Yes folks, Shao Kahn will be watching this battle take place for his amusement.
Conditions:
Current Versions of Elektra and Shang-Chi but most of their feats and showings in the past should be applicable in this battle too.
Combatants are in character but serious and highly motivated to win.
Standard Gear. Elektra has her Sais, Shang-Chi has a pair of nunchuks.
Random Encounter.
Win by KO, Incapacitation, Surrender or Death.
Challenge A Viner Rules:
Do not start extra arguments, post unnecessary scans/videos or interfere in the debate itself in any way. If you wish to inform either of us on anything important or correct us on a point, send us a private message.
If any of the above is excessively broken, we may request a mod to assist.
It's appreciated if there's no early judgments are made on the outcome of the battle, one should always wait and witness the debating quality and abilities of everyone involved before jumping to early conclusions.
A reason for your voting choice would be greatly appreciated too.
@highaccuser The thread is made, hope you like how I've set up the OP :P
I do. It's all good.
Excellent, I've done a good job then. I'll start working on my first post today and I'll try and get it up today but if not, it'll be up by tomorrow for certain. Honestly, I can't wait to learn about Shang-Chi's capabilities as they're even more underappreciated than Elektra's combat skills are. This should be an interesting CAV.
Though I tend to be referred to as a powerhouse/high tier expert, I've been dabbling and debating in street level battles on here for a while. And this is my first street level CAV since a Captain America vs Kraven The Hunter one I did. I'm glad of the choices of characters we're using here as they're both underrated and relatively unused/unknown characters on the battle forums, though I think Shang catches the brunt of that more than my character. Who I learned about and found out more of her showings and feats thanks to the Elektra vs Shredder Battle of The Week article. So, without further ado, I'll introduce my character in this debate, who is one of the fiercest, deadly and premier assassins in the Marvel Universe. I am of course referring to Elektra Natchios.
For those who are unaware of the character, I'll provide a brief excerpt taken from this site to summarise Elektra's origin and part of her history.
Bio:
Born and raised in Greece. While she was in college, she dated Matthew Murdock , the future Daredevil. Her father was a Greek ambassador accidentally killed by a police officer during a terrorist hostage situation, which Murdock was able to rescue Elektra from.
Following the death of her father, Elektra left America and was eventually trained as a ninja by The Hand. She went solo as an international bounty hunter, which eventually led her back into the life of Matt Murdock (now Daredevil and a lawyer. She worked for The Kingpin, but was killed by a vengeful Bullseye, who wanted his job back. She was resurrected by The Hand with Daredevil's help.
She kept her new life a secret from her heartbroken former lover for a very long time.
She later befriended Wolverine and cured him from being stuck in an animal-like form. Years afterward, she was killed a second time when Wolverine was mindcontrolled by Hydra. She was again resurrected by the Hand, which was what she had planned, so that she could lead the organization herself.
It was during her time as leader of The Hand that she was replaced by a Skrull, which was discovered by the New Avengers when they killed the impostor.
Following the Secret Invasion, the real Elektra was revealed to be alive upon one of the Skrull ships and was released following the final battle between the heroes and the Skrulls. Iron Man immediately ordered her held in protective custody at S.H.I.E.L.D. Later, Norman Osborn ordered her to be studied and monitored at H.A.M.M.E.R. to obtain information about why she seems to be the only Skrull captive showing signs of expreimentation and torture.
And I'll also supply an old though nonetheless accurate handbook entry for Elektra (her recent handbook entry has yet to be located online)
With the introductions out of the way, I'll begin a brief outline of Elektra's physicals and fighting skills.
Strength/Striking Power
Though she is a member of the so called 'weaker sex' Elektra has accomplished some very impressive strength feats as street levellers go.
Whilst drugged, Elektra has easily broken free of a straitjacket restraining her
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She's casually broken bricks with her punches
Whilst attacking a group of men, she effortlessly threw two of them up into the air.
Furthermore, Elektra has stabbed a mercenary with her sai clean through and then lifted him up into the air whilst he's still stabbed on the sai.
I find that to be quite an impressive feat of her striking power so Shang is going to need to avoid letting his guard down unless he wants to be on the receiving end of Elektra's powerful Sai stabs. Oh and she's done this more than once, I'll provide more Sai stabbing scans later.
And, whilst teaming up with Shang-Chi, Elektra has broken through two rather large golden doors in one fell kick.
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I don't want to place all my eggs in one basket so moving on...
Durability/Endurance
Another aspect this battle may well boil down to is that whilst fighters must be able to dish it out, they have to be able to take it too. And I believe Elektra can take Shang's damage as well as put the hurt on him.
EDIT: (I've been informed that my scan was of Skrull Elektra so that's not a viable durability feat anymore.) She's been shot, tazed and attacked yet still managed to keep on fighting against a group of armed guards.
During her first tragic fight against Bullseye, despite having a card slice her throat and being stabbed right through the chest by Lester, Elektra was able to survive long enough to stagger away from the fight scene and reach Matt Murdock's apartment before dying.
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Additionally, in a fight she had with a foe called Drake, Elektra was capable of engaging him in a fight for 6 hours straight. Granted, she lost but it's an incredible feat of endurance to last so long in a fight.
Even if Shang is as good as you claim he is, Elektra won't be easy to take down. Rather, her durability, pain tolerance and endurance performances highlight how Elektra can take Shang's blows on the chin and still keep going fighting. Another area where Elektra has an apparent edge thus far.
Speed/Reflexes
This is the one area where Elektra has the biggest benefit over Shang in a H2H melee battle. Her speed and reflex feats are top notch and Shang is going to have his hands full keeping up with Elektra in the speed department.
Saying she's a bullet timer is the least of Elektra's reaction times and speed. She's cut a bullet in half with her sai easily.
The blade of a sai is hardly that wide in diameter so that's a majorly noteworthy reaction feat to slice a bullet in half with such a thin weapon. But here's a better one; deflecting machine gun fire with her twin sai.
Also, Elektra has dodged gunfire whilst feverish and weakened to boot.
She's disarmed multiple guards before they finish saying "You are under arrest."
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Additionally, she's swung a Japanese short sword too fast to be captured on camera and felled 4 guards in 2 seconds. It's hardly a stretch to assume that she can swing her sais with similar speed at Shang with a serious mindset for victory.
I have plenty more combat speed feats where those came from but I'll move onto the last section for now. I hope Shang has some solid combat speed and reflex feats to keep up with Elektra.
Fighting Skill
This is where the really interesting area of debate will take place IMO, who's the more skilled out of these two fighters. Elektra The Deadly Assasin or Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu? For my money, I'll be arguing for Elektra's skill. Though she isn't the creme de la creme of the Marvel Universe, Elektra is certainly a top tier martial artist in the Marvel Universe. And to start things off, here's a real doozy of a skill feat where Elektra slices off the headband of another ninja without leaving a scratch on her foe.
Nina even says that it would have been easier to kill her than to make such a controlled and deadly cut so suffice to say, Elektra knows how to hurt people if she can pull off a trick like that.
Moving on, Elektra has held her own in a brief struggle against The Chaste, the mystical martial arts group led by Stick who was also responsible for training Daredevil.
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Speaking of Daredevil, Elektra has fought and held her own against him on several occasions. Including a brief struggle where Matt perceived her as a threat to his civilian life whereas Elektra just wanted him to turn on his television. Yet she still proves capable of restraining Matt and getting the message across.
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And in a flashback Elektra had of another fight between her and Matt, she recalls having him at Sai point.
Though, for the record, I do admit Matt would take the majority over Elektra but then again, I'd say the same of his chances against Shang-Chi.
Finally, Elektra does have a robust selection of the martial art skill pulled out all the time on street level battles, pressure points FTW :P
Incapacitates a man with two fingers to his throat saying that pushing harder will kill him.
KOs another guy with a two fingered pressure point to the hand in a handshake.
Assuming that pressure points do somehow come into play in this battle, Elektra knows how to use them and has implemented them in battle before as the first two showings demonstrate.
But that's enough for my first post, I've outlined Elektra's physicals, durability, speed, reflexes and fighting skill with plenty more showings to come. This is just the tip of the iceburg as to why I posit the argument that Elektra will eventually prove too much for Shang-Chi to handle and succumb to Elektra's speed and skill. Your turn mate.
The scans you showed were alright, but I still feel that Shang has a massive advantage in this area.
Shang has knocked Classic Thing flying with his blows. Granted he was only a 10 tonner at the time, but this is still more damage than Elektra has ever done to any foe with noteworthy durability that you've shown so far.
Shang is strong enough to completely overpower many robots with nothing more than his sheer physical might.
During Marvel NOW Shang-Chi fought aleph, a robot designed to destroy worlds deemed unfit by the builders that was able to give the Avengers some problems. Shang easily chops its leg off with a single strike without even preparing himself. Shang is also capable of easily destroying Brick Walls which he does on a number of occasions with little effort, even doing so with a simple elbow thrust once.
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His striking power is going to be most useful for putting Elektra at a disadvantage by breaking her Sais and forcing her to use her fists on Shang-Chi's nunchucks which is an obvious disadvantage. Breaking weapons isn't a problem, he's already done it to a skilled enemy mid combat before.
Durability/Endurance
This is another area Shang-Chi has a considerable advantage. Most of the scans you posted were examples of pain tolerance and resiliance, not actually tanking direct blunt damage without receiving any bodily damage, which is going to be extremely hard when facing someone who has offensive output like Shang-Chi does.
Shang-Chi's durability comes from his ability to use Chi to spread pain evenly throughout his body.
During his recent fight with Gorgon, Shang-Chi was tossed up on top of the third floor of the highest pagoda in the temple. He was only moderately damaged and continued the fight unharmed.
Here Shang takes a huge hit from a dragon that knocks him ridiculously high into the air. He retains consciousness though. The dragon catches him before he lands and he isn't too badly hurt:
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During his fight with Spider-Man, Shang-Chi manages to tank 4 hits from him including getting slammed into a wall followed by falling down a story and comes out completely unharmed.
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Speed/Reflexes
Given the scans you've shown and others that I've seen I'm inclined to give Elektra a slight edge in this area. That said, Shang should be completely able of keeping up with her and tagging her rather easily. This small advantage doesn't make up for Shang-Chi having the advantage in every other area, especially since the limited advantage she has isn't that large.
Shang-Chi is also a casual bullet timer. His best known speed feat is being able to dodge a bullet after it's been fired. This is one of several instances where Shang has been able to casually react to bullets.
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Shang is also capable of easily dodging lasers from a doombot.
Elektra has been able to move too fast for Cameras to see? Shang-Chi caught a knifes thrown an asassains so fast he couldn't perceive the motion. This was done when he was 14(he's a lot younger than he looks) and nowhere near as experienced as his current self.
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During Origins when Shang-Chi was training Wolverine because he'd been fighting like a beserker Shang-Chi completely owned him. Wolverine couldn't lay a hand on Shang past his defenses and nearly loses due to BFR early on. Wolverine wasn't using his skill here(in fact he became more skilled as a direct result of this), but he still has his natural speed which has allowed him to keep up with Daredevil while bloodlusted and not using his skill as well as move at speeds imperceptable to the human eye.
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Zaran is a bullet timer capable of blocking machine gun fire. This is actually more impressive than when Elektra did so seeing as he was facing 5 gunmen.
The same Zaran who couldn't lay a finger on Shang-chi and was casually dominated in three pages when they fought.
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Fighting Skill
This is one are where both sides are close, but I feel that Shang has the advantage here yet again.
For one thing Black Panther appears to think that Shang-Chi is superior to Iron Fist. Now I know this is just a statement and I don't really buy it either, but the person making this statement isn't exactly clueless on what he's talking about. Black Panther is one of the worlds greatest martial artists and also one of the worlds 8 smartest men, so this statement holds some weight.
During Secret Avengers, Shang-Chi had a sparring match with Captain America with each gaining an equal number of hits and both managing to floor the other at one point.
