We’re heading towards summer, and to comic book fans, that always means a big old crossover. Sometimes, crossover events can be world changing issues of awesomeness, and sometimes, they can just be an excuse for crappy storylines that force readers to buy a ton of books they normally wouldn’t.

This summer, Marvel is bringing us an event called “Fear Itself”, the details of which are still pretty fuzzy. Apparently, it involves the God of Fear causing problems for the Marvel heros, playing their worst fears against them.

DC brings us “Flashpoint”, which, as far as I can tell, involves Professor Zoom rewriting events in history, causing changes in the heroes, etc. DC claims that the event will change the universe forever. Oh, and the only hero that knows things are wrong is Booster Gold.

In light of this, I was pondering crossover events from the past, and trying to determine which of these events had the bigger chance of being decent. There are a lot of factors to consider, so let’s get to it.

Writing:

“Fear Itself” is written primarily by Matt Fraction, almost guaranteeing a million small word boxes with single word sentences. I don’t dislike Fraction, but I haven’t really enjoyed his work on Uncanny X-Men. “Flashpoint” is helmed by Geoff Johns, who has written some great stuff in the past. Lately, it seems like his job at DC is to shoehorn crappy third rung heroes in to marketable quantities. “Brightest Day”, when broken down to it’s components, is essentially “Hey, Aquaman and Hawkman are kinda cool… right? Guys? Right?”. Might be a coincidence that Cyborg is the biggest hero in the Flashpoint universe, but I doubt it.

Oh, and I should note that while it seems weird that there’s no “Illustrating” heading here, it makes sense, as often there are multiple artists on board for events. Andy Kubert is penciling the main books for “Flashpoint” and “Fear Itself” will be drawn by Stuart Immonen, Wayne Von Grawbadger, and Laura Martin.

Edge: DC. “Flashpoint”. Johns knows how to structure a big story, has the Gl Corp/Sinestro Corp war under his belt, not to mention “Blackest Night”.

Most Recent Events:

Marvel’s event prior to this was “Siege”. DC had “Blackest Night”. Full disclosure here: Didn’t read Siege. Read Blackest Night. I’ve never been a big Avengers fan, and thus I didn’t pick up Siege, which doesn’t seem to have hurt me much thus far. It seemed to be received decently, with little praise or impact. (SPOILER) The Sentry died. No one cared. Worst Ret-con hero ever.

“Blackest Night” was a cavalcade of colours, shiny covers and new characters. It was a lot of build-up with an underwhelming climax. The prismatic concept was a logical one for the Green Lantern universe, and creates a big sandbox for the writers to play in. Oh, and we got Larfleeze out of the deal, and Dex-Starr, house cat of rage. On the down side, we got a lot of dead heroes back that were probably better left dead.

Edge: DC “Blackest Night” made a much bigger splash than “Siege”, and energized the Green Lantern franchise.

The Last Decade

The DC events in the last decade or so center around “Crisis”. Not that surprising, as “Crisis on Infinite Earths” was the defining moment eventwise in the DC Universe. We had Identity Crisis, which might have done itself a disservice with that title, as it wasn’t a universe wide event, but rather, a well controlled murder mystery. Then we moved on to Infinite Crisis, which started with a fairly interesting premise (heroes from another version of Earth look at our world, see how dark and violent our heroes have become, and decide to set things right. A fairly bold self-examination of DC about its titles in the 1990s. Then it gets all dumb, and people punch things into existence, and way too many plot lines start running amok. There was One Year Later, which gave DC the chance to focus on their not Batman Superman and Wonder Wman titles. After which we get Final Crisis. There simply aren’t words to describe the bizarre, impenetrable, weird amount of suck Final Crisis represents.

The next time you’re at your LCS (Local Comic Shop) and someone starts going off about how awesome Grant Morrison is, don’t say anything. Just nod your head in the direction of the Final Crisis trade, and watch as their eyes follow yours, and the realization on their face, as they shut the hell up, knowing they can no longer make a reasonable argument. (Actually, I think, like Straczynski, Morrison is one of the better “starting pitchers” in the comics world. Both of them tend to wear themselves out early, and for the love all things good, make sure you take them out before they mess things up forever. The owner of my LCS gets credit for the baseball metaphor).

On the Marvel side, we had The House of M, which shook up the X-Men world! (Of course, that happens every 3 to 4 months…) Then Civil War, an all out battle between heroes, marked mostly by strange leaps in characterization for plot purposes. There was Dark Reign, which let Norman Osborne loose on the Marvel universe, and World War Hulk, which was just plain fun. Marvel, it should be noted, did an excellent job of weaving their events together, and having the ramifications of one effect the next.

Edge: Marvel. Their Universe feels more fleshed out, and there seems to be some direction and continuity.

Best of the Best:

The era of the modern crossover began in the early eighties. Marvel’s “Secret Wars” was arguably the first event to bring in a large stable of heroes, have its effects felt in other books, and create lasting changes in the Universe. Right on its heels was DC “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, which upped the ante with character deaths and increased stakes for the characters. Since then, there have been countless events, big and small. Which ones were the best? I’m sure you’ll tell me in the comments section. For me, the best ones are the ones that stand out in your memory. They have weight, they have a story that is true to the rules it sets up, and leaves things differently than they found them. I’d probably go with Crisis on Infinite Earths as the best big crossover. It felt more real than Secret Wars, had more impact. (Note, I’ve just realized it looks like I’m simply choosing between CoIE and SW. I’m not.) Another personal favorite was Age of Apocalypse, the X-Men event that took place in an alternate world, brought familiar characters in unfamiliar versions of themselves, and even took the step of changing the titles for the duration of its run. It was a big, fun ride. I also like Identity Crisis, which, as I mentioned earlier, might not deserve to be part of this fight, but is easily the best written of anything I’ve talked about today.

