Slade Wilson AKA Deathstroke The Terminator, is one of the most dangerous men on the planet. He is genetically enhanced to possess superhuman physical attributes, and is a master combat tactician who uses a wide arsenal of deadly weapons.
Represented by yours truly...
X-23 (standard 616):
Laura Kinney AKA X-23, a female clone of the infamous Wolverine, was created to be the perfect killing machine. Her amazing combat skills and physical attributes, uncanny healing factor and deadly adamantium claws make her literally a living weapon.
Rules:
In character.
Deathstroke is Pre-52. X-23 is standard 616.
Standard gear (no Nth metal).
Both have basic knowledge on each other.
Start in an empty street, visible, 20 feet apart.
@eisenfauste anything you'd like to add/change?
Voting rules:Please don't comment on the fight until we're done debating.
If you want to be called on to vote just tell us and we'll tag you when this is over and voting is open.
Please don't just vote "X-23" or "Deathstroke". Explain your choice. Otherwise your vote won't be counted. Besides, it'll just help us debaters improve.
Please base your vote on how me and Eisenfauste debated, presented our cases, countered each other, etc. Don't just vote according to what character you like better or who you think would win in a fight regardless of the debate.
@the_red_viper: His sword, two pistols with several clips each, Bo-staff should be all that I require. That being said I don't know much about X-23, would you mind opening?
@the_red_viper: His sword, two pistols with several clips each, Bo-staff should be all that I require. That being said I don't know much about X-23, would you mind opening?
Sure.
Introducing X-23!!!
Bio:
X-23 is a female clone of Wolverine. Like Wolverine, X-23 has a regenerative healing factor, superhuman strength, senses, speed, agility, and reflexes. She also has retractable adamantium-coated bone claws in her hands and feet.
Cloned from a damaged copy of Wolverine's genome, X-23 was created to be the perfect killing machine. For years, she proved herself a notable assassin working for the Facility. A series of tragedies eventually lead her to Wolverine and the X-Men. She attends the X-Mansion before serving a stint as part of the X-Force.
Source: Wikipedia
Gear (not really gear since it's part of her body):
Adamantium claws in her hands!
Adamantium claws in her feet!
Boobies!
She's also carried handguns on several occasions but I don't think they're necessary in this fight.
Powers/Abilities:
Adamantium-laced claws: Just like Wolverine, X-23 has a set of retracable claws coated in the indestructible, razor-sharp adamantium in each hand. Unlike Wolverine, she also has one retracable claw in each foot, giving her extra versatility and making her even more dangerous.
Healing factor: X-23's healing factor makes her extremely hard to put down. Wolverine himself admitted that her healing factor is better than his own. She was able to preform amazing healing feats such as healing lethal wounds in seconds, healing from being burned to a crisp, and even re-attach body parts that were cut off. Now, I know Slade has a nice healing factor of his own, but in this category X-23 outclasses him, by far.
Super-senses: X-23 possesses the same extra-sharp senses that Wolverine does. Those allowed her to fight invisible opponents and smell opponents such as Spiderman approaching her from behind. Taking her by surprise is near impossible.
Superhuman combat speed: No, I'm not talking about anything on the powerhouse level, like Superman or Sentry. But among street-level characters, X-23 has very impressive combat speed. She has shown to be able to strike faster than the human eye could precieve and has killed people in a fraction of a second since childhood. I know exactly how fast Deathstroke is, which is pretty damn fast, but I'm positive X-23 would be more than a good match for him in this category.
Combat genius: X-23 is literally a living weapon. She has shown to outsmart numerous great fighters and think of almost 30 ways to kill a man in mere seconds.
Pain tolerance: Probably thanks to her healing factor, X-23's pain tolerance is all but unmatched. She laughs off blows that would demolish any other human being and has fought while being fatally burnt, gutted, etc. Hurting her is by all means NOT an easy task.
So, why is X-23 going to win over Deathstroke?
To be completely honest, when we first decided to make this match I wasn't at ease with the character I chose to take on someone like Deathstroke, whom I know well. But, after going through my X-23 scans again, I was reminded what a beast she truly is and I'm positive she could score a solid victory here.
Now, having basic knowledge on Deathstroke, Laura will know she's up against pretty much a morals-off Captain America on steroids, who uses a staff, a sword and fire-arms.
Now, her best bet would be closing the small distance they have between them and trying to disarm Deathstroke. Once he's been ridded of his weapons, X-23 will have an immediate advantage. She can take him in close combat, but even if it doesn't happen quick enough she can surely outlast him.
They start 20 feet apart, but I hope you don't mind I convert it to meters for my own convenience. 20 feet are 6 meters. Which means they're pretty close. If Slade tries to shoot her/blast her with his staff right off the bat, she'll dodge it and close the distance very quickly.
Feats:
1. Dodging bullets from point blank range. If she can dodge automatic fire from several attackers she can dodge bullets from a handgun from 1 attacker:
Before you bring up the "dodging bullets from fodder is nothing like dodging bullets from expert marksmen" claim, I'll let you know it's false and I can explain just why. But I won't bother since those bullets aren't even gonna tickle X-23, even if they hit.
2. Manuevers around Mr. Sinister's energy blast, from point blank range. Not tmuch unlike Deathstroke's blasts from his staff. Also, notice how Sinister fired at her after she began charging, which means she pulled off a quite tricky manuever to evade his blast, she didn't simply dodge it, which would have been a simpler move to pull off. If you look at the way she arcs herself while running to evade the blast you can see how agile and quick she has to be to pull it off. She went all Neo in there.
That should prove she can evade both being shot with a gun and with energy blasts. Once she's closed the gap, Slade would probably ditch the guns and go for staff, sword or h2h. None of those would even tickle X-23. I'll show you some healing/endurance feats later.
If Deathstroke tries using his stff/sword for melee, they'll be shredded to pieces by X-23's claws. She only needs to block a strike from Slade to cut his weapons apart. I'm sure you know the proficiency of Adamantium, but just to put my money where my mouth is, here's what X-23's clwas have managed to cut through:
World-War Hulk's skin. You can see his green blood sprouting as her foot-claw cuts through his ugly face:
Gallery
I also have some scans of her cutting through an alternate-universe Iron Man suit, but since I'm not too sure just how strong that IM suit is, I'll leave it for now. Anyway, the WWH feat should be enough proof. Also a nice showing of strength if you ask me.
Once Slade is ridded of his weapons, this goes to pure hand-to-claw combat. Needless to say Laura has an immediate advantage here already, since she still has her weapons. You can only disarm her by choppin off her limbs. Not that it'll help:
Here you can see her leg is run over by a train and is almost completely seperated from her, but she easily reconnects it. Look how she's completely unfazed by the severe injury:
Gallery
Anywho, while Deathstroke is an awesome fighter, X-23 shouldn't be underestimated at all. Here are a few of her fights:
1. VS Wolverine. In the beginning he was holding back, but even after he stopped holding back she gave him hell and beat him. Also notice the trick with the dirt, remember what I said about her outsmarting opponents during combat?
Gallery
2. VS Lady Deathstrike. X-23 makes it seem like she's losing, but then she delivers one super-accurate, game-changing blow to mess up with Deathstrike's cybernetics and ends the fight an instance later. Again, outsmarting her opponent:
Gallery
3. VS Daken. Not much to say. Ends in stalemate. Daken is one serius BAMF, casually beating the likes of Wolverine, Taskmaster and Deadpool. X-23 stalemating him is in fact a pretty good feat.
Gallery
4. VS Spiderman. Now, obviously Peter wasn't 100% serius here. But that definitely doesn't dull his Spider-Sense or superhuman speed. But as you can see, X-23 DID manage to tag him, and beat him too. You may call that luck or try to downplay this feat, like many people try to do, but that doesn't change the fact that Laura hit him despite his precog. Great feat of speed and skill. Also, notice how Spidey comes at her from behind but she smells him coming. Also, as you can see by Spiderman's comment in the last panel of page 1 (epic BTW, made me LOL pretty hard first time I saw this), that's the 1st time the two have met. Meaning X-23 wasn't ready for him and didn't know of his abilities, proving that her tagging him is purely thanks to speed and skill:
Gallery
Here are nice speed showings:
1. This is Laura as a little girl, so obviously not in her prime like in this fight, which makes this more impressive. In the fraction of a second that a camera's flash goes off, she kills a man with her foot-claw with a jump kick. Not only did she react fast enough to that tiny window of opportunity as the camera went off, she also moved fast enough to jump, impale the man in the chest and return the claw into her foot in that time:
Gallery
2. Slices through a man's hand before he knows what happened. He didn't even see her claws go through his hand while looking through his visor-thingy:
Now, One of Deathstroke's most well-known skills is him being a genius combat strategist. But, as far as I've seen, he's more of a prep-man, while Laura makes up her tactics as she goes, as we've seen in her fight with Wolverine, as well as the one with Lady Deathstrike. Also there's this:
Thinks of 27 ways to kill Matthew Risman-an arch enemy of the X-Men. Look how in the 1st scan he exclaims he's killed many mutants, showcasing how dangerous he is. Also, like in the Spiderman fight, it's the first time X-23 meets him, yet still manages to think of 27 ways to kill him, making this feat even more impressive:
Gallery
If that fight included prep, I'd have been more worried. But since this is a random encounter, the one who holds the advantage as far as tactical and strategic skills go, is in fact X-23. She's outsmarted numerous opponents mid-fight (Wolv and Deathstrike are only 2 examples, I have more), and has thought of almost 30 ways to kill a man she's only just met who happens to be extremely dangerous.
As for X-23's healing/endurance, you've seen some impressive showings in the scans I've shown you already, but I have more in store.
In conclusion:
X-23 holds a significant advantage over Deathstroke in close range, thanks to superior endurance and healing, and comparable (and probably superior) speed and skill, from which you've only seen a small taste. While Slade is the true master when it comes to prep and hunting down his enemies, X-23 is extremely clever and is a combat genius in her own right, able to outsmart excellent fighters and read people she's just met like an open book.
Deathstroke has the advantage of having the only ranged weapons in this fight. However, as I've proven, X-23 is more than capable of realizing this and turning this disadvantage upside down, by quickly closing the distance between her and Slade while dodging/tanking his ranged attacks, and using her adamantium claws to destroy his weapons, leaving him unarmed, at which he'll be outclassed against her, thanks to her claws, comparable/superior skill/speed, and of course her ability to last a lot longer than him.
Deathstroke is the world's greatest assassin/mercenary and an enemy of the Teen Titans. Originally a soldier in the U.S. Army, he was part of an experimental super-soldier project where he gained enhanced strength, agility and intelligence. His vendetta against the Titans began when he swore revenge for the death of his oldest son Grant; his other two children would go on to become Titans members as Jericho and Ravager. Traditionally his actions have been limited by a strong personal code of honor, although his motives became more villainous following the death of his wife Adeline Kane.
Gear:
This will be essential to him winning the fight
Bo-staff
Two pistols with extra clips
Promethium sword
Promethium armor
Abilities: How enhanced is he?
Super strength (several tonnes)
Impressive combat speed far above a normal human
Healing factor (won't matter here)
Enhanced brain (i.e. he's a tactical genius)
Strategy:
With the basic knowledge package Slade knows he's fighting an enhanced human with speed, a healing factor, and indestructible bones/claws. He knows he needs to keep her at bay and he has the perfect tool to do that, his bo-staff which I'll go into. Her go to will be to close the distance, all Slade will do is nail her with his most potent weapon while keeping out of reach which he is entirely capable of.
Speed
I think this will be integral to show that not only is Slade fast, he's fast enough to keep up with X-23 and with basic knowledge he'll use his speed to keep out of reach.
What makes this so impressive is he's dodging automatic weapons fire from multiple angles. He's fast enough to actively
perceive projectiles coming at him from multiple angles and torque his body to dodge accordingly.
He's able to move as fast as he can think. A thought can be produced and fired at 1/10 of a second tbh this is a lower end showing of his speed. It's also worth mentioning that Slade states he is one step ahead of his prey. Each battle is like a game of chess and he already has you in checkmate. I'll go more into his tactical genius later.
