I'm taking another thread off topic so I'm just moving the conversation here. I'm including the posts just so it's easy for others to follow. Since we were also talking about other things there might be some stuff in there that doesn't make sense/isn't connected, but I think took most of that out.
@Buckshot said:
Since you bring up MM again, I think he'd beat Superman in a fight even in this new DCU. He's demonstrated exceptional telepathic abilities (mindwiping every member of Stormwatch among other things), which is something Superman was shown to be susceptible to, and we've seen him use both his telepathy and intangibility in combat, which could easily make it impossible for Superman to do anything to him. Whether or not he's physically more powerful or not is, pardon me, immaterial.
@toptom said:
if midnighter was capable of discover the mm's weak spot, i believe that batman,cyborg,hal jordan ( if he is smart enough to use his ring in a proper way) and superman (by using his x vision and intellect) can discover it. but even if they don't ,they can still punch him right in the face and the work is done. mm was not able to avoid that punch even if he knew that it was coming. then you say that mindwiping the whole stormwatch is a big feat (and it would) but j'onn brainwashed them one by one in secret and he depowered apollo first.plus angie hepled him mindwhiping the others and she didn't try to oppose him when he did that with her.
no i don' think mm would win a fight with superman in the new 52(for now at least),actaully i think that he has got less chances than before. maybe he has demonstrated some good telepatic feats but he was able to remove his comnrades' memories just by touching them, that would be harder against kal. then you say that superman is susceptible to telepathy and that is not totally true: he was able to resist to the "forgotten supermna"'s telepathy (even if he could control the crowd just fine) and in the end he managed to break free.
this is a new universe and the things CAN change but actually superman is stronger than j'honn untill is shown otherwise.
@Buckshot said:
I just want to break down this idea that Midnighter bloodying MM means anything. First of all, MM can create psychic images that show him to be elsewhere and can turn intangible. Between these, MM can make it so he's not actually hit by a punch to the face. Second, even if he is punched in the face it doesn't mean "the work is done." Apollo punched him full on in the face with an energy punch no less and he was unfazed. In fact, Apollo was floored in the attempt. AND THEN, even if someone else could figure out MMs weak spot it STILL wouldn't mean anything. Midnighter knew where it was, MM let him land the blow and it didn't do anything but break a bone and cause some blood because he could move his brain so the weakness can't actually be exploited. So in summary, someoe would have to first be able to land a hit, then actually hit the right spot (which would require knowledge of it), and MM would have to leave his brain where it was. Midnighter failing to actually exploit a weak spot successfully doesn't mean someone can just beat MM by punching him in the face. Nice try.
As for MMs telepathy, the point wasn't that he mindwiped the team all at once, it was that he demonstrated the ability to affect the minds of multiple characters of different types (a cyborg, someone whose mind is connected to cities, various metahumans, a reality warper, and he even threatened to destroy the minds of the shadow cabinet convincingly after reading their minds). His telepathic abilities are clearly formidable. You can try attribute something to Angie but seeing as she has no telepathic abilities unless I missed something, and we clearly see MM do it on his own several times, I don't really see her assistance in the act of mind wiping, Her assistance could easily be sending the team out in smaller teams so MM could pick them off easier than trying to deal with them all at the same time, since even Apollo and Midnighter together made his job tougher. You want to talk about Superman's telepathic resistance, but the forgotten Superman did fine and so did Helspont. Superman resisted the forgotten Superman because his telepathy required a conscious mind and Superman pulled a Wolverine on him. I see no such limitation stated for MM so there's not much reason to believe his TP wouldn't work.
Summary of my point: MMs intangibility and telepathic ability seem to be sufficient to allow him to beat Superman.
@toptom said:
"MMs intangibility and telepathic ability seem to be sufficient to allow him to beat Superman." i don't think so ,since he needed the phisical contact to mindwhipe his foes and since he arranged a plan to depower apollo before he could take care of him.superman has still got quite a resistance against telepathy and we have aslo to wait to see how much hv can affect j'honn in his intangible status.
"And I just want to break down this idea that Midnighter bloodying MM means anything. First of all, MM can create psychic images that show him to be elsewhere and can turn intangible." what? do you realize that what you said it is exactly what happened right? he has created an image of himself but he could not use his intangibility in time,infact midnighter was still able to punch him in the face.mm even said that he could have died if he hadn't squeezed his brain before the hit. the fact that he let that happen is just in your immagination i suppose,since there is not this evidence in the comic. superman,or cyborg or hal could discover on their own that weakness pretty fine and if they manage to land a faster and a more solid punch on mm's nose they can kill him and not just ko him.they don't even have to know that his nose is a weak spot to hit him in the face.....listen i believe that all this part of the nose as a weak spot is just crap but neverthless it happened. however when apollo landed that energy charged punch on him,mm seemed to block it with his arm unless you believe that midnighter is stronger than him.