Edge: DC. Crisis still takes the cake.

Worst of the Worst

When crossovers go bad, they go BAD! Both major companies have had their share of bad, but only one has elevated the bad crossover to epic proportions. Marvel has unleashed upon us a wave of bad crossover dreck. Infinity War. Secret Wars II. Atlantis Attacks. Heroes Reborn. Hell, we could write another entire article plumbing the depths of bad Marvel crossovers.

DC isn’t innocent here either. Invasion/Armageddon, Knightfall, No Man’s Land, and the aftermath of the Death of Superman. They seem to try and keep the really bad stuff confined to a character and their books. Is there a term for crossovers that play out inside a small number of books? If so, someone tell the X-Men writers, they have constant use for it.

Edge: Marvel. They seem to have recovered lately, but historically, they’re the kings.

So, final tally has DC up 3-2. Is that any indication that “Flashpoint” will be better than “Fear Itself”? Nope. My gut says it will, but only time will tell.

*** It occurs to me that lately I’ve become a bigger DC fan than a Marvel fan, which is weird and surprising to me. I grew up on Marvel, worshipped John Byrne and Chris Claremont. Didn’t read much DC at all until my 20s. I haven’t looked at my current pull list, but I suspect I’m buying roughly the same number of titles from both. For some reason, I seem to be more drawn to DC lately. Better writing? Less of the “27 titles for a popular character/group”? Not sure. I know I really like Hickman’s Fantastic Four right now, and Uncanny X-Force is a blast. I’ve enjoyed Batman and Robin, and Booster Gold (not so much lately…) and was loving Green Lantern, up until the end of Blackest Night, after which I think it has cratered in quality. I had high hopes for JMS’s Superman and Wonder Woman runs, both of which were disappointing. Anyhow, the point of this massive rambling note was to state outright that I’m not a “fanboy” for one company or the other. I’m a fanboy of good storytelling.

Here at The Correctness, we have access to all kinds of information that the common man is unable to access. Yes, ALL KINDS. We have spies, moles, quislings, carrier pigeons, and heavyset dudes with cameraphones parked out in strategic locations.

All of this so we can bring you breaking comic news as it happens. Today’s exclusive, the plotlines from Marvel comics for the year 2011. Read on, True Believer!

AVENGERS: With the recent reformation of the Avengers following Dark Reign, Marvel has introduced a number of books: Avengers, New Avengers, Secret Avengers, Avengers Academy, Pet Avengers.

NEW: This coming year, Marvel introduces Friends of Avengers, I was an Avenger, Working for the Avengers, Avengers Polling Well in the 18-25 Demo,Avengers: Miami, Avengers SVU, The Late Show with the Avengers, The Walking Avengers, Avengers II: Electric Boogaloo. (Note: Wolverine will be featured in ALL of these titles).

PLOTLINES: The Avengers will head in to action this year against such noted villains as Kang, Hydra, Kang, Red Skull, Kang, and Doctor Doom, who turns out to be Kang in disguise. Also, the team will be disbanded after they discover the new Captain America has been employing illegal immigrants. Later, they will reform into Gold and Blue strike teams (each featuring Wolverine), and a special “secret” team, led by Wolverine. After Chris Claremont complains, those teams will be brought together in an event book called RE-REASSEMBLED!, which will see the team combine into a giant fighting force of 68 members, all with the single goal of stopping Kang.

FANTASTIC FOUR: The Fantastic Four will lose a team member this year, in a storyline designed to shock the Marvel Universe to its very core.

NEW: No new titles to be added, as the “Rebirth” of the FF will be saved until after the Avengers have worn out their welcome.

PLOTLINES: After the tragic death of Sue Storm Richards, the Team is in the verge of being torn apart with guilt and accusation. At the behest of Valeria, Logan comes to the team and through lengthy discussion, unites them as one, and agrees to stay on permanently. Ben Grimm will also be cured, allowing him to revert to human form. For 3 issues. Then, it’s back to rocky for him.

X-MEN: The X-men are attempting to recover from the aftermath of Second Coming, which brought the end of Cable, and the restoration of mutants on earth through the “trigger” power of Hope.

NEW: Only 5 new titles in the X-Universe this year. Logan’s X-Universe, Deadpool: “I’m the Lobo of the Oughts”, Deadpool: “How is No One Sick of Me Yet?”, Wolverine: Dark Pants, and X-ercise.

PLOTLINES: The X-men struggle trying to gain acceptance in a world that doesn’t want them, regardless of how many times they stop the destruction of the planet. Magneto is affected by an EMP pulse, and becomes evil once again, until he knocked on the head by a falling tree, which allows him to regain his gentle side and join the X-Men once again. Also, Mr. Sinister is attacked by the Sentinals, which causes him to shift allegiance, and join the X-Men. While squaring off against the remnants of the Hellfire Club, a sudden change of heart leaves the X-Men scrambling to find enough bedrooms on Utopia.

THE REST

Titles like Spider-Man, Daredevil, Iron Man, etc will also be seeing some changes this coming year.

Spider-Man will permanently become partners with Wolverine, solving mysteries from a small detective agency. A lot of the “heat” will come from the will-they-or-won’t-they aspect.

Daredevil is moving in a new direction, with the title character in charge of the Hand. He will begin franchising out, with at least 6 different teams (all of which include Logan).

Iron Man will move in a radical new direction, as Tony Stark will be killed off, and replaced with a mysterious Canadian character, who will redesign the gauntlets to allow for a certain natural feature.

That’s all the news we have from Marvel, though we’re hoping to hear back from our inside man at DC, who teased us with the following: “Hey guys, big news from DC, can’t say too much yet, but check this: 10 new titles, all written by a certain fellow with the intials G.J.”

See you Soon!

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.