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Shang-Chi stalemated Iron Fist. Initially neither of them wanted to fight, but they were forced to go all out and not allowed to hold back. Neither of them gained an upper hand and when Danny was forced to use a Chi punch Shang managed to dodge a blow from him, which is impressive in itself.
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There's also the fact that now Shang has nunchucks. With nothing but a single pair of Nunchucks Shang manages to overpower a small of army of highly trained and loyal soldiers. By my count there's at least 50 of them and he overpowers them all.
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Since you brought up Pressure Points, I should note Shang-Chi can use those as well. He was actually the one to train Spider-Man in the way of the spider. A central part of WOTS combat is pressure points. Peter was able to use this training to pressure point blitz a number of his villains that had been given Spider powers and outclassed him stat wise due to their natural abilities stacking up on their spider powers. He does this without the spider-sense and I assure you, Shang is on a different planet from Peter skill wise.
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Shang isn't a stranger to using pressure points. He used one to beat Chankar, someone durable enough to tank his best blows unharmed.
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Speaking of Daredevil, Elektra has fought and held her own against him on several occasions. Including a brief struggle where Matt perceived her as a threat to his civilian life whereas Elektra just wanted him to turn on his television. Yet she still proves capable of restraining Matt and getting the message across.
This really isn't a compelling showing. Granted she does manage to restrain him at the end, but she was handily knocked around for the majority of the fight.
And in a flashback Elektra had of another fight between her and Matt, she recalls having him at Sai point.
Was the context of that particular fight clear? It's just that Elektra's been bested and killed by Bullseye before...
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...in the same storyline where Dardevil beat Lester with a broken arm.
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Right to left.
This isn't lowballing, Lester's matched Elektra on a number of occasions while he's consistently outmatched by Matt in close combat.
Though, for the record, I do admit Matt would take the majority over Elektra but then again, I'd say the same of his chances against Shang-Chi.
I agree that Matt would probably win 6/10 against Shang-Chi, but I don't believe a Matt with a broken arm could beat someone who killed Shang like he did Elektra.
Kaine wasn't superior at the time, this was before he bonded with the Other and had Spider-Man level stats at best. On top of that, all he did was let some bullets hit him and stab him. He didn't even go for a direct hit and would've likely one-shotted him if he had.
Assuming that pressure points do somehow come into play in this battle, Elektra knows how to use them and has implemented them in battle before as the first two showings demonstrate.
Has she ever managed to use them on someone as skilled as Shang? Because Shang has pulled what looks like a nerve strike on Gorgon, someone with skill on par with Wolverine and telepathy to anticipate his enemies moves. If he can do it to Gorgon, Shang can certainly pull one on Elektra.
But that's enough for my first post, I've outlined Elektra's physicals, durability, speed, reflexes and fighting skill with plenty more showings to come. This is just the tip of the iceburg as to why I posit the argument that Elektra will eventually prove too much for Shang-Chi to handle and succumb to Elektra's speed and skill. Your turn mate.
And I've outlined that Shang has superior physical strength, striking power and durability. At best Elektra is even with him in skill, and as of right now I sustain that Shang is superior in that department. Elektra might be slightly above him in speed, but that doesn't take away that Shang has nearly every other advantage in this fight which will allow him to overpower her.
Shang has knocked Classic Thing flying with his blows. Granted he was only a 10 tonner at the time, but this is still more damage than Elektra has ever done to any foe with noteworthy durability that you've shown so far.
This seems way more like a feat of skill on Shang's part, flipping off a stronger foe with leverage and momentum than it appears to be a showing of Shang's striking power. But if you want a feat of Elektra attacking a vastly stronger foe and causing them damage, then how about Elektra piercing the skin of Betty Ross, aka Red She-Hulk at the time, with her sai?
And Red She-Hulk is much stronger than Ben Grimm was at the time your scan is from. She's in the Class 70-100 ton range having fought with Rulk, an amped Doc Samson and She Hulk. Before you call hax on this, Marvel street levellers have caused damage to bricks with the right application of force to certain pressure points before. Daredevil has incapacitated the 70 tonner Mr Hyde and Wolverine has done the same to Kid Gladiator. Also, I've done some checking given that Skrull Elektra was around for a few years and Elektra's involvement in the Code Red storyline came after her return in Secret Invasion. This is a pretty top tier striking feat for Elektra on someone more durable than her.
Shang is strong enough to completely overpower many robots with nothing more than his sheer physical might.
During Marvel NOW Shang-Chi fought aleph, a robot designed to destroy worlds deemed unfit by the builders that was able to give the Avengers some problems. Shang easily chops its leg off with a single strike without even preparing himself.
After I made my post, I immediately thought "Wait doesn't Shang-Chi have robot striking feats?" And it seems you've brought them out in force for your first post. Though my Red She-Hulk feat is more than a match for those feats. And I'm not seeing superior physical strength and Elektra's striking power on the human body is unnaturally impressive.
Going back to the camera blurring scan I used, Elektra also punched straight through a guard's body armour and into his chest reaching his ribcage, all whilst being tazed, before passing out. I can't see Shang shrugging off an attack so easily.
Elektra has also broken a man's neck in a single kick.
And here Elektra throws a sai into a man's wrist so hard that it breaks it in 6 places. She then proceeds to stab the man with her weapon straight through his body and out of it again.
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Just like in earlier feats I cited, this proves that Elektra is easily capable of running men through with her sais or hands and should she gain such an opportunity against Shang, she won't hesitate to run him through with the serious mindset our combatants are in for this fight.
Shang is also capable of easily destroying Brick Walls which he does on a number of occasions with little effort, even doing so with a simple elbow thrust once.
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Not too shabby but at least in this area, Elektra can yet again match Shang's brick wall striking feats. She's performed 2 similar feats whilst fighting Daredevil. One involving knocking a hole in a brick wall just like Shang does in your feats and a much more impressive demonstration of toppling an entire brick wall on Daredevil with a single kick to trap Matt beneath the rubble.
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His striking power is going to be most useful for putting Elektra at a disadvantage by breaking her Sais and forcing her to use her fists on Shang-Chi's nunchucks which is an obvious disadvantage. Breaking weapons isn't a problem, he's already done it to a skilled enemy mid combat before.
Who is this skilled enemy Shang disarms in your scan? Because without his name or knowing whose henchman he is, it's not exactly easy to see how skilled this foe is. He's certainly not on Elektra's level of skill, that much I can say for certain. Moreover, her sais have stood up to a direct claw slash from Wolverine's adamantium claws so breaking those sais might be more difficult for Shang than you think. And even if Shang does break them, Elektra would just stab them into Shang's neck or over vital areas like she does to Logan here.
Besides, if anyone's going to be breaking the other's weapons, I believe Elektra has the greater chance of cutting Shang's nunchuks. She has the sharper weapons, the skill to outmanoeuver Shang and the knowledge of Shang's skills to realise that cutting the strings to the nunchuks will put Shang at a disadvantage if he's weaponless against her sais. My scenario is at least as likely to happen as yours, if not moreso due to Elektra's speed and skill.
In any case, I believe I've shown why Elektra has the striking power to put the hurt on Shang either with her sais or fists and feet strikes. Combined with her speed and skill, this should enable her to deal swift and deadly damage to Shang in their battle.
Durability/Endurance
This is another area Shang-Chi has a considerable advantage. Most of the scans you posted were examples of pain tolerance and resiliance, not actually tanking direct blunt damage without receiving any bodily damage, which is going to be extremely hard when facing someone who has offensive output like Shang-Chi does.
Shang-Chi's durability comes from his ability to use Chi to spread pain evenly throughout his body.
Could I see the source of this scan please? Just as you know little about Elektra at this point, so too am I not the most well versed in Shang's feats so far. Thus, I'll need to request the source of this scan so that I can determine whether it's canon or not. And suffice to say, I disagree on Shang having a 'considerable' advantage in the durability area. You say you want blunt force tolerance? You got it.
During his recent fight with Gorgon, Shang-Chi was tossed up on top of the third floor of the highest pagoda in the temple. He was only moderately damaged and continued the fight unharmed.
Ah I knew The Gorgon would come up inevitably and you've chosen to do it straight away. This means I can play a little trump card of comparison between Elektra's showings against Gorgon and Shang's. Once Gorgon decides to get serious with Elektra, it takes him 7 hits to put her down. And she's still conscious, albeit barely, in the following scan when Gorgon is talking to her at superspeed.
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In contrast, how many hits does Gorgon take to fell Shang?
Because I make it 4 followed by an embarrassing cliff throw :P As we would both agree on, The Gorgon is a superhuman top tier street leveller able to make mincemeat out of both our combatants, if not most other street fighters. But it took him 7 blows when he got serious to beat Elektra compared to 4 hits to KO Shang-Chi. You said you wanted blunt force durability and I give you Elektra tanking more blows from Gorgon than Shang did. IIRC, he didn't take any damage outside of that rooftop throw.
During his fight with Spider-Man, Shang-Chi manages to tank 4 hits from him including getting slammed into a wall followed by falling down a story and comes out completely unharmed.
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OK the Dragon feat was a pretty good one so no nitpicking there. But Elektra has also fallen off a rooftop without serious harm done to her during a fight with Bullseye in her Dark Reign miniseries (gonna edit this one in for sure once I have the scan)
Additionally, she's tanked 3 Optic Blasts fired by a Super Skrull who looked like Daredevil and had Cyclops' Optic Blasts and Nightcrawler's teleportation.
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And whilst drugged, experimented on and imprisoned at HAMMER, she takes a punch from Paladin, a peak to enhanced human in physical stats.
Though it's looking like Shang might take the edge in durability, Elektra does have the feats to justify her standing up to several of Shang's blows, particularly due to her performance against Gorgon in contrast to how quickly Shang was taken out.
Speed/Reflexes
Shang-Chi is also a casual bullet timer. His best known speed feat is being able to dodge a bullet after it's been fired. This is one of several instances where Shang has been able to casually react to bullets.
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Decent bullet timing feats but, as you've admitted, Elektra takes a clean majority in the speed and reflexes department. She's dodged all the bullets fired at her from 7 shooters so that the entire ceiling collapsed on them due to none of their bullets hitting Elektra
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Elektra has dodged a point blank shot from a surprised shooter in the room of a target she's been contracted to kill.
And here she is easily dodging more gunfire from 2 shooters at once.
Every bullet timing feat Shang has, Elektra can match it and has a couple which exceed it. I'll keep those to my chest for now but on the bullet timing front, Elektra has a clear majority in speed and reflexes thus far and Shang's going to have trouble tagging her enough to win this serious fight.
Elektra has been able to move too fast for Cameras to see? Shang-Chi caught a knifes thrown an asassains so fast he couldn't perceive the motion. This was done when he was 14(he's a lot younger than he looks) and nowhere near as experienced as his current self.
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Hmm if only I had the feat which raised the bar on your one. Ah yes I know just the one. In her Dark Reign miniseries, Elektra catches a bullet thrown at her by Bullseye. Granted it's not shot at her but she's also weakened and not at peak physical condition when she's fighting Bullseye due to her experimentation and imprisonment at hand (see above for Paladin scan which is from same miniseries.)
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Yet she still catches it without Bullseye's throw bullet harming her. That's easily more impressive than a healthy and fit Shang, even if he is younger, catching a knife since Elektra is weakened and out of shape yet she still catches a bullet thrown by one of the Marvel Universe's best marksmen.
During Origins when Shang-Chi was training Wolverine because he'd been fighting like a beserker Shang-Chi completely owned him. Wolverine couldn't lay a hand on Shang past his defenses and nearly loses due to BFR early on. Wolverine wasn't using his skill here(in fact he became more skilled as a direct result of this), but he still has his natural speed which has allowed him to keep up with Daredevil while bloodlusted and not using his skill as well as move at speeds imperceptable to the human eye.