Strength
Deathstroke has enhanced strength to throw around, and if this devolved into h2h it could allow him an edge.
He kicks down a reinforced steel door. Note that the hinges don't break, he literally crumples the door in, and he does it casually. Strength between the two should be pretty comparable between the two.
The Staff
This will be his main weapon of choice in fighting X-23 with.
It has the power to utterly destroy a helicopter in one shot
Look ma! No hands!
Slade is very practiced with this weapon and extremely dexterous which combined with his enhanced perception makes for a deadly combination.
Counters
Dodging bullets from point blank range. If she can dodge automatic fire from several attackers she can dodge bullets from a handgun from 1 attacker
Well to be honest this is more of a tank feat. One of the guys is half a clip deep and she's just standing there. Good showing of agility though.
Manuevers around Mr. Sinister's energy blast, from point blank range. Not tmuch unlike Deathstroke's blasts from his staff. Also, notice how Sinister fired at her after she began charging, which means she pulled off a quite tricky manuever to evade his blast, she didn't simply dodge it, which would have been a simpler move to pull off. If you look at the way she arcs herself while running to evade the blast you can see how agile and quick she has to be to pull it off. She went all Neo in there.
Some things to note here is the starting distance. She won't be that close to Deathstroke he won't be firing just one shot. I've shown you above that he's let loose and fired a veritable barrage of blasts in a single panel. The other thing to note is Sinister doesn't exactly posses the accuracy that Slade does which I'll get into. On top of that Mr. Sinister is playing with his food, he's a team buster when he wants to be and usually has no problem tagging people. It's a nice dodging feat but saying her dodging Mr. Sinisters blast she could dodge Deathstrokes is simply unfounded. She's going to have difficulty and will be tagged by someone with an enhanced mind, reflexes, and speed.
That should prove she can evade both being shot with a gun and with energy blasts. Once she's closed the gap, Slade would probably ditch the guns and go for staff, sword or h2h. None of those would even tickle X-23. I'll show you some healing/endurance feats later.
The main problem with this micro strategy is she's facing someone as accurate Deathstroke. On top of that with basic knowledge he won't be standing around shooting at her till she closes the gap. Here's a nice accuracy feat for Slade.
Suffice to say that she will have a very difficult time dodging projectiles from someone such as this.
Although those are nice showings of skill. All she did was tag him several times, skillful but not difficult to do, and then outsmarted him. She again uses her damage soak to beat Lady Deathstrike. Fighting comparably with Daken is a good feat but I should point out he's never casually stomped any of them, well except Deadpool. He used his phermones or circumstances to beat them. Taskmaster is on another tier in terms of skill as well as wolverine. Heck there's one instance when Wolverine doesn't hold back he outright stomps Daken.
Slices through a man's hand before he knows what happened. He didn't even see her claws go through his hand while looking through his visor-thingy:
This is a decent speed showing, Slade has casually done something similar to this as well.
Deathstroke moves so quickly that his arms don't even seem to move. Tosses two swords too fast to be seen. This doubles as an accuracy feat because he deliberately missed his femoral arteries.
On top of this he's dodged Kid Flash numerous times.
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Granted Kid Flash wasn't going all out, but he was still moving at blurring speeds and Slade casually dodged and took him out.
Here again is a speed, skill, and tactical feat to his name
Slade predicts where Kid Flash will move in response to a feint and then lashes out and tags him. This sort of tactical thinking is going to be a main reason he'll be able to content with X-23.
the one who holds the advantage as far as tactical and strategic skills go, is in fact X-23.
Putting dirt in a wound and getting the crap kicked out of you just to one shot someone isn't even close to out skilling Slade. Deathstroke consistently hits out of his weight class both in a prepped situation as well as a random encounter. He's tossed around the Teen Titans in both of these situations. He's collapsed buildings on people in random encounters to escape or beat them. He's verbally gotten into peoples minds to make them irrational or lead them to areas where they have a disadvantage used vehicles to take down aircraft etc. She is far behind Slade in terms of tactical skill and there isn't a way to contest this.
and comparable (and probably superior) speed and skill
She isn't superior to Slade in terms of skill at all. On top of mastering every single martial arts form that has been given to him, he's also able to discern a fighting style mid fight and can act accordingly.
In his fight against Oliver Queen, he also has zero mobility in this fight, he can tell that Green Arrow has retrained himself and altered his fighting style. He is still able to contest Oliver despite having no mobility and facing an opponent of fantastic skill.
Strategy
As stated by you X-23 is and will attempt to close the distance to turn this into an h2h fight which would be her only chance at hurting Deathstroke. But with the basic knowledge package Slade understands just how dangerous she would be in that type of fight. He's going to use his superior speed and damage output to put her down, and he's going to be staying out of reach and evading her while he does so.
At the beginning of the fight he's going to use the simple battle concept of ranging shots. He'll use both his pistol and staff to take shots at his opponent. What this will do is give Deathstroke a good handle on how she moves, which directions she dodges as well as her own small strategy. Someone of Slades intellect and enhanced mind, and as he's shown, he's always a step ahead of his opponents. This means after firing several shots at her and using superior speed to evade he'll start to tag her. With his enhanced perception, and ridiculous accuracy this isn't going to be overly difficult. He'll start unloading a barrage of helicopter busting attacks on her which sure she could tank but she won't be able to do so for long.
She also is going to have a difficult time focusing on her attack when she continues to get steamrolled with such powerful energy blasts. In the end she'll hit the ground and be KO'd because she won't be able to touch slade as well as she won't be dodging enough of his blasts to stop her healing factor from being overtaxed.
CHallange a Viner. It's when 2 people debate eachother on which character would win in a fight. After we've both finished debating we call on people to vote.
@the_red_viper: My f*cking page just reloaded on its own and my counters got erased. I'll get to this tomorrow I'm not interested in re-typing everything now.
God I hate that. Pro tip: use 2 tabs. Every couple of minutes just copy/paste your comment to your spare tab so if 1 tab crashes you have the spare one. A Word doc is also useful if your browser crashes.
Good rebuttal. But I guessed that's what you'd try to do. After all, X-23's only option here is beating Slade in close quarters, so obviously Slade will try to keep his distance. And X-23 will understand that right off the bat, and act accordingly.
Well to be honest this is more of a tank feat. One of the guys is half a clip deep and she's just standing there. Good showing of agility though.
It's really not a tank feat. You can literally see there's no blood or anything. The artwork may be misleading since Laura just seems to be standing there, like you suggested, but taking into account the fact that there are no wounds on her or anything like that, it's safe to say that she was indeed dodging those shots and not tanking them. Which is quite impressive since the shooters were, as you can see, so close to her that she could reach them with her feet-claws.
Some things to note here is the starting distance. She won't be that close to Deathstroke he won't be firing just one shot. I've shown you above that he's let loose and fired a veritable barrage of blasts in a single panel. The other thing to note is Sinister doesn't exactly posses the accuracy that Slade does which I'll get into. On top of that Mr. Sinister is playing with his food, he's a team buster when he wants to be and usually has no problem tagging people. It's a nice dodging feat but saying her dodging Mr. Sinisters blast she could dodge Deathstrokes is simply unfounded. She's going to have difficulty and will be tagged by someone with an enhanced mind, reflexes, and speed.
The starting distance is exactly what makes this impressive. The shot was taken at her from a distance MUCH smaller than the 6 meters in our scenario, making this feat more impressive. So if she's manuevered around a blast at this distance, she can also evade Slade's blasts from 6 meters away. By the time the second blast will be taken, X-23 would have already covered some distance. She will dodge that too, and by the time Slade takes another shot-she'll already be upon him. So in fact, your starting distance argument just proves my point even further. And again, like I said-what she did there wasn't a simple dodge but a quite impressive Matrix-style manuever. A good agility and manueverability showing, in addition to demonstrating her speed and reaction time.
I know that Mr. Sinister is another level of threat, and in the next page of this fight he pimp-slapped Laura after she buried her claws in him. But that's not the point. The point here was her dodging that blast. Also, take note that just before taking that shot at X-23, he's blasted Gambit, who is certainly one of Marvel's top street-levelers in terms of agility, reaction speed, etc. Every small detail in this feat just makes this more and more impressive.
And yes, I've seen what Slade can let loose from his staff, but you have also seen what Laura can do in the small fraction of a second where a camera's flash goes off. That was, if you'd ask me, a great example of her reaction and movement speed. Which should support my claim that X-23 can, and will, cross the distance between herself and Deathstroke quickly and dodge his blasts.
The main problem with this micro strategy is she's facing someone as accurate Deathstroke. On top of that with basic knowledge he won't be standing around shooting at her till she closes the gap. Here's a nice accuracy feat for Slade.
Yeah, I know this feat. As I said, this claim is one that I hear often, and can be debunked. In a CaV I'm currently having, I've addressed this popular claim. Here's what I wrote there:
That is a claim I hear a lot, but is simply false. Think about it this way: The bullet doesn't really care if it was shot by a random henchman on by a master marksman like Deathstroke or Deadshot. Aiming isn't that hard (again-personal experience). It's nothing like H2H, which requires skill, technique, reflexes, etc. The moment the bullet was fired, if it was aimed at you, it doesn't matter who's the man who shot it-dodging it would be equally impressive whether it's fodder or a master marksman.
Then again, X-23 can keep fighting after being shot.
Here we see X-23 taking a headshot, and then getting sprayed by 2 Uzi's, and she doesn't seem at all too excited about it. The first shot (which was a headshot) seems to hurt her, but looking back at all the times she's ignored injuries far greater than this, then the painful face she makes here is obviously PIS/WIS. In the last panel it's visible she was hit at least 6 times and she looks more pissed than in pain.
Although those are nice showings of skill. All she did was tag him several times, skillful but not difficult to do, and then outsmarted him. She again uses her damage soak to beat Lady Deathstrike. Fighting comparably with Daken is a good feat but I should point out he's never casually stomped any of them, well except Deadpool. He used his phermones or circumstances to beat them. Taskmaster is on another tier in terms of skill as well as wolverine. Heck there's one instance when Wolverine doesn't hold back he outright stomps Daken.
She didn't tag him "several times", she tagged him MANY times. I count 13 (including her putting her fist against his throat when she beat him). Again, let's delve more into the smaller details here to see what we can find:
Scan #2: in the 2nd panel, we can see how fast they were both moving. Good combat-speed showing for them both, but especially X-23 since she got him after he dodged the first 3 strikes. Also a good agility/manueverability showing, if you look at the move she pulled off. She was barraging at him with her hand-claws, and suddenly, unexpectedly-she pulls some sorta double kick, the first tags him and he blocks the second.
Scan #3: Again a nice move. She chains her previous stance, from which he blocked her, into another strike with her hands-and this time she tags him twice.
Scans #4-5: Now that Logan's done holding back, she blocks his lunge and stabs him in the chest. In scan #5 you can see them standing several meters apart (around 6 meters if you'll ask me), and by thge time Wolverine turns around-Laura has already picked up a handful of dirt, crossed the distance between them and shoved the dirt up his wound. So this is first and foremost an amazing showing of movement speed-essential for my strategy in our scenario-and also shows her tactical thinking skills. She improvised a genius idea in the middle of their fight, in a second.
Scan #6: in the end on the previous page, Logan was facing her. But in this page, in the very first panel, she's already stabbed him again before he's even lifted a finger and shoved another handful of dirt up his wound one panel later.Again, a great showing of combat speed. A better one though is in the panel right after that. Did you notice X-23 appears there TWICE? Yes, she's moved so fast in one panel that she appears twice. Not only that-first she's in front of Logan, on her hands, cutting him with her foof-claw, and next she's crouched behind him. Then in the panel after that she's jumping on his back, shoving some more dirt up his wounds.
Please note that even after Logan stops holding back, X-23 simply humiliates him. I'd dare say she's blitzing him. Impressive considering this guy's fought on even terms with people like Danny Rand. This whole fight just shows how skilled X-23 is, given all those amazing moves she's pulled off, and also shows simply amazing combat and movement speed. Not underestimating Slade or anything but I think he'd find it very, very hard to keep up with her.
