So last night I went and saw X-men First Class, which, may I just take a moment to say, was Awesomesauce.

AWESOMESAUCE – adj. 1.) The state of being so awesome you make your own gravy. 2) The preferred topping on an awesomesundae.

A big reason First Class works is Michael Fassbender, who despite having an accent that wandered more than the Littlest Hobo, was fantastic, believable and yes even sympathetic as Magneto. It was a fall from grace super villain origin that worked on just about every level, and it made me think of a very similar fall from grace in a prequel that really didn’t. I refer of course to “Bring It On 4: The Bringitonenning”. But it also reminded me of Anakin’s turn to the Dark Side in the Star Wars prequels. Here we have two classic mega villains who are universally loved and embraced by the geek community, who hit a LOT of the same touchstones on their way to villainhood, but one worked and one makes us cringe and whine and bitch on the internet. Why is that? Well, I’ll tell you…

BE WARNED: I’ll be talking about plot details in First Class quite a lot, so if you haven’t seen First Class yet, a) Go already, what the hell is wrong with you? and b) there will be spoilers here.

1) Mommy Dearest.

In both cases, the young budding villains lose their respective mothers, which causes them to lose their shit. Anakin cuts down an entire colony of Sandpeople, Erik crushes Nazi helmets with Nazi skulls still in them, and mentally rearranges a torture room to more accurately reflect his state of mind.

The difference is in context. Anakin has a vague feeling that something is wrong. He goes back to Tatooine, finds his already dying mother and takes out a bunch of sandpeople we never knew or cared about. Why do sandpeople capture and torture humans? How can that possibly help them survive in the harsh desert of Tatooine? There is no motive, they pop in to serve the story, and leave it just as quickly. We don’t care that he killed them all anymore than we care about the stormtroopers that die. It has no emotional weight. We shrug it off the same way Padme does.

Erik was THERE. He saw it happen. It was cold, calculated and cruel, and his rage is justifiable. Already there are stakes, and it serves not only to get a greater understanding of where Magneto is coming from…but what makes Shaw tick as well. Even though he is just a young boy, we can already see hints of what he will eventually become. Anakin?

Not so much.

And when Erik crushes a room with his mind, we feel the anguish, and the devastation. He just lost his whole world in an instant because he couldn’t move a coin. Do we get that when Vader decides to crush a room with his mind? Let’s ask the man himself.

Hey Darth, does this scene have any emotional depth at all?

Is it any way believable?

Is there any way a Star Wars fan won’t be horribly embarrassed by this scene?

Is George Lucas going to give me my money back?

I didn’t think so.

2. The Mentor Tormentor

In both instances, our heroes have good in them (That others can sense, conveniently enough, Thanks Charles and Luke) but are ultimately corrupted by an Evil Mentor. As Erik so aptly put it “I’m Frankenstein’s Monster… and I’m looking for my creator.” First Class starts this corruption from Erik’s childhood, with Shaw teaching him the hard way that rage and pain and anger will make him powerful. The Emperor essentially teaches Vader the same thing but in a more offhand way. He mentions the death of his mother, but he didn’t actually kill her. He implies that he MIGHT be able to save Padme (From what? a bad dream that Anakin is having?) Apparently that is enough. Up to this point, Anakin is essentially good. He’s petulant…a little arrogant…but nothing to suggest he’s ready to full on embrace evil. Then, he makes a snap decision. Mace Windu dies, and Anakin, this good person, is suddenly ready to murder a bunch of children, no questions asked.

Erik is corrupted by hate from the very beginning. It’s what sustains him. Even when working with Charles it consumes him. He knows deep inside that the man who he hates so much has made him into what he is today, and by the end, he accepts that, and becomes Magneto. He isn’t even at odds with Shaw philosophically…and he takes up his mantle (and his helmet)…but he is the master now, and it won’t do to have the man who killed his mother alive. The tragedy here is the friendship that he sacrifices (His ONLY close friend, really) for his cause… to ensure freedom and prosperity for his kind. The very best villains are the ones with understandable motivations, ones who THINK they are doing the right thing… and in Magneto’s place I’m not sure I wouldn’t do the same.

3)Casting.

this is a cardboard cut out. Or is it?

Let’s be fair and say that George Lucas dialog is a tough thing to do believably…it takes a special kind of talent to get a mouthful of cheese out without looking like a complete ass. But that said…you could have kept looking, George. You settled…and in settling helped permanently damage one of the great iconic movie villains of our time. Hayden Christianson’s eyes look dead bored, he mumbles and whines, and he does little to make us feel anything.

Fassbender on the other hand, maintains his Connery cool while still letting us see why he is the way he is. The scene where Charles taps into his memories to find a happy one, to give him the serenity he needs to control his power is simple and beautiful. The camera stays on Fassbenders face, a memory of lighting candles with his mother imposed over it and a single tear rolls down. Then Charles, having shared the memory, wipes one away himself. It’s beautifully acted, simple and moving.

Anakin has a temper tantrum about how Obi Wan is holding him back.

Ugh.

4) Fulfilling Destiny

Although ideally we should feel for the fallen hero…some part of us is excited that he has become the villain we all love to hate. One of the first acts our new villain does is bust a telepath out of jail to replace the one he had. It’s smart, dramatic and there is no question that Erik is gone and Magneto is here to stay. And he rocks the helmet.

To paraphrase Patton Oswalt…“Yeah at the end, Darth Vader’s just kinda looking at the Death Star and he’s all sad.” Is that any way to give birth to the greatest screen villain of our time?

So there you have it. They both lost their moms, crush rooms with their minds, turn their back on their friends and wear goofy helmets… but that is definitely where the similarities end.

