thedastardlyscoundrel

Depending on the incarnation of Moon Knight he has Adamantium or Carbonadium armour. In either case there is, quit literally, absolutely nothing that Canary could do to him. Her canary cry wouldn't even wake him from a power nap.

But what does Strode do that can stop or even slow down Creed? Binder who was almost the equal of Luther was almost killed by two exploding propane tanks. Creed on the other hand can tank an rpg without batting an eye lid. There is really a huge power differential at play here that no one seems to be acknowledging.

Also: I have no idea where the misconception that Strode is faster than Creed comes from either. He has some text book street level bullet dodging feats, albeit rendered impressively. Hell Strode's best feat is a pastiche of one of Wolverine's.

Well... this is absurd.

As though Luther Strode could possibly beat a character who can get shot out of a missile battery from orbit, crash to earth through several buildings, and get up with a smile on his face like nothing happen? No, he can't. I understand Luther frequently rips off limbs and dismembers no name fodder with ease, but are people really under the impression that is something Sabretooth can't do? Ignoring the fact that he done it on panel himself, he has feats that put him in the ten - twenty ton range, easily enough to pull off arms and bash people into mush. Sabretooth appears in less graphic comics than Luther, but that doesn't make him a less formidable opponent. Creed is stronger than Strode. He is faster than Strode. His healing factor is about a thousand times more powerful and faster than strode. There is LITERALLY no way that Luther could beat Sabretooth in a one on one confrontation. Guy ended up in the morgue because of automatic gun fire from a SWAT team at the end of the first mini. Binder incapacitated him with nero-toxin and pressure points, stuff that didn't even work on 80s Wolverine when he was fighting Shingen, never mind modern "I can eat nukes" Wolverine. Sabretooth throws down with Wolverine. He killed Sasquatch. He's gone shot for shot with Ms Marvel and won.

Luther beats Sabretooth? Get you acts together people.

@Buckshot said:

Think I'm done with this one. I'm losing interest and I don't want to feel like I'm obligated to get back to anything in a few days (going out of town after christmas) when I'm likely to care even less. Since the walls of text seem to obscure what I'm actually saying, I'm just gonna summarize my stance so its easy see in case I don't come back to clarify anything.

"I understand that it is super impressive that Midnighter mows over 8th string reject ripoffs of established characters with ease (groan), but the reality is Midnighter's battle computer has never (NEVER) afforded him a win over anyone of note. Zealot was able to hold her own against him in melee (and arguably had the advantage) and physically she is at best a low level super human on par with Cap. Hawksmoor has held is own against Midnighter in melee with out amping or using his more exotic powers and he is basicly Spider-man light minus a spider sense. Grifter stalemated him with his peak human stats and low level telepathy. Any time he has fought a mildly established character they have managed to hold their own... and most of the time they have been streets or level metas."

That was the statement I was responding to, particularly the bit about Midnighter "never (NEVER)" winning over anyone of note and certain characters holding their own against him implying a lower level of skill/ability. He won against Winter and Hellstrike (and Blademaster and Strafe, though Blademaster isn't very established) in the same fight. He all but killed Grifter in one fight without being touched by him once. He disarmed and pinned Grifter in their second fight - and Grifter broke out while they were talking and punched him a few times, but like I said, even if they didn't stop fighting, I don't think a couple punches against someone whose flesh was described as concrete, who can take ships crashing on him, and who can block punches from a woman capable of chucking cars, indicates that Grifter was doing very well. He held his own against Hawksmoor in their first fight, and Hawksmoor is a 40 tonner that moves like Spider-Man who was also pissed off while Midnighter was only fighting to cause problems within the team. He was beating Hawksmoor in their second fight (a serious one, though he was smiling the whole time). The only character mentioned that was actually shown beating Midnighter at any point was Zealot, and at the end of the fight she surrenders, and even when she was ahead, it wasn't on pure skill. She needed one hit to win and Midnighter was getting hits in while preventing hers for a few panels, and she finally got hers through an emotional play (and if that's legitimate, Midnighter distracting Hellstrike most certainly was since that didn't even require specific and personal information), not outmaneuvering him physically. I didn't realize this until now, but dastardlyscoundrel wanted to see Midnighter effortlessly trash an established character to prove that he can, but he did it to Grifter (and don't mistake, he did it twice, Grifter only got hits in during their second fight because Midnighter was playing nice and talking to him when he had him pinned), Winter, Hellstrike, and Strafe, and it was called jobbing or PIS. With him being on top in, if not outright winning, most of these fights, even the one against Hawksmoor, I personally think the idea that he only easily beats fodder and "never (NEVER)" beats or does well against established characters is incorrect. Merry Christmas.

The walls of text are getting large, and most of it is border line off topic (of not blatantly so) at this point. I would like to say I appreciate you taking your time to respond to my posts. Even though I think you over rate and exaggerate a lot of Midnighter's showings you are without a doubt knowledgeable of Wildstorm, and you seem to be the only person who can be bothered to post anything significant (even if you won't clearly state what your opinion is).

I think most of this disagreement has largely been a misunderstanding. I said Midnighter's battle computer hasn't afforded him a win over anyone of merit... which is different than me saying Midnighter hasn't beat anyone of merit. I am specifically talking about the advantages afforded to him by his battle computer and disputing the notion that it is a instant win dues ex machina ability that allows him to steam roll everyone. As we've discussed several street level characters have contended with Midnighter in combat and had competitive showings against him. Did Midnighter beat Jack on the Carrier because of his battle computer, or did he just get the better of him in a physical altercation because of a combination of his strength, speed, skill and healing were enough to edge out a base level Jack a slugfest? The two were basically going shot for shot, it isn't like he had a grand strategy in place. Did he beat Zealot because of his battle computer, or was he losing that exchange until Maul interfered? Did he beat Grifter because of his battle computer, or because he was too fast and too strong for Grifter (the way he was portrayed in that particular comic at least). There is a difference between saying Midnighter never beats anyone of merit, and saying he doesn't beat anyone of merit because of his battle computer. Midnighter has wins over people, but it's not because his battle computer completely outclasses the people he is fighting. Several characters have contented with him in combat in spit of that ability, and Deathstroke would do the same thing. Many of the fights he has won have conditions that wouldn't be present in a standard forum match.

Other than the Bladesmaster and Strafe points everything else in this post as been addressed several, and you've already said what I would have said about Bladesmaster being very well established (see was also beaten by Strafe in PHD pretty easy IIRC). As for Strafe, Midnighter was only shown kicking him once before Jackson stepped in for a stare down before Stormwatch and the Authority had to team up and take down Bendix's zombie clones. He busted up Strafe's face and knocked some of his teeth out, but I'm not sure I would classify that as a win.