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The credibility of these scans is greatly weakened by your admission of the point we both know about; that Wolverine was nowhere near as skilled as he was beforehand. When he got his mad combat skills, he came back and stomped the hell out of Shang-Chi. That's why these scans are nowhere near as strong as you'd like them to be. And for the record, Elektra has impressed Wolverine with her speed during their fight in Wolverine: Enemy of State. Whilst she was blitzing him and dodging his attacks, Logan thinks "Man she's fast."
Wolverine's comment on Elektra's speed is strengthened by the fact that Black Panther's grapple of Wolverine made him remark how fast T'Challa was and that scan is used all the time on T'Challa threads as a feat of T'Challa's speed. Likewise, the same reasoning applies to this feat too. I don't see Logan commenting on Shang's speed and Shang himself says that the reason Logan lost was because he wasn't thinking properly.
Zaran is a bullet timer capable of blocking machine gun fire. This is actually more impressive than when Elektra did so seeing as he was facing 5 gunmen.
The same Zaran who couldn't lay a finger on Shang-chi and was casually dominated in three pages when they fought.
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Impressive but I have something arguably even better. Here's Elektra against Frank with Frank pointing his gun at her. Look what happens next.
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This is the same Frank who's performed ricochet shots whilst fighting a bloodlusted Spider-Man,tagged a Mach 2 speedster and even shot Spider-Man several times despite his speed, reflexes and Spider Sense. Yet Elektra snatches the gun out of Frank's hand before he can even fire a shot or realises that the gun is gone, leaving him completely defenseless against her. Elektra doesn't beat Frank here but with speed like that, she could have.
In any case, this is still only the tip of the iceburg on Elektra's speed and reflexes feats and there are several other showings which demonstrate her inherent superiority in this department. Thus, I sustain the argument that the likelihood of who'll be scoring more hits in this fight and be able to dodge the most strikes goes to Elektra based on what I've shown so far.
Fighting Skill
This is one are where both sides are close, but I feel that Shang has the advantage here yet again.
For one thing Black Panther appears to think that Shang-Chi is superior to Iron Fist. Now I know this is just a statement and I don't really buy it either, but the person making this statement isn't exactly clueless on what he's talking about. Black Panther is one of the worlds greatest martial artists and also one of the worlds 8 smartest men, so this statement holds some weight.
I agree with your first statement on Shang and Elektra's fighting skills being close but I'm not very impressed with your opening argument. I know you don't buy it either but using this statement as evidence of Shang's fighting prowess is hardly a credible way to rate Shang's skills. Feats>statements regardless of who the statement comes from and trying to utilise T'Challa's fighting skills and intellect as a way to bolster Shang's martial arts abilities is mostly baseless due to them not factoring into Shang's real fights.
But if I wanted to, I could equally play up Elektra's skills using another smart martial artist who knows what he's talking about. To clarify, this is how Wolverine described his martial arts skills during Manifest Destiny and beside this scan is how Forge described Wolverine's intellect during a mental combat training exercise.
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Wolverine's martial arts skills range from learning from animals, Weapon X, samurai, aliens, gods and more so suffice to say, he's had the time to learn a lot of fighting styles, easily the equal of T'Challa's fighting knowledge. And though he may not be as intellectually knowledgeable, Forge described Logan's brain processes as "retaining highly sophisticated combat knowledge" as well as "being capable of performing complex strategic decisions." This was stated to be "the equivalent of an Olympic gold medallist doing a gold medal routine while simultaneously beating 4 chess computers in his head." So I believe this supports the perspective that Logan is very tactically intelligent in combat. So here's what Wolverine has to say whilst facing Gorgon after seeing Elektra beaten by him;
"Took down Elektra dumbass. World's greatest ninja. What chance do you have?" A claim with at least equal weight to T'Challa's rating of Shang-Chi due to Wolverine's status as another one of Marvel's greatest martial artists so suffice to say, he knows good fighters when he sees them.
During Secret Avengers, Shang-Chi had a sparring match with Captain America with each gaining an equal number of hits and both managing to floor the other at one point.
Shang-Chi stalemated Iron Fist. Initially neither of them wanted to fight, but they were forced to go all out and not allowed to hold back. Neither of them gained an upper hand and when Danny was forced to use a Chi punch Shang managed to dodge a blow from him, which is impressive in itself.
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Again, the clarification on the characters at the time doesn't make this showing as strong as it could be. Mainly because Classic Iron Fist isn't as skilled or as powerful as Current Iron Fist. Specifically after Brubaker and Fraction's run when he could use chi more often without straining himself and gained new knowledge of OP skill techniques like The Black Spider Touch. What I mean to say is that whilst Shang Chi's performance against Iron Fist here is impressive, it's not the same thing as tangling with Current Iron Fist would bring to Shang's skill feats.
And I suppose I need to show off some skill feats on Elektra's part to demonstrate why her skill is superior to Shang's. In Elektra #4 - Bloodlines: Part Four, Elektra takes on Lady Bullseye. This is someone who has given T'Challa and Daredevil, two top tier fighters in the Marvel Universe some trouble in a fight as well as being able to beat Black Widow in Secret Avengers. Yet when she faces Elektra, Elektra remarks that only a handful of fighters can defeat Lady Bullseye and she is one of them.
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As you can see, the fight ends in Elektra's swift victory once she takes the gloves off. Here we have clear evidence of Elektra's victory over a high ranking fighter in the Marvel Universe.
There's also the fact that now Shang has nunchucks. With nothing but a single pair of Nunchucks Shang manages to overpower a small of army of highly trained and loyal soldiers. By my count there's at least 50 of them and he overpowers them all.
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Whilst this may seem like an initially amazing feat for Shang-Chi's skill against multiple opponents, you've overlooked one flaw. I'll trust your word that there are 50 fighters there but in the fourth scan, it's stated that "a number of the assassins begin fleeing now." And yeah you're probably going to make the argument that this shows how badass Shang's skill is but it's evidently clear that Shang didn't beat all 50 foes facing him. He may well have been overpowered by them all had they stood their ground and continued to fight him.
As for Elektra's feats of dealing with large groups of foes, she has some very credible showings here. For example, a weak and feverish Elektra has killed a bunch of mercs with nothing more than a pair of gardening shears.
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She kills 10 trained soldiers in the desert in the middle of the day without being harmed or killed.
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And here she kills an entire yard of soldiers without one ever firing a single shot.
To reiterate, the first two feats were performed by a weakened Elektra against a large group of foes. Perhaps not as large as Shang's but her weak state in both conditions pays off due to a number of Shang's opponents not actually fighting him.
Was the context of that particular fight clear? It's just that Elektra's been bested and killed by Bullseye before...
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...in the same storyline where Dardevil beat Lester with a broken arm.
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Right to left.
This isn't lowballing, Lester's matched Elektra on a number of occasions while he's consistently outmatched by Matt in close combat.
This was when Elektra was resurrected by The Hand I believe. And I greatly beg to differ on your interpretation of Elektra vs Bullseye. There is a little bit of lowballing on Elektra's part based on her other showings but you're also ignoring the fact that Elektra has beaten Bullseye twice before. I need to locate all the Dark Reign scans so I'll leave that out for now but here's the first time Elektra has defeated Bullseye. In these scans, Lester had been training for a month against Elektra holograms to anticipate her moves. But this didn't help his chances against Elektra.
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If Shang does give her trouble, Elektra can mix up her moves to throw off Shang's knowledge of her capabilities. This is something she's done before quite recently. Moreover, the reason why Bullseye has given Elektra trouble is because he's also one of the world's top marksmen as well as being a well trained hand to hand fighter. Not to mention he's a lethal sadistic murderer to boot. That's why he can give Elektra trouble and Shang is neither anywhere near as good a marksman as Lester nor is he as lethal or prone to act like Bullseye does. Thus, your Bullseye comparison doesn't discredit the high level of skill Elektra has shown on numerous occasions before.
Kaine wasn't superior at the time, this was before he bonded with the Other and had Spider-Man level stats at best. On top of that, all he did was let some bullets hit him and stab him. He didn't even go for a direct hit and would've likely one-shotted him if he had.
I disagree, Kaine is already a 30 tonner without The Other amp. He manhandled Rhino and Carnage in his appearances in the 90s and he hasn't changed his physical stats IIRC. Furthermore, he's effortlessly stomped SpOck in Peter's body during their meeting in Superior Spider-Man Team-Up.
Has she ever managed to use them on someone as skilled as Shang? Because Shang has pulled what looks like a nerve strike on Gorgon, someone with skill on par with Wolverine and telepathy to anticipate his enemies moves. If he can do it to Gorgon, Shang can certainly pull one on Elektra.
Coincidentally, yes indeed she has. On Wolverine himself to be specific.
She paralyses him in his deltoids with her Sai. That includes having to get through the durable adamantium bones so that's a pretty impressive skill feat of being able to paralyse a skilled and superhuman fighter like Wolverine.
And I've outlined that Shang has superior physical strength, striking power and durability. At best Elektra is even with him in skill, and as of right now I sustain that Shang is superior in that department. Elektra might be slightly above him in speed, but that doesn't take away that Shang has nearly every other advantage in this fight which will allow him to overpower her.
I've seen no showings of physical strength on Shang's part to prove he's stronger than Elektra. Striking power is debatable so far and Shang may have the edge in durability but Elektra has more consistent and superior bullet timing reflexes coupled with some amazing speed feats I have yet to show off. In the skill department, she's achieved victories against multiple opponents whilst weakened as well as fought evenly with top tier fighters like Daredevil and defeated others like Lady Bullseye. So far, I maintain that Elektra has a slight edge in skill too. Hence, the combined speed and skill assault should prove a deadly combination for Shang to overcome once Elektra gets serious with him and her lethal measures and willingness to perform them points to Elektra achieving a more likely win over Shang-Chi IMO.
@highaccuser: Just wondering whether you got my notification for this? I've missed some notifications for CAVs in the past few months for some reason and it's happened to others too.
@highaccuser: Just wondering whether you got my notification for this? I've missed some notifications for CAVs in the past few months for some reason and it's happened to others too.
@highaccuser: Sorry I had this locked for both of us not being available, that wasn't the smartest thinking on my part. Anyway I had JXM unlock so feel free to make your reply whenever you can. I might be really delayed in making my own reply but I do want to continue this.
@highaccuser: Sorry I had this locked for both of us not being available, that wasn't the smartest thinking on my part. Anyway I had JXM unlock so feel free to make your reply whenever you can. I might be really delayed in making my own reply but I do want to continue this.
It's cool. I plan on posting immediantly. I've been wanting to get back at this for a while now.
EDIT: Or I would anyway. My computers having some problems. Hopefully it'll pass.
@highaccuser: Take all the time you need, I'm busy trying to balance university essays and writing another debate post in a tourney I'm participating in. Might take a while before I can make a reply. I will be able to do so in early November though.
This seems way more like a feat of skill on Shang's part, flipping off a stronger foe with leverage and momentum than it appears to be a showing of Shang's striking power. But if you want a feat of Elektra attacking a vastly stronger foe and causing them damage, then how about Elektra piercing the skin of Betty Ross, aka Red She-Hulk at the time, with her sai?
How exactly did Shang-Chi use leverage of any sort in that scan? He doesn't seem to be in any sort of position to use leverage, and he didn't "flip him off", that was a normal kick. I fail to understand how this is a showing of anything other than normal striking power.
And Red She-Hulk is much stronger than Ben Grimm was at the time your scan is from. She's in the Class 70-100 ton range having fought with Rulk, an amped Doc Samson and She Hulk. Before you call hax on this, Marvel street levellers have caused damage to bricks with the right application of force to certain pressure points before. Daredevil has incapacitated the 70 tonner Mr Hyde and Wolverine has done the same to Kid Gladiator. Also, I've done some checking given that Skrull Elektra was around for a few years and Elektra's involvement in the Code Red storyline came after her return in Secret Invasion. This is a pretty top tier striking feat for Elektra on someone more durable than her.