So do yourself a favour go see X-men First Class, which is, I think the best X-men movie yet. Or at the very least…read this again.

Stay tuned next week for the Beast versus Ewok Smackdown.

Here at The Correctness SportsishNetwerkkz, we offer our be-all-end-all absolutely correct answers on which supervillains would win in a fight. Lex Luthor has bankrolled the competition.Which of the 8 will come out on top? The playoffs continue this week in the Pengrowth Deathdrome. It’s brutal, ugly, violent, and soul rending…and that’s just the comment section!!!

The Rules, and the Bracket were laid out in advance, in this post. Two days of prep, battle is held in the stadium, and it’s to the death. Game on.

THIS WEEK: The Final! Doom Vs Magneto. A couple of old European dudes scrapping it out for supremacy of the world.

DAVE: First of all, I want to thank all of our regular readers for their comments and input. As you know, we do this sort of thing for fun, thanks to those of you who play along. This bracket turned out to be much more troubling than the Hero one, more issues with mismatches, etc. But this week, we have a battle worthy of the ages: Doom vs Magneto.

At first glance, this one seems like it might be an easy one for Magneto, what with his ability to create wormholes, and turn giant bullets around from a few galaxies away. (Seriously Marvel? WTF?) I suppose next issue we’ll find out that Magneto is also able to raise the dead, turn himself into Stan Lee, and become an Avenger (everyone else is doing it, why not.) I mean, they let Spider-Man become an Avenger, because that made sense! Sure, the greatest loner in the Marvel Universe, though known for his team-ups with a single other hero, that’s a guy who we need in the Avengers. Oh wait, you know who else would be AWESOME? Wolverine!!!! He’d be a great Avenger. Seriously, folks, this entry is precariously close to becoming a rant on how much utter cack the current Marvel universe has become. Must…back…away…

Ok, so Magneto has the wormhole thing, the turning bullets thing, and what else… Oh, power over magnetism and magnetic fields. How the f&*k has this guy not taken the planet over yet?

And then there’s Doom. He has magic, formidable mental control, and the ability to build anything he needs for a particular fight. Oh, and a time machine. (Wait, what? Yep. Oh, and he was able to rebuild himself at the molecular level… Seriously Marvel? And people make fun of DC? I don’t get it.)

So guy with a time machine vs guy with a wormhole. One guy can rearrange things at a sub-atomic level (Really? Magneto. F*&k you Marvel!), the other can take on the Beyonder (uh huh, we’re that old).

This is less fun by the minute. It went from being a slugfest between repulsors and helmets to being a battle of physics.

So, my gut says, that no matter how wormhole/sub-atomic/personal sheildish Magneto is feeling, Doom is his better intellectually, as well as the fact that Doom is a little crazy, with a whole lot of arrogance. Doom shows up to the fight wearing some non-ferrous armor, combined with a device that renders any manipulation of anything inside of the suit impossible. (He’s Doom, it’s possible). He then summons up a few thousand demons to surround Magneto and they, waiting until he eventually drops his shield, eat his face and devour his soul. Of course, Magneto eventually recovers from this to re-appear, though without any memory of the incident. And the Fantastic Four arrive afterwards to defeat Doom using the power of quick thinking, teamwork, and familial love.

Winner: Dooooooooom

Tony

This is it.

This is going to be epic!!!

This particular smackdown series was guilty of a few mismatches, but THIS one is going to wreck the arena. Possibly the city.

The first issue we need to address is the armour. It’s loaded with a plethora of useful powers and Doom is not going to head into battle without it.

However, if you think for a second that he’s going to show up to this fight WITHOUT taking the proper precautions, be it a ceramic version of the armour, some sort of magical protection or de magnetization process you are just flat out wrong. So let’s stifle that “He just crushes the guy in the metal armour” shit right now

Any oddsmaker is going to give Doom the edge here, because of magic, the great intangible but counting out one of the most powerful and dangerous mutants in the Marvel Universe is a HUGE mistake.

So here is how I see this going down.

Doubtless, this whole thing will start with the two of them spending an inordinate amount of time trying to get the other guy to bow down to them.

“Acknowledge your better! Bow to Homo Superior, or be destroyed”

“Kneel before DOOM and your precious mutant-kind will be spared”

This is likely to go on for a good 20 minutes or so. Both of these guys like to talk, especially about bowing, kneeling and surrendering, subjects which they are both very keen on.

Suddenly, Magneto brings 2 large sections of the stands, people and all, crashing down around Doom. Doom is protected by his force field but people are screaming, and panicking, overwhelming Doom…momentarily. Then he utters an incantation and everyone freezes. One more incantation and the stand’s /mass of humanity gets blasted aside…and Doom is free.

“You’ll have to do better than that, mutant!”

“I shall…”

Magneto rips the very ground from beneath Doom’s feet, But Doom (Via magic or technology, at this point in the mad panic, it’s hard to tell) Doom simply hovers above it.

Beams fire from Doom’s Gauntlets…miraculously penetrating Magneto’s shield. Magneto screams in pain as Doom laughs. He lands a short distance away from the writhing Magneto, gloating and indulging in that arrogance that has so often been his undoing. He forces Magneto to his knees

But then…Magneto starts to laugh…

“And, what, may I ask is so amusing?”

“It…was…a…mistake…”

“Fighting Doom is always a mistake, my friend”

“No…your mistake…letting…me …live…”

“Careful mutant, that is a decision I have not yet made…”

“You did…the…last…time…we…met…”

That’s when Magneto turns a particular shade of vibrant blue, and starts to look significantly hotter.

That’s also when the ENTIRE BROTHERHOOD of mutants comes barreling in.