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 second Semi-Final: Doom vs Mystique. Steel vs Blue thing.

TONY

Let’s play a game.

This game is called “How long can Mystique stay alive before Doom completely and utterly destroys her?”

I suppose she could hide in the audience and he’d have to play Where’s Waldo for awhile, but something tells me he’d just sit cross legged, mutter a few incantations and the next thing you know she’d be all highlighted like an item you need to pick up in a video game. And then he would completely and utterly destroy her. And even if he didn’t do that, he’d just eliminate the crowd from the equation…and completely and utterly destroy them all.

She could show up as Squirrel Girl and fill him with terror…

but when the Squirrels didn’t actually show up…he would completely and utterly destroy her.

Assassin tricks? Poison his ridiculously over sized golden goblet? He didn’t get to be the Ruler of Latveria by being an idiot, he’s not just going to drink things willy nilly plus he probably has tasters. And, being all unpoisoned…he would completely and utterly destroy her.

Having said that…I think Mystique will still be alive at the end of this.

Doom knows the value of somebody with her talents. He knows who he is up against next round, and he knows the history. I think he would offer her a chance to surrender, provided she did him a few small favours, ie: Tell everything she knows about Magneto. Be his person on the inside. He would probably even offer her some side work…

I think Raven has Daddy issues and might even be swayed by a powerful older man with European charm…it has happened before…but would she betray Magneto?

Perhaps not…but I believe she would at least play it cool and agree to the terms until she could think of something better.

So here’s how I see it going down…Doom and Mystique come to terms before the fight, perhaps when he catches her trying to assassinate him beforehand. The day of the fight, they put on a show, (But not too much of one, everyone knows she is overmatched here) and he appears to completely disintegrate her. What he has really done is transported her to and undisclosed location.

And now…she has some thinking to do.

But both officially, and in a larger sense, the winner here is

DOOM

DAVE:

So, I know what you’re thinking: How could this mismatch possibly happen? And I have an answer: It just did. Real life brackets have mismatches too, so enough with the whining and moaning about how it’s fixed, or that we planned for a specific outcome. We didn’t. That would be boring. Blame the comic book writers for having wild varying levels between their villains, I guess. The whole exercise is to have fun and make assumption as to what would happen in these imaginary battles.

On to the match.

Mystique is a cunning strategist who generally uses surprise and her shape-shifting abilities to make events go the way she needs them to. She’s held her own for decades, and always manages to come out on top, or at least get away in the nick of time. She’s been the leader of a number of teams, and those teams have beaten the X-Men, which is not an easy task, as there’s like 87 of them at any given moment, 6 of whom are Wolverine. She was also played by Rebecca Romijn, which is awesome. She has a scaly blue rack, which is less awesome, unless you’re into that, or maybe you have an Avatar fetish or something.

Doctor Doom is a friggin genius, almost rivaling Reed Richards. He built a time machine. He’s the leader of a nation, has a army of lifelike robots that he built himself, and oh, he built a TIME MACHINE. He could use this time machine to ensure a win, but he wouldn’t need to, nor stoop to that. Because he could beat Mystique without anywhere near that much effort. This is a man who fought his way through time and space, can change bodies with people through eye contact, and has a healing factor. Wait, no, he doesn’t have a healing factor. He’s, in fact, only one of 4 people in the Marvel universe that doesn’t have a healing factor.

Doom is used to taking on the entire Fantastic Four, all of whom have epic powers, except Reed Richards, who isn’t that cool, but he’s really smart, so there’s that. But if he can take on a guy who can burn as hot as the sun, a giant rock monster who can lift trucks for fun, and a successful modern woman who can turn invisible and make air bubbles around your head, and shields and such, as well as stretchy guy, AT THE SAME TIME, what makes anyone think he’d have the slightest amount of trouble with face-changy lady.

There’s only one person Mystique could become that would even momentarily distract him: His mother. Doing this would only enrage Doom further, ensuring that rather than just killing her, he’d remove any molecular trace of her from existence. Over in one.

Winner: Doom

Rob:

Unlike our villains today, I was created long after the Silver Age of comics sometime in the late seventies. This is known to comic book aficionados as “The Brown Age” of comics, due partially to the tint the paper of the books took on after sitting in a tree fort for years, but primarily due to the quality of the writing.

Because of my extensive experience reading weathered, dog-eared and tragic copies of Conan and, to a much lesser extent, Kull, I may have a key insight into which of these two villains, Mystique or Dr. Doom, shall win this fight today. The fight will be determined by one of the fundamental laws of science fiction narrative. Allow me to continue this line of thinking, no I insist, please, after you:

Along with all the warrior nonsense like Conan, and books like the EC comics (God, how I miss EC), I sometimes wish I had been reading Heavy Metal during the halcyon days of my youth, not as much for the boobies as for the awesome pulp-fantasy aesthetic. This aesthetic, both narrative and visual, still utterly defines my sense of what “awesome” is.- Oh, and by “halcyon days” I mean medically tranquilized, but that is a story for another time, and those records are from when I was a minor.

Regardless of my drooling, reading fantasy comic books was secondary to my efforts to read every science fiction and fantasy novel ever published. I can assure you, I read some pulp shit that would make your eyes bleed, it was so goddamn pulpy. The pulp was so pulpy it was actually abrasive and could dissolve your flesh.  I swear to you, I can still smell a terrible novel (remember that smell?). It didn’t matter to me how good the story was, it only mattered to me that somehow, in my young brain, I began to associate certain concepts directly with the concepts of “funny” and “awesome”. Pulpy concepts about lasers, magic, and the occult…

A Brief Departure:

Requiem for Fur-Bikini-Clad Warrior Lady: A Haiku

Dinosaur riding,

you have lasers and a sword.

Will you marry me?