How is this a strength showing exactly? This seems to be nothing more than a piercing feat for Elektra's sais, albiet an impressive one. I'm not going to call "Hax" or anything(though why you bring up pressure points as examples is beyond me since pressure points have nothing to do with this), I just don't see how this is relevant since no strength was involved. You may try to claim that it would require a lot of strength to drive it through Red She Hulks flesh, but then I'd just point out that the red hulks have really crappy piercing resistance. Punisher drove a knife through Ross' flesh with no effort and I don't consider Frank as strong as either of our combatants.
Going back to the camera blurring scan I used, Elektra also punched straight through a guard's body armour and into his chest reaching his ribcage, all whilst being tazed, before passing out. I can't see Shang shrugging off an attack so easily.
Likewise, Shang-Chi has hit a doombot so hard that it's arm fell out of place which in turned caused it to shoot its own head off, and I'm pretty sure Doombots are more durable than body armor. I don't see Elektra tanking that kind of hit at all.
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And in regards to punching through body armor Shang-Chi's done it too. He's shattered Shadow Council body armor with single strikes.
Elektra has also broken a man's neck in a single kick.
I find this massively uncompeling for the simple reason that his head was still attached. I showed scans of Shang-Chi decapitating robots with single strikes above and you show me Elektra not even removing the head of someone she's clearly trying to kill? It's obvious which striking feat sets a higher bar.
And here Elektra throws a sai into a man's wrist so hard that it breaks it in 6 places. She then proceeds to stab the man with her weapon straight through his body and out of it again.
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As far as breaking bones goes, Shang-Chi's done the same. He casually broke the spine of this guy with a single elbow jab, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure spines are more durable than hand bones.
Just like in earlier feats I cited, this proves that Elektra is easily capable of running men through with her sais or hands and should she gain such an opportunity against Shang, she won't hesitate to run him through with the serious mindset our combatants are in for this fight.
I acknowledge that Elektra is capable of running through Shang-Chi with her Sais, but Shang-Chi is just as capable of beating her into submission with his nunchucks, possibly even more so given his superior skill(more on that later)and strength.
Not too shabby but at least in this area, Elektra can yet again match Shang's brick wall striking feats. She's performed 2 similar feats whilst fighting Daredevil. One involving knocking a hole in a brick wall just like Shang does in your feats and a much more impressive demonstration of toppling an entire brick wall on Daredevil with a single kick to trap Matt beneath the rubble.
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So we've well established that both out characters have brick wall level striking power, but you haven't really proven Elektra can exceed this strength level. Shang-Chi on the other hand, has broken down heavy duty prison doors with single strikes, and steel is quite a bit more durable than brick.
He's also punched another martial artist hard enough that he went flying several feet in the air and with enough force that he broke through a concrete wall(Shang's the guy in the bandanna in this scan, it's a bit hard to tell).
And punched holes in the roofs of cars.
Who is this skilled enemy Shang disarms in your scan? Because without his name or knowing whose henchman he is, it's not exactly easy to see how skilled this foe is. He's certainly not on Elektra's level of skill, that much I can say for certain. Moreover, her sais have stood up to a direct claw slash from Wolverine's adamantium claws so breaking those sais might be more difficult for Shang than you think. And even if Shang does break them, Elektra would just stab them into Shang's neck or over vital areas like she does to Logan here.
He's one of Fu-Manchu's henchmen. How skilled you think this makes him is a matter of opinion, but he had enhancments that made him a higher quality opponent than standard henchmen. I won't try to argue that he's near Elektra in skill, but the point remains. Elektra's sais didn't withstand anything in that scan, Logan sliced the tops of them off pretty easily with Elektra needing to use the lower parts of them. If Shang shatters Elektra's sais they'll lose their reach and force her to get up close to Shang, and I think he can outmuscle her in that scenario(more on that later). I don't see how Elektra doing that to Wolverine translates into doing it to Shang-Chi. I acknowlege Wolverine is likely more skilled than Shang-Chi(and Elektra for that matter)but he doesn't fight as dodgy as Shang does or try to give his opponent a hard time hitting him.
Besides, if anyone's going to be breaking the other's weapons, I believe Elektra has the greater chance of cutting Shang's nunchuks. She has the sharper weapons, the skill to outmanoeuver Shang and the knowledge of Shang's skills to realise that cutting the strings to the nunchuks will put Shang at a disadvantage if he's weaponless against her sais. My scenario is at least as likely to happen as yours, if not moreso due to Elektra's speed and skill.
How exactly will she cut the chains of his nunchucks? Sais aren't slashing weapons, they're stabbing weapons. They aren't meant to cut something as thick as chain, and even if the were, her Sais are too thin to make enough of a cut that the chains would fall apart. Besides, Shang-Chi doesn't need weapons. He's even commented on how they shouldn't be relied on.
One thing I feel I should touch on is lifting strength. I haven't shown much from this as there's not that much to show, and it's not that relevant to actual fights anyway. That said, if Shang-Chi uses his strength I think he can overpower Elektra up close.
You showed a number of scans where Elektra lifts men up. Impressive and all, but Shang-Chi has lifted Wolverine over his head and tossed him like a ragdoll. Wolverine weighs 300 pounds with his adamantium, so a lot more than those Mooks Elektra lifted.
And here he flips Captain America over him easily.
And finally here where he supports a false ceiling to prevent any of the spikes from touching the ground. While at an unideal position no less(he's actually supporting his own weight and the whole ceilings on his toes).
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Durability/Endurance
Could I see the source of this scan please? Just as you know little about Elektra at this point, so too am I not the most well versed in Shang's feats so far. Thus, I'll need to request the source of this scan so that I can determine whether it's canon or not. And suffice to say, I disagree on Shang having a 'considerable' advantage in the durability area. You say you want blunt force tolerance? You got it.
I am actually unaware of that particular scans source at the moment. That said, the information that Shang's durability is related to dispering pain was reinforced here when he references it as how he managed one of his better durability feats(I'll save the actual feat for later).
Ah I knew The Gorgon would come up inevitably and you've chosen to do it straight away. This means I can play a little trump card of comparison between Elektra's showings against Gorgon and Shang's. Once Gorgon decides to get serious with Elektra, it takes him 7 hits to put her down. And she's still conscious, albeit barely, in the following scan when Gorgon is talking to her at superspeed.
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In contrast, how many hits does Gorgon take to fell Shang?
Because I make it 4 followed by an embarrassing cliff throw :P As we would both agree on, The Gorgon is a superhuman top tier street leveller able to make mincemeat out of both our combatants, if not most other street fighters. But it took him 7 blows when he got serious to beat Elektra compared to 4 hits to KO Shang-Chi. You said you wanted blunt force durability and I give you Elektra tanking more blows from Gorgon than Shang did. IIRC, he didn't take any damage outside of that rooftop throw.
This point is massively flawed and I'm not really sure how you managed to ignore obvious context and factors to this because this is easily one of the least compelling arguments I've seen.
The fact that Gorgon hit Elektra 7 times does not prove that many strikes were required. He didn't hit her three times and then stop to check weather or not that was all it took, or even one time. Nothing suggests she was consious after even the first hit.
You later provided scans of Gorgon one-shotting Elektra with a beam.
You can't just ignore the significance of the rooftop toss, it's pretty clear tanking that hurt Shang. At the end of the first half of the scan you showed Shang-Chi clearly was panting and exhausted while Gorgon was not, which makes sense given that Gorgons healing would let him recover from Shang's output better than the other way around.
The last thing Gorgon did to Shang-Chi was slash his stomach, something that would've done a lot more damage than any of his blows to Elektra.
OK the Dragon feat was a pretty good one so no nitpicking there. But Elektra has also fallen off a rooftop without serious harm done to her during a fight with Bullseye in her Dark Reign miniseries (gonna edit this one in for sure once I have the scan)
I've seen the scan. It's impressive, but Elektra fell over unconscious shortly afterward, so it's not like she toke it unharmed or anything. Conversely when Shang-Chi fell he still continued to fight Spider-Man for several pages.
Additionally, she's tanked 3 Optic Blasts fired by a Super Skrull who looked like Daredevil and had Cyclops' Optic Blasts and Nightcrawler's teleportation.
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Is there anything to indicate these blasts were as powerful as the real things? I don't think it was ever confirmed Super-Skrulls could perfectly replicate their copied powers. For instance, the main reason the skrulls took Black Bolt was so they could use his scream, which would indicate they couldn't perfectly copy it. It's also hard to tell what intensity these blasts were. Cyclops' blasts typically vary in intensity.
And whilst drugged, experimented on and imprisoned at HAMMER, she takes a punch from Paladin, a peak to enhanced human in physical stats.
She didn't do this in combat or anything, and there's not a lot to suggest she could've taken that pain in an actual fight and continued fighting unhindered, which would be what actually matters in this fight. There's a difference between what you can do while sitting still and what you can do in a fight.
Also, Paladins not a very high bar to set. I understand that he's a respectable 10 tonner and all(he can hold up train cars), it's just that Shang-Chi stomped him. He did it while holding his breath to avoid breathing in the knockout gas at that.
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And here are a couple more durability feats for Shang-Chi. Like getting shoved aside by the 50 tonner Hiroim and getting up a page later.
Or later when Hiroim tosses him over his head and Shang seems fine.
Though it's looking like Shang might take the edge in durability, Elektra does have the feats to justify her standing up to several of Shang's blows, particularly due to her performance against Gorgon in contrast to how quickly Shang was taken out.
I can accept that Elektra will take a respectable number of blows before going down, but I maintain the Shang-Chi can do the same even better(in relation to her physical blows anyway, not her Sai strikes obviously).
Speed/Reflexes
Decent bullet timing feats but, as you've admitted, Elektra takes a clean majority in the speed and reflexes department. She's dodged all the bullets fired at her from 7 shooters so that the entire ceiling collapsed on them due to none of their bullets hitting Elektra
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Elektra has dodged a point blank shot from a surprised shooter in the room of a target she's been contracted to kill.
And here she is easily dodging more gunfire from 2 shooters at once.
I don't see the point of bringing up bullet feats is at this point. We've well established our characters are faster than bullets by a wide margin at this point, but just for the sake of it, I'll raise you a couple more.
Silver Samurai, someone fast and skilled enough to cut bullets fired at him in half after they've been fired
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visibly failed to tag Shang-Chi with his sword despite aforementioned speed. This is evidence Shang-Chi can dodge bullet speed strikes.
And here he actually blocks a bullet that wasn't even fired at him. It was fired at Black Widow from across the room. He does it so effectively that neither Black Widow nor Madam Hydra realize he actually performed the action.
Hmm if only I had the feat which raised the bar on your one. Ah yes I know just the one. In her Dark Reign miniseries, Elektra catches a bullet thrown at her by Bullseye. Granted it's not shot at her but she's also weakened and not at peak physical condition when she's fighting Bullseye due to her experimentation and imprisonment at hand (see above for Paladin scan which is from same miniseries.)
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Yet she still catches it without Bullseye's throw bullet harming her. That's easily more impressive than a healthy and fit Shang, even if he is younger, catching a knife since Elektra is weakened and out of shape yet she still catches a bullet thrown by one of the Marvel Universe's best marksmen.
Not really seeing how this is more impressive. The point I was making was that Shang-Chi could move at imperceptible speeds even at a young age, something Elektra distinctly didn't do in this scan. The fact that Bullseye was the one who threw it doesn't make it any faster.
The credibility of these scans is greatly weakened by your admission of the point we both know about; that Wolverine was nowhere near as skilled as he was beforehand. When he got his mad combat skills, he came back and stomped the hell out of Shang-Chi. That's why these scans are nowhere near as strong as you'd like them to be. And for the record, Elektra has impressed Wolverine with her speed during their fight in Wolverine: Enemy of State. Whilst she was blitzing him and dodging his attacks, Logan thinks "Man she's fast."
You realize Wolverines speed isn't entirely attributed to his skill right? The fact that he wasn't skilled in this instance shouldn't take away his natural physicals. In an instance where Wolverine was bloodlusted and not using skill he kept pace with Mr. X in combat speed. I'm not saying Shang-Chi>Mr. X or anything, but the point remains that Logans speed simply doesn't stem entirely from skill. Your scan while impressive isn't nessecarily better than mine. There's not a lot to indicate Wolverine was using his skill there.