@Buckshot said:

@thedastardlyscoundrel: Sheba was able to fight Zealot and Nemesis more effectively for two panels. That is true. If you want to attribute that ENTIRELY to her move reading ability, then I think by that same standard we’d have attribute Midnighter’s win over Winter entirely to his move reading ability instead of assuming that something else took place to help Midnighter win when nothing of the sort was shown. Similarly, if we break it down to oversimplified terms, your argument about Grifter should be thrown out. Midnighter was shown to be the superior combatant without question. You’re comparing what Sheba did in two panels to Midnighter fighting Nemesis with multiple, explicitly stated, hindrances, and his fight with Zealot where he clearly used a far different approach than Sheba did. You’re isolating one aspect of the fight and attributing the outcome to that, and it’s simply bad analysis. It makes perfect sense to me that an acrobatic fighter using guerilla tactics would be harder to hit than an aggressive attacker using a direct approach, but it seems like the only difference you choose to see is their method of predicting moves.

You think Hellstrike thought “Hmmm, it’s possible that my girlfriend is having sex on the battlefield, lemme check”? Midnighter had something to work with in that fight, but he’s shown he can play on people’s feelings even when there’s nothing around. When Lorenzo had him pinned under a building, Midnighter beat him by talking to him. Midnighter could have created his own distraction if he wanted to since all he was trying to do was make Hellstrike look away for a second. An explosive going off near his head would have accomplished the same thing. I’m not saying it’s the greatest display of Midnighter’s ability, but he beat Hellstrike, something no one would expect if they listened to your claims that Midnighter doesn’t beat any established characters.

I think Regis is more than “mildly superhuman” because he was merely pissed off by an energy attack aimed at him that demolished the palace he was in and because he floored Jack Hawksmoor (a man who has, while weakened and caught unaware, gotten right back up after being smacked with a wrecking ball) with a backhand. Being unharmed and not even knocked over by a directed lightning strike that ripped a palace apart and hitting like a wrecking ball are not “mildly superhuman” feats. Not to mention, he let Midnighter try to hurt him and smiled at his attempt. Regis didn’t have many feats, you’re right about that, but he did show that he was clearly out of Midnighter’s league even before you add in the telepathy. Midnighter losing to him is to be expected, not a low point for Midnighter.

Hahaha, now you’re attempting to diminish Hawksmoor getting shotgun-blasted multiple times by suggesting it could be birdshot? LOL. Even funnier when compared to your stance on the Zealot thing. You want to assume bullets that hurt her are all normal because anything else makes her too durable, and you want to assume Hawksmoor got hit with birdshot because it’s something Spider-Man could handle. Wow. And Jack is a class 10-20 why? Because you say so? That’s not quite enough. He doesn’t have many strength feats (because he doesn’t need to lift anything when the city can do it for him) but what he does have is clearly beyond the range you want to stick him with. Unlike Spider-Man, Jack doesn’t have multiple sources citing his stating his strength is somewhere lower than what he displayed. Is there something, somewhere, showing Jack being unable to throw a tanker truck? Something like Hawkeye lifting a car one handed could be written off because his strength is established as lower than that. The same is not true for Jack Hawksmoor, and your label for his strength doesn’t carry as much weight as a handbook page. You want to dismiss Jack’s powers because you consider them non canon because Jack had sex? Where do you get the idea that Jack didn’t have genitals? He’s messed up, but he has genitals. If he didn’t, I don’t know what he was doing all those times he was having sex with Angie. Gimme a reason to believe his powers were removed. I’ll say though, you’re right about one thing, the 500 yards. I had originally taken that number because it was clearly stated and assumed that the screen in the robot was just a schematic tracking him, not a direct video of his movement (since it had other writing on it and was seeing in a mode that was different from every other time the screen was shown), but its easier to believe that the robot moved to the side. The feat still suggests Hawksmoor has significant strength though, given that he didn’t just lift the tanker trailer, but threw it at the end of a long night of abuse.

You don’t see how in the fight where Midnighter is functioning correctly he could plan events the way his powers would suggest, but in a fight where he’s bathed in a neural-inhibitor his planning skills (or his fighting skills) may not be at 100% REALLY? I don’t think this is a particularly difficult puzzle. And the glop didn’t sever their connection to the Carrier. Nemesis takes a panel to do something to the Carrier (she says she told it something) and the next panel is when Jack says he’s disconnected even though they had been covered in glop for some time. If the glop wasn’t cutting them off from the carrier and only incidentally made for good lube, it was doing something else. Probably negatively affecting their brain function maybe, just as a guess. The specifics are unknown. You want to excuse battles for all sorts of reasons and call interference when the characters don’t mention it so that it will diminish a win for Midnighter, but when Midnighter actually makes a point to tell Jack he’s stupid in a fight, that’s the only fight where things went as they should have.

I’m not pretending Midnighter will no-sell an armed Grifter. I don't need to pretend, he did it twice before the incident your talking about. He even did it in the only fight Grifter got any hits in. Midnighter disarmed him at the start but left him one gun almost just so he could disarm a couple him a couple panels later. Grifter has a bad track record for staying armed when facing Midnighter. And you stay on this "What if Grifter shot him" thing like Grifter pulling a trigger means Midnighter automatically dies. Rose Tattoo shot Midnighter point blank while he was trying to talk some sense into her and he still put her in a choke hold and was getting ready to kill her when Bendix interrupted them.

Since Jack can increase his density and that typically comes with increased strength and durability, I would say that he can increase those stats (I wasn’t saying that he did, just that in that fight he could have while he’d be less likely to in the one on the Carrier). Speed just got lumped in, but between messing with terrain and futzing with gravity he probably could. Midnighter engaged a fast and acrobatic 40 tonner in h2h and held his own. You make it sound like a bad thing, but I’m not seeing it.

I’m not sure where you get quickly outclassed from in the Zealot fight. I don’t know how many hits Midnighter landed (two were shown but the narration to me suggests more) but Zealot only got one, even if it was a better hit because of her choice of weapon. Midnighter actually seems better purely in terms of skill (Zealot needed just one hit but Midnighter was able to prevent her from getting it while succeeding in hitting her). Zealot only shows her lead when she goes for an emotional play. It’s a completely valid tactic, but I wouldn’t call that her outclassing him in a physical exchange. And just like it’s Midnighter is wont to take hits instead of dodge them, Zealot is likely to talk. Bad move on her part, but they both stayed in character and it cost her an opportunity.

I know what your stance is and I simply disagree with the idea that Midnighter doesn’t have wins over or impressive showings against anyone of note. I say Winter you say, “interference”. Hellstrike. “Plot”. Grifter. “Jobbing”. Hawksmoor. “He’s not even as good as Spider-Man”. And, despite the outcome, solid displays against Zealot and Nemesis: “He didn’t beat them so he must not be that good.” Of course with that perspective Midnighter doesn’t have good showings against anyone but fodder and you’ll probably do so until the day you die.

Sorry I didn't responded faster, holiday / family obligations.