The books, and comics,  influenced by Robert E Howard and the other pulp masters were all subject to the same basic rule- a rule invented by a man who I was as yet to discover in my childhood. All of this terrifying junk I was reading (and by “terrifying” I am referring again to the aesthetic, both visually and textually) was so hilar-awesome it eventually led me to the darkest, scariest, pulpiest corner of literature: HP Lovecraft.

Lovecraft is an appalling author. Just the goddamn worst. Reading Lovecraft is like wading through a murky bog, discovering the tomb of Edgar Allan Poe, getting inside, and dry humping his fetid corpse.  I love/hate Lovecraft so much that I need counseling just to comprehend the conceptual contradictions inherent to my feelings about his writing. He is the mighty nexus of funny and awesome, lacking only the presence of scantily-clad female characters in his greatest works. What is essential here is that Lovecraft taught me something of vital importance to our fight today:

People who tangle with the occult either become frighteningly powerful, or go completely mad.

Lovecraft doesn’t just mean “booga booga” crazy, he means existential crisis, feces throwing, gouge-out-you-own-eyes crazy. The things that have been seen by the hapless protagonists of Lovecraft’s longwinded shitscapades are so mind-bogglingly nightmarish, so demoralizing, so utterly incomprehensible by the feeble human brain, that they cannot be unseen for all eternity.  Once you have laid eyes on the decadent ruins of the cities of the Great Old Ones, ones you have smelled the salt air and decay, once you have summoned the Cthulhu from their slumbers in R’Lyeh, you are hooped nine ways from Friday, mind-wise.  This is the Law of Lovecraft: Some sights and sounds can shatter your reality in an instant, and obliterate your precious sanity forever.  The Law of Lovecraft is a vast, incomprehensible, interdimensional umbrella that covers all science fiction, fantasy, and occult narrative, like some kind of vast, incomprehensible, interdimensional umbrella. Batman created the “Batman of Zur-Enh-Arrh” alternate personality specifically to deal with sanity damaging experiences like those governed by Lovecraft’s Law.

Mystique simply does not have a chance, because Doom has meddled with things beyond our world and beyond her conception. The revelation through a cracked mirror of just one glimpse of the occult universe that Doom has seen would make the shapeshifing Mystique seek refuge the form of something innocent and harmless forever.  Doom has seen these horrors, he does not fear them; He is a sorcerer and alchemist of the great weird beyond. Stan Lee said so.

Doom would step into the arena, and show Mystique a glimpse of an existence beyond her meta-human comprehension. Mystique, guised in the only form she could think of that would guard her ravaged psyche from complete annihilation, would become Hello Kitty.  The last sight she would see, as she sobbed giant, anime tears into an ever growing lake of her own destruction, is the masked face of Doom and his gloved hand pointing at her as the sound of his hideous laughter echoes into eternity.

Winner: Doom

Loser: Hello Kitty

Biggest Loser: Me for reading all that Piers Anthony

Decision: Doom

So Doom moves on to the final to face Magneto in a smackdown for mastery of the Supervillain Title!
Tune in Next Week! Tell us we’re wrong and unfunny below!

(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!

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: Mystique vs Catwoman. The ladies duke it out to see who survives. For our purposes, Catwoman is her normal self from DC continuity, and Mystique is herself from standard Marvel continuity.

Rob:

Last smackdown, there was some concern about my homophobic disregard for the efficacy of particular mode of transportation. I would like to first apologize. I referred to the Green Goblin’s hovering jet scooter as a “Gay Rocket Skateboard.” This was unfair, and I am sorry. What I did was substitute the concept of homosexuality, rife with easy jokes, for the true intent of my dialectic, which was to suggest that anyone who rides a “Gay Rocket Skateboard” in not, in fact, necessarily, or even at all, gay (though it is possible statistically). Rather, I intended to convey that the act of flying around on such a device is less derisively “gay” and more utterly and impossibly emasculating in every conceivable way, and that gay and straight men alike feel a penis shrivelling, ball shattering, dick limpening, sack tightening horror at the idea of such a ridiculous contraption having any capacity for status-enhancing terror. On the top ten list of “Things Which Do Not Strike Fear into the Hearts of Men, and Women, and Kittens”, number one with a bullet is “Floaty rollerskates”, followed by “cloudmobiles”, and “cuddleplanes”.

Not only that, but men all over the world of any type of persuasion, queer, strait, transgendered, understand on an implicit and genetically pre-programmed level that a rocket sled of any kind is not going to get you laid, by man, woman, hermaphrodite, or compliant donkey. Your fantasy of having a hover board from Back To The Future dies when you realized driving in a multi seat motor vehicle, one often including a radio, is a far more effective method of attracting the ass of your particular orientation. Finding rocket skateboards a stupid thing for super villains to own and operate is not a choice. We are all born with an opinion on aerial sleds of all kinds, and on this matter we stand united: Nobody is scared of the dude on the NASA surfboard- in fact, this is why we think the Silver Surfer is so, not gay, or retarded, but rather cockpunchular, or if you prefer, douchetacular.

As for the matter of the fight between Mystique and Catwoman, I will not tarry long in a ridiculous straight-male fantasy that they will discover themselves suddenly very bisexual, extremely exhibitionist, and too aroused to fight. I will not describe, in any juvenile level of detail, the reflection of soft blue skin on milky white, in the low, low light of a steamy stadium. I will not elaborate on the possibility of Mystique taking the form of any beautiful woman, least of all Erin Cardillo, who, I will not go on to explain, plays the schoolteacher on the appalling “Suite Life of Zack and Cody: On Deck” and who is much, MUCH, too funny and beautiful for that show, as well as much too compelling of a performer to be in swiffer ads. I will not imagine Mystique and Catwoman drinking wine, agreeing to dress up, in no particular order, as a maid and a Catholic sorority girl, and I will not suggest the sound of two of the most extraordinary orgasms ever witnessed by humankind would render the sense of hearing forever purposeless, and make the music of the Beatles seem like the music of Yoko Ono’s diarrhea.