The Lady Deathstrike fight is less of a combat-skill showing, but it does show this:
Like you said-pain tolerance. Deathstrike gutted her (in the 3rd scan you can literally see her insides spilling out of her belly) and X-23 barely showed any sign of pain (the derp faces she makes in the 2nd scan aren't because of pain, but because the force of the strikes taken at her. Like the slow-mo punches in the Rocky movies, lol).
Healing factor-in the beginning 3rd scan you can see her entrails on the floor. By the end of it she doesn't have a single scratch on her. Good luck keeping her down with your lasers.
Accuracy-aimed her kick right at her opponent's cybernetics, incapitating her.
Speed-Lady Deathstrike was standing over her, but X-23 kicked her arm without her having the chance to react. Also in the 4th scan, you can see Deathstrike and X-23 are standing face to face, but when Deathstrike takes a swing at her, she's surprised to find out X-23 just disappeared from her sight (AAAA??) and got behind her. Again, X-23 moved faster than the eye could capture.
Like I said, tactical thinking.
Wolverine stomping Daken while not holding back just supports my argument. Wolverine wasn't holding back against X-23 either, but you see who was outright stomping whom in that fight. Also, in the last scan of her fight with Daken, you can see how hard they both crashed into the ground, but it barely fazed either of them. As well as how in the 2nd scan he slams her so hard into the wall that it literally breaks and she's not even flinching. Pain tolerance and healing factor, me amigo.
Deathstroke moves so quickly that his arms don't even seem to move. Tosses two swords too fast to be seen. This doubles as an accuracy feat because he deliberately missed his femoral arteries.
Accuracy and speed-kinda like how X-23 incapitated Lady Deathstrike. Also, who was that guy who Slade shis-kebab'd there? Was he any close to X-23's speed? Either way, I still don't see how that's beating her camera feat.
On top of this he's dodged Kid Flash numerous times.
Yes, I'm aware of those feats, but they kind of contradict other times where Slade was tagged by guys like Nightwing. Not saying that it's not impressive, but like you said, KF was holding back obviously, which is also noted in the scans you posted. Deathstroke exclaimed that he barely even needed his enhancements to tag him. In the first scan, Deathstroke also claims that he's tagging KF thanks to his reflexes. Which would end up differently against someone like X-23. In all of her fights that I posted, she's shown to have very unpredictable moves (which allowed her to tag even Spiderman-speaking of reflexes), which would be hard to predict and counter, unlike KF who's fast but basically just dishes out punches in a rhythm that can eventually be accustomed to. Also, dodging and reacting to X-23 isn't something that Slade could do forever. X-23's obviously going to outlast him due to her healing factor and pain tolerance.
Slade predicts where Kid Flash will move in response to a feint and then lashes out and tags him. This sort of tactical thinking is going to be a main reason he'll be able to content with X-23.
Again, that's a good showing. But you're trying to make it look like something that it's not. It wasn't predicting where KF lands his next punch-it was simply dodging. Like I said, Kid Flash isn't a skilled fighter-he just uses his speed to dish out as many punches as he can, as fast as he can. Slade eventually got into his rhythm and simply dodged his punch. There was nothing strategic about this, simply his reflexes in action. Which again would be very different with X-23, since she's very unpredictable.
X-23 on the other hand has shown many real-time tactical strokes of genius that allowed her to win her fights. Here's another by the way:
At 11 y/o, X-23 is put through a test that Wolverine was put through as well. She was supposed to beat this test in sync with Wolverine, which is what happens at first, but at some point it changes. She does get hit by the wolves and the bear (which is not purely a bad showing considering the punishment she recieved and still shook it off and kept fighting), but in the end she beats the test. Not only that-she did it 3 and a half minutes faster than Wolverine, and she was just 11 y/o at the time. So yes, this is a great example of her skill, healing factor and pain tolerance, but as I said-it's mostly an example of her real-time strategy. It literally said she was improvising, which is exactly what let her beat the test much faster than her predecessor.
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Putting dirt in a wound and getting the crap kicked out of you just to one shot someone isn't even close to out skilling Slade. Deathstroke consistently hits out of his weight class both in a prepped situation as well as a random encounter. He's tossed around the Teen Titans in both of these situations. He's collapsed buildings on people in random encounters to escape or beat them. He's verbally gotten into peoples minds to make them irrational or lead them to areas where they have a disadvantage used vehicles to take down aircraft etc. She is far behind Slade in terms of tactical skill and there isn't a way to contest this.
Beating the Titans is a good feat, but that doesn't show anything regarding real-time tactics. Making explosions to beat people/making a run for it is a known tactic and it's used all the time throughout fiction. Red Hood did it once against Green Arrow, for example. Him taking out people out of his league is mostly due to PIS (like when he broke Kyle's wrist in Identity Crisis). X-23, in almost all of her fights, uses clever improvised tactics to adapt and win. It happened against Wolverine, it happened against Deathstrike, it happened against that robotic bear, it happened when she's though of 27 ways to kill Matthew Risman-an extremely dangerous man she's only just met, and it happened here too:
Here, X-23 is cuffed to Kimura (X-23 and Kimura are arguably parallel to Wolverine and Sabertooth in their relationship). She cuts off her own hand, cuffs Kimura to a gas pipe with the same handcuffs, then blows up the house by piercing the gas pipe and lighting a lightbulb to burn it and trigger an explosion. If you wanna debunk it by saying X-23 was too dumb to cut throught the handcuffs-then no, they were made of Adamantium.
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Again, X-23 thinks of something brilliant and unexpected to win yet another fight. Also notice how she casually re-attaches her severed hand.
She isn't superior to Slade in terms of skill at all. On top of mastering every single martial arts form that has been given to him, he's also able to discern a fighting style mid fight and can act accordingly.
Quite the opposite. In terms of skill she's well above Deathstroke. He appears to be skilled mostly thanks to his enhancements which make him fast. He himself has admitted that without his enhancements, he wouldn't want to go against Batman, and he was outskilled by the likes of Green Arrow, Dick Grayson and Cassie Cain (not that there's any shame in being less skilled than Cassandra but w/e). Deathstroke relies more on pure strength and speed in h2h fights than actual skill.
In his fight against Oliver Queen, he also has zero mobility in this fight, he can tell that Green Arrow has retrained himself and altered his fighting style. He is still able to contest Oliver despite having no mobility and facing an opponent of fantastic skill.
I actually know this fight very well. Slade has noticed Oliver's fighting style has changed, but that's nothing impressive. Ollie and Slade are long-time adversaries, so it's only natural Slade would notice a change in Ollie's style after his long training with Natas. Also, it's the first time GA's used a sword against Deathstroke (earlier in this fight Deathstroke said "since when does he carry a blade?"), so obviously there'd be changes in his fighting style. He did discern Oliver's new style, which is nothing impressive as I explained, but act accordingly? Not quite. He was helpless against Oliver throughout the entire fight and in the end he tried to make a run for it (which he also failed to do). Also, this fight further proves my point that Deathstroke lacks the skill of improvising mid-fight and coming up with real-time tactics like Laura. Green Arrow was prepped for him, and Deathstroke even stated that he was being the hunted, rather than the hunter, in this fight. He played right into Oliver's trap of gooey stuff which, as you said, severely limited his mobility. So rather than outsmarting Oliver, he was the one being outsmarted here.
As stated by you X-23 is and will attempt to close the distance to turn this into an h2h fight which would be her only chance at hurting Deathstroke. But with the basic knowledge package Slade understands just how dangerous she would be in that type of fight. He's going to use his superior speed and damage output to put her down, and he's going to be staying out of reach and evading her while he does so.
The basic knowledge package works both ways. X-23 will know how dangerous Slade is at range and be prepared to compensate for it. His speed isn't quite superior to someone who blitzed Wolverine and his damage output isn't anything she can't deal with:
Here we have both her and Daken getting vaporized in an explosion, and both completely heal in a matter of seconds. Again, good luck with those lasers of yours.
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This here is what happens after her encounter with Risman. Y'know, where she thought of 27 ways to kill him in a few seconds. X-23 detonates an explosion and comes out like nothing happened:
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Not only is she without any visible injuries after the explosion, she immediately takes off after her target like nothing happened.
Also, here Wolverine comments on her skill and states that her healing factor is better than his own:
At the beginning of the fight he's going to use the simple battle concept of ranging shots. He'll use both his pistol and staff to take shots at his opponent. What this will do is give Deathstroke a good handle on how she moves, which directions she dodges as well as her own small strategy. Someone of Slades intellect and enhanced mind, and as he's shown, he's always a step ahead of his opponents. This means after firing several shots at her and using superior speed to evade he'll start to tag her. With his enhanced perception, and ridiculous accuracy this isn't going to be overly difficult. He'll start unloading a barrage of helicopter busting attacks on her which sure she could tank but she won't be able to do so for long.
Now, let me ask you: how's he going to use both handgun and staff at the same time? He's always shown to weild the staff in both hands to fire those lasers, and even if he uses one hand, I doubt it'd be remotely effective to what he does with 2 hands. Anyway, as I proved, X-23 is much more than capable of closing the 6-meter gap between her and Deathstroke while dodging his lasers. Slade won't get a handle on how she moves fast enough since as I've shown you she's too fast and unpredictable for that. Countless times she's moved from one stance to another, jumped behind her opponents too fast for them to realize, blitzed the likes of Wolverine, manuevered around energy blasts from point blank range and even got the drop on Spiderman. Slade isn't always one step ahead of his opponents, as was shown in his fight against Green Arrow, where he stated that he was the hunted and not the hunter, unlike what he though at the start. After taking the first 2 or 3 shots, from which she's more than capable of dodging, she'll already be on top of him. Even if Slade manages to somehow react to her unpredictable, faster-than-eyesight movements, and tag her, she'll shake it off and go again, until her superior real-time tactical thinking skills would allow her to get the drop on him, just like she did with Wolverine, Kimura, Lady Deathstrike, that bear thingy and even Spiderman.
If any helicopter-busting attack does meet its mark by some miracle, it would be laughed at by someone who casually tanks and/or heals from house-busting explosions. Like she did with Daken, with Risman, and with Kimura. It also happened with Spiderman not too long after their fight but I don't seem to have the scans at hand ATM. I can find them if you want. She would, in fact, be able to tank those lasers for very long, but it won't happen in the first place since she'll dodge it and close the gap between her and Slade before he catches up with her unpredictable rhythm and tags her.
She also is going to have a difficult time focusing on her attack when she continues to get steamrolled with such powerful energy blasts. In the end she'll hit the ground and be KO'd because she won't be able to touch slade as well as she won't be dodging enough of his blasts to stop her healing factor from being overtaxed.
She wasn't KO'd by explosions far more powerful than those Slade can deliver and managed to stay focused on her attack when she was sprayed with bullets from 2 gunmen. She also didn't let her guts spilling out of her after Lady Deathstrike ripped her apart prevent her from delivering an extremely fast, accurate game-changing kick to her arm. She was inside an explosion and got up a second later with the only thing in her mind being catching Matthew Risman. She's outpreformed Wolverine in a Weapon-X test after being mauled by a robotic bear and 2 robotic wolves. Pain is nothing to her. She's a killing machine, like many people like Daken and Wolverine have stated.
Bottom line: The Terminator is about to get terminated.
It's really not a tank feat. You can literally see there's no blood or anything.
I don't think the artist would make so big a mistake to half someone blast half a clip at a character and then try to have the reader believe said character dodged it. Honestly you haven't shown me good enough reaction feats for me to believe X-23 has a chance at dodging Slade's opening salvo.
The starting distance is exactly what makes this impressive. The shot was taken at her from a distance MUCH smaller than the 6 meters in our scenario, making this feat more impressive. So if she's manuevered around a blast at this distance, she can also evade Slade's blasts from 6 meters away. By the time the second blast will be taken, X-23 would have already covered some distance. She will dodge that too, and by the time Slade takes another shot-she'll already be upon him. So in fact, your starting distance argument just proves my point even further. And again, like I said-what she did there wasn't a simple dodge but a quite impressive Matrix-style manuever. A good agility and manueverability showing, in addition to demonstrating her speed and reaction time.
