Some might want to collect it as a dangerous item to be locked away, such as John Constantine. But its most likely to end up in the hands of someone from our world, and there is no telling how that person will use it. Or, maybe Loki will just drop by and either take it back with him as its his to begin with (technically), or engineer for someone to obtain it who will cause Loki the most amusement.

The Joker would certainly be somebody who fits will with the Mask in terms of goals and general theme, but he could also give it away or put it on somebody else in a pique of interest at the results. In such a case what happens if the Mask ends up on a Hulked out Bruce Banner because the Joker thinks it would be a riot?

[Formless]

<snip paragraphs about Death and thge afterlife>

I just realized that we get Piers Anthony's entire Incarnations of Immortality crew in here. Each of the aspects was once a mortal chosen for the office, they have special powers, special outfits, and go by the name of their office when on duty and exist in a modern-ish Earth where magic happened to come back as an equal to technology at some point in the setting's past.

That means we get the aspects of Death, Time, Fate, War, Nature, Good (debatably unless we take these characters from the end of the series), and Evil as literally personified forces of the universe. They have weaknesses, but they worked together to literally vote in a replacement for God because the current God was so up his own ass he stopped interacting with anybody and just bathed in his own perfection.

I wonder how other versions of these characters would react to them as well as the reverse?

Oh, that's an easy one. Its easy, because DC comics already had to answer that question. See, they had this problem that too many writers introduced too many versions of Death, most of which served as psychopomps to particular comics. You had the guy who takes speedsters, the guy who represented death to the New Gods, the Black Lantern entity as well as that entire part of the Lantern emotional Spectrum, the classical Grim Reaper, etc. In the end, they decided to go with Niel Gaiman's very smart take that Death of the Endless isn't some death god (just as many gods serve Dream, Death Gods specifically serve her), nor a mere conceptualization of Death, and certainly not a mere representation of death. She is, literally, death. Her true form is none of those things, nor is it really the goth chick she prefers to show herself as when walking the Earth. She is the thing that happens when you draw your final breath. Her true form is corpses and graves. Also, life and birth, because the Endless paradoxically represent their opposites and, with effort, can even embody them. For instance, Delirium once forced herself to embody Order to make a point to the usually passive Destiny; she told Morpheus it physically pains her to do so, but she can, something Morpheus had never considered trying.

So when Lex Luthor expressed his skepticism that Death could be a goth chick she made a joke along the lines of "what were you expecting, skis? The Black Flash? No, its just Me." During her conversation with him she also referred to the events of Blackest Night from the perspective of the Black Lantern entity, indicating that's another aspect of Her. Overly Sarcastic Productions has a video about how Aphrodite could have three radically different personas in Greek myth, and its kinda like that. Basically, people see the Endless in whatever form they expect to see them based on their culture, unless the Endless wish to walk the Earth incognito (in which case they appear as they do in The Sandman comic). In fact, whenever Delirium talks to the mentally ill, they talk to her as if they were perfectly sane, because she isn't the physical embodiment of mental illness. She is mental illness, and every crazy person on Earth is a physical embodiment of her.

So in a similar vein, the Immortality crew relate to them in the same way. Their offices exist to manage that aspect of the cosmos, but the Endless are that aspect of the Cosmos. Or at least, some of them are. Its the difference between being a representation of a thing and being that thing. The Endless aren't concepts but facts given form and mind. So for example, the one who holds the office of Fate would have to work out a relationship with Destiny (luckily Destiny doesn't do anything because he knows everything that will happen, and that's good enough for him). The one who represents War would come under the domain of Destruction (although Destruction represents more than just that, of course), but fortunately or unfortunately Destruction abandoned his post because he was tired of being responsible for nuclear war specifically. Time is an interesting one, because apparently Time is the father of the Endless. Its... not fully explained. The rest don't actually correspond to an Endless. The only one we haven't talked about is Desire, but the opposite of Desire is aversion or disgust, not exactly good or evil. In fact, none of the Endless are good or evil, they merely are. Even Despair often does things that leads to there being more hope in the world, as the Superman example demonstrates. She engineered his planet to be destroyed, he became one of the greatest symbols of hope in the DC universe. It wasn't her intention, but it appears that it never is. That actually makes me wonder how exactly she will interact with Kyube, actually, given how he exploits her domain...