Zealot and Nemesis' difficulty tagging Sheba was directly attributed to her ability to read body language on panel. Midighter got Winter in a choke hold of panel, the means and method he used to do so aren't displayed or discussed, leaving us to make assumptions. The situations are a tad different. I think you need to keep in mind the reason the Sheba v Zealot / Nemesis exchange was even brought up in the first place. Several posters stated emphatically that Midnighter's battle computer is better / more effective then telepathy and body reading, but any comparison that can be made between Wildstorm characters with those abilities suggests otherwise. Regis' telepathy trumped Midnighter's computer. Sheba's move reading was shown to be more effective against Zealot and Nemesis together than Midnighter's computer was against either of them on their own. And those aren't the only two showings where Midnighter's battle computer has come off lacking against one of those abilities. Seth - for all his vast powers - beat down Midnighter in seconds with his telepathy and super strength alone. Midnighter didn't even manage to tag him once and it's not as though Seth displayed any degree of super speed or measurable combat skill. We aren't children on the school yard arguing about who's dad is the toughest, you don't need to exaggerate and embellish Midnigher feats to make him relevant or cool (or whatever your goal is) . Looking objectively at Midnighter's feats he is a top tier street level character, he would beat the majority of human level characters (some of them would put of a good fight) but once we start moving up to the low level super human streets, many of them simply have him outclassed. I don't know why you conclusion to be outlandish or personally insulting. Ask yourself this, do you honestly believe that if we were to have a feat war that Midnighter would come out on top of either of these characters? Try not to think about what you feel that Midnighter's battle computer should be able to do, and focus on what it has actually been shown doing. It's not a 10th as effective as people are hyping it up to be, and Midnighter simply doesn't have the feats needed for anyone to successfully argue that he could beat either of these two guys... which is why no one is doing it. You won't even say what your opinion is one way or another and have decided you want argue with me over my interpretation of events, and no one else appears to know enough to back up their opinion so we have a bunch of two word posts simply exclaiming "Midnighter wins!" If anyone actually decided to sit down an make a legitimate case for Midnighter winning they would hit a brick wall so fast, that the only thing left for them to do would be cite PIS feats like "ZOMG Midnighter kicked a tank shell and spit his tooth like a bullet!!!!"

You say the comparison of Sheba's reading ability and Midnighter's battle computer is different because Sheba is agile and fought with guerilla tactics (not exactly true, outside of the Kindred's initial ambush, it was a pretty straight forward exchange, it's not like she was using hit and run strategy and retreating into the woods, she stayed in the pocket and danced around them) but even if that was true, what's you're point exactly? If that is how Midnighter fights why would we expect it to be any different here? Am I supposed to believe that for some reason he will become untouchable in this fight and dance around Slade and Gorgon, despite never showing that is something he capable of doing? Because that is the argument several people have been making. Midnighter isn't Wolverine or Deadpool, his durability and healing factor aren't on the level needed for him to get into an exchange with either of these guys and come out no worse for wear, and he isn't Quicksilver where he has the speed to simple avoid all incoming damage while mounting his own offence... and he certainly isn't both of those things at once like some posters are suggesting. Midnighter simple doesn't heal or move that fast. Zealot managed to stab him in a few panels after weapons came into play, and it was detrimental to his combat abilities even though it was only a flesh wound and nothing fatal. What if Gorgon stabs him in the heart? Or the head? Or the a major artery / organ? What if he opens up Midnighter's stomach? Midnighter's healing factor isn't fast enough for him to take damage like that and continue fighting in any meaningful way, and despite the hopeful dreams / wishful thinking of Midnighter fans, there is nothing in his history that suggests he would be capable of entering into an melee exchange with either Deathstroke or Gorgon and come out unscathed. Gorgon is better than Zealot in almost ever conceivable way, so why would he fair worse against Midnighter than she did in a pure combat scenario with no plot devices to hinder him and with the added benefit of telepathy which has already been shown to, at the very least - nullify the advantage of Midnighter's computer?

Was it the mere act of Helstrike turning his head that afforded Midnighter the opportunity to hit him, or was it the shock of seeing his girl friend having sex? They are two different things, and I believe it was clearly the later. I doubt Midnighter's explosive darts would be enough to distract Helstrike or force him to look away, the blast isn't that powerful, and he wasn't having any trouble incinerating Midnighter's projectiles before the got that close to him. Midnighter's mental deconstruction of Tank Man had more to do with him than Midnighter. He was uniquely susceptible to Midnighter's influence, do you imagine that situation would have played out the same if it had been Iron Man standing over him and not a mental unstable and broken individual who apparently never had to take a psych exam before joining a team of super soldiers?

Regis was inside the building when it was hit, but I doubt he took the brunt of the blast head on, or even indirectly, and in retrospect, looking back knowing how he dies, it seems even more unlikely. Midnighter has dropped Hawksmoor too, and he is a class 2 at best (how much do you think that concrete pillar Tank Man had to free him from weighed?), and Midnighter isn't even the weakest person to have accomplished that especially if we go back to the days of Stormwatch. Outside of beating him up, nothing Regis did on panel supports the idea that he was blatantly above Midnighter in any respect, if Midnighter had actually managed to hit him with anything I imagine it would have done some damage, but all he managed to do was grab onto his forearm briefly. Now, Seth was physically vastly above Midnighter, and had a wide variety of powers. He would have wrecked him even without his telepathy, but Regis? I'm not seeing it. I think he was probably around Midnighter's level physically, there just wasn't anything Midnighter could do because his computer was completely outclassed by telepathy, and we saw in Team Achilles how poor of a fighter he is without the aid of his battle computer.

Birdshot, aka shot. But whatever. Jack has been shown struggling to lift (or at the very least lifting with effort) a couple tons of concrete rubble, and during Stormwatch Black he was described as "near human," which has implicates of much less than class 40 strength. Like Spider-man, 40 tons is above the level that Hawksmoor is typically depicted at. If Hawksmoor had a handbook entry, his base physical stats would conservatively be listed at class around Spider-man level, but it's not like that matters since Handbooks are almost completely irrelevant and routinely inaccurate and dated. Jack had no / horribly mutated genitals that cause people to vomit when glancing at them genitals back in Stormwatch Black when Ellis originally created him. Most of his organs were removed and replaced by the aliens abducted him. The alternate Hawksmoor that King was spying on through the bleed had most / all of his organs returned when he became the Weatherman via Stormwatch resources, I assume something similar happened with the real Hawksmoor or the Doctor gave him his dong back when he joined the Authority, but on the time line he shouldn't have been having sex with women before he joined Stormwatch. Conservatively Hawksmoor is an agile and fast class 10-20, but he isn't as fast or agile and Spider-man and he lacks a Spider-sense. Midnighter having trouble with Hawksmoor in a fight doesn't make him look bad, but it doesn't even remotely support the notion that he could own either Deathstroke or Gorgon individually or as a team.

Nemesis said the inhibitor wasn't slowing Midnighter down, Midnighter never mentioned it effective him in anyway, the Doctor was eating it. We didn't see the neural inhibitor having any noticeable effect on panel, we don't know definitively what it did or if it had any measurable effect at all. It may have impeded Midnighter's abilities, but maybe his healing factor counter acted the effects, we don't know one way or the other. I assumed the inhibitor was responsible for blocking Jack from the Carrier, it's not like Nemesis is a technopath or anything, and if it didn't then it was the most useless plot device in history as it was shown to have 0 effect. I suppose that Savant could have cut them off from the Carrier, but see seemed pretty busy trying to dl that data.

