Comic Vine Battle of the Week VOTING: Snake Eyes vs. X-23

Also forgot to mention this earlier but Snake-Eyes carries Flash-bangs, and with X-23's heightened senses this could actually provide an advantage if he used it right.

I just want to comment on this one point. Obviously, no one has dismembered or decapitated her in comics because she's a high-profile, continuing hero character, and the writers aren't going to do that to her. She has to live to sell more comics. Sure, they'll cut her up, they'll give her bad wounds, but they're wounds she can heal from. When she did get dismembered, she was given time to heal. In the battle forum, she doesn't get that sort of writerly protection, and doesn't have that long to heal.

I think X-23 wins

I think X-23 wins

@theacidskull: What obvious advantage? Her healing factor? That is her only real advantage and its not one that can't be overcome.

I never said you had a vast knowledge or were an expert. You said you liked Snake-Eyes. All I said is you don't know much about him for liking him. Which doesn't matter at all, it's not relevant to situation. As far as me knowing a human who could crush statues, there's alway's Iron Fist who can go far beyond.

@perfect_10 said:

Logically her healing factor is better, as Wolverine is constantly battling Adamantium poisoning, which taxes his healing factor. On the other hand, Wolverines healing factor is one of the most inconsistent powers in comics! He heals in seconds from Nitro, but in Uncanny X-force, when the 616 version of Holocaust blasts him, he's down for multiple issues.

Let's just remember this in a couple months. I hope you're right.

(it's also a fair point -- though conversely, one might point out that just as Laura has survived ridiculous things despite her weaknesses, Snake Eyes is just a human being and has also survived ridiculous things despite his weaknesses. So to some extent the absurdness of not having been overpowered needs to be taken into consideration for both characters)

Up to now the arguments you are given for Snake eye are not convincing .

Snake Eyes has been at this game of assassination far longer than X-23. He is capable of moral ambiguity just as any soldier is, it's a switch than must be thrown when the time comes, so he can certainly kill a child assassin. He would no doubt size up her fighting style and counter it, avoiding those pesky little blades of hers after she sliced through one of his, and then resort to pressure point strikes to slow her down and ultimately tying her up with a kusari (ninja's chain) before realizing she would need to die - then he'd lop off her head and solemnly thought bubble "-yo Joe-".

Snake Eyes in a fiercely pitched battle for the win.

@mynamewasdeleted said:

Who's to say? Snake Eyes was trained to be a ninja/assassin only after coming home from a war. Considering the age you need to be to enlist, that makes him at least a young adult. Laura was already a renowned international assassin when she was just a child. Also, other characters have already jokingly asked her how long she's been 16 (or was it 17?). People seem to be forgetting that she ages much slower than normal humans.

@mynamewasdeleted: Said

Snake Eyes has been at this game of assassination far longer than X-23. He is capable of moral ambiguity just as any soldier is, it's a switch than must be thrown when the time comes, so he can certainly kill a child assassin. He would no doubt size up her fighting style and counter it, avoiding those pesky little blades of hers after she sliced through one of his, and then resort to pressure point strikes to slow her down and ultimately tying her up with a kusari (ninja's chain) before realizing she would need to die - then he'd lop off her head and solemnly thought bubble "-yo Joe-".

Snake Eyes in a fiercely pitched battle for the win.

So she will just stand there for him to do all his Mojo? Come on and you people are always saying is faster than Laura this cannot be she is smaller than him, Her bones are lighter than his, she is super human so her speed is enhanced and she has dodge a punch from a Vampire Jubilee with ease and you cannot say snake eye can be faster than a vampire so please try to convince with other scans right now i'm not impress

I have to give props to Lunacyde especially for posting all the examples of Snake Eyes' skill sets. Well done, I think you've made a great case here!

Robert Atkins

IDW GIJOE/Snake Eyes artist

Ninja Vs A being designed for killing? X-23 Would fuck him up so bad I think he'd break his vow of silence and beg for mercy... Metal claws, not bones.