Mystique takes this one, despite the compelling and conflicted character of Catwoman, and despite the fact that Catwoman has sometimes outsmarted Batman. You nerds can talk all about how powerful Mystique is, or how wily Catwoman is. I’m pretty sure this catfight is over before it is done. Unless the make out thing happens.

Winner: Mystique
Runner Up: Michelle Pfeiffer’s awesome Catwoman
Honourable Mention: Erin Cardillo

Dave:

Some weeks we get many comments pointing out how wrong we are, and providing alternate arguments on why person X should beat person Y. We love this. This week, i’m thinking we’re going to see a near unanimous comment section. Why? Because this fight is so incredibly one sided, I’m questioning why we ever thought it would be a good idea. Well, there is the fanboy lesbian thing. Yes, I remember why now.

The fact is, I can’t think of a single clever way that a former prostitute turned jewel-thief with some acrobatic skills and no powers beats a 100 year old shapeshifter who has a limited healing factor (What, a Marvel character with a healing factor?????), is pretty much immune to poisons, and extremely agile.

Mystique’s main weapon is usually deception, and the ability to surprise and throw opponents off-guard due to looking like someone else. She might be able to end the fight in the first few seconds by pretending to be a guard taking Catwoman to the arena, then drop her like a rock. But assuming they both get to the ring without event, this one takes the guise of a standard slug-fest, albeit one with bikinis and oil. Wait, what? Well, I like it better that way, sue me.

It goes like this: Catwoman does some fancy flips, jumps on Mystique’s back. Mystique uses any one of 100 combat techniques she’s picked over the last 6 decades, and slams Catwoman to the ground. Catwoman jumps up, attacks, is beaten back. Rinse, Repeat. At some point, Mystique gets tired of the game, and advances, breaking Catwoman’s leg. As Catwoman staggers around, Mystique systematically breaks the remaining limbs, and eventually, snaps Catwoman’s neck.

Game, Set, Match.

Winner: Mystique

Tony

It’s been 3 hours and the crowd is getting restless.

Catwoman showed up on time, and has been pacing restlessly back and forth waiting for her opponent to show.

The audience knows Mystique could be anywhere. She could be sitting right beside them. For all they know, they could be sitting on her.

They start chanting “Start the fight, start the fight”. Catwoman shrugs, and does a few whip tricks to try and keep the crowd interested.

There is a fairly large number of sweaty men with their hands buried in their trench coats right up front who look particularly eager for this to start.

1 hour later, still no sign of Mystique. The announcement comes over the P.A.

“Ladies and gentlemen, your winner, by forfeit….”

“WAAAAITT!” screams Catwoman.. She motions to someone off to the side…he brings her a microphone.

As she takes the mic, her skin tight cat suit turns blue, she shakes her thick red hair free and laughs diabolically.

“Curiosity didn’t kill shit.” She says contemptuously…” I killed the cat. Last night. (She changes into Batman) For some weird reason she didn’t expect me to have a gun on me. (She changes back to Mystique) I’d ask for my money back if I were you.”

She gives the booing crowd the finger as she strolls out of the arena.

Okay, so that’s how I think it would go, but some of you might feel a little like the poor saps in the arena audience. You came to see a show and you didn’t get one. Well, let me just add a post script and say that if Mystique had decided to “Play fair” she’d still be the winner. In combat, I’d say they were pretty evenly matched. Catwoman can go toe to toe with Batman, but she has the advantage of her “Feminine wiles”, the Bat is basically wrapped around her paw and she knows it. No such luck with Mystique, who I would imagine would employ a strike and hide strategy, luring Catwoman into the audience and then…

shape change…wait…punch,

shape… change…. wait …kick.

If Catwoman decides “Fuck this” and heads back to the open arena, I wouldn’t put it past Mystique to pick her off from there. She does use guns, and certainly has no compunction about killing people.

Winner: Mystique.

I’ll be in my bunk.

Decision: Mystique

And so Mystique moves on to the Quarter-Finals. Tune in next week to see Magneto vs Sinestro. Magnets, or things made out of yellow? Sounds like science class!

Call us names below!

(Note: this is a repost of the original)

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 Joker vs The Green Goblin. The Clown Prince of Crime takes on Gobby. (Note: The Green Goblin for our purposes is Norman Osbourne, and not the current Iron Patriot bullshit Norman Osbourne that Marvel is spinning, but good old Norman Osbourne.

Rob:

First off let me say this: It is lovely and refreshing to have a supervillain smackdown. The supervillains have none of the tedious moral codes which complicated our superhero smackdown. Stay tuned for horrible people doing horrible things to each other in the name of science.

Next, oh fans, friends, and people who are here to rain down derision upon me like a shower of molten lead with lasers attached to every drop, I have three things to say to you: Gay. Rocket. Skateboard.

Today’s battle is between The Joker, the twisted, perfect psychopathic foil to Batman’s weird sociopathic singlemindedness, and The Green Goblin, who has, well, a gay rocket skateboard.

I am a huge Spider Man fan, you guys know this, but we are pitting the most sinister, immoral mind in comicdom versus a guy who rides around on a homosexual Seadoo. He might as well be called the Pink Gobbler and shoot hot coconut cream out of a fleshy firehose. Oh, I know I open myself up to our usual haters explaining that it is, in fact, I, RobbieRobTown, who is the homosexual Seadoo captain, and I admit that I am the only unmarried 1/3 of The Correctness due to my obvious inability and disinterest in pleasing a woman.

Perhaps, as well, this is unfair to the Green Goblin because it is homophobic AND it is undermining the danger of scorching shrapnel from a pumpkin grenade. Norman Osborne has faced madness, just as the mysterious Joker has. As well, I was pleased by the inclusion of the Harry Osborne sub-plot in the Spidey films.

