@pooty: I think it is Cosmic Powers 5 where Thanos fights Morg. If anything, Thanos won that fight. Morg did tackle him, which is actually better than most, and Thanos looked desperate at one point, which is odd, but then he drops Morg to his knees with an energy blast. I think Thanos' fight with Tyrant the next issue was a bit more telling. Even being a loss, it showed Thanos holding up significantly better than small groups of Herald level characters.
@The_Last_Son_of_Czarnia said:
I've cited Gamora drawing blood and outfighting him (which I do own the issue of) and gotten nothing. "That's spit." "Thanos could've killed her." "insert-Thanos-defense-here."
I always figured the blood was basically an artistic goof, much like when Batman kicked Darkseid (and probably various other Batman showings, or various Captain America showings when he fights cosmic level characters). Thanos has been in many fights and taken many hits, to the point that if Gamora could actually hurt him like that, it is probably more reasonable to figure she's a lot stronger than anyone previously thought. Plus, they both said he was faking actually being hurt (hence the artistic goof; faking pain is easy, but faking bleeding is a bit harder, though I guess technically he could have fake blood tabs in his mouth or something, just in case he needs to fake an injury for whatever reason).
Of course, Gamora being a more skilled and more agile fighter than Thanos is completely believable; she is supposed to be one of the best in the MU, even if she hasn't actually fought a lot of other top-tier fighters. It's just the idea of her actually hurting him that is off.
You gotta remember too, these people absolutely hate Darkseid. They've gone on record as saying Raker beat him up, that Darkseid struggled against the Darkstars, they constantly reference the stairs incident and the mugging without saying that he was depowered.
From what I recall, Raker was hurt in that exchange too. DS took out the Darkstars pretty easily, from what I recall, but I've never gotten the impression they were at the level of A-list Lanterns. Then again, I've mostly only seen them in GL issues and crossovers, but I think Donna had some difficulty with Parademons and Kalibak.
Stewart might be the best comparison there, since he's been both. Do you know if his Darkstar feats are up to the level of his GL feats?
Even when I provided strong evidence of Darkseid oneshotting Superman with a punch, they had excuses, and one even said that it would put him at Captain Marvel (DC) level at best.
Is that Superman/Batman, when he punches him through the door? Sorry if this sounds like another excuse, but if you took two heavyweight pro-boxers, and gave one guy a free shot at the other's head with no warning and no chance to defend himself, that "fight" is going to look a whole lot more one-sided than it would if they had an actual ring bout.
In all seriousness, yes, I would fully expect Captain Marvel, Lobo, or Orion (or even Wonder Woman, for that matter) to send Superman reeling under similar circumstances, and vice-versa (Superman actually has batted away Orion with a single blow, and it shouldn't have even been as surprising as with DS hitting Supes, since Orion was facing him and telling him to get up; whether or not Orion was KO'd is impossible to tell, but it took him a good while to catch up with Supes). Like I said, you look at either pro-boxing or UFC fights, and it's easy to see that with a lot of these guys (especially the boxers), giving one of them a free hit out of the blue could easily change a fight from lasting 20 minutes to only 5 seconds (there's one infamous UFC event where Heath Herring knocked out his opponent before the fight even started by punching the guy for kissing him when they were supposed to touch gloves).
If it's another issue you're thinking of, could you let me know what it is?
The thing with Superman vs. Darkseid is that neither of them have a huge number of wins over the other. However, Superman has hurt Darkseid with punches on several occasions. Superman has also taken punches from DS without being KO'd on several occasions. He's also taken Omega shots without being KO'd on several occasions, and a few other characters have as well. Darkseid has probably been in fewer fights than a lot of people realize, considering how long he's been around, and a significant percentage of them are actually with Superman. Moreso than any other single character, in fact, including Orion, which is why he's actually a very useful measuring stick. Darkseid has not beaten any really high-level opponents that I'm aware of, or had extended battles with Skyfather level opponents either; Thanos' losses to Tyrant and Odin are actually more impressive than Darkseid's wins over Superman because of how powerful the characters are.
Another thing to keep in mind is that saying one character can win isn't the same as saying the character will always win. Sometimes I feel like when I debate DS's power level and say Superman can and has beaten him, people somehow take this to mean I'm saying Superman should always beat him, even easily. Not so. Just consider that if Darkseid has, say, a 6/10 advantage, that means in 10 fights, we could expect him to lose 4 of them. Even a 7/10 advantage, having him lose is possible, if increasingly unlikely.
My basic view is that if DS is viewed as a character with a 6/10 or 7/10 advantage over Superman, his "low showings" are actually not very low at all, while at the same time, most of his "high showings" aren't outrageously high either. I think it averages out well. It is the people who adamantly claim a 10/10 advantage for DS that I feel have the problems, because then his low-showings are very low, and require significantly more explanation and handwaving to get around.
Incidentally, as far as I recall, only 2-3 instances have been retconned to being Thanos clones; the fight with Kazar, and the fight with Thor when Thanos was working with Mangog. I'm not even sure what the 3rd would be, I just feel there could be one. I don't think that is especially egregious, especially compared to the use of Doombots.
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