The Joker would certainly be somebody who fits will with the Mask in terms of goals and general theme, but he could also give it away or put it on somebody else in a pique of interest at the results. In such a case what happens if the Mask ends up on a Hulked out Bruce Banner because the Joker thinks it would be a riot?

Hmmm... well The Hulk is powered by sheer rage, so I doubt something as zany as The Mask would actually effect him. Unless he manages to become Professor Hulk (which sort of has precedent in the comics), he usually has such a singular focus on whatever made him mad that "HULK SMASH" will override the utility of the Mask. Plus, the Mask can be pulled off if you are strong enough, and Hulk is definitely strong enough.

Now, Bruce Banner on the other hand... would probably avoid it like the plague precisely because dealing with one superpowered alter ego is too much for him as it is, he isn't adding a second one if he doesn't have to. And if Joker wants to place it on him by force, he has to watch that he doesn't trigger Hulk to come out, as that would be baaaaaaaaaad news for the Joker. He's crazy, but smart enough I think he would keep a wide berth between him and the notorious city smasher. In fact, I think if Joker didn't just use the mask's power himself, he would most likely use it to turn an existing hero bad instead, as tragic irony is the kind of thing that makes him laugh the hardest. After all, his (successful) plot to corrupt Robin was what lead to his death in the DCAU, and likewise there is the shit he did to Superman in the Injustice universe leading to Superman to go full tyrant. Again, at the cost of his own life, but Joker effectively got the last laugh. There is also the fact that Joker has a specific obsession with Batman. So his most likely target would be a member of the Bat Family. Any member. Batman himself, if he thought he could get away with it, and knew the potential of the Mask. Corrupting Batman would be his finest victory, especially if we draw any inspiration from The Dark Knight.

[Jub]

<snipped for space>

That sounds all well and good, but when the Zane the current incarnation of Peirs Anthony's Death can literally stop all death on Earth I'm not sure how well that will work in practice. Chronos can literally stop time. Fate arranged for the previous incarnation of Death to falter and die thus passing on his mantle. The person voted to take up the mantle of Good literally became the biblical Christian God.

To clarify things, in the book dealing with Death specifically, we do find out that most souls reach their final destination without his direct intervention. He's only personally called upon to bring those whose's souls require closer judgment to their correct afterlife. However, just because death is normally automated doesn't mean that it can happen without his consent. He effectively goes on strike after the Devil takes his lover prisoner, he can't just choose to spare her because the Devil has contrived to make sure her soul is in perfect balance and thus Death wouldn't be able to intervene directly. in response, he suspends all death in a non-partisan fashion in spite of the suffering that this causes.

Hmmm... well The Hulk is powered by sheer rage, so I doubt something as zany as The Mask would actually effect him. Unless he manages to become Professor Hulk (which sort of has precedent in the comics), he usually has such a singular focus on whatever made him mad that "HULK SMASH" will override the utility of the Mask. Plus, the Mask can be pulled off if you are strong enough, and Hulk is definitely strong enough.

Wouldn't the Hulks desire be the destruction of the target of his ire? I'd think the Mask could help with that the same way it helped Stanley get revenge on those that bullied him.

<snipped for space>

Those would make for some very interesting stories.

[Formless]

That sounds all well and good, but when the Zane the current incarnation of Peirs Anthony's Death can literally stop all death on Earth I'm not sure how well that will work in practice. Chronos can literally stop time. Fate arranged for the previous incarnation of Death to falter and die thus passing on his mantle. The person voted to take up the mantle of Good literally became the biblical Christian God.

Again, that's no problem. The storyline where Death visited Lex Luthor culminated in Lex obtaining the power to prevent everyone in the universe from dying, as stated in a prophecy, and yet Death didn't cease to exist. In fact, she played her part in the prophecy specifically because it was the first time... well, ever that she got a 15 minute break from her job as a psychopomp. Of course, Lex being Lex he soon lost that power due to his own hubris and obsession with killing Superman, making Death go right back to work. The point is, the Endless exist by necessity. The define aspects of existence, even in universes with rules constructed very different from our own. Even in a universe where things cannot die, Death exists to define the difference between the living and the non-living, like rocks and other inanimate objects. That's why she was able to intrude upon the universe Lucifer was given by the Presence, even though Lucifer had not created life there yet. The universe was Dead, therefore she existed in it. This is also why its important that she defines Life as well by her existence. In fact, one of her customs (that one graphic novel used as its premise) is to visit Earth once a century as a mortal to live one day and then die, thus reminding her of what she takes away. Its implied that this practice is what caused her personality to soften.