I just don’t think Norman Osborne has it in him to do the things necessary to really win this fight. You know who does though? The Joker.

If The Joker wanted to demoralize you, he would begin by secretly and repeatedly raping your cat. When you got home from your long days at work, as weeks passed by, your cat would get progressively more terrified of humans, and yet more needy, scratching you in your nethers as you napped on the couch. Then the Joker would rape your boss at work. Then, before you discovered all this raping was going on, The Joker would rape you and leave you alive because it would upset and destabilize you more than just killing you or cutting off your wang- though, he might also cut off your wang, and fashion a wang grenade out of it, which he would use to frighten a sexually puritanical Norman Osborne.

The Green Goblin could have all the nifty technical doodads he wanted to have, because the Joker would have spent his prep time draining the younger Osborne’s blood all over the goblin-board, so that when Norman stepped on it, he would be forced to remember the appalling murder of his son committed right on the very surface of his queer hover pogo.

Winner: Joker.
Loser: Gay Rights Discourse.

Dave:

Ahhh Smackdown, how we’ve missed you. Your ability to slam our server around like a small bug, your protracted discussion of all things comic, your throngs of comments telling me how wrong/stupid/gay I am. This one will be much trickier, simply because we have less contact with our villains, less chance to truly get to know them. On the plus side, no Superman, and every one of the villains has personality to spare.

Green Goblin has some pretty neat weapons in his arsenal, and his mobility, his distance attacks, and his speed are a dangerous combination. Not to mention he has super speed, agility, stamina, and a healing factor (cuz let’s face, who the fuck in the Marvel universe doesn’t have a healing factor these days?).

The Joker, on the other hand, has no super powers. He has his intellect, and his sheer madness. Doesn’t seem like much, but it’s enough to make him Batman’s archenemy, and anyone who underestimates him usually ends up dead.

Showtime: Gobby comes out flying, literally. He strafes the playing field with pumpkin bombs, while Joker runs around wildly, staying just out of reach, cackling wildly. The crowd roars with approval, as Joker is knocked over by one of Goblin’s strafing run.

Goblin turns around, ready to fly in for the kill, when he hears the horrific screams of the entire crowd, who begin convulsing and die from lethal does of Joker Gas, coming from the blimps overhead. When his attenion returns to Joker, Goblin sees him holding a sign with giant letters reading “DON’T LOOK DOWN”, which Goblin, of course does. He notices, for the first time, a small “sticky bomb” which explodes in a flash of light, blinding Goblin, which sends him smashing into the ground where Joker previously stood.

When he staggers out of the wreckage, he’s knocked down, and finds himself on the ground, with Joker sitting on his chest. Joker injects something into Goblin’s neck. Goblin looks up, no longer able to move, and says “You killed them all.?” Joker smiles, busily stuffing a mini-pumpkin bomb into Gobby’s mouth, followed by duct tape. Joker leans in and whispers “boom”. He walks away, while Goblin’s face explodes, looking much like a Jack o’Lantern.

Winner: Joker

TONY

GREEN GOBLIN: Get ready to die, Clown

JOKER: Say, Gobby…I don’t suppose you want to see a magic trick, do you? Make this pencil disappear? No? EVERYONE has seen that movie. Remind me to kill Heath Ledger…OH WAIT…I ALREADY DID HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

There can be no question; The Green Goblin has EVERY advantage going into this. He’s 10 times stronger than Batman. He has the rocket sled and a variety of other lethal gadgets. He’s got the speed, and the will to kill.

But who has more experience than dealing with a much stronger, faster foe with all kinds of cool gadgets than the Joker? There is no way the Joker is dumb enough to go toe to toe with this guy. He’ll have to outsmart him. Fortunately that’s kind of his thing.

As for taking the “Gay surfboard” out of the equation, the Joker could fall back on the old giant gun in the pants routine. Or alternatively, he could pull a big purple remote control out of his pocket, bring the rocket sled to a sudden stop and watch Gobby go flying off of the front end. Either way, I think we can agree that taking the sled out is something the Joker can and would do.

The pumpkin bombs are a trickier proposition Batman doesn’t use guns or grenades. The Joker’s patented “Stand there, laugh and dare someone to hit me “maneuver is not going to work out so well when gourd artillery is involved. Joker has to think fast, gas isn’t going to work, I’m pretty sure Gobby’s mask acts as a gas mask..

This is where Robbies assertion of mind games come in. I wouldn’t put it past the Joker to A) Kidnap Harry, use as a human shield,

b) to replace all Gobbies pumpkin bombs with confetti bombs.

c) Rig them to go off in Osbourne’s face when he tries to throw them

d) Kidnap Mary Jane Watson, to ensure that Spider-man shows up to help him deal with the problem

e) All of the above because, well…why not?

The point is that at the end of this thing it will be the Joker who gets the last multi coloured “Ha ha ha ha ha ha” on the page. And he’d rub it in too.

GOBLIN: (Broken…crawling) …the crowd…they’re LAUGHING …at me

JOKER: Yep, they sure are. But to be fair, they can’t really help it

(The crowd is laughing themselves to death on the gas that Harley Quinn is pumping into the arena)

GOBLIN: I…will…kill…you.

JOKER: Good for you. Never give up. Reminds me of someone else I know who’s crazy and wears a stupid mask. Speaking of which I’m late for an appointment. Gotta run. Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you. I’m a big fan. Gwen Stacy? BRAVO!!! Still, I can’t have you crawling after me…so NIGHTY NIGHT!

(Joker zaps him with an electric current from his cane)

JOKER: Oh Harley?

HARLEY (Over the PA) Yes Mr. J?