@Buckshot said:
MM didn't need physical contact for all his feats so acting like that's a limitation is just foolishness. But I'll entertain your foolishness. Even if he needed it, why would that be a problem? Superman has one ranged attack and he typically fights with his fists, so MM would be able to lay hands on him. You'll need to prove Superman's resistance because he's shown vulnerability to telepathic attack every time I've seen it used on him and only beat it on one occasion when he went on instinct, something that there's no evidence to prove would work against MM. Until you can somehow show that MM would have a problem affecting Superman's mind, it's pretty likely it would work. On to intangibility, you simply have no answer to that at all other than "he might still be vulnerable to heat vision" even though there's no evidence of that at all. Work on proving your claims.
Now to this Midnighter thing you can't let go of. A character not doing something is not necessarily evidence of inability. Where is the proof that MM couldn't go intangible? I'm not going to get into how MM's response after the strike suggests that he was curious to see if Midnighter could actually pull it off because I understand that's a subjective interpretation of the scene and you have enough trouble with things that can beobjectively shown. I'll move on to the obvious question of "If MM had time to make a psychic projection, to talk to Midnighter, AND to move his brain, why would he not have time to go intangible?" He clearly chose not to, and you can use whatever reason you want to, but I'll stick with "he clearly didn't need to" since he had already protected himself by moving his brain. My point was that MM has the capability of turning intangible and avoiding attacks. Him not choosing to in one instance doesn't make my point invalid. Try harder. As for the idea that Midnighter doing more damage that Apollo meaning he is stronger, that's just rubbish. Think about Karnak or Karate Kid. There are characters that can do a lot more damage simply because they hit weak spots and not because of greater strength and they established pretty clearly that Midnighter was hitting a weak spot.
This is just...sad.
@toptom said:
superman can beat mm. i don't understand why this is so so strange to hear. it is never happened that mm used all his powers in a straight way to be considered invincible. in the pre-52 universe mm was a jobber combarable only to darkseid,but maybe the things will change now. however new 52 mm hasn't never used his thelepaty in an offensive way,he has just read minds and he has removed memories from his comrades and opponents. so what is your point? superman was still trying to reach lois when he was under the other superman's power ( even if he could control the crowd without a problem) and he was even resisting to that flying monsters's thelepaty.
this midnighter thing is important to underline that even a character of his power level can damage j'honn.and if he can do that superman or hal jordan can do the same and better. since they know how much dangerous mm can be they will try to exploit all his weacknesses and they have the means to find them(it is also possible that they already know them). then you keep to say that he didn't used his intangibility because he wanted so.i say in that instance he wasn't enough fast to avoid his punch,but in the same moment it connected he squeezed his brain so he is still alive. he could not have this possibility with faster and stronger opponents. i have never said that midnighter is stronger than apollo of course.
@Buckshot said:
And on (and on and on and on...) with MM again. So even though MM has used intangibility while fighting Superman, you think it's unbelievable that he could do so in order to actually beat him? You're basing your "Superman always wins" stance on some shoddy logic. In your first paragraph you support Superman being able to beat characters by his ability to go faster than them, even though he doesn't use it this way against opponent's that aren't fast. But now you're saying MM won't use intangibility because he doesn't use his powers this way (even though that's EXACTLY what he did in his only fight with Superman). You're ignoring Superman's character to say he's the most powerful while in the same breath trying (and failing, since MM has actually done what you say he won't) to limit MM by his character. Riiiiiiiiiiiight... The second example of shoddy logic is basing your opinions of these characters on older versions of them that aren't involved in this fight. So all in all, your attempt to downplay Superman's complete lack of an answer to MM's intangibility is a complete failure. As for his telepathy, sure MM hasn't really used it (very) offensively so far that I can recall, but I didn't say he needs to, did I? He has done a number of other things that would be useful. In Green Lantern Corps he calmed Guy Gardener even though he wanted to fight him. He's also removed and implanted memories and information from/in the minds of others. He's also created believable psychic illusions. Using just those few examples, he could remove Superman's desire to fight him (or even the knowledge of who he is), trick him into thinking he was fighting him elsewhere (allowing MM to strike unchallenged), and he could also overload Superman's mind with thoughts he can't handle like Helspont did (like the eon's of rage-fuel he saw in Atrocitus' mind, or his own personal torments, or maybe just the thoughts of everyone on the planet). MM's "non-offensive" psychic attacks would be more than useful. BUT, to think he doesn't have any offensive capability is kind of silly given that the Shadow Cabinet, who know more about him than anyone else it seems, believed his threat that he would destroy their minds. Your attempt to downplay Superman's complete lack of an answer to MM's psychic abilities has also failed.Superman could easily find himself both unable to attack and unable to defend.