I interpret the initial panel of that exchange as Midnighter hitting the knuckle duster hilt of Zealot's sword, which IMO I would classifiy as a block or a parry. I don't have a problem with you classifying it as hit but I disagree. The fight was only a few panels and IMO Zealot quickly out classed Midnighter, landed the more damaging blows and was walked away fine when all was said and done, where as Midnighter limped away barely able to walk. Also, when was the last time Zealot stop fighting when she had her opponent dead to rites, and started reciting a monologue and let her opponent recover?

On the mater of Grifter v. Midnighter, I would say that Midnighter has only shown himself to be the "superior combatant" in one single exchange. An impartial comparison of the respective histories / appearances of both characters paints a picture of a much more evenly matched fight, even if you believe Midnighter should win in the end. Grifter has fought, faster, stronger, more skilled opponents and fared much better then he was shown in Armageddon. I know you feel would should look at the fight in a bubble and pretend the only thing Grifter has ever done is get tooled by Midnighter, but that is bs. If you look at everything else Grifter as done it's pretty obvious that he should have faired much better against Midnighter, which he did the second time they fought.

Again, I said Midnighter's battle computer has never afforded him a win over anyone of merit, not he hasn't beat anyone or that he hasn't had impressive fights, but that we've never seen his battle computer give him a noticeable advantage over an opponent of any merit. It's just like Batgirl's body reading ability, it lets her dance around fodder and unskilled opponents like she is untouchable... but it's a different story against skilled top tier street level MAs. Shiva can tag her, Canary can tag her, Batman can tag her, Connor can tag her, even Nightwing can tag her. People like to pretend that these abilities are more effective then they are actually shown to be on panel. Midnighter is a low level superhuman with a healing factor, mild super speed and class 2 strength, on those merits alone he should do well against his street level peers, IMO the battle computer simply serves to close the large skill gap most streets hold over Midnighter's head.

Honestly with his healing factor Wolverine could solo the entirety of Joes roster.

I'm not familiar with the new IDW continuity, they have a reboot and a version that I think rolled back to the end of the Marvel series and ignored the Image / DDP stuff, but DDP Snake-eyes and Storm Shadow were able to move so fast that their swords ignited in flames due to air friction, and Storm Shadow has displayed some mystical ninja abilities like teleportation before.

Wolverine should win due to his healing factor, but the team are very skilled and have crazy high attributes for "human" level characters.

@Buckshot said:

@thedastardlyscoundrel: You brought up the Sheba example but simply bringing it up doesn’t prove your point. You’re trying to say her ability was better than midnighter’s because Zealot and Nemesis couldn’t tag her when they tagged Midnighter. If it was so much better though, why did they compare her ability directly to his? You assuming it was better completely ignores anything else going on in that interaction but that ability (which is ironic given your attempt to attribute Midnighter’s wins against Winter and Hellstrike to anything but his ability and looking to the context in those fights, a double standard that reveals your bias if your feelings weren’t already clear). Nemesis and Zealot tag Midnighter because he doesn’t dance around and try to avoid their attacks nearly as much as Sheba did, and Nemesis had added help from a neurological agent and Hawksmoor getting in Midnighter’s way (not something I made up but something Midnighter references, though you haven’t responded to me presenting those details you left out either time I’ve done it, more of your double standard since it was you insisting that we acknowledge context even when there was less of it that was relevant in the examples you wanted to use). And all that not even getting into how their fight with Sheba was two panels long instead of the multiple pages that Midnighter fought them for. As for Regis, he wasn’t just telepathic, he also physically dominated Midnighter when it came to stats. It’s not just that he knew what Midnighter could do, but he also had the physical body to do something about it. And when we look at Gorgon’s display of move reading in battle we see that it clearly wasn’t good enough to not see Wolverine preparing to trick him into turning himself into stone. Neither his telepathy nor his physical abilities are on the level they need to be to duplicate Regis’ display.

What I displayed with examples of him beating Winter and Hellstrike (and Grifter, and Hawksmoor, and arguably Zealot) is that he doesn’t just beat fodder, which is the point you were attempting to make. You’re confused if you think that other than a few sentences I’ve been talking to you about Midnighter being equal to Gorgon or Deathstroke. Why would Midnighter not be able to distract Hellstrike in another fight? He got Hellstrike to look away from him, there didn’t need to be anything where Hellstrike actually looked for that to work. Hellstrike needed to be looking away before he could register anything surprising, so even if Midnighter had been lying it would have worked. Midnighter has shown he can move faster than can be seen, so in the time Hellstrike looked away, he could have acted regardless of if there was sex going on. And until you provide some shred of evidence that something interfered with Midnighter’s fight with Winter (something that could only be advantageous for Midnighter), your attempts to diminish that win are baseless.

If Jack hasn’t topped Spider-Man’s durability, show me him getting shot and being ok with it. Again, him catching bullets is more speed and timing than durability, but that’s all you’re able to reference. Also, I looked at the feats you listed of Spider-Man’s strength and the only one on the level of Jack’s feat is him throwing a space ship and I’m disregarding it because either the ship wasn’t as heavy as you think it was or it was, and the feat is just beyond Spider-Man’s abilities so it was bad writing. Spider-Man has an established strength limit so if he threw a ship it either wasn’t as heavy as your random estimate or it was heavier than his long-established limit and something he should not have been able to do (which is likely given how old that feat is). As for it not covering the distance I said, the comic gives a distance of 500 yards. That’s how far Jack was from the robot. I think if Jack Hawksmoor is able to hit Superman hard enough that he bleeds, he’s out of Spider-Man’s strength range.

Zealot says they’re very tough but armor piercing rounds were able to harm her sister. Seems to me that the “but” is indicating that the armor piercing rounds exceed their toughness, and that the whole statement would be irrelevant if the rounds Grifter used didn’t do anything more than normal ones would. Regardless, the original point was that Midnighter stalemating Zealot is still a display of his ability. You equate Zealot to Cap physically, but add on to Cap maybe 10,000 years of unwavering dedication combat and anyone who could stalemate that character armed or unarmed would need to have tremendous ability. You say Midnighter only won because of interference and it seems to me to be another attempt to disregard any of his wins against established characters. If Maul interfered with the fight, Midnighter would have to deal with that interference just as much as Zealot did. They were both affected by Maul barging in, but Midnighter uses it to win while Zealot ends up with a sword in her throat. It displays his greater level of focus and adaptability, but it doesn’t make it any less of a win. Honestly though, I think it was part of his plan. He introduced weapons and because of that Zealot brought into the fight the weapons that Midnighter would use to force her down. It could be that everything happened in just a way to make it so Midnighter would have control of Zealot’s sword, or it could be that, fully in line with his powers, he knew what would happen if he acted a certain way and chose the outcome he wanted. And whether or not he was injured after the fight doesn’t matter, Zealot gave up because she acknowledged that she could not beat him in that battle (despite, regardless of what you think of my theory on his plans, an interference that affected them both equally).