Magneto has been hiding, using his powers from a distance and making it look like Mystique was doing it. Sure, it’s supposed to be a one on one contest, but who said villains have to play fair? Besides, Magneto is very much of the “By any means necessary” school.

Now Magneto rises up from hiding, floating in the air, his voice booming

“Call me “MUTANT” one more time and it will be the last word you ever say!!!”

Doom touches his wrist.

Thousands of Doombots come flying in. The Mutants attack…the Doombots attack. It’s absolute chaos. The entire city is engulfed in battle. Wormholes, rifts in the time space continuum, portals to other dimensions, demons, aliens, you name it that shit is going down.

The mutants are starting to get the edge on the Doombots…Doom knows he needs to finish this…but that’s when Magneto pulls out his secret weapon. Miles away, Charles Xavier…decides to intervene on behalf of his old friend, not wishing to see him come to any kind of permanent harm. He is Magnetos insurance policy…his ace in the hole.
Xavier sends a crippling blast directly into Doom’s brain.

Too bad Doom modified his armor to repel such attacks the same way Magneto’s helmet does.

Magneto gets banished to a parallel dimension, and sealed in good and tight.

The winner: DOOM!!

(PS yes, this whole scenario kind of depends on Mystique being allowed to live…but I’m sure Magneto could find other ways to do the old bait and switch if he had to)

Rob:

This is going to be one hell of a fight. We have two greats of the Marvel Universe: Doctor Doom and Magneto. Both were created by Lee and Kirby, and both have survived beyond Stan Lee’s implausible dialogue. I think it was an aesthetic thing, like the Gilmore Girls… I think…

Our first finalist is Magneto, who is the mightiest mutant. He can magnetically control thing that aren’t even metal. In Fact, in X-Men 1, he uses dust particles in the air to spell out a message for the X-Men to read. Dust is largely non-ferromagnetic, and this clearly demonstrates that Magneto has the power to control all matter, except when inconvenient to the narrative.

The real terror of Magneto comes not from his primary x-tra power. No, it comes from two sources, please note the images below:

Magneto has the power of immense crotch to back him up. Just look at all that crotch! Miles and miles of beachfront crotch.  Just imagine the X-men trying to storm that crotch! Just imagine Storm trying to storm that crotch. Now imagine Storm trying to storm Jean Grey’s crotch. Now, back to the regularly scheduled crotch. Unparalleled vistas of purple crotch! Doom has no such pants-majesty, but all must kneel before the pants-majesty of Magneto!  An immense frosty tundra of waist girth! A cosmic expanse of trouser fabric!

In addition, Magneto has the ability to hide himself behind his own dialogue bubbles. This would make him nearly impossible to hit with an attack. How do you aim your attack through a gigantic white shield of dialogue? Answer: You can’t, and even if you could, Magneto is still demonstrating his immense pelvic fortitude.

Our other finalist is Doctor Doom. Doom has been tested again and again by a team of superheroes comprised of a Bic lighter, a pet rock, a rubber band, and yet another transparent woman. Three out of four of Doom’s nemeses can be found in my top desk drawer, and the fourth I keep in an elastic band ball on top of my desk.

Reed Richards (ball of twine) and Victor Von Doom (of the Latvarian Dooms) were college roomies. But one night, an explosion came from Doom’s dormitory. If you haven’t tuned into PBS’s “Dooms Dormitory” on Saturday mornings, it is presented commercial free, with occasional seasonal pledge drives. $50 gets you a mug, and $100 gets you a mug and THE INEVITABILITY OF YOUR HIDEOUS DEATH! If you loved Blue’s Clues, you’ll love Doom’s Dormitory! Here’s an excerpt:

THEME:

Doctor Doom, Doctor Doom,

Tremble at the name of Doctor Doom.

He’s hidden a robot in your room,

That wacky, no good, Doctor Dooooom!

Doom: [to camera] Good! Good! You are all here in my mighty stronghold. Do not attempt to change the channel, or I shall push this button, unleashing Cuddles, my pet Tiger!

Cuddles: Meow meow moew meow, Doctor Doom!

Reed Richards: Who drank all the milk?

Doom: It was I, Richards! Without milk you will be unable to defeat even the weakest of heroes, Captain Crunch!

Richards: And who filled up the TiVo with basesballs games?

Doom: You know what a fan I am of the Seattle Sub-Mariners! And I hypnotized the entire girl’s dorm to make them think you are gay!

Richards: [shaking his fist] Dooooooom!

Doom: Indeed! [to camera again] Now, my robot servant at your local PBS affiliate will read you a list of items up for charitable auction! I command you to bring your parents into the room because even now I am sucking the oxygen out of the rest of the house!

Cuddles: Meow meow meow meow, Reading Rainbow, meow.

Doom: AS WAS FORETOLD BY THE PROPHECY!

[Doom departs in a helicopter shaped like a shark]

Honestly, it’s one hell of a show. Tune in.

When it comes down to the battle, we are left with this conundrum: Is it useful this issue to have Magneto be able to control all matter in the known universe, or only ferromagnetic materials?  As well, is Doom’s magic, and control of incomprehensible arcane forces enough to make Magneto feel all creeped out?

Doom steps into his time machine to kill Magneto at birth. Magneto, sensing this possibility, creates a gravity well through which he may also travel back in time. In Hill Valley during 1956, Magneto crushes Doom inside of his DeLorean. But was it Doom? No! It was a robot! Doom is safely in the future, years after Magneto’s death,  but Magneto travels there to find him! In the future, Doom has created an army of Mystique clones based on his one time meeting with her in the semi finals, and now everybody is either a Doom robot, or a Doom mystique clone. Magneto, who is no dummy, has redirected a space bullet that was fired in our time from it’s course across the universe, and timed it perfectly so it would arrive in the future.