This is assuming X-23 is fast enough to blitz someone who can casually dodge barrages of bullets like Deathstroke. It's also assuming Slade isn't going to be unleashing as much energy at her as possible.
Like I've shown above when Slade really lets loose he's fired up to 11 energy blasts in a single panel. You've shown me her dodging one. From a person that lacks the accuracy that Slade possesses no less.
The closer she gets to Deathstroke means less room to dodge this amount of energy blasts..
Also, take note that just before taking that shot at X-23, he's blasted Gambit, who is certainly one of Marvel's top street-levelers in terms of agility, reaction speed, etc
To be honest Gambit was just pissed and charged him if he was thinking straight I'm sure he could've dodge it. He was also mid jump and only a few feet away from Sinister when he got tagged. He never really had a chance to dodge in this scenario so X-23 shouldn't get any credit of dodging something that Gambit didn't have a prayer of doing.
Seen here.
In regards to accuracy let me just counter this.
Aiming isn't that hard (again-personal experience). It's nothing like H2H, which requires skill, technique, reflexes, etc. The moment the bullet was fired, if it was aimed at you, it doesn't matter who's the man who shot it-dodging it would be equally impressive whether it's fodder or a master marksman.
This is entirely incorrect mate. It takes a certain skill to be able to lead a target, to ricochet bullets and tag someone, to predict where you're opponent will be/move and then fire at that spot etc.
Here's what I mean.
Slade gets tagged by a piece of glass thrown by Roy Harper, A.K.A (Arsenal). Glass is significantly slower than bullets and I've shown you how casually Deathstroke has dodged them before. So how could Arsenal do this you may ask? Simple, he spread his shots out aiming from high to low and switching between limbs.
Here's another example. Punisher is able to tag a speedster who moves at Mach speeds with a simple bullet. How does he do this he spreads his shots out and shoots where they will move next, predicting his opponent.
I could go on with a myriad of examples where projectiles characters have shown dodging handily, get tagged by these same objects or projectiles even slower because of a skilled opponent.
Skill with guns is totally a thing. It's the difference between shooting a target in the bullseye and missing it entirely, especially when under duress. This is the main reason although she has dodged energy blasts and bullets, Slade can still tag her especially with how many shots he's putting out.
Please note that even after Logan stops holding back, X-23 simply humiliates him. I'd dare say she's blitzing him. Impressive considering this guy's fought on even terms with people like Danny Rand. This whole fight just shows how skilled X-23 is, given all those amazing moves she's pulled off, and also shows simply amazing combat and movement speed.
I admitted it takes skill to tag Wolverine but like I said she only humiliated him by using dirt to stop him, which in itself is kind of silly considering he's healed from slash wounds faster than in that scan. Regardless it is a stretch to loosely show she has skill of the tier of Danny Rand or Wolverine. They are a tier or more ahead of her. Also like I stated two of your scans have her defeating opponents with tactics, not because of some comparable or equal skill. Her good showing of skill is when she stalemates Daken. She is very skilled but does not have an overall edge above Slade.
Wolverine stomping Daken while not holding back just supports my argument. Wolverine wasn't holding back against X-23 either, but you see who was outright stomping whom in that fight
This statement entirely contradicts you're statement that she stalemated Daken. Which by scans she clearly did. This shows us that clearly if Wolverine were going all out against X-23 he could soundly beat her. Her fight with Daken shows her skill, but it also shows her limits. Without circumstances and using tactics, just using her raw skill she was only able to fight comparably with Daken someone who got manhandled by Wolverine. This leads us to believe that Wolverine was not indeed going full out he simply states "You wanna fight? Alright I'll fight" basically.
Accuracy and speed-kinda like how X-23 incapitated Lady Deathstrike. Also, who was that guy who Slade shis-kebab'd there? Was he any close to X-23's speed? Either way, I still don't see how that's beating her camera feat.
Killing someone within the span of second is nice but as I've shown Slade has done that as well, he did it casually too.. Deathstroke in the scan moved so fast that he wasn't even a blur. He has swords in his hand 1 second and the next he tossed them with incredible speed and accuracy. This happened within one panel, and a total lack of motion on his part shows this feat is within the fraction of a second as well. And again I've shown where Slade moves between the ticks of a clock. Meaning he's moving, reacting, dodging in fractions of a second and still it's not his best speed or movement showings which I will get into.
but they kind of contradict other times where Slade was tagged by guys like Nightwing.
Not really. Skill can allow for a speed disparity to be not as much of an advantage as it should be. Unless your opponent has basic knowledge and is fighting an opponent that they've never fought before like in this situation.
X-23 on the other hand has shown many real-time tactical strokes of genius that allowed her to win her fights. Here's another by the way:
I wouldn't call improvising her way through a test a tactical stroke of genius. It shows thoughtfulness and skill but nothing overly brilliant.
It wasn't predicting where KF lands his next punch-it was simply dodging.
You missed what I was showing. Slade didn't dodge a punch he tagged Kid Flash by throwing a feint, a jab designed to throw off an opponent, and then predicting where KF would dodge and then lashing out to break his ribs. This feat clearly shows his tactical thinking, making an opponent move exactly where he wants them to and then nailing them. Exactly what he'll do with his blast staff against X-23.
In the first scan, Deathstroke also claims that he's tagging KF thanks to his reflexes. Which would end up differently against someone like X-23. In all of her fights that I posted, she's shown to have very unpredictable moves (which allowed her to tag even Spiderman-speaking of reflexes), which would be hard to predict and counter, unlike KF who's fast but basically just dishes out punches in a rhythm that can eventually be accustomed to. Also, dodging and reacting to X-23 isn't something that Slade could do forever. X-23's obviously going to outlast him due to her healing factor and pain tolerance.
1. This is all under the supposition that X-23 will even get near Slade whom of which will be using his superior speed to stay out of arms reach and whack her with energy blasts till she goes down.
2. She uses her skill to tag Spider-man not her unpredictable moves. Spider-man in the past has dodged weapon blasts from Hobgoblin that were set to shoot at unpredictable areas on his body as well as from unpredictable angles. His spider sense countered this. But when someone with a plethora of more skill than him engages him from several feet away it's only a matter of time before he gets tagged. This is how Wolverine was able to tag Spider-man as well as Kaine in close quarters. H2H teaches someone to read an opponents body as well as their moves to figure out what they will do or move next like I've stated.
Beating the Titans is a good feat, but that doesn't show anything regarding real-time tactics
I don't see how it doesn't. He uses his opponents movements and weapons against each other. I don't see how dropping buildings on people or using verbal tactics to best opponents, like he did with Cassandra Cain don't count as tactics. They do. He knows when to use his physicals to defeat an opponent and when to use the environment or weapons to best opponents. If you want I could toss a number of scans your way showing his battlefield tactical mind.
cuffs Kimura to a gas pipe with the same handcuffs, then blows up the house by piercing the gas pipe and lighting a lightbulb to burn it and trigger an explosion.
So you admit dropping a building on an opponent to stop them counts as a skill feat? Like I've shown Slade has done the same and then some. There shouldn't be a tactic disparity between the two and in this situation given this setting it wouldn't really help them tbh.
Quite the opposite. In terms of skill she's well above Deathstroke. He appears to be skilled mostly thanks to his enhancements which make him fast. He himself has admitted that without his enhancements, he wouldn't want to go against Batman, and he was outskilled by the likes of Green Arrow, Dick Grayson and Cassie Cain (not that there's any shame in being less skilled than Cassandra but w/e). Deathstroke relies more on pure strength and speed in h2h fights than actual skill.
Not at all. For one he's defeated Oliver more times than I can think at h2h. And stating he wouldn't want to go against batman without enhancements isn't a blow to his skill. Bruce is arguably one of the top martial artists on DC Earth.
Outskilled by Dick Grayson you say? Here's Slade with his strength and speed cut in half.
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Read right to left :P scans ain't uploading well..
He manhandles him even though he isn't at full strength meaning he has to rely more on skill than his physicals. Heck he didn't even want to fight him because he was at more of a disadvantage. And he stalemated Cassandra Cain both times they fought which again isn't an attest to some lack of skill on his part. She has move reading meaning she can tell what her opponent is pretty much going to do next. It's basically a watered down pre-cog so of course he's going to get outskilled. Also with move reading she can cancel his speed edge succinctly.
I actually know this fight very well. Slade has noticed Oliver's fighting style has changed, but that's nothing impressive. Ollie and Slade are long-time adversaries, so it's only natural Slade would notice a change in Ollie's style after his long training with Natas. Also, it's the first time GA's used a sword against Deathstroke (earlier in this fight Deathstroke said "since when does he carry a blade?"), so obviously there'd be changes in his fighting style. He did discern Oliver's new style, which is nothing impressive as I explained, but act accordingly? Not quite. He was helpless against Oliver throughout the entire fight and in the end he tried to make a run for it (which he also failed to do). Also, this fight further proves my point that Deathstroke lacks the skill of improvising mid-fight and coming up with real-time tactics like Laura. Green Arrow was prepped for him, and Deathstroke even stated that he was being the hunted, rather than the hunter, in this fight. He played right into Oliver's trap of gooey stuff which, as you said, severely limited his mobility. So rather than outsmarting Oliver, he was the one being outsmarted here.
1. Deathstroke knew his different fighting style that he re-trained with. He didn't just notice that he was better trained he could literally tell a facet of the martial art that Ollie was using against him. This is a great skill feat for Slade. It's one thing to be trained and skilled, it's another thing to be able to tell exactly which martial art your opponent is using against him. This means that Slade has very decent knowledge on a number of martial arts. On top of this nice skill showing Slade has mastered every martial art given to him through his years of training. Again there shouldn't be a skill edge between them.
2. He was also "helpless" in that fight because he had zero mobility. Yet he was still fighting comparably with Ollie even though GA was jumping over his head, jumping off walls etc. So yes this is a very nice skill showing for him to be able to fight an opponent whom has the movile advantage while being at a massive disadvantage himself is fantastic.
3. As to him showing almost no tactics in that fight, he wanted to get caught by Oliver. Ollie even states he gave himself up to easily. Slade wanted to get to Constantine Drakon so trying to say he didn't use tactics doesn't work here......
The basic knowledge package works both ways. X-23 will know how dangerous Slade is at range and be prepared to compensate for it. His speed isn't quite superior to someone who blitzed Wolverine and his damage output isn't anything she can't deal with:
Alright you still believe X-23 seems to have some speed edge here. Let me show you why she doesn't and why Slade is easily faster than her..
Here you can see Slade speed blitzing Black Canary from what appears to be 20-30 feet away even though she has her mouth open and is about to scream. Which is incredibly fast in itself
Can this get more impressive you ask? It sure can.
Black Canary is able to react to bullets after they are fired and destroy them with a sonic scream.
Slade moves fast enough to blitz someone who easily perceives bullets after they are fired and acts fast enough to stop them from killing a friend whom is only 20 or so feet away..
Deathstroke again shows just how quickly he can move his body when he wants to
Here Slade moves fast enough to jump between the blades of an industrial fan.
Non-industrial fans spin at 3750 rpm's. Industrial fan blades spin at much faster speeds and he has no problem jumping between the fan blades. A projectile blast isn't even fast enough to make it through the blades....
I also have another scan of Deathstroke outpacing a helicopter and running what appears to be a kilometer in seconds....
Slade is faster than X-23 and using his superior speed and reflexes he'll be able to keep out of reach and take her down.
Now, let me ask you: how's he going to use both handgun and staff at the same time?
He's done it before without a problem.
and even if he uses one hand, I doubt it'd be remotely effective to what he does with 2 hands
Possibly. But I state why he will be dual wielding both a pistol and a staff. He's going to be firing ranging shots at her while moving backwards to stay out of reach. These shots will help him gauge how X-23 moves, where she dodges, what she decides to tank etc. Now once he ingests this information, it'll only take him several shots at most, he'll get a fix on what she's going to do next. Slade has consistently shown being 1 step ahead of his opponents in a fight. He'll figure out what moves she'll make before she does, predict where she'll dodge and start laying down the hurt.