Grifter shooting Midnighter is different in your head because you want it to be. Midnighter has blocked bullets out of the air. Even if you want to call everything else he’s done “aim dodging”, he’s knocked bullets out of the air, and that’s a bit beyond simply avoiding the general direction of a gun. Grifter not telegraphing his actions would matter if Midnighter’s computer couldn’t simply tell him what Grifter was going to do. That seems to be your problem, assuming that the combat computer doesn’t let him actually know what someone’s going to do next even though that’s been made clear. He says he knows the moves people are “preparing to make”, not the ones they might make, what they’re actually going to do. There was a whole issue dedicated to trying to show what a day in the life of Midnighter was like. He didn’t just see a lot of possible things, he knew, back to front, exactly how a fight (actually a series of fights) would go if he chose certain actions. He “knows every move you’ll make, and how to counter it”, not just random possibilities but the moves that will be made. You seem to want to ignore that his character is based on this ability because him only seeing possibilities makes him easier to beat. He does see millions of ways a fight could go, but he also knows how it will go because he can pick and choose what to do knowing what the consequences will be. As for Grifter, he was confident he could hit Midnighter but he never showed it. Grifter making statements about Midnighter means nothing. So does Captain Atom making statements about him.

So to summarize the fights you’re using to attempt to say that Midnighter doesn’t do all that well against established characters:

Jack Hawksmoor

Fight 1: In a city, so able to increase his strength, durability, and speed (beyond levels that, at their weakest are greater than Spider-Man’s), and has precognition and can see from every window, stalemated Midnighter.

Fight 2: On the Carrier, so likely at base stats (physically more robust than Spider-Man). Midnighter seemed to be winning when the fight ended. (And by seemed to be winning, I mean he hit Jack multiple times, avoided many of Jack’s hits, getting tagged only once on panel, and grinning through the fight.)

Zealot: Multi-hour back and forth resulting in a stalemate. Case can be made that Midnighter capitalized on a distraction that affected both of them or that he instigated the addition of weapons that would allow him to take victory.

Grifter

Fight 1: Grifter pulls a gun on Midnighter three times but never gets a shot off (even when Midnighter is facing away from him) and gets bones broken and shuriken lodged in his neck and spine. Win for Midnighter.

Fight 2: Midnighter catches Grifter (whose gen active powers allow him to detect nearby life) unaware and knocks both guns out of Grifter’s hands and pins him down. While they’re talking, Grifter breaks free and hits Midnighter a few times. They stop fighting to deal with another issue.

So Midnighter stalemates or beats all of them. Hawksmoor held his own but he’s a 40 tonner that moves like Spider-Man on his worst day. Zealot held her own for hours , and she’s Cap with a sex change, a bad attitude and about 10000 years of practice. Grifter got embarrassed in one fight and though their second fight ended early, he didn’t impress, unless you think a few punches on someone about as durable as concrete and able to get up after spaceships crash on him and heal from getting impaled through the chest in the middle of battle is a stalemate after Grifter had already been disarmed. (A couple other things to consider with the Grifter fight where he didn’t die: First issue of their team-up book and Midnighter was playing nice as evidenced by him asking about them being on the same side and giving him time to act while he still had one gun.) Midnighter has good showings against these established characters, not to mention others. I know you’ll never accept that he has good showings against characters that aren’t fodder, and I’ll just have to learn to live with that.

It boggles my mind how quick you are to dismiss Midnighter’s wins against Winter, Hellstrike, and Zealot because of interference, but you see absolutely no issue with crediting Nemesis with a win over Midnighter when he was literally doused in a neurologic agent and actually complains about how Hawksmoor interferes in the fight. And I just realized how interrupted Grifter’s fight was. After Midnighter broke his arm and laid him out the first time, Void teleports his baton away so Midnighter goes to beat her up, and after Midnighter disarms Grifter and prepares to crush his skull, Captain Atom throws Apollo, fresh from the sun, at him from through a Door.

I'm not going to theorize about how good Midnighter's ability might be if he hypothetically decided to fight differently. I said Sheeba's ability was shown to be more effective, and it was. Do you disagree with that statement? You are correct that Midnighter's battle computer was compared to Sheeba's move reading ability, but you are reading into that far more then you should. Simple fact is that his ability was never actually shown to be equally as effective let, alone more effective (which is the argument people are making in this thread) in his confrontations with either Nemesis nor Zealot. Oracle has said that Black Canary is more skilled than Batman, but nothing actually supports that statement. Wolverine said Gamora heals as fast has he does... right after she was put down by a single stab wound to the stomach, something that wouldn't have even slowed Wolverine down. There are dozens if not hundreds of equivlant statements like that in comics, but someone saying something doesn't supersede the facts or feats. Much like the case with Zealot's questionable bullet proof status, I value feats and concrete showings more than I value off hand narrative statements and anecdotal evidence. I'm not assuming that Sheeba's ability is better, I'm stating that it was shown to more effective, and I'm right about that. You are the one making assumptions, friend. Sheeba's move reading was shown more effective at avoiding the attacks of Zealot and Nemesis, (and she fought them both at once unlike Midnighter) and Regis telepathy was shown to trump his battle computer as well.

Hellstrike's girlfriend (and Rose, or a fourth party to make the sex to his girlfriend) would still needed to have been present for Midnighter to distract him with even the possibility of that happening... which is still a scenario. Any on would be distracted by the sight of their girl friend cheating on them. It's not a good example of Midnighter's abilities, litterally anyone could have made that observation and capitalized on it if they knew enough about Hellstrike to know who his girlfriend was.

Regis has virtually no feats. He crushed a man's skull in his grip and he stood in some fire. What makes you think for a second that he is physically superior Wolverine, let alone Gorgon? Gorgon did the same thing to Wolverine that Regis did to Midnighter, and Wolverine has better speed, strength, durability, healing and even tp resistance feats than Midnighter does. Regis was a mild superhuman with telepathy, and he beat the breaks off Midnighter and his battle computer was of no help what so ever. Wolverine managed to take out Gorgon by reflecting his stare back at him, so what? Gorgon was right up in Wolverine's face and Wolverine's claws unsheathe at several hundred mph, Gorgon didn't have adequate time to react even with his telepathy. What is Regis' excuse that he didn't pick up on Jack's ambush with his telepathy? Jack's ambush likely wouldn't have even slowed Gorgon down, considering he was durable enough to shrug off Wolverine crashing into him at 100mph and knocking him off a skyscraper before the fight even started. Even sans stone stare, Gorgon is better than Regis in ever conceivable way. Hell Elektra has better strength and telepathy feats than Regis did.

Spider-man doesn't get shot very often, and while speed and timing play a large part in catching a bullet, durability is still a factor. It's difficult to make the comparison because Spider-man has never attempted to catch a shotgun blast, and conventional side arms and rifles do much different type of damage. Bullets penetrate a lot deeper than shot gun pellets, making catching one a more impressive feat, but shotguns have a wider spread / aoe are are designed to create more trauma. It would require much higher durability to tank a bullet than a shot gun blast, but force of the shotgun could still do internal damage. They are very different types which is why I cited Spider-man tanking explosions, because really it's more relevant to the discussion than him catching bullets. Anyway, what type of ammo was used on Hawksmoor? We don't know. It might have been buckshot, but it just as well could have been bird shot, in which case Spider-man probably would have fared just as well based on the increased density of his muscles. Jack has consecrated pretty hard on avoiding bullets before.