Impressive but I have something arguably even better. Here's Elektra against Frank with Frank pointing his gun at her. Look what happens next.
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This is the same Frank who's performed ricochet shots whilst fighting a bloodlusted Spider-Man,tagged a Mach 2 speedster and even shot Spider-Man several times despite his speed, reflexes and Spider Sense. Yet Elektra snatches the gun out of Frank's hand before he can even fire a shot or realises that the gun is gone, leaving him completely defenseless against her. Elektra doesn't beat Frank here but with speed like that, she could have.
Those "speed feats" you provided were nothing more than accuracy feats and not indictive of reaction speed. I don't see Frank blocking machine gun fire anytime soon and I don't see how he's as fast as Zaran honestly. This feat really isn't more impressive at all.
Seems I'll need more speed feats for Shang-Chi. Like here when he pulls a mid-air speed blitz on the martial artist Razor Fist.
Or her when he tags Gorgon three consecutive times unchallenged despite Gorgons telepathy, speed and skill. Granted Gorgon was arguably playing around here as indicated when he stomped Shang-Chi once he stopped doing so but even under similar conditions he's managed to match Iron Fist in combat speed.
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If Shang-Chi can easily tag Gorgon, even a toying around one, I don't see why he can't do the same to Elektra.
There's also this, where Shang-Chi rushes across the room to block Hiroims punch despite being weakened.
I can understand your point about sparring if I'm going to be honest with myself, but I'm going to need more evidence of Elektra fighting evenly with Daredevil than you've proivided. The first instance had Daredevil knocking her around handily until she pinned him down, but he wasn't thinking straight at all or trying to defend himself. The other instance was a mostly off panel fight with unknown context.
Again, the clarification on the characters at the time doesn't make this showing as strong as it could be. Mainly because Classic Iron Fist isn't as skilled or as powerful as Current Iron Fist. Specifically after Brubaker and Fraction's run when he could use chi more often without straining himself and gained new knowledge of OP skill techniques like The Black Spider Touch. What I mean to say is that whilst Shang Chi's performance against Iron Fist here is impressive, it's not the same thing as tangling with Current Iron Fist would bring to Shang's skill feats.
Why exactly do you think Classic Iron Fist was less skilled than his current form? If he actually recieved a clear skill upgrade on-panel at some point fair enough, but if you simply think his modern feats are better than his feats from that era then it goes both ways. Shang-Chi's recent feats are more impressive than his classic ones as well. Besides even if he did get more skilled, he still had some pretty good skill feats, like beating Sabretooth while blind or beating someone with Iron Fist powers while he was drained of the same powers. I know he didn't have his better Chi techniques, but that doesn't take away his technical skill, which is more relevant anyway.
And I suppose I need to show off some skill feats on Elektra's part to demonstrate why her skill is superior to Shang's. In Elektra #4 - Bloodlines: Part Four, Elektra takes on Lady Bullseye. This is someone who has given T'Challa and Daredevil, two top tier fighters in the Marvel Universe some trouble in a fight as well as being able to beat Black Widow in Secret Avengers. Yet when she faces Elektra, Elektra remarks that only a handful of fighters can defeat Lady Bullseye and she is one of them.
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As you can see, the fight ends in Elektra's swift victory once she takes the gloves off. Here we have clear evidence of Elektra's victory over a high ranking fighter in the Marvel Universe.
It's not like she stomped her or anything. Lady Bullseye got a clean slash on her arm during the fight and they actually got an even number of hits till Elektra impaled her. I also don't agree with your ranking of Lady Bullseye. The only time I think she's given Daredevil trouble was when she had hand ninjas helping. When she fought him alone he stomped her. She also got dominated by Black Panther twice, and one of those times she had help from Typhoid Mary. All things considered I don't see how Lady Bullseye is anywhere near as skilled as Shang-Chi.
Besides, Shang-Chi's beaten someone I consider more skilled and all around superior to Lady Bullseye with more ease than Elektra had here: Crossbones. Crossbones has stalemated Captain America, held his own against Deadpool, soloed teams of metahumans, stomped Sin, etc. Shang-Chi calmly stomps him in about a panel.
Whilst this may seem like an initially amazing feat for Shang-Chi's skill against multiple opponents, you've overlooked one flaw. I'll trust your word that there are 50 fighters there but in the fourth scan, it's stated that "a number of the assassins begin fleeing now." And yeah you're probably going to make the argument that this shows how badass Shang's skill is but it's evidently clear that Shang didn't beat all 50 foes facing him. He may well have been overpowered by them all had they stood their ground and continued to fight him.
You have me there. I did actually miss that point. I won't deny that several of them fled given on-panel evidence shows that, but I have reason to believe the number was negligable.
Here Shang-Chi fights one of Fu-Manchus assassins. Fu-Manchu gives him a drug that triples his speed, but will kill him in an hour. Despite knowing that Fu-Manchu basically killed him without asking for permission, and the fact that the drug cause him excruciating pain, he obeys him and fights Shang-Chi until he kills himself because of the pain. Shang has his hands bound here and admits to being at a speed disadvantage but still manages to use his skill to get more hits on him than the other way around.
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This is a great skill showing, but more importantly it shows the loyalty of Fu-Manchu's henchmen. I won't deny that some of them fled, I just think it was a small number based on this.
As for Elektra's feats of dealing with large groups of foes, she has some very credible showings here. For example, a weak and feverish Elektra has killed a bunch of mercs with nothing more than a pair of gardening shears.
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She kills 10 trained soldiers in the desert in the middle of the day without being harmed or killed.
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And here she kills an entire yard of soldiers without one ever firing a single shot.
To reiterate, the first two feats were performed by a weakened Elektra against a large group of foes. Perhaps not as large as Shang's but her weak state in both conditions pays off due to a number of Shang's opponents not actually fighting him.
Not bad, but as you said, none of those groups had near the numbers the as the one Shang took out. These are impressive enough, but were all performed against a bunch of nobdies. I'd think Shang-Chi stomping a team of metahumans and robots on his own is more impressive.
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I'll drop the point about Bullseye. I made that point a while ago and I've changed my mind regarding the comparison between Bullseye and Elektra.
I disagree, Kaine is already a 30 tonner without The Other amp. He manhandled Rhino and Carnage in his appearances in the 90s and he hasn't changed his physical stats IIRC. Furthermore, he's effortlessly stomped SpOck in Peter's body during their meeting in Superior Spider-Man Team-Up.
His stats were changed. He was dropped in anti-venom goop and got depowered as a result. The SpOck fight was after the other amp and it wasn't a stomp by any means.
Coincidentally, yes indeed she has. On Wolverine himself to be specific.
She paralyses him in his deltoids with her Sai. That includes having to get through the durable adamantium bones so that's a pretty impressive skill feat of being able to paralyse a skilled and superhuman fighter like Wolverine.
I'd say doing it to Gorgon is more impressive considering Gorgon stomped Wolverine in the same storyline, Enemy of the State. If you want pressure point feats then I should point out that a pressure point is clearly what Shang-Chi used to take out Crossbones, who uses his avoidance skills more than Wolverine does to my knowledge. Shang's knowledgeable enough with pressure points to actually relieve pain.
For more skill showings on Shang's part:
Displays a high level of technique during his first meeting with Elektra. He catches flies with a pair of chopsticks. Then he blocks Elektra's attacks whilst calmly eating his noodles and removing his coat.
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Easily catches a sword in his hands.
Manages to run through a staircase that shifts dimensions around and doesn't lose his footing.
I've seen no showings of physical strength on Shang's part to prove he's stronger than Elektra. Striking power is debatable so far and Shang may have the edge in durability but Elektra has more consistent and superior bullet timing reflexes coupled with some amazing speed feats I have yet to show off. In the skill department, she's achieved victories against multiple opponents whilst weakened as well as fought evenly with top tier fighters like Daredevil and defeated others like Lady Bullseye. So far, I maintain that Elektra has a slight edge in skill too. Hence, the combined speed and skill assault should prove a deadly combination for Shang to overcome once Elektra gets serious with him and her lethal measures and willingness to perform them points to Elektra achieving a more likely win over Shang-Chi IMO.
I haven't seen any showings from Elektra to suggest she's near as strong as Shang-Chi is striking power or lifting strength. Elektra has more and better bullet feats but not by a wide margin and not enough to massively outpace Shang-Chi or anything like that. You haven't shown her matching or beating any top level fighter of note while I have, so suffice to say I don't agree with your assessment that Elektra has greater skill. Shang-Chi is still her better in that regard by feats.
@highaccuser: Damn I had almost forgotten about this great CAV. Apologies for leaving it so late, I've been busy with an essay, Christmas and readjusting back on the Vine. I definitely want to continue this so I'll try and make a post either before the New Year or soon afterwards.
@lvenger: hey its fine. I made you wait a similar amount of time for my second post. We should definently continue this. I won't be able to check the vine for the next 3 days so if I don't acknowledge your response if you make it in that time, don't worry.
Apologies for the strange formatting of this post and the scans I'll be including, I'm still getting used to the 3 scan per issue rule so will have to accommodate my posts accordingly if I want to post more than 3 scans from an issue.
Strength/Striking Power
How exactly did Shang-Chi use leverage of any sort in that scan? He doesn't seem to be in any sort of position to use leverage, and he didn't "flip him off", that was a normal kick. I fail to understand how this is a showing of anything other than normal striking power
I say he used leverage in that scan because, as it can be clearly seen, the Thing is on top of Shang trying to pound away at him which results in Shang utilising Thing's position to his advantage by knocking from on top of him across the room. If both had been standing straight up and Shang had sent Thing flying with a kick that way, you'd have more of a basis to claim that Shang straight up kicked Grimm away. As it stands though, the scan's positioning of Thing and Shang coupled with the movement of Shang's feet in the third panel where the lines show him flipping Thing off with his feet rather than hitting him with his feat point to Shang using leverage in that scan more than it being a credible striking feat. And even so this was Classic Thing who was only a low Class 100 at best compared to Current Thing, who has multiple strength feats in the multi thousand ton range.
How is this a strength showing exactly? This seems to be nothing more than a piercing feat for Elektra's sais, albiet an impressive one. I'm not going to call "Hax" or anything(though why you bring up pressure points as examples is beyond me since pressure points have nothing to do with this), I just don't see how this is relevant since no strength was involved. You may try to claim that it would require a lot of strength to drive it through Red She Hulks flesh, but then I'd just point out that the red hulks have really crappy piercing resistance. Punisher drove a knife through Ross' flesh with no effort and I don't consider Frank as strong as either of our combatants.
I wish I could think of something for this point but you do have your bases covered here. Red Hulks do have lousy piercing resistance come to think of it and if Frank can pierce Rulk's skin, it stands to reason Shang and Elektra could do so too. Still, it does prove that once Elektra starts getting serious and willing to put Shang down for good, her commendable striking feats coupled with the piercing abilities of her sais will lead to Shang suffering some major wounds which, even with his durability, will compromise his ability to fight well.
Likewise, Shang-Chi has hit a doombot so hard that it's arm fell out of place which in turned caused it to shoot its own head off, and I'm pretty sure Doombots are more durable than body armor. I don't see Elektra tanking that kind of hit at all.
Well you do miss out the part where Shang forced the Doombot's arm into its face to blow it up but still quite a good striking feat, not gonna lie. But you'll be eating your words in my durability section once I show the superhuman levels of damage Elektra has consistently tanked on a daily basis, so don't be too hasty in assuming Elektra won't be surviving Shang's hits.
I find this massively uncompeling for the simple reason that his head was still attached. I showed scans of Shang-Chi decapitating robots with single strikes above and you show me Elektra not even removing the head of someone she's clearly trying to kill? It's obvious which striking feat sets a higher bar.