Slade won't get a handle on how she moves fast enough since as I've shown you she's too fast and unpredictable for that.
So somehow she's going to move to fast for someone that jumps between fan industrial fan blades and dodges bullets from point blank range? Yeah no.
blitzed the likes of Wolverine, manuevered around energy blasts from point blank range and even got the drop on Spiderman
Blitzing a bloodlusted wolverine would be something. Blitzing wolverine who although agree's to fight still isn't into it is another thing. Maneuvering around a single blast of energy from someone less accurate or as tactically fast as Slade won't keep her from getting tagged. Spider-man has been tagged by people comparably as fast as Slade or less fast than him so this isn't anything too impressive. Like I said her huge skill edge allowed her to tag him.
Slade isn't always one step ahead of his opponents, as was shown in his fight against Green Arrow, where he stated that he was the hunted and not the hunter,
Already countered Slade wanted to get to Constantine Drakon, Ollie even admits he gave himself up easily.
After taking the first 2 or 3 shots, from which she's more than capable of dodging, she'll already be on top of him.
He's going to be firing more than that. I've shown him fire 11+ shots in a single panel taking out projectiles coming at him from "unpredictable" angles and she won't really be dodging many of them. Once tagged she'll lose focus and slow down especially when getting tagged by a helicopter busting shot.
Even if Slade manages to somehow react to her unpredictable
"Unpredictable", which I don't know why you keep using considering slower opponents tag her just fine, becomes predictable after Slade fires several shots at her and figures how she moves.
faster-than-eyesight movements
This type of speed is laughable to Slade. He casually dodges bullets which are much faster than the eye can perceive. And like I've shown that form of speed isn't even his best. Compared to him she won't be moving quick enough to stop him from tagging her......a lot.
If any helicopter-busting attack does meet its mark by some miracle, it would be laughed at by someone who casually tanks and/or heals from house-busting explosions
I would like to point out your use of "casually heals from house busting explosions". There was nothing casual about that feat. She's on the ground with no skin, barely moving and based on the speech boxes she even sounded like she could barely talk. Casual is eating a blast and continuing to walk. She can tank several blasts mind you but more than that? Naw she'll slow up, get hit with some more, and fall to the ground. I already showed you a single blast of his is able to ignite a person....she won't be walking several of those off easily.
Pain is nothing to her.
Of course it isn't but her body can only stop so much and getting hammered by Slades blast staff her body will slow up and she'll go night night before she can kill Deathstroke.
Why does the Terminator win?
Too fast for her to keep up or tag
Has the damage output necessary to put her down
Has the precision and AOE attacks to negate any agility or reflexes she has here
Enhanced mind that allows him to predict what she'll do next and act accordingly
I don't think the artist would make so big a mistake to half someone blast half a clip at a character and then try to have the reader believe said character dodged it. Honestly you haven't shown me good enough reaction feats for me to believe X-23 has a chance at dodging Slade's opening salvo.
I think that a bigger mistake on behalf of the artist would be having the bullets hit her without showing any sign of blood/injury. Even her clothes are unscathed.
And I think I really have shown you good enough reaction feats. The camera feat being one for example (again I'll remind you she was just a little kid in that scan).
This is assuming X-23 is fast enough to blitz someone who can casually dodge barrages of bullets like Deathstroke. It's also assuming Slade isn't going to be unleashing as much energy at her as possible.
She was fast enough to blitz Wolverine and tag Spiderman.
Like I've shown above when Slade really lets loose he's fired up to 11 energy blasts in a single panel. You've shown me her dodging one. From a person that lacks the accuracy that Slade possesses no less.
To be honest Slade let loose 11 blasts because he fired in all directions from both ends of his staff. It was speed and not accuracy that came into play there. He wasn't even aiming, just spinning the staff while letting loose as many shots possible to tag all the rocks. He's not gonna do it here, he's gonna try and aim at Laura while she's coming at him. I don't think he's displayed the accuracy with his staff to hit someone who moves as fast as X-23, especially when using just one hand which will have an impact on his accuracy. If Slade can fire his staff 11 times in 1 panel with both ends of the staff, then logically he'd only be able to fire 5-6 times with 1 end.
The closer she gets to Deathstroke means less room to dodge this amount of energy blasts..
Exactly. It was same with Sinister and she's dodged that blast just fine.
To be honest Gambit was just pissed and charged him if he was thinking straight I'm sure he could've dodge it. He was also mid jump and only a few feet away from Sinister when he got tagged. He never really had a chance to dodge in this scenario so X-23 shouldn't get any credit of dodging something that Gambit didn't have a prayer of doing.
X-23 was also mid-charge when she dodged it and was also pretty pissed. Meaning she did what Gambit couldn't.
This is entirely incorrect mate. It takes a certain skill to be able to lead a target, to ricochet bullets and tag someone, to predict where you're opponent will be/move and then fire at that spot etc.
Here's what I mean.
What you've shown with Arsenal and Punisher is just them firing/throwing projectiles everywhere, leaving their opponent nowhere to actually dodge. Also, those two have displayed accuracy feats a lot better than Slade has with his staff. Again I'll mention that on top of all, Deathstroke is using just one hand for his staff in this fight, crippling his accuracy, which wasn't too impressive to begin with, by a large margin. I'll take the chance to summarize why the staff isn't going to tag Laura:
Deathstroke has displayed great feats of accuracy with fire arms, true. But not with his staff. The feat you keep referring to, of him firing 11 shots with his staff in 1 panel to destroy rocks that were thrown at him, really doesn't count for much, considering he was just firing as fast as his staff could produce in every possible direction to make sure he tags all the rocks. His best feat of actual accuracy with the staff was tagging a helicopter that was relatively close to him and was just hovering. He's never shown to aim hit an opponent that actually has feats of dodging energy blasts and is charging at him.
Your claim that Slade let loose 11 blasts in 1 panel is nothing impressive. He was obviously using both ends of his staff which means that 1 end can fire just 5-6 blasts. Not to mention that he didn't even take the time to aim at the rocks and just let loose the blasts as fast as the staff could deliver. In other panels in your scan he's shown to be aiming at some rocks, at which cases he only takes 1 shot. Not nearly enough to tag X-23.
For some reason you had him weilding the staff with 1 hand while using the other for his handgun. He's never shown to use 1 hand for his staff and even with 2 hands he's never shown really impressive accuracy feats. Using just 1 hand will have an impact on his accuracy. Not really sure what you're trying to do with this, since the bullets shot by the handgun won't even be noticed by Laura even if they hit, but what can I say? It's your funeral.
X-23 will reach Deathstroke too fast for him to actually catch her rhythm of movement and tag her. Especially given he's using just one hand.
Basically, X-23 doesn't have to get to Slade. She only has to get to the staff and dispose of it with her claws. Given that X-23 has shown to compensate for distance by using impressive manuevers with her foot-claws on numerous occasions, she has to cross a lot less than those 6 meters to rid Deathstroke of his staff.
Skill with guns is totally a thing. It's the difference between shooting a target in the bullseye and missing it entirely, especially when under duress. This is the main reason although she has dodged energy blasts and bullets, Slade can still tag her especially with how many shots he's putting out.
Skill with guns IS a thing, I never said it wasn't. All I'm saying is that bullet-timing or even aim-dodging would allow someone to dodge bullets with ease regardless of who fired them. The tricks that Roy Harper and Punisher have pulled off in those scans of yours show more speed than skill. Regardless, Deathstroke hasn't shown anything similar in any scan you've presented. If you were arguing for Roy or Frank in this fight then yeah they might be able to tag her, but not Deathstroke. At least not with the staff.
I admitted it takes skill to tag Wolverine but like I said she only humiliated him by using dirt to stop him, which in itself is kind of silly considering he's healed from slash wounds faster than in that scan. Regardless it is a stretch to loosely show she has skill of the tier of Danny Rand or Wolverine. They are a tier or more ahead of her. Also like I stated two of your scans have her defeating opponents with tactics, not because of some comparable or equal skill. Her good showing of skill is when she stalemates Daken. She is very skilled but does not have an overall edge above Slade.
It's either Wolverine healing slower than usual because of CIS or something, or X-23 thinking, reacting and moving too fast for Wolverine to heal from her slashes. Considering that in this very fight he's healed from X-23's slashes as fast as you describe (before she started using the dirt), I'd say the latter is true.
She actually has shown great skill in all of those fights. She's blitzed Wolverine even before she started using dirt (and even after she started using it, it still doesn't explain why he wasn' fast enough to react to her). Again, when delving deeper into the small details of that fight, it shows how skilled, fast and unpredictable she is. Against Deathstrike, like I said it's less of actual fighting skill but it still shows her accuracy when she crippled her by kicking her cybernetics and her speed when she jumped behind her too fast for her to realize. The Spiderman fight shows she's skilled and fast enough to tag him, and the Daken fight is, well... just a fight. Not too much to elaborate on that one.
This statement entirely contradicts you're statement that she stalemated Daken. Which by scans she clearly did. This shows us that clearly if Wolverine were going all out against X-23 he could soundly beat her. Her fight with Daken shows her skill, but it also shows her limits. Without circumstances and using tactics, just using her raw skill she was only able to fight comparably with Daken someone who got manhandled by Wolverine. This leads us to believe that Wolverine was not indeed going full out he simply states "You wanna fight? Alright I'll fight" basically.
That's just ABC logic and it never works like that. X-23 has shown to out-skill Wolverine both on their fight AND on the Weapon-X test where she out-preformed him by 3 and a half minutes. So even if by ABC logic Wolverine is > Daken who is = X-23, it doesn't make sense since X-23 has shown to be > Wolverine on 2 different occasions (one of which was when she was 11 years old). Using just raw skill and speed she's blitzed Wolverine and outright humiliated him (and he has shown to move fast enough to have after-images). She's used the brilliant dirt-tactic to bypass his healing factor. It had no impact on his speed/skill/strength. And clearly Wolverine wasn't just "OK I'll fight", he was obviously pretty damn mad, judging by his face and the way he shouted at her "I'll MAKE YOU LISTEN!!!". He also took off his jacket, which is an international symbol for "sh*t's gonna go down now", like when Ash Katchum flips his hat backwards before important fight =P
Killing someone within the span of second is nice but as I've shown Slade has done that as well, he did it casually too.. Deathstroke in the scan moved so fast that he wasn't even a blur. He has swords in his hand 1 second and the next he tossed them with incredible speed and accuracy. This happened within one panel, and a total lack of motion on his part shows this feat is within the fraction of a second as well. And again I've shown where Slade moves between the ticks of a clock. Meaning he's moving, reacting, dodging in fractions of a second and still it's not his best speed or movement showings which I will get into.
That's at best comparable to her camera feat. To be honest it looks more like two or three seconds were skipped between the last 2 panels where Slade threw his swords at that guy.
Again the camera feat is just one example of X-23's speed. Her combat speed is also shown pretty nicely in her fights against Wolverine, Spiderman and Lady Deathstrike.
Not really. Skill can allow for a speed disparity to be not as much of an advantage as it should be. Unless your opponent has basic knowledge and is fighting an opponent that they've never fought before like in this situation.
As you've seen with Spiderman, Matthew Risman and also Daken, X-23 has numerous showings of her great skill when she's up against someone she's never met before.
I wouldn't call improvising her way through a test a tactical stroke of genius. It shows thoughtfulness and skill but nothing overly brilliant.
Never said it was a stroke of genius but it's still more than anything you've shown me on Slade's behalf. Also, again let me remind you she was just 11 at the time and it was her first actual test.
You missed what I was showing. Slade didn't dodge a punch he tagged Kid Flash by throwing a feint, a jab designed to throw off an opponent, and then predicting where KF would dodge and then lashing out to break his ribs. This feat clearly shows his tactical thinking, making an opponent move exactly where he wants them to and then nailing them. Exactly what he'll do with his blast staff against X-23.