All of the examples I cited were on par or above that example you cited of Hawksmoor tossing that semi. Spider-man is supposed to have class 20 strength, but he has dozens of examples of him excepting class 40-60 and even above. Jake has a single one, outside of the one isolated strength feat what else has Jake done that suggest that he is class 40 sans amping? Hell even with his gravity manip and city amp, what has he done to put him in the 40 ton range? Jack is a class 10-20 like Spider-man, and he has one example of him exhibiting class 40 strength. Prior to that one example what is there that would suggest that without gravity manip Jack can lift a semi truck? Nothing. Make no mistake my saying that Jack has Spider-man level attributes he me giving him the benefit of the doubt. An analysis of his complete history doesn't provide much to suggest he is as strong or as fast as Spider-man. He has one strength feat that puts him on Spider-man level, and it's the truck fight. I could just was easily write that off completely in the same way people ignore that Hawkeye has a feat where he causally lifts a car off himself with one arm. And FYI Jack took the pipe 500 yards inland to it's first exit point, the robot went parallel to the pipe and fallowed Jack along the coast, you even see a panel of this from the driver's perspective analysing the pipe Jack is on from the side. Hawksmoor wasn't 500 yards away from the robot when he through the truck, he wasn't even 20. Look at the art. I understand you have some strange vested interest at play here hyping Authority members, but get real. Physically Jack Hawksmoor is Spider-man light with no caffeine, no sugar and 0 calories.

Jack doesn't have precog (yes I am aware it was stated that he did back in one of his original Storm Watch appearances but he has never shown that ability, and is that stuff even canon anymore? Seemed like Secret Origins retcon'd it seeing as he was boning chicks prior to meeting Storm Watch, which was at a time when he shouldn't have had any genitals), in a city, the most apt word would be clairvoyance, but that isn't 100% accurate either.

Don't forget that Captain America was stuck in a closed temporal loop fighting Korvac, so he has much more experience than his age would dictate. Anyway experience only amounts for so much, Grifter has thrown down with Zealot and Backlash and held his own, Wolverine's fought the millions of years old Angel of Death and beaten him hundreds if not thousands of times. Strength, speed, skill, durability, healing, in terms of feats Cap has Zealot beat in every imaginable category. Midnighter fought Zealot in h2h for several hours and held his own (IMO she had the slight advantage), but as soon as the weapons came out she had the noticeable advantage. Midnighter got stabbed almost instantly, and if she hadn't decided to wax poetic and hold her sword in the air while reciting some soliloquy she could have finished Midnighter before Maul even got involved. You claim that Maul's interference was just as much of an disadvantage to Midnighter as Zealot, but that is completely untrue. Maul came at them from behind Zealot, as such she was the one forced on the defensive, and Midnighter capitalized on that. Also, I love how in your mind Midnighter planed it all out and anticipated Maul's interference... but he Jack got in the way in his fight with Nemesis. lol

The only documented effect the neurological agent had was severing Midnighter's connection to the Carrier, and greasing him up so Nemesis could slide out of his bear hug easier. None of the Authority mentioned even off hand that their abilities were diminished, and Nemesis mentioned Midnighter's battle computer during the comparison to Sheeba you love to bring up, so that must have been active too. Jack "getting in the way," basically amounted to him getting kicked once while Midnighter was holding Nemesis in a bear hug. Its amusing how on one hand you hype the abilities of Midnighter's battle computer and pretend it's a deus ex machina instant battle winning device... then on the other complain that he lost because Jack "got in the way." So what? I guess his battle computer most have missed that outcome huh? Sheesh. It wasn't even like Jack was bumbling around with Midnighter tripping over him or anything, hell Midnighter was even the one who asked for Jack to step in and help!

Grifter shooting Midnighter is different in my head because I've read all of Grifter's appearances and know what he has accomplished. He has shot faster people than Midnighter, with better bullet dodging feats. That is just a fact. Pretending that Midnighter would no sell Grifter like he is a no name thug with a gun is asinine. Just look back at Grifter's accomplishments. You could make a case that he could counted with Midnighter in pure h2h, never mind factoring in his guns. You need to ignore the entirety of Grifter's history for that showing to make any sense, I can do that with Midnighter and pretend that the feat from Human on the Inside is valid and that Midnighter's battle computer only works if his opponent initiates combat, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.

Jack:

Fight 1: It might be semantics but Jack doesn't increase his strength nor his speed in a city, he lowers the gravity making himself "as light as smoke" which increases the distance he can jump. Like a John Carter of Mars type of deal. Anyway the only ability he used in that initial fight with Midnighter was phasing through a building after he took a hit. He didn't suck Midnighter into the ground, he didn't have the buildings attack him, he didn't make a giant armour, he didn't do any one of thousands of possible things he could do with his powers. Jack went out to bang with Midnighter and he held his own.

Fight 2: Jack is much less "physically robust" than Spider-man, but other than that you are largely right, although I would say Jack hit him twice since I think he got him with that spin kick before he was suplexed into the ground.

Zealot:

Midnighter contended in the h2h portion but as soon as weapons came out he was quickly outclassed, the only thing that saved him from a quick and decisive lose was Zealot stopping to give a monologue while Midnighter was dead to rights, than Maul attacking her. When all was said and done Zealot walked off no worse for wear and Midnighter could barely stand... and he is the one with a healing factor.

Grifter:

Fight 1: Gen Factor-less Grifter got jobbed out to Midnighter, and then beaten by Apollo.

Fight 2: An fairly accurate assessment although though that isn't exactly what his Gen Factor does, and it has never been exactly reliable.

Honestly you are getting worked over things I haven't even said (or you are reading far to deeply into my posts). I said Midnighter has a documented history of having back and forth fights with other street level characters. I didn't say "Jack, Grifter, Zealot and Nemesis kicked his ass! Midnighter sucks!" I basically said "Midnighter doesn't effortlessly kill everyone," now you guys are all up my ass about it. That isn't me low balling Midnighter, or selling him short, it's just the truth. I don't understand why anyone would think that Midnighter is too much for Deathstroke based on their feats.No one has even bothered to rectify their belief that Midnighter can stomp both theses guys with the fact that he hasn't been able to stomp the closest characters to these two that he has actually fought.Fan wanking aside Midnighter's feats don't support the notion that he could "stomp," take a noticeable majority from either of these guys one on one let alone beat the two of them at once. Deathstroke vs Midnighter would be an amazing fight, likely one of the best street level - low level meta fights in the history of comics, and anyone who thinks it isn't a 50/50 is simple delusional or a hapless fanboy. Outside of his one stupid feat where he kicks a tank shell what has Midnighter done that suggest he is stronger or faster than Deathstroke? What has he done that suggest he can heal faster than Deathstroke? Who has he even beaten in fight that is Deathstroke calibre? Name a Midnighter feat that Deathstroke hasn't or couldn't replicated given the opportunity. The closest fight he has had to Deathstroke is Nemesis or Zealot, and while they are more skilled, the lack has enhanced insane tactical mind and his healing factor. You levy claims of bias against me, and I think that is laughable. Like the notion that Midnighter is actually on par with other characters and can have even fights with is some how a huge fraking slight against the character and I must obviously have some insidious agenda. Please man, don't be so dramatic. The only Midnighter feats that mater in your mind are the character's equivalent of Wolverine climbing out of a vat of molten metal, surviving a trip to the sun, that is PIS which are of little to no baring at all. Zealot held her own against Midnighter, and arguable had the advantage the entire time prior to outside interference... why one earth would anyone believe that Deathstroke would be so completely out matched that he couldn't even win with the help of Gorgon?