@supreme_maj: let me re-iterate """"Snake Eyes in a fiercely pitched battle"""" oh and.. """He would no doubt size up her fighting style and counter it, avoiding those pesky little blades of hers after she sliced through one of his"""

I think it would be a great fight to see on the page, but the fact remains that Snake Eyes has far greater skill, training, attitude and mental preparedness... AND experience.

@gunmetalgrey: With regard to experience, you can't honestly believe that X-23 is older than a teenager at this point in her life can you? Well, regardless - that doesn't matter for all intents and purposes neither she nor Snake Eyes will ever get any older than they are presently portrayed (that's the nature of comic books as we all know). So it comes down to technologically artificial learning vs. real world actual learning... or the Balboa~Drago equation, which states that Rocky wins cause he did the training for real and climbed up a snowy Russian mountain- Ivan Drago not so much. For our purposes here X-23 is Drago and Snake Eyes climbed the Ninja/Special Ops real world mountain.

Victory- Snake Eyes

@mynamewasdeleted: "Yo Scarlett, I did it!" XD

@rqatkins: thank you. I really appreciate it and love your work. I hope to keep reading great Snake-Eyes stories from IDW

@mynamewasdeleted: Yeah, but she was born, bred and trained to be a killer. She had to learn to be a real person while snake eyes had to learn to be a killer. I believe X-23 would win. Shes been trained her whole life.

you don't have kids do you... that wasn't a question.

there is only so much a child will absorb- neuroplasticity acknowledeged of course- the attention span of a kid is not that of an adult

therefore her whole life's worth of training doesn't measure up to his training as an adult, focused on the task, and his real world experience

for example - have you ever seen children doing a martial arts class? they don't focus or execute technique in any manner that one could consider correct, though it's good exercise and fun, it's not right... it gets better as they get older sure, after growing and readjusting to their bodies- so does the time in their early years training count for much? I say not really, but it's a good foundation (and that's all it can be counted as). So as for her whole life of training... I'm gonna grant you that only the training after age 12 can really be counted- that's more logical (and also probably the reason her whole skeletal structure wasn't coated with adamantium- to allow her to grow and adjust to her ever changing center of gravity)

@theacidskull: So she didn't have a sense of self until after she was FIFTEEN YEARS OLD? Oh that's sad

MyNameWasDeletedDon't forget that when she was not performing well X-23 was punished by the factory I don't know if you are a psychiatrist but when it happen like that a child will make sure to do the right thing for her to not be punished is like you didn't read Innocence Lost where they tortured here and try to make her as efficient as wolverine with them monitoring his ancient footage training for her to be even more than the real deal. When her martial art training was over they made sure she killed her sensei. But try also to read X-force she is very effective when she has an assignment she always fulfill it.

@supreme_maj: wow- musta been one great sensei huh?

What needs to be inserted here is that they tested a specific "trigger" scent which would send her into a blind murderous rage, leaving her with no recollection of what she did while experiencing it. Pure animal -- pure killer -- and it was her beloved sensei they tested her with to insure it worked. It worked in having her kill her "mother", the doctor responsible for bringing her to life (and who also ultimately, freed her). She was created and bred to be a world-class assassin -- yes, in the comic world this is possible -- specifically to be hired out to whomever had the money to pay the fee. This fixation people seem to have about her being a "teenage girl" has no bearing on the fight -- none whatsoever. She never got to be a child and certainly never a teenager. It wasn't until she escaped from Weapon X that she began to understand - and her immediate thought was to hunt down the person to whom she is a clone of -- Wolverine. Laura considered herself an abomination and wanted to take him - another abomination - down with her.

Sincerely, I do suggest you read up on the character (and I hope I didn't come off sounding aggressive). It's just people seem to be fixated on her gender, age and size when for all intents and purposes, all these factors have always worked in her favour rather than against in the character's canon history.

Clearly Snake Eyes is incredibly formidable but in this instance, X-23's mutant abilities give her the edge.

@k4tzm4n: lol i talked my self out of my one sided comment as i was typing and just forgot to chance the front

Some easy math

Skilled mutant+healing factor>Skilled Street leveler

Unless Snake Eyes manages to decapitate her (which I doubt) I'd say X 23 wins 9/10.