I have to disagree, breaking a man's neck in a single kick is nothing to be schoffed at. But if you're looking for something more compelling, I can offer this feat I've been saving instead. Here Elektra throws her sai into the barrel of a gun with enough force to rip the man's hand off and propel it through two layers of kevlar and his chest, gun still attached and all.
Still care to wager that Shang's striking feats set the bar higher? Because I believe this feat strongly levels the playing field, especially when combined with Elektra's accuracy with throwing weapons.
As far as breaking bones goes, Shang-Chi's done the same. He casually broke the spine of this guy with a single elbow jab, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure spines are more durable than hand bones.
A suitable counter with a fair basis, spines are probably more durable than hand bones. But Elektra doesn't just break bones with her striking power, she can tear into bodies as easily as a knife through butter too.
She's impaled two men with her sai and easily lifted them above her head.
In this fight against a trio of ninjas, Elektra shatters sternums, vertebrae and larynx alike with ease.
And she also has a penchant for punching into her foes' hearts rather easily. I showed one scan of that previously where she punches through kevlar and the heart but there are more to support that assertion.
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To top it all off, Elektra has even proved capable of slicing a grown man in half with one single sai slash in the last Thunderbolts series. That's definitely one helluva cutting feat IMO.
So Shang isn't the only one to whom the human body is like an eggshell in a fight against one's striking power.
So we've well established that both out characters have brick wall level striking power, but you haven't really proven Elektra can exceed this strength level. Shang-Chi on the other hand, has broken down heavy duty prison doors with single strikes, and steel is quite a bit more durable than brick.
He's also punched another martial artist hard enough that he went flying several feet in the air and with enough force that he broke through a concrete wall(Shang's the guy in the bandanna in this scan, it's a bit hard to tell).
And punched holes in the roofs of cars.
I've spent a good while browsing my Elektra comics and respect threads for comparable scans to these but in all honesty, none have appeared that match these feats. I might have to reluctantly concede the striking power edge to Shang Chi here as Elektra doesn't have the feats to match what you've cited here so there's nothing I could do without misconstruing my evidence or lowballing yours which is definitely not my style. Fortunately for my case though, Elektra's piercing damage along with her striking feats means that she definitely does have the capability to harm Shang Chi in this fight so at least that's salvageable.
He's one of Fu-Manchu's henchmen. How skilled you think this makes him is a matter of opinion, but he had enhancments that made him a higher quality opponent than standard henchmen. I won't try to argue that he's near Elektra in skill, but the point remains. Elektra's sais didn't withstand anything in that scan, Logan sliced the tops of them off pretty easily with Elektra needing to use the lower parts of them. If Shang shatters Elektra's sais they'll lose their reach and force her to get up close to Shang, and I think he can outmuscle her in that scenario(more on that later). I don't see how Elektra doing that to Wolverine translates into doing it to Shang-Chi. I acknowlege Wolverine is likely more skilled than Shang-Chi(and Elektra for that matter)but he doesn't fight as dodgy as Shang does or try to give his opponent a hard time hitting him.
The problem with your point here is that there's little reason to believe the logic that Elektra is going to be disarmed as easily as Shang did to this Fu-Manchu henchman. Regardless of the enhancements which made him more than a fodder henchmen, this can be countered with the numerous superhuman and supernatural foes Elektra has defeated as well so this line of reasoning doesn't hold up given the lack of showings the guy Shang disarmed had. And Elektra is far more skilled than some enhanced mook that Shang fought, she's rarely, if at all been disarmed in a fight due to her top tier level of skill (more to come in the fighting skills section.) Thus, your assumption that Shang will be able to succeed where other skilled foes have failed is sketchy at best given Elektra and Shang's closely matched levels of skull, thus reinforcing the validity of my counter
Moreover, you haven't countered my point that Elektra can still utilise her sais to fatally wound Shang in the vital areas. Even if Shang did somehow manage to break the sais, they still retain a degree of sharpness that Elektra can utilise in combat. And whilst Shang's fighting style may be more agile than Wolverine's, Logan still has superhuman speed and agility yet was unable to prevent Elektra from stabbing him, not to mention that he is technically more skilled than Shang Chi. And as you said, this fight is bound to get up and close which means Elektra's skill, weapon choice and lethal options in combat points to her eventually being willing to use the sais to inflict a more than skin deep wound on Shang Chi.
Finally, I suppose I should present my secret trick regarding the disarming discussion. Say Shang manages to disarm Elektra of her sais and she goes to get them but Shang beats her there to try and prevent her from using her weapons against him. Unfortunately, that will now be Shang's downfall in combat, due to a certain function Elektra has put on her sais.
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Elektra's sais now have a built in synaptic snare with a biometric lock keyed to her nervous system. Basically only she can use her sais. Anyone else tries to, they get a nasty paralyzing shock for 60 seconds. Shang's disarming trick might prove to be a fatal flaw against him because of Elektra's latest series reveal regarding her sais. It could prove to be Shang's downfall in the fight should he try and disarm her.
How exactly will she cut the chains of his nunchucks? Sais aren't slashing weapons, they're stabbing weapons. They aren't meant to cut something as thick as chain, and even if the were, her Sais are too thin to make enough of a cut that the chains would fall apart. Besides, Shang-Chi doesn't need weapons. He's even commented on how they shouldn't be relied on.
Her sais have sliced through the human body like tissue (see the Thunderbolts feat) and cut through kevlar with ease so I'm afraid the intended usefulness of sais as a weapon doesn't apply here. I've shown Elektra can cut the human body in half quite literally so some string on the nunchuks is not going to hold nearly as much resistance as you'd like it to. They've cutten through thicker materials and penetrated the back of the superhuman Tiger Shark, a Class 50 foe of Namor's whose body is designed to withstand the crushing pressures of the ocean like other Atlanteans. Hence, this accounts for why Elektra's sais will cut through Shang's nunchuk chains.
And true Shang doesn't need weapons but Elektra's sais are a demonstrably key advantage in being able to incapacitate or even end Shang's life in this fight. Besides, neither does Elektra.
One thing I feel I should touch on is lifting strength. I haven't shown much from this as there's not that much to show, and it's not that relevant to actual fights anyway. That said, if Shang-Chi uses his strength I think he can overpower Elektra up close.
You showed a number of scans where Elektra lifts men up. Impressive and all, but Shang-Chi has lifted Wolverine over his head and tossed him like a ragdoll. Wolverine weighs 300 pounds with his adamantium, so a lot more than those Mooks Elektra lifted.
And here he flips Captain America over him easily.
And finally here where he supports a false ceiling to prevent any of the spikes from touching the ground. While at an unideal position no less(he's actually supporting his own weight and the whole ceilings on his toes).
Ah lifting/physical strength. Here I can score some points again. I beg to differ with your interpretation, Elektra has shown some mighty impressive lifting/physical strength feats herself.
So Shang Chi has lifted and thrown Wolverine? Elektra's done that too.
A drugged Elektra has broken out of a straitjacket by sheer force.
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She breaks the steel blade of a dagger in the palm of her hand
She's snapped chains that are holding her down on the ground despite not having any leverage.
And true lifting random guys above one's head isn't a big deal for street levellers. Carrying them for 1 hour whilst being constantly on the move herself is a rather impressive showing of strength don't you think?
Finally, as a counter to your decent false spiked ceiling feet, here's Elektra managing to cling onto a pipe for her life despite a massive torrent of water flooding the room due to Logan planting explosives on the ship. Hanging onto that pipe despite the water is a definite match, if not superior feat of strength over Shang's spiked ceiling showing.
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This time, I'm much more confident in claiming that Elektra won't be outmuscled by Shang any time soon. These strength feats show how remarkably strong Elektra is for a woman and why Shang won't be able to physically overpower her in combat. In fact, Elektra might be the one who'll do the physical overpowering rather than Shang in my opinion.
Durability/Endurance
I am actually unaware of that particular scans source at the moment. That said, the information that Shang's durability is related to dispering pain was reinforced here when he references it as how he managed one of his better durability feats(I'll save the actual feat for later).
This is good enough for me, on panel proof does trump all else in my book so you've reinforced your point enough for my liking.
This point is massively flawed and I'm not really sure how you managed to ignore obvious context and factors to this because this is easily one of the least compelling arguments I've seen.
The fact that Gorgon hit Elektra 7 times does not prove that many strikes were required. He didn't hit her three times and then stop to check weather or not that was all it took, or even one time. Nothing suggests she was consious after even the first hit.
You later provided scans of Gorgon one-shotting Elektra with a beam.
You can't just ignore the significance of the rooftop toss, it's pretty clear tanking that hurt Shang. At the end of the first half of the scan you showed Shang-Chi clearly was panting and exhausted while Gorgon was not, which makes sense given that Gorgons healing would let him recover from Shang's output better than the other way around.
The last thing Gorgon did to Shang-Chi was slash his stomach, something that would've done a lot more damage than any of his blows to Elektra.
I must disagree, I don't believe I've ignored the context or factors here.
I feel it does highlight a notable discrepancy in durability showings here due to the number of hits each of our characters took from the Gorgon. As for Elektra being conscious, it is very clearly shown that Elektra is grunting and crying out in pain from the strikes Gorgon is inflicting on here. I could easily ask the same question of Shang's showing against the Gorgon because Shang is clearly KOed after a few strikes from him.
Yes but Gorgon was holding a massive blunt object with which he one shotted Elektra. Gorgon didn't have any beams when he fought Shang, he just flat out owned him when he got more serious.
Shang was still able to fight the Gorgon after that so I feel he might have recovered quickly from it. Even so, Elektra didn't fall unconscious from being thrown from the rooftop by Bullseye and she was drugged and weakened at the time.
Elektra shows slash marks in this scan and Gorgon's sword appears bloody so there's implied sword damage there. Plus I can show Elektra tanking slashing and piercing damage later on.
I've seen the scan. It's impressive, but Elektra fell over unconscious shortly afterward, so it's not like she toke it unharmed or anything. Conversely when Shang-Chi fell he still continued to fight Spider-Man for several pages.
As I stated in point 3, Elektra was not unconscious shortly after. As these scans will show, Elektra got straight back up again despite having just been drugged again by Bullseye's barbed trick arrow.
As the scans show, Elektra didn't fall unconscious, she got straight back up and defeated Bullseye (the scans for which I'll provide later.) She may not have taken it unharmed but she was still able to fight despite being in a weakened state.
Is there anything to indicate these blasts were as powerful as the real things? I don't think it was ever confirmed Super-Skrulls could perfectly replicate their copied powers. For instance, the main reason the skrulls took Black Bolt was so they could use his scream, which would indicate they couldn't perfectly copy it. It's also hard to tell what intensity these blasts were. Cyclops' blasts typically vary in intensity.
I'm well aware of the issue regarding the power of the Super Skrulls compared to the real thing but Cyclops' optic blasts have still one shotted human beings with ease on their lowest intensity. Given that the Skrulls were actively trying to put Elektra down, they're less likely to hold back, even if their powers aren't near the levels of the originals. And there is one notable durability feat which indicates Elektra can tank Shang's punches. At the end of her Super Skrull fight (will provide scans later on) another Skrull sneak attacks her using Invisible Woman's invisibility and Colossus' organic metal arms.
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There is of course the contention of how well the Skrulls replicated Colossus' powers but even so, it's going to be very hard to argue that Shang hits harder than a Colossus powered Skrull, from whom Elektra took 4 clean hits from before being knocked unconscious. This is what I meant by durability feats to stand up to Shang's striking power.
She didn't do this in combat or anything, and there's not a lot to suggest she could've taken that pain in an actual fight and continued fighting unhindered, which would be what actually matters in this fight. There's a difference between what you can do while sitting still and what you can do in a fight.
Also, Paladins not a very high bar to set. I understand that he's a respectable 10 tonner and all(he can hold up train cars), it's just that Shang-Chi stomped him. He did it while holding his breath to avoid breathing in the knockout gas at that.