Midnighter's battle computer is being completely overrated. From browsing the form the last couple of days, I've seen the same thing from Batgirl's move reading ability on this forum. The ability has never afforded her a sizeable never mind insurmountable advantage over any top tier martial artist, and Canary, Batman, Connor, Shiva and even Nightwing have all been shown capable of contending with her in combat while avoiding her attacks while landing some of their own... yet if you read some of the posts on here it's like she is the Kitty Pride or something and completely untouchable. I'm sorry but that isn't true for either of this characters. Midnighter's business card is cool, but it's largely hyperbole. He isn't unbeatable. He is a low level meta human, with class 2 strength, slightly superhuman speed, a relatively tame healing factor and a battle computer. He isn't an unstoppable street level wrecking machine and outside of killing scores of fodder he has never been displayed that way. The general view of Midnighter on this forum is completely off base, any one who suggest that he does anything other than effortlessly beat up every character he fights is treated hostilely and insulted. You can't just say "he wins because of his battle computer," because his battle computer isn't depicted as being that much of a game changer against characters who pose as much of a threat as Slade does, and if you are going Midnighter's actual history then why bother even reading comics? We could read the two sentence bio on the back of a trading card and say "Well Daredevil beats Batman because he has a radar sense." It's ridiculous.

@CitizenBane said:

@thedastardlyscoundrel said:

Again: Midnighter is not faster than Wolverine, but I'll leave that alone for now. Midnighter beat a inept zombie Impetus by extending his bo-staff at the right moment while Impetus was running past him. But lets ignore that and just pretend he hit him by virtue of being fast enough, this is the guy that he managed to tag:

Gallery

That's Swift having to trouble contending with Impetus speed and one shotting him. Slingshot is faster than Impetus.

Neglecting to mention something? Swift beat a zombie Impetus too, and she did far worse against him than Midnighter did. The Impetus she faced wasn't even taking her seriously (he even tells her "this is just for sport" while he was beating the crap out of her). He threw her into a wall and then moved on to the Carrier's baby universe, and while he was circling it Swift basically flew into him. He didn't even know she was coming. In Prime, Swift couldn't even catch the zombie Impetus, she crashed into Fuji while chasing him. Battalion states that he'd be surprised if she had actually managed to catch him. That same zombie Impetus took down Fahrenheit and Blademaster, and dodged multiple energy strikes from Hellstrike, to the point where he says "this eejit's making mincemeat out o' us", to which Battalion replies "Midnighter! We need your help with Impetus. You're the only one who can do this".

Now for the actual encounter between Midnighter and Impetus, he runs towards him while dodging several blades that Midnighter throws at him. Just before he reaches him Midnighter extends his staff and swings it into Impetus' path. You can argue that he wouldn't have been able to do without his battle computer calculating where Impetus would show up, but that really makes no difference since disabling his enhancements isn't possible in this match. Slingshot is faster than Impetus? I'd like to see some proof of this.

I wasn't trying to argue that Swift's encounter against Impetus was better or more impressive, just point out that she was cable of hitting him and in the previous fight she was keeping lock step with him before she crashed into Fuji, in order to illustrate that Impetus was not faster than Slingshot. How fast do you think Swift can fly at max? 200 - 300 mph? Not all that fast compared to most modern speedsters. She was able to keep up and tag him when it came to it, even if her reflexes weren't up to par with her speed. Slingshot ran from San Juan to Caja De Muertos in two panels. She has nice speed blitzes under her belt, against the Dark Avengers.

Nah, Midnighter could probably have tagged Impetus even sans combat computer, anticipating where a speedster's movement / plan of attack is what skilled street levels do. It's how Slade and Batman have hit members of the Flash family and how Wolverine tagged Speed Demon ect ect ect.

@Buckshot said:

@thedastardlyscoundrel: You made the claim that Midnighter only mows down fodder and doesn’t beat anyone of note. I brought examples of who he beat. I don’t have a problem with you bringing context (did I say that anywhere?) if it's relevant. What creates an issue is that you seem to be bringing context in an attempt to make it appear as though Midnighter could not have gotten those wins out of that context. You question if Midnighter could beat Winter in a one on one fight even though there is absolutely nothing on panel to indicate that anyone interfered with their fight (and definitely not in a way that would ONLY benefit Midnighter), and you seem to be crediting Hellstrike’s defeat to him being distracted even though it was clearly Midnighter who distracted him (Midnighter had agency no matter how much you’d like to remove that with your passive wording) and that could have been done just as well with a shuriken, an explosive, or simply a lie (since Hellstrike looked away to verify Midnighter’s statement, it could have easily been anything else or nothing at all and it would have worked). I’m not giving Midnighter any special treatment. If you want to act like his wins aren’t possible elsewhere, prove it.

Not all Coda warriors are Kherubim. I wouldn’t expect them all to be bullet-proof, though honestly, I recall them going down to blades far more often than bullets. That is of course except for when Grifter is shooting at them, as you’ve brought up, but since Grifter uses the rounds that pierce their flesh (again, he was the one that shot Savant in the situation that brought to light the whole bullet-proof thing), I would expect him to be able to. As for your idea of what happened when Zealot fought Grand Sarin, it’s incorrect. The Grand Sarin carried her own gun and used that on Zealot, and since she was released in order to kill Zealot, her packing the appropriate rounds would not be unbelievable, would it? Would it be a stretch at all?

Why is Jack displaying greater strength or durability than Spider-man not enough just because you say it isn’t? You want to see what Jack can do without any help from the city and in the only situation where that’s possible, he shows feats above Spider-Man, but you don’t want to accept that for some reason. Spider-Man lifting and supporting (not even throwing for several football fields) things that are outside of his listed stats is not on Jack’s level. Not the other way around. Jack, at his weakest, was outperforming Spider-Man. You choose not to accept it because it doesn’t fit your view of the character. And Spider-Man catching a bullet in his hand when he focused on it extremely hard (not to mention that another bullet flew through his other hand and into his shoulder) doesn’t give him the same durability as someone taking shotgun blasts unaware. Spider-Man’s feat was speed and timing more than durability. Spider-Man is Jack Hawksmoor Lite in terms of physical robustness.

Why are you arguing over whether Grifter could shoot Midnighter as if it matters? You wanted to show that Midnighter couldn’t beat Grifter, yet he laid him out multiple times in one fight while remaining unharmed even though Grifter had his gun drawn. Grifter thinking he could shoot him (and not proving it) the third time doesn’t change what happened the first two times he drew his gun. You’re trying to argue what could have happened if Midnighter hadn’t already proven his superiority. ”If Grifter tagged him in such a way blah blah blah.“ Why argue that? He simply didn’t. And why assume he even could if Midnighter has dodged bullets before? Why is it different if Grifter is holding the gun? Does it make the bullet travel faster? Midnighter has blocked bullets with his staff. To think Grifter could hit him, you’d have to not only ignore that Midnighter has dodged bullets in the past, but also that he’s blocked them. And since you brought up the time he was shot when he was in a wheelchair, I’ll remind you, his powers had been shut off (by a being that could F*** with the Carrier) at the time he was shot. What’s funny, is that even with his powers off, his legs barely working, and a broken arm, the agent still thinks he’s a significant enough threat that he decides to shoot him in his other arm just to be safe.

