(New 52) Aquaman vs Midnighter

Aquaman (JL) vs Midnighter (Storm Watch)

Rules for this battle go as followed

• Both new 52 versions, no pre 52 feats allowed
• Morals off (not bloodlusted)
• No allies, or external resources (besides fish)
• Random encounter, only basic knowledge of each other
• Standard gear for both
• Fight is won by Death, KO, Incap or surrender
• Both are fully rested, and in good health

Battle takes place here

Trump tower, indoor entrance

For those who don't know, there is a massiver waterfall behind the escalator and many open floors as you go deeper into the building

• 20 meter starting distance
• Battle can be taken anywhere in the tower
• No bystanders
• Everything in the building is operational
• Sun is setting

Who Wins?

Aquaman

@allstarsuperman: why?

Post-Flashpoint, Aquaman has no combat speed feats that preclude Midnighter breaking his face with one punch.

although aquaman is stronger and more durable i think midnighter's precognition and skills will lessen the gap, especially that aquaman isn't near the sea, still going with aquaman on this

Aquaman stomps

Stronger (lifted 110000 ton ship), faster (blitzed WW out of water), more durable (tanked WW punch to the face).

Midnighter can literally do nothing to Aquaman

His trident also hurt Darkseid.

@esquire: He was able to dodge black manta's eye beams.

@comicfan11: he never blitzed WW, and he isn't more durable. Midnighter took a huge beating from an angry Apollo.

@calebhara: AQ has also survived an exploding plane and the subsequent fall to earth, and is bulletproof, something Midnighter is not. And WW>Apollo.

AQ has also taken out two Talons (superhuman speed through the serum) like they were nothing while cracking jokes with GL

As for AQ vs WW

And that's after WW attacks him first without him looking.

Midnighter is ridiculously outclassed in physical stats, in any conceivable way.

Furthermore what Midnighter can even do to hurt Aquaman?

Considering midnighter made manhunter bleed and manhunter stated that if he didn't shift his weak point he would have died, I don't see aquaman tanking midnighters attacks. I haven't been reading the new 52 so how is midnighters speed in the new 52? Still ridiculous?

@jashro44: Didn't Manhunter say he just played dead to test Midnighter and Apollo in issue 2 of Stormatch?

I am not referring to that issue. I am referring to this:

Gallery

@jashro44: Slower then pre 52.

@comicfan11: Thats not a blitz, thats a single strike. And you saying Wonder Woman > Apollo, is highly debatable.

What are his speed feats though in the new 52?

@jashro44: Aquaman is bulletproof to the point of taking high caliber machine gun fire to the head and body, a splinter of bone will do exactly nothing to him and will break on impact. Furthermore MM mentions a specific "evolutionary weak link". There's no proof whatsoever that an attack like this is even applicable to Aquaman since we already know that he is resistant or immune to blunt force damage (beating from WW, fall to earth), piercing damage (harpoon to the back while he was still a teen, bullets to the head), slashing damage (shark bites while he was a teen), energy attacks (fie, ice, eye beams, poison).

As it stands Midnighter has no way of taking Aquaman down and is physically outclassed by a huge (110000 tons vs Deathstroke level strength) margin.

This is a horrible mismatch.

@calebhara: It's an attack against a character with established much higher levels of superspeed and reaction time than Midnighter. If he can do this against WW he can do it against Midnighter much easier. That's the point.

Unless you believe that Midnighter is anywhere near as fast as WW.

@comicfan11: Considering aquaman was bleeding when ever he was shot it stands to reason midnighter can hurt him. Whether it be with the blade he used to cut Skalloxs hand or his chin spike he can damage aquaman. And yes his powers told him manhunters weak point but that is literally his power. It will tell him aquamans.

@jashro44: Aquaman's skin was slightly cut, but no real physical damage was done. Mids is not strong enough I believe to put enough force behind his strikes, even if he has a weapon strong enough to cut AQ's skin it will most likely won't be enough to cut through muscle and bone (what I mean is that if Mids was like 50 class strength you would probably have a point).

Furthermore, what is AQ's weakness that Mids can expolit? So far in the New 52 AQ does not seem to have a specific weakness like Manhunter.

@comicfan11: Wonder Woman is only trying to restrain him, she isn't even fighting.

Why not post the next page where she hits him literally ONE time and draws blood.

Midnighter has several striking feats. Above with the scans of martian manhunter the evolutionary weakness didn't work (because he moved his brain) but Martian manhunter was still bleeding. He also caused a massive crater in the ground against grifter. He still needed a lot of force to push his bone back. He can go for the throat and cut aquaman there. That is a much more sensitive area then the the head where as he was bleeding from a bullet wound to the head. Point being he has a lot more force behind his swipes then those bullets do so he can do more damage. And since he will target weaker points he will cut much deeper.