Are you referring to the 2nd panel on the right where Slade is shown holding a knife? Looks more like he simply landed him a backhand rather than feinting. Also, if you look in the panel above, you can see Deathstroke was getting accostumed to KF's rhythm before throwing that jab. Also, even if he did feint, it's not at all too special. Feints are a known manuever in any martial art, especially boxing or MMA. Again, like the building-dropping thing, Deathstroke simply uses the oldest tricks in the book rather than actually coming up with brilliant ideas as he goes like X-23.
1. This is all under the supposition that X-23 will even get near Slade whom of which will be using his superior speed to stay out of arms reach and whack her with energy blasts till she goes down.
Already explained thoroughly why Deathstroke isn't gonna tag X-23 with his staff.
2. She uses her skill to tag Spider-man not her unpredictable moves. Spider-man in the past has dodged weapon blasts from Hobgoblin that were set to shoot at unpredictable areas on his body as well as from unpredictable angles. His spider sense countered this. But when someone with a plethora of more skill than him engages him from several feet away it's only a matter of time before he gets tagged. This is how Wolverine was able to tag Spider-man as well as Kaine in close quarters. H2H teaches someone to read an opponents body as well as their moves to figure out what they will do or move next like I've stated.
Yes, but Spiderman isn't just fast, he has Spider-Sense allows him some measure of precognition. It's like amping Lady Shiva/Cassie Cain's body-reading. Skill isn't enough to tag someone with those sorts of abilities, speed is needed as well.
I don't see how it doesn't. He uses his opponents movements and weapons against each other. I don't see how dropping buildings on people or using verbal tactics to best opponents, like he did with Cassandra Cain don't count as tactics. They do. He knows when to use his physicals to defeat an opponent and when to use the environment or weapons to best opponents. If you want I could toss a number of scans your way showing his battlefield tactical mind.
By that logic, every time that any character scores a victory over anyone it counts as a feat for tactical skills. Not true. Getting a bunch of kids to friendly-fire one another isn't a tactical thinking feat, and like I said on the building-dropping thing-it's one of the oldest tricks in the book, and Slade always preps for that option (which is exactly why he always carries the equipment for executing it). Tactics are showcased when a character overcomes another character's advantage or exploits their weakness by real-time thinking, without prep. Deathstroke almost always has at least some measure of prep.
That's the difference between the two. Deathstroke is a master of strategy, X-23 is a master of tactics. The difference is that strategy is the macro, your overall approach to a battle, taking into mind the circumstances and possibilities and preparing accordingly. Tactics are the micro, making up and thinking as you go to make the best out of your situation. Since there's no prep involved here, X-23 has the edge here.
So you admit dropping a building on an opponent to stop them counts as a skill feat? Like I've shown Slade has done the same and then some. There shouldn't be a tactic disparity between the two and in this situation given this setting it wouldn't really help them tbh.
Nope, I was talking about what came beforehand. X-23 did something completely unexpected by chopping off her own hand and cuffing Kimura to the pipe. This already shows her quick brilliant thinking skills. Also, regarding the explosion-it was also a stroke of genius. What makes the disparity between her and Deathstroke is that Deathstroke always preps for dropping a building and carries around the needed material, unlike X-23 who used her surroundings to trigger the explosion by letting the gas loose and igniting it with the lightbulb. Thats's the difference between strategy and tactics.
Not at all. For one he's defeated Oliver more times than I can think at h2h. And stating he wouldn't want to go against batman without enhancements isn't a blow to his skill. Bruce is arguably one of the top martial artists on DC Earth.
Usually yes, Slade beats GA thanks to better physicals and not necessarily skill. But in the fight you posted yourself, GA did out-skill him. Yes, he had the mobility advantage, but still. Deathstroke even exclaimed how Oliver had gotten a lot better than he remembered.
Batman indeed is one of the best skilled fighters in DC, but Deathstroke has stated to be less skilled than him. Wolverine is also arguably one of the best fighters in Marvel and yet X-23 has gotten the better of him. Twice. That's a 1-0 in favor of X-23's skill.
Outskilled by Dick Grayson you say? Here's Slade with his strength and speed cut in half.
Yes, Slade has dispatched Nightwing on several occasions. But eventually he got better. In his time as Batman, Dick has out-skilled Slade eventually.
Not gonna post the whole fight. They were pretty even all the way through, both took as much as they delivered, but here's the outcome:
BTW it's an example of Slade using explosions to run get away. Like I said, he's prepped for it, not really using tactics.
And he stalemated Cassandra Cain both times they fought
Really? All I remember is Cassandra disarming him of his sword and then putting it against his throat in one fight, and beating him in the other. I might remember uncorrectly, so do correct me if you may.
1. Deathstroke knew his different fighting style that he re-trained with. He didn't just notice that he was better trained he could literally tell a facet of the martial art that Ollie was using against him. This is a great skill feat for Slade. It's one thing to be trained and skilled, it's another thing to be able to tell exactly which martial art your opponent is using against him. This means that Slade has very decent knowledge on a number of martial arts. On top of this nice skill showing Slade has mastered every martial art given to him through his years of training. Again there shouldn't be a skill edge between them.
It's one thing to tell which style your opponent is using, it's another thing to actually beat them. Slade hasn't beaten Oliver in that fight. Also, the only reason Slade has recognized Oliver's style is because that fight happened after Oliver trained with Natas, the same man who taught Slade almost everything he knows. Naturally, Slade would recognize the fighting style that he himself has learned. So it's by no means a skill showing that says Deathstroke has mastered every martial art, it's just him recognizing the same moves he's learned in the past. Nothing impressive. Not a showing of skill, nor of anything else.
2. He was also "helpless" in that fight because he had zero mobility. Yet he was still fighting comparably with Ollie even though GA was jumping over his head, jumping off walls etc. So yes this is a very nice skill showing for him to be able to fight an opponent whom has the movile advantage while being at a massive disadvantage himself is fantastic.
I was actually talking about the fight that led him to that pool of sticky stuff. I can post the whole thing if you want. Here's a choice quote from Slade before he got to the pool of goo:
"Played. I've been played. He didn't just know I was coming. He brought me here. Set up this mouse-trap. I wasn't hunting him. He was hunting me."
Slade shows complete lack of tactical skills and helplessness against an opponent that was one step ahead of him.
As to him showing almost no tactics in that fight, he wanted to get caught by Oliver. Ollie even states he gave himself up to easily. Slade wanted to get to Constantine Drakon so trying to say he didn't use tactics doesn't work here......
Really? Because that's not what it looks like. Slade tried to take Oliver down with a tranquilizer dart. When that didn't work he tried to kill him. When he understood he's not gonna win he tried to flee (and also said that he's gonna make whoever got him into this pay). That, as I said, didn't work as well. Also there's the fact that Deathstroke admits how Oliver tricked him.
Slade didn't want to get captured. If what you're saying is true and he wanted to get to Drakon, he was probably just making the best out of a bad situation.
Y'know what, here are a few select scans from this fight:
Gallery
Slade comments about how his tranq got stuck in GA's armor, unexpectedly.
Slade makes clear of his intention to kill GA.
The quote I wrote earlier. Slade is being hunted.
Slade goes right where Oliver whants him. Also shows how GA's prepared every small detail.
Slade tries to flee and wants to kill whoever sent him after Ollie.
Here you can see Slade speed blitzing Black Canary from what appears to be 20-30 feet away even though she has her mouth open and is about to scream. Which is incredibly fast in itself
Oh, it's the Identity Crisis fight. As I said, this fight makes less sense than most Spongebob episodes. Deathstroke was making Kyle Rayner and Wally West look like Dumb and Dumber while Green Arrow gave him hell. Nothing concerning this fight should be taken seriously. Regardless, this isn't that impressive TBH. It's stated that Dinah was taking a deep breath, which by itself should take like at least 3 seconds, and Slade was A LOT closer to her than you think. Looks like 10-15 feet. Tops. And that's if I'm being generous.
Slade moves fast enough to blitz someone who easily perceives bullets after they are fired and acts fast enough to stop them from killing a friend whom is only 20 or so feet away..
And X-23 moves fast enough to blitz Wolverine and tag Spiderman. Your point?
Here Slade moves fast enough to jump between the blades of an industrial fan.
That's a good feat, really is. But still, I don't see how that beats the camera feat. A camera's flash goes off at up to 1/1000 of a second. Quick calc: a camera can flash 1000 times in a second, which means 60,000 flashes per minute. Some cameras can range down to 1/200 of a second to flash, which still means 12,000 per minute. That's a lot faster than your fan.
You've seen what X-23 has done in that time-a lot more than just jumping through a fan. She jumped, kicked and returned her foot-claw back into her foot. And she was only 11. Not to mention she managed to react to that laughably small window of opportunity.
Also you've seen her standing right in front of Lady Deathstrike and suddenly disappearing out of her plain sight and appearing behind her. It's at the very least comparable to the fan-feat.
I also have another scan of Deathstroke outpacing a helicopter and running what appears to be a kilometer in seconds....
Not too relevant here.
Possibly. But I state why he will be dual wielding both a pistol and a staff. He's going to be firing ranging shots at her while moving backwards to stay out of reach. These shots will help him gauge how X-23 moves, where she dodges, what she decides to tank etc. Now once he ingests this information, it'll only take him several shots at most, he'll get a fix on what she's going to do next. Slade has consistently shown being 1 step ahead of his opponents in a fight. He'll figure out what moves she'll make before she does, predict where she'll dodge and start laying down the hurt.
Again:
Nothing suggests that Slade is even remotely accurate enough to tag her with his staff to begin with.
By the time he catches a drift on how she's moving she'll already rid him of his staff and start blitzing him.
Trying to move backwards is going to make Deathstroke even less accurate. You keep crippling him here.
Slade has shown to be 1 step ahead when having prep. Here he doesn't have any prep, and X-23 has shown to be a tactical genius in those sorts of fights.
So somehow she's going to move to fast for someone that jumps between fan industrial fan blades and dodges bullets from point blank range? Yeah no.
Yes. The camera-feat is way more impressive than anything Slade has shown.
Blitzing a bloodlusted wolverine would be something. Blitzing wolverine who although agree's to fight still isn't into it is another thing. Maneuvering around a single blast of energy from someone less accurate or as tactically fast as Slade won't keep her from getting tagged. Spider-man has been tagged by people comparably as fast as Slade or less fast than him so this isn't anything too impressive. Like I said her huge skill edge allowed her to tag him.
Already countered all those claims.
Wolverine was going moving fast enough to create after-images even before going all-out. X-23 blitzed him all the way through, and has even reacted and moved too fast for his healing factor to heal his wounds.
Manuevering around an energy blast from point blank range when Gambit wasn't able to do that WILL keep her from getting tagged, on top of you crippling Slade's accuracy which isn't much to begin with by having him use the staff with 1 hand while walking backwards.
Spiderman has precog. Tagging him requires amazing skills and speed.
Already countered Slade wanted to get to Constantine Drakon, Ollie even admits he gave himself up easily.
He didn't give himself up at all. He tried to kill GA and then tried to flee, and failed miserably at both.
He's going to be firing more than that. I've shown him fire 11+ shots in a single panel taking out projectiles coming at him from "unpredictable" angles and she won't really be dodging many of them. Once tagged she'll lose focus and slow down especially when getting tagged by a helicopter busting shot.
Already countered all of that. Slade's accuracy with the staff is mediocre at best.
"Unpredictable", which I don't know why you keep using considering slower opponents tag her just fine, becomes predictable after Slade fires several shots at her and figures how she moves.
Yes, she's unpredictable. Like when she tagged Wolverine by switching stance and double-kicking him, then switching again and slashing him. Or when she incapitated Lady Deathstrike, then proceeded to jump behind her. Or when Daken jumped at her and she dodged and grabbed onto him which made them both fall off the roof. Not to mention Spiderman.
This type of speed is laughable to Slade. He casually dodges bullets which are much faster than the eye can perceive. And like I've shown that form of speed isn't even his best. Compared to him she won't be moving quick enough to stop him from tagging her......a lot.