When an Endless dies its not so much their function that goes away, because it literally can't. Even their memories are transferred to their successor. In one of his non-Sandman appearances, Daniel Hall, the second Dream, even returns a favor the JLU did for Morpheus, the original Dream. What dies is their "perspective", as the other Endless put it. Also, the one time Father Time appeared, it was revealed that his perspective is non-linear, so stopping time wouldn't actually have any effect on him. And lastly, The Presence has a deliberately Christian flavor to him in The Sandman, and Dream shows him greater deference than most other gods. Of course, most other gods would have trouble killing Dream if they could do it at all, and The Presence has archangels that can do it. The only other entities that are confirmed to be able to kill an Endless are the Furies (who can't do it when an Endless has holed up in their own domain), and Death (the only one who can do it anywhere, and is the only one the Furies fear).

To clarify things, in the book dealing with Death specifically, we do find out that most souls reach their final destination without his direct intervention. He's only personally called upon to bring those whose's souls require closer judgment to their correct afterlife. However, just because death is normally automated doesn't mean that it can happen without his consent. He effectively goes on strike after the Devil takes his lover prisoner, he can't just choose to spare her because the Devil has contrived to make sure her soul is in perfect balance and thus Death wouldn't be able to intervene directly. in response, he suspends all death in a non-partisan fashion in spite of the suffering that this causes.

Well, Death of the Endless can make people immortal on a whim, but if he tried to do that on his own authority then its possible she could intervene. Not necessarily by forcing the issue, as it appears there are cases where she can't: one rather obscure DC superhero once asked Death to kill her because she got tired of her immortality, and Death told her that because of her connection to the Sun God it was a request she had to take up with him. It didn't sound like she could bypass the authority of that god, even if she wanted to. But, if her function is being disrupted, and if she felt like it was becoming a problem rather than an excuse to loaf off, she has a lot of sway with other gods and cosmic entities, especially her own family. The other Endless (particularly Dream, who once told an occultist who trapped him that it was a very good thing he failed to trap Death like he intended) would respond to her request if they thought this situation was getting out of hand. Desire, for instance, is very dangerous when it * wants to be, even though Desire tends to pursue flings of fancy. Basically, Desire can instill almost any motivation into a person that seems appropriate, or grant people insight into how to manipulate other people's desires. And Delirium is known to drive people insane over minor annoyances, let alone attacks against her older siblings.

* BTW, if it sounds weird that I refer to Desire alone as "it", that's because Desire is by nature both all genders at once, and genderless all depending on what a given individual actually wants. So the comic settled on using the pronoun "it". In fact, in reference to its addicting properties, Desire is often shown smoking cigarettes, and doesn't just use sexuality when seducing people, but makes use of anything that they want, no matter how strange or mundane. So unlike the other Endless who seem to have their pick over male and female, Desire doesn't have that option.

Wouldn't the Hulks desire be the destruction of the target of his ire? I'd think the Mask could help with that the same way it helped Stanley get revenge on those that bullied him.

I guess what I mean is that the Hulk's mental capacity is so greatly effected by his rage that he wouldn't know how to utilize the Mask's power even if he wanted to. Hulk has Bruce Banner's intelligence, but none of the calm needed to use it normally.

[FaxModem1]

Gonna add it to my Audible wish list, thanks!

It's a fun read.

The big companies won't sponsor him if he's not getting into big fights with supervillains:

He's going to be even worse off with even fewer villains, and a lot of reformed ones running around too.

And now I'm picturing him going after the Punisher and I'm grinning ear to ear!

And him trying to get some ex-villains "Off the Wagon" intentionally. Which is just sad to think of.

Yes, he's the type of guy who sees someone like Dr. Kirk Langstrom, who's been fighting off becoming Man-bat as an addiction for years,has been rebuilding his life, working towards helping society, and intentionally starts interfering to try and get a good superhero fight out of it. Batman is going to long for the days he had a gloryhound like Booster Gold running around trying to join the Justice League while still being a responsible hero.