Aquaman.

@xeon1cs: The next page is a good feat for AQ since, WW also hit Superman ONCE during the Graves storyline and also drew blood. Plus I already mentioned AQ getting punched by WW in my previous posts.

Getting hit by WW straight to the face and not being KOed is a good feat not a bad one.

also WW is clearly seeing Aquaman attack her after he has send Superman (WW's lover) flying with a punch. From that point on the fight begun. AQ was clearly a threat to her and WW was unable to react to AQ's charge.

WW also did manage to restrain Supergirl with the lasso. She failed to do that against Aquaman, further showcasing AQ's speed.

@jashro44: That's a nice punch (for a Mids level character and with a strong enough weapon can do some damage), but still Mids does not have any feats I know off to put him on AQ's physical class (strength, speed, durability)

Plus AQ is not fighting h2h in this fight. He has the Trident if Mids tries to use any weapons.

AQ only needs to tag Mids once (which he can easily do with his speed) to pin him with the Trident.

I haven't really been reading new 52 stormwatch so I can't say for certain if midnighter takes this. However he at least has the means to hurt him. I believe if he is half as fast as he was pre 52 though I think he beats aquaman all though I guess since I don't have speed feats for new 52 midnighter I can't say if he will win.

@jashro44: That's my point.

Character A (Aquaman) going by feats outclasses character B (Midnighter) in any conceivable way.

Both characters can hurt each other (not quite sold on Mids but anyway), but character A is overall on a higher level.

So character A is the favorite to win.

Aquaman stomps.

Reason being is that he has enough durability to deflect the bullets of Midnighter and much stronger than he is as well. I'm not familiar with the character, but I know he's some kind of superhuman designed merc...but he's not meta-human and Aquaman has fought beings that are meta-human before. In the New 52, he's taken on Wonder Woman, stood up against Darkseid, fought a few talons (which I believe are in the same class as midnighter), and has displayed many more feats where he would take on other meta-humans above superhuman strength and speed/agility level. (*Readers Discretion Is Advise) With the healing factor that Midnighter has, I don't think it'll stand a chance when Aquaman goes three-pronging with his trident and stabs him through the chest or throat, making him a steak shish kabob, and feed him to the "dogs" of the sea. He'll eventually just sink to the bottom of the ocean, piece by piece for the little ones to feed on...Now would he have any healing regeneration if his bodies in small pieces inside of different sharks' bellies? I mean, he's seperated in a million pieces and their long gone from each other. Midnighter is no more. Here's a scene from Aquaman's early years on the Justice League (first day of the first year on the job to be exact), depicting his superhuman strength, agility, durability (withstanding the high-caliber bullets from the choppers), and his expertise skills with his trident, telepathic powers, and leadership/strategic tactics (though morals are off). These panels below exemplify exactly what he would do to Midnighter (Just imagine the parademons being MN) at a random encounter.

"Well, How did I supposed to know he had healing powers?!" - Aquaman (theoretically speaking)

@comicfan11: Midnighter doesn't need to be on Aquaman's level to do damage to him because his powers allow him to exploit weak points. I wouldn't say Midnighter is on Martian Manhunter's level but he was still able to hurt him because he could exploit a weakness in him. As for Aquaman's fight with Wonder Woman supporting the idea that he has any significant speed advantage, I disagree. Just because she has speed doesn't mean she was using it in her fight with Aquaman. Him being able to slam her into a dock isn't a display of speed and there's no indication she tried to avoid the attack and failed to. He didn't overcome her speed by the looks of it, they just weren't really using any. Aquaman may only need to pin Midnighter once, but Midnighter's power could mean the same is true on his end, and between the two of them, I think Midnighter's vague predictive abilities give him a leg up in not getting hit.

@buckshot: There's no indication that WW was not using her speed also. Just a moment ago AQ send Superman flying so there's no logical explanation for WW to just stand there. What is absolutely certain is that AQ managed to charge a character with established superspeed and succeed covering a big distance in the process of the attack.

Plus Aquaman's charge was done extremely fast as shown on panel. He was using speed since the attack covered a big distance almost instantaneously. More than anything Midnighter has done in the new 52 in terms of speed. Also remember AQ was toying with multiple Talons who also have some sort of metahuman speed.

I'm not suggesting that AQ is faster than WW. But he is fast enough to tag her in combat.

Furthermore WW tried to restrain AQ with the lasso and failed.

When she did the same thing against Supergirl she succeeded.

As for Midnighter's predictive abilities, he still has to be able to move fast enough to avoid a charge like AQ's even if he knows it's coming (thing Mister X against Quicksilver in Siege).