Doom, prepared for the ol’ redirected space bullet ploy, opens up an interdimensional gate, releasing one of the terrifying Elder Gods onto Magneto.  But Magneto suspected such a thing might happen, and he brought a can opener, and some twizzlers!

On and on this battle rages, with two mighty foes smashing almost injuring each other, only to have the other one be prepared for it! How can such a battle be decided? Coin flip!

Heads, Doom. Crotch, Magneto:

It is Crotch.

Winner: Magneto!

Also Winner in an alternate timeline: Doom!

Winner for our purposes based on a Canadian $1 coin: Magneto!

So there it is gang…Doom takes the whole shebang 2-1. Thanks so much for joining us…and while your at explaining to us in great detail why we are wrong…why not take a moment to suggest a smackdown you’d like to see. Mega Power smackdown, with Galactus and the Beyonder? Movie Hero Smackdown, Indy vs. James Bond? Or more Superheroes and villains to cover the ones we have missed? We’d love to hear your suggestions.

Thanks again to the folks at Fark, and to you dear reader, who keep coming back despite disagreeing with us so vehemently.

Hey, while you are here, do us a favor and take a look around, would ya? We’re more than just dreadfully uninformed comic book pundits you know.

(Note: This is a repost of the original article).

Here at The Correctness SportsishNetwerkkz, we offer our be-all-end-all absolutely correct answers on which supervillains would win in a fight. Lex Luthor has bankrolled the competition.Which of the 8 will come out on top? The playoffs continue this week in the Pengrowth Deathdrome. It’s brutal, ugly, violent, and soul rending…and that’s just the comment section!!!

The Rules, and the Bracket were laid out in advance, in this post. Two days of prep, battle is held in the stadium, and it’s to the death. Game on.

THIS WEEK: The First Quarter Final: Joker vs Magneto for a spot in the finals.

Tony

JOKER: Your powers are very impressive. You put the “Neato” in Magneto. Do you have to really concentrate to do all that stuff? You must have picked that up from concentration camp when you were a kid! HA HA HA HA ! Oh it was a long way to get there but totally worth it! HA HA HA HA!!!

There are two types of “Overpowering” in the comic book universe. One way of doing it is to infinitely expand existing powers to the point of ridiculousness. The other is to take someone with NO discernable powers and to amp up their ingenuity to the point where if you try hard enough, you can justify anything for them, even beating the guy with the amped up powers.

And the patron Saints of both schools of thought are battling it out this week. Joker vs. Magneto. On paper it’s a no brainer, Magneto has Godlike powers, the Joker has a sick sense of humor and pithy one liners. But that pesky power of Dues ex rears its ugly head and suddenly it’s not so easy.

So let’s try and postulate ways in which the Joker MIGHT squeak out a victory and go from there.

He could kidnap and utilize Leech, thus rendering Magneto powerless. A shot of Joker venom and Magneto smiles for the first and last time in his life. But my familiarity with Leech is limited to X-men 3 and something tells me that Magneto has already dealt with that problem at least once, and knows how to get around it.

He could with his connections and brilliance tamper with Magneto’s helmet. Maybe a small needle tucked inside delivering venom right into Magneto’s neck. But I somehow doubt Magneto just leaves the thing lying around. Still, let’s call that a maybe.

Joker’s goons have clay guns and bullets and take shots at him from the stands. But even though he can’t control the bullets I believe he can still repel them with his force field.

The more I think about this, the more I think there’s just no way the Joker can get him. So I am giving this to Magneto…with the caveat that the Joker pulls out his greatest trick and escapes alive and pissed off, and Magneto better watch his back.

Winner: Magneto

Dave:

The hardest part of the Supervillain Smackdown thus far is fact that there are not enough interesting villains at the same power available. Often there are are questions like “Why No Galactus?” (Answer: DUH!). There are, of course, different levels of power, and you can’t put Darkseid up against Catwoman. To make separate brackets creates a time issue, as having 3 brackets with say 8 villains would consume most of the year. (Not to say we won’t do another power level bracket in the future). So we brainstormed, argued about which villains would fit within the parameters. We did NOT, as the pundits would tell you, set up a specific showdown, or “write” the final. We don’t work that way. As there are three of us each weigh in without discussion, it simply doesn’t happen. And it would be boring as hell. Why the hell would we want to do that? Where’s the fun in that?

The best part is the discussion that the smackdowns create. Whether it’s here or on other forums around the web, the joy is in considering the possibilities, finding loopholes, and arguing your point. That’s the main reason that we post pretty much every comment we get, regardless of whether it agrees with us or not. (We filter out the spam, the obvious threadjack/ linkjack attempts, and comments that don’t actually say ANYTHING.)

My problem with this week’s smackdown is that we keep running up against the rampant overpower issue. It’s ironic, as most fanboys assume that DC is the overpowered universe, that their characters are all Gods, etc. But when you look at the Marvel side of things, it’s really just as bad. And the longer characters are around, the worse it gets. Marvel made a big mistake a while back in giving everyone (Wolverine aside) a healing factor. Seriously, nearly everyone has one. It’s their way of saying “this is how people can take the punishment they’re given and come back for more.” But for me, that’s too much overexplaining. They’re heroes and villains. They’re mightier than us. ‘Nuff said.

But the result is you get a character like Magneto, who originally was simply able to use magnetism to his advantage, and you build that into a guy who can mess up everything in the universe, pull a giant space bullet off course, and create wormholes.