Midnighter being able to damage MM does not mean that Superman can. Midnighter was able to hit a weak spot in MMs face and do damage. Apollo, with seemingly much greater strength, also hit MM in the face and did no damage. This suggests to me that it's not just brute strength but also hitting the right spot correctly, that will achieve results...and that result would really only be a bloody nose anyway. I'm not saying that damage can't be done to MM, but Midnighter hitting a weak spot doesn't mean anyone punching in the general area could do the same...since someone tried and failed. And that's if MM even stays tangible, which he doesn't have to do. As for you thinking that Midnighter moved too quickly for MM, I think that's foolishness since MM performed at least 3 actions before Midnighter landed his strike, one of which removed the danger of Midnighter landing his punch, meaning that MM didn't need to turn intangible to save himself. Your kind of logic, applied to Superman would mean he wasn't fast enough to avoid Helspont's back hand, he wasn't fast enough to avoid MM's heat vision, he wasn't fast enough to trucks being thrown at him, etc, etc. I think it makes far more sense that sometimes characters (attempt to) tank hits. I know you didn't say Midnighter is stronger than Apollo, but what you did say was "when apollo landed that energy charged punch on him,mm seemed to block it with his arm unless you believe that midnighter is stronger than him" which is a statement that assumes the only way Midnighter could have done more damage is with greater strength. Since I don't think MM blocked with his arm, I provided an alternative explanation (consistent with a number of other comics) that would account for Midnighter doing more damage than Apollo without having greater strength.
@toptom said:
now i suppose that you are talking again of mm vs jla. i don't think that it is impossible for him to win this fight but i see kal as a more possible winner. mm has never used his powers in a proper way,he always let somebody to hit him or sometimes his thelepaty can be dangerous for him while superman uses his speed more often. kal has enough resistance to thelepaty and enough speed to render mm capability ineffective. as for mm's intangibilty if he would mindwhipe superman or punch him he has to be tangible and so he could be damaged,and we have yet to see if an adjusted dose of hv can ( or can not)affect him while he is phasing. when he calmed down guy garder or when he erased some memories he touched his opponents, however he has yet to use his thelepaty offensively in a battle. when he will do that i 'll consider that capacity as a threat.
and yes if midnighter can damage mm by exploiting his weakness it means that even superman or others can do the same if they knows about that spot or if they can discover it(this options are both possible for superman or hal). regarding that punch from apollo,it is not clear if he punched him in the face,the arm of mm seems to be right in front of his face so he could have just stopped it,and that seems to be more in line to the durabilty showed by him. "it's not just brute strength but also hitting the right spot correctly, that will achieve results...and that result would really only be a bloody nose anyway" i don think so since both kal or hal can punch him with greater strenght and greater speed so that he won't use his intangibility or "brain squeezing powers". by the way midnighter wounded him and salu koed him,both of this would not have happened to kal.
Your claim that "MM has never used his powers in a proper way" is completely ignored because you're drawing on a version of this character we're not talking about. If we talk about what has been shown in the New 52, MM has used his intangibility in a fight with Superman and he has used his psychic powers to trick someone into thinking they were hitting him when they weren't. Both options I gave for MM avoiding Superman's attacks have been used in character, so your assumption that he won't, is baseless. I haven't really been reading all of Superman's comics but from what I've seen he hasn't been using his speed in combat to an amazing degree against characters that haven't first used their speed on him. Even against a known threat like Helspont he didn't use his speed significantly in either of their fights. So from what I've seen, MM is more likely to successfully avoid Superman's attacks than Superman is to effectively use his speed in this fight.
As for your claim that MM has to be in contact with his opponent to use his psychic abilities on them, this is simply not true. MM was not in contact with Guy Gardener when he psychically calmed him, and was not in contact with Midnighter when he created the illusion in his mind. He was also not in contact various times when he has sensed general thoughts, feelings, and intentions of others. And again, MM was not in contact with the room full of GLs when he performed an infodump on them to let them know about the Keepers. Also important is that he was not in contact with Guy Gardener or any of those GLs when he removed their memory of himself and disappeared right in front of them. So the things I've been saying he can do require no contact. And when he was in physical contact to pry out deep secrets or do some serious mind rearranging, he was phased through the skulls of the people he was messing with. And not only was he intangible, but the characters he did this to were, with only one exception, immobilized by the process. So contrary to what you believe, MM would not need to be vulnerable to mess with Superman's mind, and even if he did, Superman would be in no position to do anything about it. And again, those are the "non-offensive" uses of his telepathy, not even the mental destruction the Shadow Cabinet were wary of.
Your entire point with Midnighter is foolishness that you're not even adding anything new to that I haven't already addressed, but I'm sure you know that.
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