And your response to my image is about what I expected.

I feel like I’ve addressed the core points of your argument. First, that Midnighter’s wins are only against fodder and that makes them meaningless. Untrue because he doesn’t only beat fodder and even if he did, you can see his abilities in those fights. Second, that when Midnighter fights established characters, he can’t beat them. Untrue because of the three you listed, he clearly beat one, was beating another when they were interrupted, and it could be argued that he beat the third, even though they are nearly sacred cows and one is his physical superior. And third, when Midnighter beats established characters, it doesn’t count because of the context. Untrue because you haven’t proven that context was integral to Midnighter’s wins or couldn’t be duplicated in another scenario. I also think I’ve done a better job than you at defending my positions in secondary arguments that have come up (Zealot being able to take bullets, Hawksmoor being more physically robust than Spider-Man, and Midnighter being able to handle a bullet).

I am unsure why Midnighter’s ability to see what people will do is discredited (or should I say, the attempt was made to discredit it) while Gorgon’s ability to see what someone will do next was not, even though Gorgon is the one who got himself turned to stone because he didn’t see Wolverine getting ready to trick him into looking at himself.

I don't usually ask for support of any kind, but I'm willing to admit that I may be off-base, someone other than thedastardlyscoundrel/thegentlemanrogue/someoneelsefromkmcthatthinkswolverineisgodandmidnighterisalamepretender tell me if my reasoning is completely bonkers. Check my paragraph with the bold segments and tell me where I'm making grievous errors.

This notion that Midnighter's battle computer > telepathy or body reading is simple insane. I already brought up the Sheeba / Zealot / Nemesis example, but aside from that Regis beat the crap out of Midnighter for two pages precisely because he could read his mind, and telepathy trumps a battle computer. This is what Gorgon would do to Midnighter:

Gallery

Even if we ignore the context that facilitated those wins for a moment, what is it about those two particular examples that you feel illustrates that he operates above the levels of Deathstroke or Gorgon? Seriously, ask yourself what did Midnighter actually do in those two examples? He choked a guy out, and he punctured a containment suit, then incapacitated his opponent while he was panicking. If Deathstroke was put in that story in place of Midnighter and it played out verbatim, would you say "That is bs!" I doubt it. The Hellstrike example isn't even remotely impressive, Nigel was completely no selling Midnighter's assault prior to being distracted and no I don't think it is likely that Midnighter could have accomplished the same thing in a one on one exchange without the benefit of that timely plot device distraction. What would he do? Toss his shuriken and little explosive darts and say "Oh no, look out behind you!!!" I don't see it, and I doubt any distraction he could come up with on the fly would catch Hellstrike by surprise nearly as much as seeing his girlfriend having sex with someone else. That's pretty shocking. The possibility exists that it could happen... but it's just not likely. Same goes for the Winter example. In a fight that only involves him and Midnighter, how does Midnighter got on his back and choke him out? Why would Winter even come into melee range?

Jack never "displayed greater strength and durability," than Spider-man. He tossed a semi. Spider-man has matched and topped that several times, I already cited a few examples of it. Maybe if Jack had tossed the semi "several football fields" and not 10 yards like actually happened you would be on to something... but that isn't what happened. Spider-man also caught a rifle bullet in Grim Hunt, but it was implied that he was amped at the time.

You expected my response!?! Are you Midnighter? *gasp* Or maybe you knew because you aren't an idiot, and as such recognize it is really the most obviously and logical interpretation of the feat and deep down you agree with me?

Yeah you're right, I went back and checked the issue and it was the Grand Sarin's gun. For some reason I remembered it being Orange's magnum with most of barrel mostly blown off. Anyway while I was doing that I also went back and checked v1 issues where Grifter shot Savant by mistake, and Zealot never says that she nor Savant are bullet proof or can't be harmed by anything short of armour piercing rounds. Lady Tron says she thought Zealot was invulnerable like Majestic, and she says "Kenesha and I are very very touch, but the Grifter was using armour piercing shells." Not exactly a concrete affirmation of her being bullet proof. For me personally, especially in light of all the times she has been shot, I need more than a line of questionable anecdotal evidence for me to say with any degree of confidence that she is bullet proof. I wouldn't be surprised if Zealot actually demonstrated some degree of bullet turning ability in the future, I just want to see it before I take it as gospel.

It's different because Grifter is one of the best marksmen in comicdom and doesn't telegraph his shot like the a featless nobody? Even a featless nobody with *oooooooooo* "targeting enhancements!" Just look at Grifter's feats, its not difficult to see he is of a MUCH higher pedigree of gunmen than the handful that Midnighter has managed to dodge. Making it much more difficult for him to be aim dodged, like the a run of the mill gunman? Grifter explicitly stated that Midnighter was not "faster than a bullet," and Captain Atom said he was the fastest man he had seen without powers, but that still puts him below superhuman speed. Typical street level aim dodging, isn't enough to avoid Grifter. Punisher has shot the web shooters off Spider-man's wrists and good old Peter has much better speed and bullet dodge feats than Midnighter. Midnighter was fast enough and close enough that he could attack Grifter before Cole had time to get a shot off, the implication of the end of the fight being that he was too far away for Midnighter to stop him from getting a shot off. It also helped that Grifter was jobbed out in that issue.

Hawksmoor stalemated Midighter once, and then lost a close battle back and forth battle with him on the carrier, a powerless Grifter lost to Midnighter, but stalemated him with the aid of his Gen Factor abilities in their second fight, Zealot stalemated or had the slight advantage in h2h over Midnighter in round one, and round 2 she clearly had the advantage in combat with her weapons and Midnighter only one via interference, and even then he still was worse for ware than Zealot was, limping, holding his side and bleeding all over the Carrier. We know what those characters are capable of, we've seen their feats... but the consensus seems to beat that even though Midnighter is depicted as have even back and fourth fights with those characters, that he would stomp Deathstroke like the no name fodder Midnighter typically fights? Why? Because he has a battle computer? Please. Midnighter's battle computer simple is not that effective. Yes it's really impressive how Midnighter kills lots of fodder, but when he fights a real superhero with feats of their own he doesn't preform nearly as well.

What strength, speed, healing, skill or battle computer feats does Midnighter have that suggest he could take a comfortable majority from Slade? None. The tank shell kick and tooth bullet are PIS, and even if we pretend they aren't (and pretend Slade's PIS aren't either), what do either of those have that even holds a candle to tagging he Flash? Does anyone here truly believe that Midnighter would win a scan war against Deathstroke? That if you compared the most impressive accomplishments of both characters, that Midnighter will end up with the more impressive list? Get real.