Joker, on the other hand, is still pretty much an average guy who excels in creating disorder and chaos. To be fair, whatever hoops we jump through to create a scenario in which Joker gains the upper hand are false at best. Because the image in my mind is Magneto getting tired of the fight, thinking hard and taking apart the entire stadium in seconds, and inserting pieces of it in Joker’s brain, all while raising himself into the air. Joker doesn’t have the knowledge of Magneto’s family to use against him, (arguable whether that would even work), Magneto wouldn’t be impressed by anything the Joker’s done, or could do in terms of evil (wouldn’t be shocked if Joker killed everyone at the contest), and considers Joker to be a lesser life form, as he’s not a mutant. So most of Joker’s planning/tactics would be ineffective.

Also, Joker is probably bored by this time, and wishing he could get back to what he does best, messing with Batman’s head. Joker isn’t in it for the money, the glory, or the power. He’s just a hyper-intelligent crazy dude who is obsessed with Batman.

So, any way we slice this one,

Winner: Magneto

Rob:

Errrrrrrmmmmm, so, we’ve been living with the regret of underestimating Batman and his cleverness during the Superhero Smackdown. And logically, we felt, we’ve been treating The Joker as the Batman of Villains. Meanwhile, Magneto is pretty kickass, and has a cool hat, that’s tough to argue.

Maybe the argument we haven’t explored is that these villains are flawed. They are flawed so that no matter how well matched they are against our heroes, our heroes are just a notch better.

So: who is more flawed, The Joker, or Magneto?

Well, The Joker is batshit crazy, no pun intended. I have had the unique fortune of seeing a few real life psychotic episodes, and most really genuinely crazy folk are actually not the best planners. I know, I know, The Joker is special. He’s clinical! A serial killer! A sociopath(technically, unless you think his crazy is more genetic and less environmental- my research suggests a lot of it was environmental…) ! Look, crazy people don’t plan well, and they quite often have entirely revisionist understandings of how they ended up in their current situations, weaving contrary, illogical and likely primarily false narratives about their role in their own lives. Real crazy, “Joker crazy”, is only functional, clever and brilliant for a small percentage of the time, and the rest of the time, it’s telling you why it’s your fault they are up a tree on a wednesday night at 2am when you have to work the next morning, and they just keep screaming and kicking you, and kicking you, and kicking you.

Magneto, on the other hand, is less like crazy, and more like a patriot. A mutant nationalist, or, a religious leader. He simply believes with a stern faith that he is correct. Does that make him crazy? Well, you could argue that. I mean, faith can lead people to do crazy things, like rape 200 deaf boys and be protected by the future pope because it might look bad if people talked about it, but I digress.

Magneto is less likely to make a mistake in the heat of the moment than the Joker is- Both of these villains can scheme away for eternity, but The Joker is unstable enough to lose out eventually. Batman just locked up the Joker when the Joker had cracked for the umpteenth time, but Magneto could and would crush Arkham in around the Joker. Plus, Magneto has a cool hat. Cool hat!

Winner: Magneto

Runner up: Cool Hats!

Decision: Magneto

So Magneto moves on the final, to face either Mystique or Doctor Doom, who square off next week. Weigh in below, True Believers.

(the following comments were posted on the original article)

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n8 said on 09-04-2010
n8

As much as I love Mr. J, there’s just no other way this could’ve come out. I think Dave pretty well nailed it: the Joker is a good foil for Batman because Mr. J specializes in playing on Batman’s particular weaknesses: Batman is a defender and has a very strict code that he follows. Joker pits the one against the other and gets his kicks from Batman’s cognitive dissonance.
Magneto simply doesn’t suffer from those weaknesses… overpoweredness aside, he’s very straightforward about what he wants and what he’s willing to do to see that it happens. He’s willing to inflict collateral damage and burn assets as needed. He basically has nothing for the Joker to work with.
The ensuing magnetically-inflicted death is secondary… Joker’s defeat is mainly a matter of being too specialized to deal with anyone other than a white knight (or a Dark one.)
Reply

Ace amongst Aces said on 09-04-2010
Ace amongst Aces

Magneto walks into the arena to see the Joker across the field holding a metal sphere with a giant “!” painted on it. Magneto perceiving an obvious threat and confident of his eventual victory decides to crush the sphere and then give the Joker his “What now, biatch?” glance that he practiced the night before.

The sphere is a sub-critical mass of a fissionable material.

Many miles away the Joker lounges on a chair, umbrella drink in hand wearing SPF Infinity and thick darkened goggles. When he finally sees the flash and feels the shock-wave, he quietly muses to himself.

“Finally a battle that is assured to have glowing reviews.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

spcMike said on 09-04-2010
spcMike

I just tried searching Wikipedia for “Marvel characters with a healing factor” and my computer exploded. And really, it is ridiculous, although to be fair the Joker was shot in the head and seems to be doing just fine.

I tried really hard to think of some way for Joker to beat Magneto and about the only way I could think of would be if Joker could trick Mr. Mxyzptlk’s powers again and then turning Magneto into just a giant magnet then the Joker keeps throwing his razor sharp cards at Magneto.

I’m sure you guys would’ve thought about this as well if you weren’t too busy violating your mothers in ways only Newfoundland sheep could understand.

Joker said on 09-04-2010
Joker

While i dont find this to be exactly wrong, there is one thing you didnt consider, the Joker beat superman in one of the comics by Jim Lee, he had prep time and made something that superman could not escape fast enough to catch him, thus he was able to overcome a vast power difference.

With no prep time, its a hands down Mag’s, but given some time, even 1 day, it isnt so clear cut, and i think the Joker would win, if nothing else, Mag’s is predictable, Joker isnt, well that and of the two of them, joker is the one that wouldnt have any issues with setting off 1000 nukes 1/4 mile away, even if it also killed him.