JOKER: Find out who “The Correctness” is I’m going to teach them a lesson about copyright infringement.

HARLEY: Sure thing puddin’!

JOKER: That’s my girl.

Winner: The Joker

Decision: The Joker

And so the Joker moves on to the Quarter-Finals. Tune in next week to see Catwoman vs Mystique. The world holds its collective breath, wondering, waiting to see how RobbieRobTown will write this conflict.

Call us names below!

——————————————————————
(comments from the original post)

1/4 20 said on 12-03-2010
1/4 20

BRA-FUCKIN-VO. let the derisive comments fly. you guys rock.

spcMike said on 12-03-2010
spcMike

Actually, that was well thought out, entertaining, and well above par from your usual form.

admin_rock said on 12-03-2010
admin_rock

Is it weird to anyone else that I can see ads for Push up Bras and Child Molestation for this post?
Reply
dugitman said on 12-03-2010
dugitman

Hahaha. Awesome. So happy to see you guys back.
Reply
Tbinns said on 12-03-2010
Tbinns

I must confess I was unaware that the Goblin had a healing factor. That might be the key to him winning this thing. No, who am I kidding? It’s the Joker for God’s sake.

spcMike said on 12-03-2010
spcMike

Goblin might have a healing factor, but I’ve lost track of how many times the Joker has supposedly died only to show up later. Also, Joker was recently shot in the head and survived. Besides, I don’t think Goblin could survive getting sprayed by the Joker’s acid flower.

n8 said on 16-03-2010
n8

At this point the -lack- of a healing factor would be more notable. Healing factors are a crutch for weak writing, so they pretty much come standard now. The “he couldn’t have survived that” trope has been institutionalized… but it’s sad that “miraculous” recoveries have become to-be-expected.

SeriouslyAGeekGirl said on 12-03-2010
SeriouslyAGeekGirl

I’m disturbed by the lack of hostility in the comment section. I can’t do anything about that though so instead I’ll nitpick! If, as previously stated in the rules of combat, our villainy heroes are fighting in a stadium with a roof, how did the blimp get there? Is it an abnormally tiny blimp? Operated by tiny blimp flying midgets? With cute little goggles?

Matt said on 12-03-2010
Matt

It’s a small fleet of radio controlled novelty blimps, each one with a small gas tank. While the dispersal area of each blimp is small, they get pretty close to the crowd before deploying their payload. Since the gas is heavier than air a single deployment at the top of the stands and a few more to block the main exits will suffice for killing off the entire crowd.

fmywu said on 12-03-2010
fmywu

It’s the Joker. He probably programmed the stadium roof to open, or opened it before the fight. Also, since when did Joker EVER play by the rules?

LordsBreed said on 12-03-2010
LordsBreed

This is total crap.

Are we assuming that, in practically every instance listed above, that Green Goblin is going to let Joker come up and fiddle with his bombs and glider before the match starts?

Every single scenario hinges on the deus ex machina, that Joker did “something” off screen that causes the Goblin to lose.

This was very poorly done, and disappointing. You basically made a decision and then rail roaded the decision ignoring everything else besides the “facts”.

Personally, I didn’t care who won if it was done well. It wasn’t down well. 0/10.

LordsBreed said on 12-03-2010
LordsBreed

Something I forgot. With the two days of prep, Joker did all these things on various depictions of the match, yet the Goblin did ‘nothing’? He set nothing up, and left his tools out in the open with a “Sure, you can look at it Joker” sign? Yup. Total rail road.

ZeroCorpse said on 12-03-2010
ZeroCorpse

Agreed.

As I say below, the Joker is not breaking into Oscorp and touching Norman’s gear. Norman’s got security that puts the Batcave to shame (he’s a paranoid guy) and resources that match (if not exceed) Bruce Wayne’s.

He’s also got killer robots, super-powered lackeys, and plain old hitmen on his payroll. The Joker would be spending two days trying not to get killed.

Bankarin said on 12-03-2010
Bankarin

Bravo and right on! Perfect call. The Goblin might have all sorts of tech, but so does the Bat and how many times has the Joker gotten over on him? And the Goblin doesn’t have half the smarts the Bat does so even with a year of advance notice over the Joker, Joker still could nullify and counter act anything he did. Really can’t see anyone disputing this one.

ZeroCorpse said on 12-03-2010
ZeroCorpse

Norman Osborn is SMARTER than Bruce Wayne. He’s also just as rich (if not richer) and doesn’t lack Batman’s crippling moral compunctions; He murders people on a whim.

And like I point out in my long post below, Norman’s tech is far and away better than Batman’s. He wears armor. Not just Kevlar, like Batman, but armor somewhat like Iron Man’s Starktech.

And again, Batman doesn’t have super powers. Norman can lift 9 tons, is resistant to damage, moves faster, has better reflexes, and has a healing factor that has allowed him to survive being impaled and blown up.

Boxer said on 12-03-2010
Boxer

Fantastic. No other words suffice.

Also, the Joker dialog is pure gold. I can almost hear the dulcet tones of Mark Hamil laughing wildly in my head.

CraxyD said on 12-03-2010
CraxyD

Him and don’t forget Arleen Sorkin

steve said on 12-03-2010
steve

I agree, but, uh, why so homophobic? It was really fucking distasteful at some points.

*sighs*

netweavr said on 12-03-2010
netweavr

Really going for Joker versus Dr. Doom here are you?

RobbieRobTown said on 12-03-2010
RobbieRobTown

Ah yes, we haven’t been introduced. Because I am the subject of so many homophobic jokes, and because in real life I am on the selection comittee for a gay and lesbian film festival, it should seem ironic, but I’ll tone it down.

steve said on 13-03-2010
steve

Okay, that’s cool.

JokerFan said on 12-03-2010
JokerFan

It stands as a pure testament to the excellent voice work of the Batman: TAS cast that I read the last segment with perfect Joker and Harley voices in my head. That or I’m insane, but still. Damn.