Finally , even IF AQ has a weakness Midnighter can exploit (no specific physical weakness has been shown so far for AQ in the New 52) it's still more difficult for Midnighter since AQ does not need Midnighter to have a weakness. Wherever he hits Midnighter, he is done for (especially with the Trident).

I'm so glad I missed this and everything that followed the first time I posted...

When characters use their superhuman speed it's typically plain to see, and we don't assume it's in use in every fight just because they have it. If we did, we'd be forced to do things like assume that any time any random character hits Superman, they are doing so by overcoming his speed. If your thought process is that it wouldn't make sense for Wonder Woman to just stand there after Aquaman just hit Superman, there's some problems with that. The first of which is that Batman is also just standing there. He saw the same thing, wouldn't it be equally illogical for him to sit there waiting to be attacked? There's also the fact that Wonder Woman clearly didn't see this as the most dangerous thing in the world since she opted to contain rather than actually fight (she would have pulled out her swords if she thought it was a serious thing). There's also the fact that she knew she could take it. Look at her in the following images. She's perfectly fine. Characters "stand there" all the time. Superheroes routinely ignore powers they have during fights. If Wonder Woman displayed some superhuman speed in that instance things would be a little different, but she didn't. As for him charging her, all he did was rush forward when he was only feet away from her at best, and again, look at her, she took it without trouble. As I said before, there's nothing to suggest she tried to avoid it and was unable to because his speed exceeded hers. Him shooting forward quickly with her isn't a show-stopping speed feat. He tagged her in combat when she wasn't displaying any speed. Is your only support for Arthur's speed a fight where little was displayed beyond some basic travel speed?

Itll be a good fight but i see aqua man taking this fight

@buckshot: The pic make's it clear that the attack happened much faster than "basic travel speed". Even if WW just stood there. Batman running is basic travel speed. In this case AQ crashed WW through the dock almost instantaneously covering a big distance. Also Batman wouldn't be able to react to this kind of speed so what he did is irrelevant. He is a human with no metahuman abilities.

WW not pulling swords to kill her teamate is not the the same thing as not fighting back while she tried to lasso AQ (especially standing there waiting to be charged by the character who send Superman packing just a moment ago). AQ was not using his trident, doesn't mean his strikes won't hurt. AQ didn't even punch WW, just grabbed her. he was not trying to hurt WW but to stop them from attacking Orm.

Also my point is not how far away WW was from AQ when she used the lasso but the distance covered instantaneously after he connected. No character unless he possess some form of superspeed can cover that distance so fast carrying WW while escaping from her lasso.

The feat is not about who is stronger between WW and AQ, but whether it's faster than anything Midnighter has done (which is).

Flash emptying a city of millions in seconds is a showstopping superspeed feat. That doesn't mean what AQ did was not a portrayal of the same ability (superspeed) at a lower level (which is my point).

And finally WW is not the same as pre New 52. She has great superspeed in the form of deflecting the bullets with the bracelets which is beyond a normal humans abilities but so far she is not out of Aquaman's league in any way physically. Her biggest claim to fame is the perception fans have about her due to previous continuity. You are speculating that if she "used" her speed things would be different, but Johns (in a continuation of Flashpoint where AQ was gaining the upper hand against WW on land) is clearly establishing AQ and WW as peers. WW might hold an edge (on land) but it's nowhere near as great as you want to make it sound.

If he is picking up subs, Aquaman would take it. Tat kind of strength advantage in a guy who also has skills, quickness, and agility is too much to overcome.

@robertloucksjr: even for a guy that could have killed martian Manhunter in one punch?

@comicfan11: Trying to attribute "near instant" travel speed to Aquaman when there's nothing to support that but blur lines is a stretch. Your case has been that Aquaman demonstrated super speed against an opponent with established super speed, and that supports his own. However, Wonder Woman was not shown to use super speed in their fight or even try to avoid the attack. Him grabbing her and slamming them both into a dock, while evidence of speed, doesn't show speed on her level. I call it basic travel speed because its a vague blur. It could be any speed. You want to call it near instant, but there's no evidence of that. Midnighter dodging a bullet at least gives us something solid to base his speed on. Did Aquaman move faster than that? There's no way to tell (though I'd say no since we see them moving and I have no reason to believe otherwise). I'll go back to my point just to refresh. Wonder Woman didn't display speed or try to avoid Aquaman's attack and fail. Using her to gauge his speed doesn't work without those (and even if it did it would still be shaky). I'm not trying to make her speed sound great, I'm just stating that she didn't display her speed so you trying to make Aquaman's speed seem great by comparing it to hers in that fight doesn't have much support.

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