Tomass said on 10-04-2010
Tomass

It’s been proven that Magneto can survive a nuke.
Reply

Tomass said on 09-04-2010
Tomass

Ya even Aquaman & Robin would have a hard time vs. Magneto. I mean they’d win of course, but it would be touch and go for a little while.

You know the Joker could have won this, if he used the strategy that Aquaman & Robin would have used… he could have slipped Ipecac or a high power laxative into Magneto’s pre-fight sip of water (or power/gator aid). Because I mean come on, all good athletes know that you need to stay hydrated, and of course Magneto would have had a quick sip before the show.

You can’t fight when all you can do is poop (or barf).

Or alternately Joker could have laced his food with codeine for the 2 days prior and then it becomes “you can’t fight if you can’t poop.”

Really in hind sight, for the most part, you fine correctness gents are just not thinking like SUPER Villains. Hells you’re not even really thinking like regular villains. Fuck lets just say it! You’re not even thinking the modicum of evil, like Snidely Whiplash kind of evil. I mean tie some one to a train track (for no reason) at least.

Where are the death rays? Where are the eviscerations? Where is the over abundance of evil laughter (Joker excluded)? Where are the grand evil master plan reveals, only to be overturned by the opponents grander eviler master plan reveals? These are bad people. And they know they’re not just toying with there normal “do gooders”. This is life and death against assholes who are just as horribly fucked-up as they are.

True Magneto is pretty straight laced and would be all about just building a super canon and killing all of his opponents in one shot (thus some how ensuring Mutant supremacy over all the earth). And less about making a giant mutant octopus-cat that would savagely rape his opponents to death. But the point is he’s a super villain and all comic book “Evil” or “Super Villains” share a common thread… Grandiose, mundane or even totally nonsensical goals thru only the most violent, extreme, and/or convoluted means possible.

Take the Joker Type for example. They don’t just rob a bank by going in killing all the employees and taking the money (just to be rich). No! They hire a pile of expendable goons, rent or steal a bus, slowly kill off there own goons, take the money out of the bank by bus (backed trough the front door), and out into a perfectly timed mass field trip line of busses (that possibly they organized). Why not just kill the people in the bank and walk out rich… Because it’s not Super Villain evil!

Or Ozymandias, did he really, really need to build a massive Egyptian style complex complete with a genetically engineered cat on the edge of a glacier and wipe out a big chunk of New York in order to stop Mutually Assured Destruction? I would argue no, but that is why I’m not a super villain.

Or did Marvel / 20th Century Fox really need to totally rewrite the Wolverine origin story? Did they need to totally fuck up Dead Pool? Was there not enough source material to make a good movie? Of course there was! But when you’re a super villain you don’t just make a good movie and profit. You make a seething pile of shit! You waste countless man hours, producing it, having actors learn your pages & pages of trite dialogue and market and hype it. All for the ultimate waste, have people pay you mass amounts of money to waste their time watching it… then you profit. That’s evil!

I could go on but I have to go feed my monkey now.

spcMike said on 09-04-2010
spcMike

Bra-fucking-vo.

RobbieRobTown said on 09-04-2010
RobbieRobTown

Sorry, I was just talking to my mother, could you guys repeat that?

Tomass said on 10-04-2010
Tomass

Monkeys or Pygmy Marmosets?

Chico said on 09-04-2010
Chico

Yes, it’s absurd. Likewise absurd to somehow twist it around into making some cheap shot joke about “religious” people which always somehow means Christians, and in this case Catholics. The children that were abused are not some cheap punchline just so you can show how “enlightened” you are and not akin to crazy people who are…people of faith.

It’s a tragedy and they should be rooted out, just like the institutional child rape in Muslim countries and genital mutilation of little girls should be rooted out — but when talking about “religion,” somehow it’s only ever one religion you’re talking about. (Scientology would also fit the bill.)

And before people get upset that I’d bring it up, if you post that kind of thing in a story on COMICS, you’re going to get responses like this — and few as well reasoned.

In any case, the Joker would be turned inside out by Magneto. It’s Bambi vs. Godzilla.

The Senator said on 09-04-2010
The Senator

I dunno about this one. The Joker employs plenty of weaponized gases in his arsenal, and he’s good with improvized weapons (like for instance 2×4s or shards of glass). Further, Magneto’s main foils are the x-men, who (at least not until VERY recently) are pretty much boy scouts. In a Joker / Magneto fight, I would see Joker getting ahold of some vial of the Legacy virus before the match or something, ticking Magneto off with a war of words and enraging him to the point of lashing out with a girder or something, and when Joker is all banged up on the ground, Magneto walks up to deliver the finishing blow and stops to say something grandiose about how much superior mutants are when out of nowhere Joker squirts him with his laughing gas/legacy virus combo and stabs him with repeatedly with a shard of glass. I would give it to Joker. Magneto is too BORING to win…

Random Guy said on 09-04-2010
Random Guy

People come up with all these ways that Joker could possibly beat Magneto. But sadly they don’t seem to realize there is simply no way for him to do it.

If Joker doesn’t show up IN the stadium then he forfeits.

If he does show up then this is how it goes… Match starts, Magneto, expecting deception, destroys EVERYTHING in the stadium but himself, which takes about 1 second. He wins.

There is no screwing with his head, no putting in a fake. NOTHING. Magneto is simply so overpowered in this situation that if he wants to win he does so, virtually instantly.