Laughable? He wasn't really laughing when Dick Grayson kicked him and exclaimed Slade's getting old. And again, Slade's best feats don't compare to Laura's camera-feat, or the fact she's a lot faster than Wolverine's healing factor.
I would like to point out your use of "casually heals from house busting explosions". There was nothing casual about that feat. She's on the ground with no skin, barely moving and based on the speech boxes she even sounded like she could barely talk. Casual is eating a blast and continuing to walk. She can tank several blasts mind you but more than that? Naw she'll slow up, get hit with some more, and fall to the ground. I already showed you a single blast of his is able to ignite a person....she won't be walking several of those off easily.
You're right about that one instance with Daken. But when she blew up the house with Risman she didn't even bat an eye. And here's the explosion after the Spiderman-fight that I was talking about-notice how X-23 is completely unfazed, and she literally was at the very heart of the explosion:
Gallery
Of course it isn't but her body can only stop so much and getting hammered by Slades blast staff her body will slow up and she'll go night night before she can kill Deathstroke.
Not really. She's not gonna get tagged by the staff to begin with, but even if she does she'll shake it off. She's tanked much more powerful explosions without batting an eye. Wolverine has stated that her healing factor is better than his, and this is a guy who takes punches from guys like Hulk and keeps fighting.
Summary:
Deathstroke hasn't shown any impressive accuracy with his staff. Given that you've chosen to limit him even further by having him weild it with 1 hand while trying to walk backwards, he has no hope in hell to tag someone like X-23 who's dodged a blast from point-blank range, something even Gambit couldn't do. She'll be upon him before he knows it and none of his attempts to tag her would work.
Deathstroke's best speed feats don't compare to what X-23 has done at 11 years old, when she killed a man while a camera's flash went off.
X-23 has shown the skill and speed to outright blitz and humiliate Wolverine, while Deathstroke has admitted that he'd hate to go against skilled fighters without his enhancements.
While Deathstroke has better feats as a prep-master and strategist, his real-time tactics are really nothing to write home about. X-23 on the other hand has consistently shown to outsmart her opponents with tactical strokes of genius that come to her during combat.
Deathstroke most definitely isn't going to tag X-23, but even if he does-her healing factor and pain tolerance would allow her to keep going as long as she needs to finally overcome him and beat him.
She was fast enough to blitz Wolverine and tag Spiderman.
Wolverine has tagged Spider-man it really isn't that impressive of a feat especially when she has a ton of skill on her side.
To be honest Slade let loose 11 blasts because he fired in all directions from both ends of his staff. It was speed and not accuracy that came into play there. He wasn't even aiming, just spinning the staff while letting loose as many shots possible to tag all the rocks. He's not gonna do it here, he's gonna try and aim at Laura while she's coming at him. I don't think he's displayed the accuracy with his staff to hit someone who moves as fast as X-23, especially when using just one hand which will have an impact on his accuracy. If Slade can fire his staff 11 times in 1 panel with both ends of the staff, then logically he'd only be able to fire 5-6 times with 1 end.
It was just an example showing he can let loose when he wants to. Wasn't even aiming? Not a single shot missed their targets, he was indeed aiming. He even states he has to focus in the scan. He's tagged Bart numerous times and with his enhanced perception she won't be moving too fast for him at all.
Here's Slade dodging a bullet from a gun that is inches away from his face after it was fired.
In the next scan he states he's too fast for her to kill. His perception is high enough that he'll be able to see X-23 just fine and tag her.
Exactly. It was same with Sinister and she's dodged that blast just fine.
Except Slade won't be firing just one blast and he also sure won't be standing in one place waiting for her to take a swipe at him.
X-23 was also mid-charge when she dodged it and was also pretty pissed. Meaning she did what Gambit couldn't.
Except Gambit just jumped in the air straight at him and then Sinister fires a massive blast at him from a few feet away. He had no time or ability to twist his body out of the way, he was a stationary target, X-23 wasn't she was a moving target. That feat still shouldn't be attributed to X-23 showing more agility or reactionary abilities than Gambit has shown.....
What you've shown with Arsenal and Punisher is just them firing/throwing projectiles everywhere, leaving their opponent nowhere to actually dodge.
And it takes the same skill to hit opponents that are much faster than you like Punisher showed in his fight with a speedster.
Deathstroke has displayed great feats of accuracy with fire arms, true. But not with his staff. The feat you keep referring to, of him firing 11 shots with his staff in 1 panel to destroy rocks that were thrown at him, really doesn't count for much, considering he was just firing as fast as his staff could produce in every possible direction to make sure he tags all the rocks. His best feat of actual accuracy with the staff was tagging a helicopter that was relatively close to him and was just hovering. He's never shown to aim hit an opponent that actually has feats of dodging energy blasts and is charging at him.
Again he eve states he has to focus. What would he have to focus on with what you are implying? Mashing the fire button as quickly as possible?? No he has to focus to spin his staff around to individually destroy all the projectiles with pinpoint accuracy. And no his best feat his frying a human being while simultaneously dodging machine gun fire from multiple attacks at multiple angles. Her feat is of dodging a single energy blast from someone who lacks the accuracy and enhanced perception that Slade does. Coupled with tactical thinking of predicting how an opponent is going to move as well as being able to act and react as fast as he can think.........Yep she's going to be tagged.
Your claim that Slade let loose 11 blasts in 1 panel is nothing impressive. He was obviously using both ends of his staff which means that 1 end can fire just 5-6 blasts. Not to mention that he didn't even take the time to aim at the rocks and just let loose the blasts as fast as the staff could deliver. In other panels in your scan he's shown to be aiming at some rocks, at which cases he only takes 1 shot. Not nearly enough to tag X-23.
5-6 shots in one panel is indeed impressive especially when he is maneuvering to keep out of reach means a lot more than 5-6 shots will be coming her way and she won't be shaking off successive blasts from his staff easily.....
For some reason you had him weilding the staff with 1 hand while using the other for his handgun. He's never shown to use 1 hand for his staff and even with 2 hands he's never shown really impressive accuracy feats. Using just 1 hand will have an impact on his accuracy. Not really sure what you're trying to do with this, since the bullets shot by the handgun won't even be noticed by Laura even if they hit, but what can I say? It's your funeral.
He'll be doing so at the start to begin to see how she moves, where she dodges or jumps etc. Once he gets a feel on this he'll use a two handed grip for improved accuracy and start tagging her. Until she starts exhibiting speed in the double digit mach ranges her speed won't be enough to stop her from getting hit.
X-23 will reach Deathstroke too fast for him to actually catch her rhythm of movement and tag her. Especially given he's using just one hand.
You keep assuming Slade will be standing around. She doesn't have comparable speed to his so she won't be reaching him when he's doing his best to stay out of her grasp.
Basically, X-23 doesn't have to get to Slade. She only has to get to the staff and dispose of it with her claws. Given that X-23 has shown to compensate for distance by using impressive manuevers with her foot-claws on numerous occasions, she has to cross a lot less than those 6 meters to rid Deathstroke of his staff.
It's nice you admit she can't reach him :). Like I said there will continually be a gap between them that she can't exploit because she is slower than Deathstroke so this won't work.
The tricks that Roy Harper and Punisher have pulled off in those scans of yours show more speed than skill. Regardless, Deathstroke hasn't shown anything similar in any scan you've presented. If you were arguing for Roy or Frank in this fight then yeah they might be able to tag her, but not Deathstroke. At least not with the staff.
This doesn't make sense mate so just because he hasn't used his staff tocasually blown off the head of a statue without looking means he can't? He's shown a stupid amount of accuracy with just about anything he touches. He's tossed his swords into someone's legs while missing their femoral artery, accurately threw his sword to wreck a jeep, casually blew heads off statues without looking with his guns. It's a baseless assumption to assume since slade can't hit her when his accuracy states otherwise. The feat I've shown you of him taking down multiple rocks with his staff in a single panel is a fantastic accuracy feat.
X-23 thinking, reacting and moving too fast for Wolverine to heal from her slashes.
She's really not that fast for this type of thing tbh.
She actually has shown great skill in all of those fights. She's blitzed Wolverine even before she started using dirt
Speed showing not skill....
Again, when delving deeper into the small details of that fight, it shows how skilled, fast and unpredictable she is. Against Deathstrike, like I said it's less of actual fighting skill but it still shows her accuracy when she crippled her by kicking her cybernetics and her speed when she jumped behind her too fast for her to realize. The Spiderman fight shows she's skilled and fast enough to tag him, and the Daken fight is, well... just a fight. Not too much to elaborate on that one.
So she's only as skilled as Daken? Got it. That's nice but nothing that would outskill Slade as I've shown.
That's just ABC logic and it never works like that. X-23 has shown to out-skill Wolverine both on their fight AND on the Weapon-X test where she out-preformed him by 3 and a half minutes. So even if by ABC logic Wolverine is > Daken who is = X-23, it doesn't make sense since X-23 has shown to be > Wolverine on 2 different occasions (one of which was when she was 11 years old). Using just raw skill and speed she's blitzed Wolverine and outright humiliated him (and he has shown to move fast enough to have after-images). She's used the brilliant dirt-tactic to bypass his healing factor. It had no impact on his speed/skill/strength. And clearly Wolverine wasn't just "OK I'll fight", he was obviously pretty damn mad, judging by his face and the way he shouted at her "I'll MAKE YOU LISTEN!!!". He also took off his jacket, which is an international symbol for "sh*t's gonna go down now", like when Ash Katchum flips his hat backwards before important fight =P
It isn't when feats have shown it to be true.
1. She didn't out skill Logan. She used tactics to beat him. To out skill would require her besting him in h2h. Like getting in his guard and putting him in a choke hold, putting him down with multiple slash wounds to vital area's etc. She never got the better of him by utilizing h2h she used tactics to beat him so no she did not out skill him.
2. Again getting through a exercise course faster than logan means she again utilized tactical thinking to bypass or get through obstacles. Wolverine on the other hand can be a bit blunt which would result in him just running through and tanking his way to victory. He was I would argue less skilled during the period he took the exercise and less tactically adept. So again she used tactics to beat his time which is in no way displaying more skill than Logan especially since we've been discussing h2h skill.....
That's at best comparable to her camera feat. To be honest it looks more like two or three seconds were skipped between the last 2 panels where Slade threw his swords at that guy.
It is comparable. I was simply showing Slade can casually match that speed without trying.
Again the camera feat is just one example of X-23's speed. Her combat speed is also shown pretty nicely in her fights against Wolverine, Spiderman and Lady Deathstrike.
Her combat speed is nice but doesn't match Slade and it's pretty irrelevant given that he'll be keeping out of reaching pounding her with energy blasts.
Looks more like he simply landed him a backhand rather than feinting.
Nope there is a clear line of movement and Bart says, "woah" implying the slash was close but you can see him dodging it without a problem. Bart goes one way Slade lashes out in that direction and breaks his rib.
Also, if you look in the panel above, you can see Deathstroke was getting accostumed to KF's rhythm before throwing that jab
Yes except in this scenario he'll be getting accustomed to X-23's rhythm to put her down. Slade's shown to do it with much faster opponents he won't have trouble with someone slower.
Also, even if he did feint, it's not at all too special. Feints are a known manuever in any martial art, especially boxing or MMA. Again, like the building-dropping thing, Deathstroke simply uses the oldest tricks in the book rather than actually coming up with brilliant ideas as he goes like X-23.
And yet some of the most skilled martial artists have fallen to them. Wolverine sure has as well as Daken and many other notable martial artists..He also won't need a brilliant idea to stop her, he'll box her in with his energy blasts and tag her.
Already explained thoroughly why Deathstroke isn't gonna tag X-23 with his staff.
Frankly you didn't. You showed her "blitzing" wolverine and dodging a single energy blast from someone that lacks the accuracy feats that Deathstroke has. You also seem to be disregarding his heightened perception that allows him to casually see enemies reacting in slow motion which negates any more of speed "edge" you seem to be pushing.
Yes, but Spiderman isn't just fast, he has Spider-Sense allows him some measure of precognition. It's like amping Lady Shiva/Cassie Cain's body-reading. Skill isn't enough to tag someone with those sorts of abilities, speed is needed as well.