Also, how crowded does Tibet get and the Himalayas get? Because half the DC and Marvel roster have traveled to some hidden monastery there to learn some martial arts or magic. I foresee problems when people like the League of Assassins are nextdoor neighbors to Kamar Taj, who are now nextdoor neighbors to Lamont Cranston(The Shadow)'s teacher, the Tulku. And occasionally K'un-L'un will happen by and visit this area with their martial arts. We're talking psychic powers, martial arts, magic, and who knows what else is going on. And they all have different agendas and hidden enemies to fight.

[Majin Gojira]

Just bringing this back because I remembered something in the top tier of destabilizing events. Warren Ellis' Black Summer, where a Superhero assassinates the US President, a Bush analogue, for war crimes.

Trump is so dead.

[Formless]

Eh, I wouldn't bet on it. First, this event takes place in 2017, what did he do that year that would provoke such a reaction? Second, that's not the only time the President has been assassinated in a superhero story-- remember the JLU story where Superman did it? With knowledge of the danger and the controversy surrounding Trump, there are several supers who would likely protect him on principle, even if they disagree with his opinions, politics, and actions. Superman, ironically, fits the bill to a T, but there are others.

[Batman]

There's no fucking way Clark would stand by President Trump. We went after Luthor who unlike Trump was legally elected and hopelessly more competent AND beneficial to the country

[Formless]

The point sailed over your head, bat-brains. Superman wouldn't defend Trumps policies, actions, or anything else about the man. Of course, I can not only see Captain Atom being ordered to aid the Secret Service, but doing so with a smile on his face; but that comes with the territory of being a Steve Ditko character. The one thing Superman would absolutely prevent if he had knowledge of it happening in advance is any attempt to assassinate Trump. If Clark Kent or Superman were to attack Trump, it would only be through means he sees as legitimate, such as in Clark's role as a journalist, or in Superman's role as a public speaker and activist. Assassination runs counter to the means that Kal-El usually uses to discredit politicians, businessmen, and other public figures he sees as corrupt, not to mention running counter to the values he espouses. In other words, Superman would be all for the man's impeachment, but not murder. If he wasn't going to kill The Elite when they directly challenged Superman's "no killing" rule, he sure isn't going to allow Trump to be killed if he has his say in the matter. Its just not his way.

[FaxModem1]

On the plus side, Captain Amazing will have his villain for all the sponsorship fights.

[Majin Gojira]

Thinking on that a bit more, Black Summer isn't the only thing political to worry about. A bigger worry on the national stage is ... The Authority.

While Black Summer's John Horus justifies the assassination of 'Not-Bush' for various criminal acts (name, a Not-Iraq situation). If Trump enacts his Internment camp policy (maybe even using superhumans as an excuse this time), John Horus might go for it. But the Authority might beat him to it.

Since there was a whole arc of them taking over America, again, though the infraction that sparked it there was a bit more immediately destructive. There are other characters the limits would bring in that may also have greater political aspirations: Black Adam and Doctor Doom come immediately to mind, but I'm sure there are others.

The political ramifications of this are pretty fascinating to me, though the existence of functional magic largely available to anyone who can do the homework may act as a counterbalance, or make things evne more off balanced.

[K. A. Pital]

Many will get drunk and die from drugs horribly due to being ripped out of their worlds.

Daily Planet staff has no career experience that could be acceptable by modern HR, become barely paid freelancers.

Wayne Enterprises is bankrupted, because moving the people here is not equivalent to moving all of Batman’s fictional assets from a fictional world. Batman’s social status plummets and he’s Poor Bat Man now. “Resources” is an intricate thing, just moving his and a bunch of other oligarch “hero” accounts would constitute problems for the financial system.

Aquaman dies from plastic poisoning or kills himself because his friends who’re from Atlantis die of it.

Hank Pym and Scott are hunted down by the military and various mercs and criminals. They’re outlaws, but this I guess is pretty close to their original story, so... heh.

The surviving heroes who can make a buck convincing people they are the real deal and not just cosplayers might be scooped up by something like Vought International.

Heroes have no regard for judicial procedures and many are worse than Judge Dredd, killing supposed villains and wrecking entire cities in the process.

Pretty awful, overall. We’ll need The Boys to handle many of them.