John Stephens said on 09-04-2010
John Stephens

I’ll take the Joker’s side since no one else wants to. What the Joker does best is really mess with people’s heads. What would REALLY get under Magneto’s skin? Well, he considers himself a defender of mutants, so being manipulated into harming one of his own kind would do it.

So here’s what happens. During the prep time, the Joker kidnaps and drugs/hypnotizes some mutant into believing that he is in fact the Joker. On fight day, Mr. J slips the ringer into the locker room in his place, and sneaks off to watch the fun from a safe distance. Magneto whacks the fake Joker, realizes too late he’s been had, and we get a classic full page “NOOOOOO!”

It’s all about how you DEFINE victory!

chuckus said on 10-04-2010
chuckus

Joker can’t win. The best he can do is a stalemate. his goal is to mess with the opponents head not kill them.

He’d probably manufacture a chemical and bio agent that will instantly kill a mutant but not a “regular” human. Through diabolical joker scheming infect every mutant EXCEPT for magneto. The trigger is Joker being killed.

In a witty showdown after getting his ass beat, inform magneto of his choice. Win and be responsible for the mutant holocaust or sacrifice himself for the good of all mutant kind.

Cut to close up of joker laughing and display “to be continued”.

the7dead said on 10-04-2010
the7dead

Wow, that’s the best scenario about the joker winning I’ve read about so far. You nailed it. Jeesus you must be a comic book writer!

Absolute Dave said on 10-04-2010
Absolute Dave

Prep time is all the joker needs, hes absolutly mad but brilliant about it so he has somehow killed a scientist that invented a device the size of a PDA with a little antena with a ball on the end and a couple rings in the middle that repulses anything that could be magneticly affected away from his person and as we are playing by comic book rules it works perfectly and has no set limitation.

Magneto however can control anything that could be magneticly charged and there is nowhere on earth without good ol’ iron so he could do make the particles of iron beneath jokers feet shoot through him like a trillion bullets or rip the iron right out of jokers blood stream or turn the stadium into a giant anvil to drop on jokers head.

Anything magento tries to do to joker or throws at joker simply doesnt work with jokers fancy pants repulsion palm pilot so Mags encases joker in an iron sphere the size of Manhatten and tosses it into space into a worm hole hes created to some incredibly distant galaxy or other dimension and noone gets to hear joker laugh away his last gasped breaths.

Magneto could never have lost.

Prodigal Sorceror said on 10-04-2010
Prodigal Sorceror

Of course Magneto wins, but there’s no way he’d walk away clean. A major factor you’ve overlooked is that in his mania the Joker doesn’t fear death, but lives to torture, not just kill his opponents. While Magneto’s power and intelligence, and increasingly insane arsenal of resources give him an insurmountable advantage over the Joker, I’m sure the laughing schemer would somehow arrange the death of Magneto’s son, Quicksilver, and the torture and gross disfigurement of his daughter Scarlet Witch a la Lavinia in Shakespeare’s bloodiest, Titus Andronicus. Five to one the atrocities committed against Magneto’s family would be done in a way that they were triggered by Magneto’s own hand. So yes, the Joker dies, but he was having too much fun to worry about survival anyway, such is life for a madman.

Adikt said on 12-04-2010
Adikt

Should have been Sinestro v/s Joker.

Been busy with school, actually forgot about this stuff somehow. Anyway, I put the reasons why Sinestro would have beat Magneto in the comment section for that fight.

Joker would still have lost. And Doom will win overall. He’s the only one with control over magic, like he even needs it.

Here at The Correctness SportsishNetwerkkz, we offer our be-all-end-all absolutely correct answers on which supervillains would win in a fight. Lex Luthor has bankrolled the competition.Which of the 8 will come out on top? The playoffs continue this week in the Pengrowth Deathdrome. It’s brutal, ugly, violent, and soul rending…and that’s just the comment section!!!

The Rules, and the Bracket were laid out in advance, in this post. Two days of prep, battle is held in the stadium, and it’s to the death. Game on.

THIS WEEK: Sinestro vs Magneto. For our purposes, Sinestro has yet to become some weird White Lantern, and Magneto is his normal self, but speaks in Ian McKellan’s voice, cuz that’s pretty badass.

DAVE:

When I considered this battle in my head, there was no possible way that the winner could be anyone but Sinestro. He has one of them there power rings, and they can do pretty much anything. In fact, as Yellow Lanterns use Fear as a weapon, I had constructed a scenario in which Sinestro uses Magneto’s memories of the concentration camps, in addition to Magneto’s fear of becoming irrelevant within the mutant community. This results in an easy win for Sinestro.

But then I started thinking about Magneto. In addition to being able to control magnetic fields, and therefore anything with metallic content, he can also create an almost impenetrable field around himself, and (this is becoming a weekly thing, where I educate our readers) can create a wormhole. Really Marvel? A wormhole. And yet, people can’t stop babbling about how overpowered DC is, Marvel has every single character all healing factored up, and able to create wormholes.

So, here it is. Sinestro attacks, Magneto shells up. Sinestro continues to attack, using fear and giant yellow hammers. Magneto uses various parts of the stadium to bounce off of Sinestro’s sheild. This goes on for a while. Magneto figures out the frequency of the Yellow Ring’s power, and dissipates it for a moment, and grabs the iron content in Sinestro’s blood, draining him instantly. Or (for those of you who claim his alien blood is non-ferrous, he bounces an i-beam off Sinestro’s head.) A third option is to dissolve the electromagnetic force holding Sinestro’s protons to his electrons (Really Marvel?).

Any way we slice this thing, a fancy power ring can’t beat almost 50 years of retconning.

Winnner: Magneto

Tony

Ugh. This one makes my head hurt.