Well I have shown her tanking hits from a Colossus Super Skrull after fighting 3 other Super Skrulls and there's her tanking Bullseye's best efforts to kill her whilst weakened so that counts for what she can take in a fight don't you think?
Oh and Elektra has beaten Paladin too whilst, yes you guessed it, she was drugged and weakened too.
I'd say that showing matches up to Shang stomping him at full strength.
And here are a couple more durability feats for Shang-Chi. Like getting shoved aside by the 50 tonner Hiroim and getting up a page later.
Woah there hold your horses with that overestimation. It just so happens that I got a copy of Planet Hulk for Christmas last year so when I saw this classification of Hiroim's strength level, I checked it up in the Planet Hulk Gladiator Guidebook in the back of the TPB. Suffice to say, Greg Pak disagrees with your estimation of Hiroim's strength as according to his entry, Hiroim is only a 1-2 tonner in superhuman strength at best without tapping into the Old Power. And Hiroim is clearly not using the Old Power in this scuffle with Shang Chi. If you need me to cite the full proof, I'll scan it in for my next post to prove I'm not making it up but for now, I'll make this citation and see what your response is. It's still a nice durability feat but unless you can prove otherwise, not as good as you present it to be.
Likewise, I'll outline some more durability/endurance feats for Elektra.
Despite having been drugged, tortured and nowhere near 100%, Elektra proves to be capable of soldiering on in a fight against HAMMER agents despite being shot and hurt further in the fight as well as escape the HAMMER facility. Beating these guards isn't the feat but continuing the fight whilst injured is IMO.
Secondly, there are her fights with a character called Bloody Lips in her latest series. I'll let the section from Owie's Elektra Respect thread explain who Bloody Lips is for your benefit (scans of Bloody Lips' powers in scan form are also on there from before the new scan rule.
Who is Bloody Lips?
He is a metahuman who can copy the powers, abilities, and memories of people and animals by eating part of them. By the time he first clashes with Elektra, he has copied the abilities of Bullseye, Lady Bullseye, Scalphunter, multiple SHIELD agents, a giant monster from Monster Island, a shark, an ogre-faced spider, and a rhino (and presumably other unnamed animals and people in the past). He can see in the dark, has enhanced strength of an undetermined limit (he says he can rip apart an armored car with his bare hands, and after that he eats the monster that he says enhances his strength multiple times more), has enhanced speed, can breathe underwater, can swim at shark speeds, has Scalphunter's techno-transformation powers and healing factor, and the accumulated fighting skills of all the above characters, specifically including Bullseye's ability to turn anything into a weapon and throw it with great accuracy.
Anyway, back to Elektra, Bloody Lips attacks Elektra in an underwater base and gets in some good hits on her. It's worth noting the narration where she states Bloody Lips can ram through 12" of reinforced glass yet Elektra survives his hits on her.
After this, some psychic contacts Bloody Lips and Elektra so there's no more of this fight to show.
An even more impressive durability showing against Bloody Lips comes from their rematch, when Bloody Lips has now eaten a polar bear, grown in size and gained sharp claws too. He gets a very deadly hit on Elektra but she's able to fight back despite having been slashed by this amped superhuman, as well as this being after defeating Cape Crow and being in the frozen arctic.
Finally, I have a feat to counter what you're saying about Shang being able to punch clean through Elektra at the end of the day; namely Elektra's rematch with Lady Bullseye, where she now has intangiblity. In order to defeat her foe, Elektra lets herself get stabbed to be drawn in close to Lady Bullseye so she can inflict maximum damage upon her.
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Note how Elektra says she twists to prevent the sword from hitting any vital organs. The same technique could be employed on Shang's deadly fists, only for Elektra to whip out her sais and score some deadly damage on Shang Chi herself. It might be a hard pill to swallow, but based on this feat, Elektra could pull off this move and end the fight with Shang if it's becoming too close to call.
Hence, Elektra's incredible endurance is a suitable counter to Shang's solid durability.
Speed/Reflexes
I don't see the point of bringing up bullet feats is at this point. We've well established our characters are faster than bullets by a wide margin at this point, but just for the sake of it, I'll raise you a couple more.
Silver Samurai, someone fast and skilled enough to cut bullets fired at him in half after they've been fired, visibly failed to tag Shang-Chi with his sword despite aforementioned speed. This is evidence Shang-Chi can dodge bullet speed strikes.
And here he actually blocks a bullet that wasn't even fired at him. It was fired at Black Widow from across the room. He does it so effectively that neither Black Widow nor Madam Hydra realize he actually performed the action.
That's true, we have established that our characters are indeed bullet timers. But the quality of these feats is what's key here and I've shown a higher standard in that regard for Elektra's reflex feats than Shang's thus far. Silver Samurai may be fast enough to cut bullets after they've fired but Elektra has avoided bullets, arrows, sais and a myriad of thrown objects from top marksmen like Bullseye on consistent battles.
Not too shabby bullet blocking feat, but I'll raise you Elektra slicing a bullet fired by Black Widow, who's a crack shot herself, and catching a bullet in her hands.
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Some demonstrably more impressive feats than Shang's ones you've cited I believe. In the heat of battle, Elektra's speed and quickness may well prove to be fatal to Shang in battle if she can inflict more deadly strikes faster than he can.
Not really seeing how this is more impressive. The point I was making was that Shang-Chi could move at imperceptible speeds even at a young age, something Elektra distinctly didn't do in this scan. The fact that Bullseye was the one who threw it doesn't make it any faster.
You're missing the point quite here. It isn't just the speed of the bullet, it's the accuracy and skill of the person who threw it too. It takes the most agile of street level characters to consistently avoid Bullseye's attacks. And given that Bullseye has ricocheted an arrow into Deadpool's head (who's a bullet timer), tagged Moon Knight with a knife (who's also a bullet timer) and even tagged Spider-Man with his own spider tracer (who is literally the street level definition of bullet timer), it does show how quick Elektra's reflexes are to dodge his accuracy rate whilst weakened herself.
Those "speed feats" you provided were nothing more than accuracy feats and not indictive of reaction speed. I don't see Frank blocking machine gun fire anytime soon and I don't see how he's as fast as Zaran honestly. This feat really isn't more impressive at all.
I feel that's an erroneous judgement suffice to say given that Frank has been fast enough to pull the trigger against a mach speedster and Spider-Man yet couldn't stop Elektra from taking his gun away without realising it. Frank's speed and reflexes against enemy attacks weren't the criterion I was using to solidify Elektra's feat. Rather, his ability to tag speedsters and high end street levellers are what make Elektra's disarming Frank so impressive reaction feat on her part. I believe my analysis has shown the incorrect judgement you've made of this feat is based on the measurements I was using for judgement here.
Seems I'll need more speed feats for Shang-Chi. Like here when he pulls a mid-air speed blitz on the martial artist Razor Fist.
Elektra has performed a similar feat on Razor Fist too so your evidence here can be fully countered (apologies for the scans being sideways, the respect thread positioned them in a peculiar way.)
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Or her when he tags Gorgon three consecutive times unchallenged despite Gorgons telepathy, speed and skill. Granted Gorgon was arguably playing around here as indicated when he stomped Shang-Chi once he stopped doing so but even under similar conditions he's managed to match Iron Fist in combat speed.
As you've admitted, Gorgon was playing around with Shang the entire time in that fight so I question the legitimacy of Shang's ability to strike Gorgon here. Even Wolverine had trouble tagging Gorgon when he didn't want to be hit so for Shang to be able to consistently tag him indicates Gorgon's willingness to hold back initially against Shang. As demonstrated when Gorgon proceeded to three shot him compared to Elektra's 7 hits for her to be KOed. I do have a suitable counter to the whole TP/Gorgon's skill point but I might save it for the fourth post instead.
There's also this, where Shang-Chi rushes across the room to block Hiroims punch despite being weakened.
Just as the official Planet Hulk Gladiator handbook entry stated Hiroim's strength to be lower than your estimations, so too did it not offer convincing evidence of Hiroim's speed. Yes he may be superhuman but both our characters have reacted to superhuman foes before so that's nothing new.
Seems I need to drop more feats for Elektra's superior speed and reflexes edge.
First up, Elektra has killed an entire camp of armed soldiers without them being able to do a single thing. Also note how she moves through the camp so fast, she's mistaken for a wild animal, as well as killing the men so fast they think she's a demon,
Secondly, Elektra has instantly killed 4 guards before they could realise that she was behind them all along.
She blitzes a cop about to fire a gun from several metres away.
Here Elektra hits this casino dealer faster than the untrained eye can follow.
And finally here's an insane speed and reflex feat of Elektra running across the edge of a sword thrown at her in mid sparring session with the Punisher whilst she was holding back. Does Shang have anything close to this crazy showing of speed and reflexes?
That'll do for now. And I still have more feats to cement Elektra's clear speed and reflex advantage over Shang Chi in this fight, which might well decide who can get lethal hits in the fastest.
Fighting Skill
I can understand your point about sparring if I'm going to be honest with myself, but I'm going to need more evidence of Elektra fighting evenly with Daredevil than you've proivided. The first instance had Daredevil knocking her around handily until she pinned him down, but he wasn't thinking straight at all or trying to defend himself. The other instance was a mostly off panel fight with unknown context.
The best I can do is cite this fight and its context. Here Elektra fights evenly with Matt until she defeats him by luring him into a bear trap. Granted it wasn't a fair victory but prior to that, she was on even footing with Matt throughout the fight.
Why exactly do you think Classic Iron Fist was less skilled than his current form? If he actually recieved a clear skill upgrade on-panel at some point fair enough, but if you simply think his modern feats are better than his feats from that era then it goes both ways. Shang-Chi's recent feats are more impressive than his classic ones as well. Besides even if he did get more skilled, he still had some pretty good skill feats, like beating Sabretooth while blind or beating someone with Iron Fist powers while he was drained of the same powers. I know he didn't have his better Chi techniques, but that doesn't take away his technical skill, which is more relevant anyway.
Because Iron Fist's current showings outweigh his classic showings by a significant margin. Danny's technical skill rose to being able to fight evenly with Gorgon, stalemate Black Panther whilst bloodlusted and master extra dimensional as well as Earth bound martial arts. That's why Current Danny's technical skill outweighs his classic technical skill based on the comparative evidence.
True that it goes both ways but unfortunately the same principle applies to Elektra too. I've shown how impressive Current Elektra's fighting skills to be and I have yet to produce the really good stuff from her martial arts repertoire.
It's not like she stomped her or anything. Lady Bullseye got a clean slash on her arm during the fight and they actually got an even number of hits till Elektra impaled her. I also don't agree with your ranking of Lady Bullseye. The only time I think she's given Daredevil trouble was when she had hand ninjas helping. When she fought him alone he stomped her. She also got dominated by Black Panther twice, and one of those times she had help from Typhoid Mary. All things considered I don't see how Lady Bullseye is anywhere near as skilled as Shang-Chi.
I'll cite Owie's respect thread for Lady Bullseye to show how skilled she is. And true she's not as skilled as Shang Chi but she is a top tier fighter and Elektra overpowered her quite soundly once the kid gloves came off. It's a testament to the calibre of skill Elektra is at by defeating lesser fighters who are skilled in their own right.
Besides, Shang-Chi's beaten someone I consider more skilled and all around superior to Lady Bullseye with more ease than Elektra had here: Crossbones. Crossbones has stalemated Captain America, held his own against Deadpool, soloed teams of metahumans, stomped Sin, etc. Shang-Chi calmly stomps him in about a panel.
Any proof that Crossbones is more skilled than Lady Bullseye is? And Elektra's also beaten Crossbones too so that feat isn't all that exclusive to Shang I'm afraid.
You have me there. I did actually miss that point. I won't deny that several of them fled given on-panel evidence shows that, but I have reason to believe the number was negligable.