Speed can be required but skill is what allows you to do it. How do you think Wolverine was able to tag him? I can tell you it wasn't because of comparable speed. Spider-man has dodged mach 3.5 projectiles without a problem and X-23, nor Wolverine, nor Daredevil (he's hit pete before) are even close to that speed. Thus logically skill is needed to predict your opponents movements which in the end means she out skilled him. Sure she used speed as well but this honestly isn't a speed showing and especially not something that is even within spitting distance of Slade's speed. I'm not saying his speed makes him un taggable but it sure means he is quite able to keep a distance from her.
By that logic, every time that any character scores a victory over anyone it counts as a feat for tactical skills
No but blowing out a pillar to slow an opponent or stop them counts as using tactics. Using dirty is tactical thinking, it's also the oldest trick in the book to use dirt against an opponent to blind them, immobilize them etc. If you want a nice skill feat from Slade he's taken down a camp full of mercenary's in under 3 minutes. He used stealth and skill to avoid being shot or captured. Like I said no disparity between them and on the spot tactical thinking.....
Getting a bunch of kids to friendly-fire one another isn't a tactical thinking feat
He engaged the entire group in h2h he rag dolled everyone even Donna Troy, he did this by using their strengths against them and utilizing Cyborgs weapons to take out the group in a second is definitely tactical thinking.....
That's the difference between the two. Deathstroke is a master of strategy, X-23 is a master of tactics. The difference is that strategy is the macro, your overall approach to a battle, taking into mind the circumstances and possibilities and preparing accordingly. Tactics are the micro, making up and thinking as you go to make the best out of your situation. Since there's no prep involved here, X-23 has the edge here.
1. Using dirt, slashing a gas line to blow up a building, and speeding her way through an exercise doesn't put her above Slade as I've shown.
2. In this location tactical thinking won't get her anywhere. It's an empty street, no environment to use and besides you haven't even shown how she would implement her "tactical edge" in this battle so no she doesn't have an edge here...
Yes, Slade has dispatched Nightwing on several occasions. But eventually he got better. In his time as Batman, Dick has out-skilled Slade eventually.
1. During this same time period Slade has still kicked the crap out of Nightwing so if we take that fight objectively it becomes a high end feat for Grayson.
2. If we actually look at it you'll notice the same writer of that comic has Roy Harper best him in h2h in another comic. On both occasions Slade notices that they have gotten better, more mature and skilled. So basically the writer was using Slade as a measuring stick for their characters "development" in every other showing when Deathstroke engages either of them in h2h he destroys them. So I'd honestly take that scan with a grain of salt.
Really? All I remember is Cassandra disarming him of his sword and then putting it against his throat in one fight, and beating him in the other. I might remember uncorrectly, so do correct me if you may.
In their first fight Slade was testing her, he mocks that she was trained by batman. They exchange several blows until Slade pulls out a grenade where then Cassandra leaves the building. So at best the first showing was a stalemate. The next fight Deathstroke is more focused. He drops a building on her and then runs away. She sense something is up and wonders why he isn't trying. He then engages in a fight and tags her with a net and tosses her against a building. She holds the sword out for him to get impaled but he chuckles and say's she's too slow.
She state's he's toying with her and he admits he is. Later on in another fight he out muscles her and is winning until Jericho pulls him off.
So at best they're able to stalemate each other in their fights.
Usually yes, Slade beats GA thanks to better physicals and not necessarily skill. But in the fight you posted yourself, GA did out-skill him. Yes, he had the mobility advantage, but still. Deathstroke even exclaimed how Oliver had gotten a lot better than he remembered.
He uses PREP to handle slade not skill. He's even fighting comparably with GA who hold the mobility advantage while he himself can hardly pivot and move.
Wolverine is also arguably one of the best fighters in Marvel and yet X-23 has gotten the better of him. Twice. That's a 1-0 in favor of X-23's skill.
And yet she stalemated Daken whom got stomped by Wolverine. Where's the logic in this statement?? She used dirt not h2h skill to defeat wolverine. She uses tactics against opponents. She realized she couldn't handle deathstrike in a fight so she AGAIN uses TACTICS to defeat an opponent.
X-23 has never defeated an opponent as well versed in martial arts like Wolverine is through sheer skill. That would require her getting in a number of game changing blows in her fight. All they did was trade slashes, nothing more so I fail to see how she has a skill edge here...
It's one thing to tell which style your opponent is using, it's another thing to actually beat them. Slade hasn't beaten Oliver in that fight. Also, the only reason Slade has recognized Oliver's style is because that fight happened after Oliver trained with Natas, the same man who taught Slade almost everything he knows. Naturally, Slade would recognize the fighting style that he himself has learned. So it's by no means a skill showing that says Deathstroke has mastered every martial art, it's just him recognizing the same moves he's learned in the past. Nothing impressive. Not a showing of skill, nor of anything else.
He stalemated him while being immobile I'd say that's a pretty impressive skill feat there especially since Ollie is a very skilled martial artist. Also if it was the only fighting style Slade learned yes it wouldn't be that impressive. But Slade has mastered every single martial art given to him. Being able to tell what art your opponent is using by identifying it from a single blow they through is indeed a skill showing.
Really? Because that's not what it looks like. Slade tried to take Oliver down with a tranquilizer dart. When that didn't work he tried to kill him. When he understood he's not gonna win he tried to flee (and also said that he's gonna make whoever got him into this pay). That, as I said, didn't work as well. Also there's the fact that Deathstroke admits how Oliver tricked him.
Slade didn't want to get captured. If what you're saying is true and he wanted to get to Drakon, he was probably just making the best out of a bad situation.
Y'know what, here are a few select scans from this fight:
Slade shows complete lack of tactical skills and helplessness against an opponent that was one step ahead of him.
I'm just going to counter both of these statements with one scan. Slade DID want to get caught by Ollie, heck GA even admits he gave up to easy which in this scan we see Deathstroke had already planned this.
So Ollies "feat" of besting Slade tactically is invalid.
Moving on.
Oh, it's the Identity Crisis fight. As I said, this fight makes less sense than most Spongebob episodes. Deathstroke was making Kyle Rayner and Wally West look like Dumb and Dumber while Green Arrow gave him hell. Nothing concerning this fight should be taken seriously. Regardless, this isn't that impressive TBH. It's stated that Dinah was taking a deep breath, which by itself should take like at least 3 seconds, and Slade was A LOT closer to her than you think. Looks like 10-15 feet. Tops. And that's if I'm being generous.
Deep breath or not it's the reaction we're looking at, and he said her jaw "clicked" meaning she was just about to scream. Dinah has perceived bullets after they were fired and reacted fast enough to disintegrate them. Regardless of the fight this feat is concrete and is backed up when he has jumped through a moving industrial fan an dodged a bullet after it was fired inches from his face. This feat alone shows Slade can move his body at mach 2+ speeds and faster when he needs to. He'll use it to keep his distance as I've shown.
And X-23 moves fast enough to blitz Wolverine and tag Spiderman. Your point?
Already countered.
That's a good feat, really is. But still, I don't see how that beats the camera feat. A camera's flash goes off at up to 1/1000 of a second. Quick calc: a camera can flash 1000 times in a second, which means 60,000 flashes per minute. Some cameras can range down to 1/200 of a second to flash, which still means 12,000 per minute. That's a lot faster than your fan.
Look at the time stamp in the left corner. She clearly moves between 1 second and the next. There must have been more camera's there because we can clearly see she's not reacting at 1/1000 of a second.
Also you've seen her standing right in front of Lady Deathstrike and suddenly disappearing out of her plain sight and appearing behind her. It's at the very least comparable to the fan-feat.
Batman has done this, Nightwing has done this it's really not that fast, quick but nothing comparable to jumping between an industrial fan that's spinning so fast a projectile weapon can't even make it through. He does it casually too btw.
Nothing suggests that Slade is even remotely accurate enough to tag her with his staff to begin with.
Like I've said he's shown proficiency with every form of projectile weapon he's picked up and he has enhanced perception whatever speed she has won't mean much besides he doesn't even have to directly hit her he could just blow up the ground like he did with Bart. That will be enough to disrupt her and hammer her with successive blasts.
By the time he catches a drift on how she's moving she'll already rid him of his staff and start blitzing him.
Except you haven't shown she has remotely comparable speed to even catch Slade so no.
Trying to move backwards is going to make Deathstroke even less accurate. You keep crippling him here.
Why would it make him less accurate? He fried a man while he was dodging machine gun fire at the same time. He can tag her no matter which direction he's moving.
Slade has shown to be 1 step ahead when having prep. Here he doesn't have any prep, and X-23 has shown to be a tactical genius in those sorts of fights.
As I've said and shown so has Slade no disparity here between them and again tactics won't be very much use in this environment.
Yes. The camera-feat is way more impressive than anything Slade has shown.
If there wasn't a time stamp that literally shows she is only reacting at 1/4 a second then yes it would be more impressive. But so far it isn't.
Wolverine was going moving fast enough to create after-images even before going all-out. X-23 blitzed him all the way through, and has even reacted and moved too fast for his healing factor to heal his wounds.
Manuevering around an energy blast from point blank range when Gambit wasn't able to do that WILL keep her from getting tagged, on top of you crippling Slade's accuracy which isn't much to begin with by having him use the staff with 1 hand while walking backwards.
Spiderman has precog. Tagging him requires amazing skills and speed.
Already countered this. But showing her tagging Spider-man really doesn't mean a lot a number of enhanced and peak humans have done it, all exhibit a varying amount of skill to larger and smaller degree's. So sure it show's general skill but it doesn't show anything AMAZING that puts her over Slade at all......
Yes, she's unpredictable. Like when she tagged Wolverine by switching stance and double-kicking him, then switching again and slashing him. Or when she incapitated Lady Deathstrike, then proceeded to jump behind her. Or when Daken jumped at her and she dodged and grabbed onto him which made them both fall off the roof. Not to mention Spiderman.
In h2h that very well may be but I've shown that this fight won't devolve into any form of that.
You're right about that one instance with Daken. But when she blew up the house with Risman she didn't even bat an eye. And here's the explosion after the Spiderman-fight that I was talking about-notice how X-23 is completely unfazed, and she literally was at the very heart of the explosion
Concentrated energy blast that turns you into charcoal >>>> fireball that barely scuffed anyone that was near it. Heck her clothing is barely torn lol that flame wasn't even hot at all so that feat doesn't really show much. And again with the scan of her and Daken flayed alive it clearly shows that it did tax her, good thing Slade's staff has been shown to replicate that kind of heat and damage.....
Not really. She's not gonna get tagged by the staff to begin with, but even if she does she'll shake it off. She's tanked much more powerful explosions without batting an eye. Wolverine has stated that her healing factor is better than his, and this is a guy who takes punches from guys like Hulk and keeps fighting.
From what I've shown she is. And kinetic damage won't matter here when it'll be heat and having her muscle and skin roasted off her bones that'll put her down in the end.
To Summarize
1. You did not show X-23 can even compete or catch Slade with her level of speed.
2. You didn't show X-23 can handle prolonged energy blasts that Deathstroke will be putting out
3. Deathstroke can indeed tag her considering he's tagged several flashes before, see's beings in slow motion casually, has demonstrated ridiculous precision with every weapon he's gotten his hands on etc.
In the end Deathstroke will be using his superior speed to evade getting into an h2h fight with X-23 which I admit won't go too well for Slade in the end. But since she can't catch him he'll be using his superior damage output to tag her. She has not dodged energy blasts from someone as precise as Deathstroke and he could simply destroy the ground beneath her to throw off or distract her enough to begin tagging her with several energy blasts. Which, by your scan of her sitting on the ground with no skin, will take a heavy toll on her and lead to her inevitable K.O. at the hands of Mr. Wilson.
@the_red_viper Not finished with my post yet, about half way there though. I guess if your ready to go for votes we can open it up after I finish this how's that sound?
@eisenfauste: I would have edited the title to draw voters but I'm on mobile and I think it'll scramble the whole OP up because of the pictures and all... Should I try?
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