There are so many “Ifs” in play here that as of right now, I have no idea who my choice is going to be.

Let’s just count the ways this can go together, shall we?

IF Sinestro’s ring is in the least bit ferrous, Magneto immediately crushes it, along with Sinestro’s finger. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth follows. Magneto makes fun of the size of his head.

Winner :Magneto.

IF it is not ferrous in any way, Sinestro can easily get the drop on Magneto. It takes awhile to bring a building down on someone, or at least it takes more time than it takes to point your fist at someone and think about crushing them with the power of a nice festive Easter yellow.

Winner: Sinestro

IF Sinestro’s power is in fact a MENTAL power, and I think it can be argued that it is, seeing as how it is fueled by a mental state of being…would Magneto’s helmet protect him from said power? IF yes, than Sinestro is once again screwed.

Winner: Magneto

IF Sinestro’s power is in fact just a manipulation of the light spectrum, and not based on a mental attack, then there is NOTHING Magneto can do to stop it. He has shields to block many kinds of attacks, but to actually stop LIGHT from getting in? I don’t think so.

Winner : Sinestro

IF Magneto is in fact the master of all metal, as he’s sometimes known, it wouldn’t matter if the ring was ferrous or not. Some of my research claims Magneto has dominion over every single metal in the known universe. Scenario one happens, crushed finger. Or he just pulls the ring right off Sinestro’s finger. You want to generate some fear? Give a power ring to Magneto and watch the audience shit itself.

Winner Magneto

IF the ring runs on fear, all Sinestro has to do it throw a fright into the crowd, and he will have a TON of energy to run off of. Possibly enough to overcome ANYTHING Magneto can throw at him…

Winner: Sinestro

IF the ring recharges by battling the green spectrum, all Magneto has to do is go on the offensive and wait him out. Magneto can throw a lot of shit his way to keep Sinestro trying to save his own ass until he runs out of juice, then moves in for the kill.

Winner Magneto

Apparently both of these guys have been known to GO BACK IN TIME. IF they chase each other through the ages trying to find the other guy in the crib and kill him, only to be foiled by the other guy and forced to go back even further to kill off a relative. Sinestro gets the drop on Magneto, when Erik takes a quick break from the battle to try and kill Hitler. I guess. No,not really.

Winner: I haven’t got a fucking clue.

So you see the dilemma I’m in here. This is predicated on a whole lot of very debatable “ifs”

So here is what I’m going to do. I’m going to pause and count the scenarios up there and see who ends up winning more….Apparently Magneto does 4-3.

I’m going to take a deep breath then and give this one to Magneto. However this is SO close that if anybody can present me with a good argument for Sinestro, I’m fully prepared to flip flop on this.

Winner: Magneto

ROB:

Ahh, okay nerds. Out of my depth. Fortunately, I trust my fellow Correctness pals to bury my opinion at the bottom of the article. If for any reason my article remains near the top, you can be sure it is because Dave or Tony didn’t read my post.

Those of you who read our Superhero Smackdowns might recall an incident in which, because of my limited expertise, I went on, what I felt at the time was, a long comic ramble. Many of you fine people then accused me of betraying the only series of articles which drew hits to our website. Many of you accused me of “phoning it in”. Some of you said that my comments were purposeless and largely antithetical to the concepts of comedy in general. Far be it from me to get defensive because we run a comedy blog, and we simply do not claim to be expert, and that the purpose of these smackdowns is to foster an amusing debate, and not to be some kind of authoritative canonical resource for you to rely on during your post and then pre masturbatory refractory period.

Here are some facts, which in case you did not read the above paragraph, you cannot dispute because they are absolutely inarguably correct. Both Sinestro and Magneto both have the all powerful “o” at the end of their names. Any supervillain with an “o” at the end of their names is extremely powerful. Just think of the long list of villains with end-in-o powers:

Sinestro

Magneto

Electro

Apocalypto

That’s quite a list, and considering one of the supervillains mentioned above is actually a Mel Gibson film, that’s all the more reason to agree with me.

Magneto is magnetic, and can do impressive magnetic stuff with metals, I guess, except for some metals, assuming he is ferromagnetic. Similarly, Sinestro is sinister, and controls sinister stuff, like ferrets and ice cream mini-truck drivers, assuming he is ferretmagnetic.

The supply of sinister stuff to hurl through the air is entirely dependent on the environment Sinestro is battling in- in an arena full of supervillain fans, I’m sure he could probably find a metric tonne of moustachioed weirdos who he could manipulate using sinestric fields. Magneto, on the other hand, as long as he is not antiferromagnetic, could probably rip the seats out of the stadium- well, the expansion seats, not the concrete boxes- but the rebar in the concrete boxes, and smash them into Sinestro.

Now, as you know, Sinestro got his powers when he was bitten by a radioactive lantern, and this is relevant because I goddamnwell say so, and I all I have is this blog, ALL I HAVE ON THIS FUCKING EARTH IS THIS GODDAMN COMEDY BLOG, AND THIS IS ALL I HAVE TO LOOK FORWARD TO, AND I AM SO FULL OF FASHIONABLE SELF LOATHING THAT I HATE WRITING HERE, so Sinestro might use his awesome powers to float fat guys and ferrets into Magneto. Magneto would fly some lipstick tubes and passenger trains into Sinestro. In a climactic Akira-esque battle in which blobs of flesh and metal and fur fly hither and yon, the eventual winner would be Magneto, because his hat is cooler.

Please send me your hatred.

Winnner: Magneto

Decision: Magneto

And so Magneto moves on to the Quarter-Finals. Tune in next week to see Dr Doom vs Venom. Marvel vs Marvel. Suck it.

Call us names below!