Here Shang-Chi fights one of Fu-Manchus assassins. Fu-Manchu gives him a drug that triples his speed, but will kill him in an hour. Despite knowing that Fu-Manchu basically killed him without asking for permission, and the fact that the drug cause him excruciating pain, he obeys him and fights Shang-Chi until he kills himself because of the pain. Shang has his hands bound here and admits to being at a speed disadvantage but still manages to use his skill to get more hits on him than the other way around.
This is a great skill showing, but more importantly it shows the loyalty of Fu-Manchu's henchmen. I won't deny that some of them fled, I just think it was a small number based on this.
A valiant attempt but there is another flaw I can easily exploit here. There's no reason to think all Henchmen are as loyal as the one who continued to fight Shang Chi despite being given a lethal drug. We don't know how committed, how willing to follow commands or how devoted this assassin is to Fu-Manchu in this instance alone. Applying this to the number of men which fled from Shang in your previous scan is a severely flawed argument because of the on panel evidence that many of the henchmen started fleeing once they saw what Shang could do and didn't fancy their chances despite their number advances. Thus, I hardly think it counts for much to compare one random henchman's loyalty to all of them.
Yeah it's a decent showing but it's not Elektra is lacking in showings where she's at a disadvantage. Here she defeats several Hand in her underwear in the snow with a bunch of random ice shards, among other things.
And since you're probably going to point out how few foes Elektra was facing there despite being unarmed and outnumbered, I'll cite what's probably a better showing in your eyes; Elektra decimating an army of Hand Ninjas alongside Wolverine.
To compare this with both of your Fu Manchu examples, none of the Hand Ninjas ran unlike in the first set of scans. And like the loyal Fu Manchu assassin, practically all ninjas of the Hand have low level superhuman powers since they serve the demonic being known as The Beast. Yet Elektra, alongside Wolverine, manages to slaughter all these Hand ninjas at once in a glorious spectacle of bloodiness, brutalness and badassery. Your main counter will be to point out Wolverine's help and of course he took his fair share of Hand Ninjas being a near immortal adamantium claw butcher with a healing factor and master martial artist. But Elektra's role and number of Hand ninjas she killed cannot be denied either considering that they each took the left and right hand side of Hand ninjas. Thus, if you were looking for feats of Elektra taking out large numbers of fodder henchmen, I'd say beating a legion of Hand ninjas trumps beating a legion of ordinary henchmen.
Not bad, but as you said, none of those groups had near the numbers the as the one Shang took out. These are impressive enough, but were all performed against a bunch of nobdies. I'd think Shang-Chi stomping a team of metahumans and robots on his own is more impressive.
So we're moving onto metahumans now are we? Well I see your robot metahumans Shang defeated and raise you Whiplash, Jack O' Lantern, Tiger Shark, all of whom had been amped by the Guild of Assassins straight after beating Lady Bullseye too.
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Whiplash is an Iron Man level foe, Jack O'Lantern gave the mid tier Agent Venom trouble and Tiger Shark is one of Namor's sparring partners. Yet she takes out Spider-Man, Iron Man and Namor level villains with precision and tactical finesse in combat. Quite impressive given the quality of these foes over the quantity of robots Shang defeated.
But if defeating 3 amped Super Villains isn't enough, there is Elektra's very impressive showing against 3 Super Skrulls, first defeating one and then handling a tag team of them. This is Part 1 where Elektra first outfights a Skrull who had trained to fight like Elektra and was trying to beat Elektra at her own game to replace her. Failing to outfight Elektra fairly, the Skrull resorts to using their powers of Ghost Rider, some laser blasting hero's power and a flaming sword. It doesn't really work as Elektra ends up impaling said Skrull.
And here's part two of the Super Skrull fight where Elektra faces two Skrulls at once. One is posing as Daredevil with Cyclops' optic blasts and Nightcrawler's teleportation. The other is in Wolverine's style body with Mr Fantastic's stretching powers. As the scans will show, Elektra owns these two Skrulls with a sneaky attack on the Wolverine Skrull and though she gets tagged twice by the other's Optic Beams, she lures the Daredevil Skrull in close and stabs him for the kill. She's then KOed by a Skrull with Invisible Woman's and Colossus' powers though it still takes 4 hits for her to be knocked out cold despite having fought 3 Super Skrulls beforehand.
Thus, I believe this accounts for Elektra's ability to take on super powered foes with skill, tactics and precision in combat to overcome the power discrepancy. Skill is a superpower of its own in comics amongst street level characters after all and Elektra has that in spades.
I'll drop the point about Bullseye. I made that point a while ago and I've changed my mind regarding the comparison between Bullseye and Elektra.
I appreciate that but for arguments sake, I feel I do need to post a link to that fight (Page 2 of this Battle of the Week article)
As I've been mentioning throughout the debate, a weakened and drugged up Elektra still managed to take on a gunning for Elektra's blood Bullseye who was armed with trick arrows and had time to prepare for the fight. You might be able to say that Bullseye was toying with her but even so, that became less of a factor towards the fight's end and eventually Elektra managed to outmanevaeur Lester completely and deliver a hearty dose of irony to end the fight. Bullseye isn't exactly a slouch in H2H, he's taken on Daredevil, Punisher and Deadpool but Elektra manages to beat him despite everything that's happened to her. That's a very impressive fighting skill feat in my book.
I'd say doing it to Gorgon is more impressive considering Gorgon stomped Wolverine in the same storyline, Enemy of the State. If you want pressure point feats then I should point out that a pressure point is clearly what Shang-Chi used to take out Crossbones, who uses his avoidance skills more than Wolverine does to my knowledge. Shang's knowledgeable enough with pressure points to actually relieve pain.
Maybe so but it's not like Shang will be spamming pressure points all throughout the fight. And even if he did, Elektra is a tactical and analytical move reader given that she's been trained to kill above all else in her martial arts studies. These scans give an example of Elektra's type of thinking in a fight.
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She identifies weak points on the body, hits him with a fast martial art strike to get the first move and disables the man's elbow with special techniques. Also Elektra is knowledgeable enough to instantly kill a man with pressure points so that's a suitable counter to Shang's knowledge of relieving pressure points.
For more skill showings on Shang's part:
Displays a high level of technique during his first meeting with Elektra. He catches flies with a pair of chopsticks. Then he blocks Elektra's attacks whilst calmly eating his noodles and removing his coat.
And in that same showing Elektra shows enough precision to perform a clean decapitation of said fly, effortlessly blocks Shang's thrown chopsticks and casually catches her own sais kicked back at her by Shang. That skill showing goes both ways. And I thought we said we weren't going to use that brief fight given its lack of conclusion to it.
Easily catches a sword in his hands.
I can match that with Elektra effortlessly slicing a grenade before it detonated and catching a thrown knife from Punisher just short of her body.
Manages to run through a staircase that shifts dimensions around and doesn't lose his footing.
I'm not sure how this counts as any kind of skill showing given that a shifting staircase isn't in the Mortal Kombat arena. But for a showing of agility of that kind, Elektra managed to precisely leap from the cockpit of one plane into the cockpit of another following plane in mid air whilst both planes were moving. A feat of ridiculous skill and precision from her.
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Also, Elektra has scored a victory over another skilled and superpowered foe, namely the Silver Samurai. This is a description of his capabilities in the issue itself.
To round off my skill post, I'll cite my trump card that is Elektra's victory over the assassin known as Cape Crow. I'll again quote Owie's Elektra respect thread entry for Cape Crow.
Who is Cape Crow?
He's a new character, but supposed to be one of the greatest assassins around. However he retired and the other top assassins tried to kill him a few years ago. He faced off against Sabretooth, Bullseye, Scalphunter, and Taskmasterall at once and beat them all.
Let me repeat that. He beat Sabretooth, Bullseye, Scalphunter, and Taskmaster all at once. And here is the scan to prove it.
So inevitably Elektra faces off against Cape Crow and as you expect, she has a tough time about it. She dodges his first shot but it was meant to herd her towards him for a H2H fight. And though Cape Crow initially holds the edge, he lets loose the secret that he's a precog and can see his opponent's move a millisecond before they make it. With that information, Elektra does exactly what she did against Bullseye when he studied her moves to defeat her (see post 2 for my counter and evidence to your Bullseye point) and clears her mind, focusing only on instinct and does much better, scoring 5 hits against Cape Crow compared to 3 against her. He then tries to go for her weapon only to receive some shocking information.
This is definitely one of Elektra's best, and high end skill showings to defeat a guy who managed to outfight 3 of the top deadliest fighters and assassin's in the Marvel Universe. Even Taskmaster, the guy who can copy and predict his opponent's move styles.
I can already guess what your counter to this feat will be but I'd point out that it still suffices as a legitimate demonstration of Elektra's skill against a much more impressive foe than Shang Chi's opponents thus far and reinforces Elektra's instinct tactic fighting style against more than one foe. If Shang is reading her moves or blocking them too well, Elektra can fall back on her killer instincts (something that Shang, whilst he may be willing to kill, lacks thus far) and use her instincts in tandem with her superior speed to land more lethal blows on Shang Chi, just like she did against Cape Crow.
Overall
I haven't seen any showings from Elektra to suggest she's near as strong as Shang-Chi is striking power or lifting strength. Elektra has more and better bullet feats but not by a wide margin and not enough to massively outpace Shang-Chi or anything like that. You haven't shown her matching or beating any top level fighter of note while I have, so suffice to say I don't agree with your assessment that Elektra has greater skill. Shang-Chi is still her better in that regard by feats.
I believe I've obliged in the lifting strength department and I've shown Elektra's much better and more consistent speed and reflex feats which will enable her to score more and arguably important hits in this fight. Shang's striking power and durability will prove difficult but Elektra's speed/reflexes, lifting strength, endurance and weapon superiortity should prove to be the more advantageous attributes here. As for fighting skill, I don't deny that Shang isn't skilled but I've shown Elektra matching many of Shang's feats and even defeating other skilled foes like Silver Samurai and superhumans such as amped versions of Jack O'Lantern, Tiger Shark and Whiplash. I've still got some feats left to cement my evidence presented here that Elektra holds the skill edge over Shang Chi in both feats and credentials.
Your move for the last post of this CAV now @highaccuser.
@highaccuser And apologies for not tagging you in my actual post, I was rushing to post it rather than thinking what else it needed. Anyway it's all done now, Happy New Year when you hopefully get this message!
@highaccuser: Do take as long as you need to mate but I'm curious how far you are with your reply, if you are still interested in finishing this CAV that is?
Highaccuser can't get around to his finale post I'm afraid but he has graciously allowed me to finally open this CAV up for voting. I'll be tagging those who belatedly asked to be tagged months ago as well as some other Viners I tend to call out for CAV votes.
If any of you fine gentlemen could spare the time and effort to read and vote on this little Elektra vs Shang Chi debate, I'd greatly appreciate it. Reasons and critique are also welcome and anyone who's not been tagged already can also vote too.
A brilliantly laid out debate on both sides, and at times I was often swayed back and forth between both participants - which heavily credits their debating skill. In the end however, I'll back @lvenger as I felt he had more convincing and profound knowledge on not only Elektra but Shang-Chi also than his opponent, and he put this to excellent use in countering his opponent's points within the context of several feats. Aside from that, most other aspects seemed fairly even in terms of debating, however in my opinion Lvenger exhibited more of an aptitude for strategy and capitalizing on his advantages as best as possible.
@lvenger: @highaccuser: what an amazingly well structured and executed debate gentlemen. Top notch work here, top notch. With the calibre of a debate such as this, it is extremely hard to cast a vote for a solid victory. I was swayed back and forth with each post after reading this through numerous times, and in the end I nearly stated a draw/tie. However, I myself loathe when I get that vote in my matches so I will cast a vote for one of you as the victor here. @lvenger gets my vote here by the slightest of margins, and I truly mean by the slightest iota. This was neck and neck, and he takes it by the most minuscule fraction.He barely convinced me that his argument was the more plausible one, and that says a lot because when I first began reading I had my mind set on Shang-Chi being the victor. Fantastic job to both, and you equally deserve a ton of credit here....especially considering the characters used. Bravo.
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