ItsJustJake said on 12-03-2010
ItsJustJake

I think it would start with “A) Kidnap Harry”. Disguise him as the Joker and force them to fight, then when Norman kills Harry (who spends most of the fight running), the Real Joker reveals the real truth about what Norman just did and who he really killed – and then finishes the Goblin off with a giant Hammer.

Then he steals the gay rocket sled and programs it to write naughty limiericks about Robin in the sky.

Yearsofcomicsmadeitfalloff said on 12-03-2010
Yearsofcomicsmadeitfalloff

So no no no no and wait wait for it NO!!!

1) GG has the super solder serum in him same as Steve Rogers AKA Captn America ie

Paralysis injection=not gonna work Captn america wasn’t stoped by gas from the red skull during his bout at the panthers lair

NO ONE know osbourne is the GG because hes skitzofrenic-sp he dosnt even know hes GG, so no one will be breaking into his top secret lab 1 mile underground at oscorp. so no rigging of weaponry golblin wins and as for wit?

GG is a biochemical engineer that unlocked the super soilder serum Joker is a lamo DC comic pile that is so spokey because hes unpredicatable. ohhhh unpredictable vs 70mph+! razor sharpe board so in the knocking joker to the ground scenario replace knocking with cutting in half.

And finally if you actually manage to kill GG then you have to face Osbourne Junior , and the Hobgoblin after you kill Harry its just no use Joker is dead all are happy and DC SUCKS

ItsJustJake said on 12-03-2010
ItsJustJake

Have you actually READ any comics? The whole world knows he was the Green Goblin – he’s just managed to seed enough doubt that he’s escaped punishment for most of his life.. that, and the fact that everyone ‘thought’ he was dead.

Green Goblin doesn’t have “the Super Soldier Serum”, and neither he nor Cap are “Immune to injections”. What are you, Seven years old, or something? You don’t know squat about either character. The Goblin might have been working on a VARIANT of the Super Soldier Serum, but they really aren’t the same thing.

And none of this is about what might happen ‘after’, or who ELSE the people can bring on (Hammer Troops, Thunderbolts/Initiative members, etc). It’s One Lunatic vs Another Lunatic. You just have to decide who you think the winner of THIS ONE FIGHT would be.

With 2 days to prepare? It’s going to be the Joker. The Goblin is an ego-maniac, and won’t take his opponent seriously – which will just piss off the Joker.

Bye Goblin. Next?

1/4 20 said on 12-03-2010
1/4 20

damn you sir. i was just about to do that. besides, time and time again the Joker outplays Bats (who is exponentially better than osborn), the goblin would be no challenge at all.

Matthew Davis said on 12-03-2010
Matthew Davis

The Green Goblin in Ultimates was working on the super soldier serum. Mainstream Marvel Green Goblin was not. So that part of your argument is invalid.

Secondly, as others have pointed out, your supposition about revenge, while possibly valid, is not germane to this discussion as it stands.

Third, it has been posited that the Joker, as a result of his madness, is aware of the fictional nature of his reality and that his power is essentially metafictional in nature. This, as evidenced by the discussion regarding Deadpool in the hero brackets (and seriously? Deadpool a hero?) is quite a power and one that Osborn, who is more conventionally insane, cannot match.

Fourth, you argue from bias, sir. The match as described fits both characters. Osborn in a straight up fight fights. Joker engages in lateral thinking. That is why he is the Batman’s archnemesis. They both fight the same way — with their minds.

netweavr said on 12-03-2010
netweavr

How the hell did that happen.

Damnit Rob.

Vet. said on 12-03-2010
Vet.

If it’s classical Green Goblin vs Joker, its a toss up. Both are definately crazy but through their craziness their genius shines through.

However if you are talking current Green Goblin, well, turns out he’s lost his goblin setup and traded it in for an Iron Man suit. And he has his Dark Avengers. And HAMMER formerly known as SHIELD. Did I mention Sentry? Yeah, he’s got the Sentry. And with the current story arcs the Sentry is quite possible the strongest being in the Marvel Universe.

netweavr said on 12-03-2010
netweavr

Sentry can’t even beat the Hulk.

Matthew Davis said on 12-03-2010
Matthew Davis

The description of the match made it clear that it is the classic Green Goblin, not Iron Patriot, that we are discussing here.

Secondly, by that logic, Doom will win…beg pardon, Doom will Triumph(!) because he has the resources of an entire country available to him. Again, you are ignoring the limits of the match as described.

Vet. said on 12-03-2010
Vet.

Oh and Joker gas working? Norman created a cure for AIDS. He is a pure genius when it comes to chemicals and effects. I’m sure he’s pumped himself full of vaccines to be immune to laffy gas.

Matthew Davis said on 12-03-2010
Matthew Davis

The Joker is considered a genius when it comes to chemicals as well. That is canon. You may have a case that the serum which originally caused his madness would modify the effects of Joker’s serum, but nullify it entirely? That seems dubious.

tmntman said on 12-03-2010
tmntman

I think that you guys are making two serious miscalculations.
First, two days is not much time to prepare elaborate strategies, especially if each villain has the same two days and essentially is put on guard against the other. Maybe if you gave the Joker two days before you told the Goblin about the fight. But if both are told two days in advance, there is going to be a limit to what schemes the Joker could pull off.
Second, I don’t think you are giving the Goblin enough credit for being homicidal and or crazy. This is the guy that set up the mass killing of a stadium full of people recently and has killed in the past with no trouble. He isn’t in the Joker’s league of crazy, not even close. But he isn’t going to be distracted by a crowd in danger or stopped by a hostage.

I think it would be a double KO. With 2 days to prepare, the Joker probably doesn’t have enough time to prepare an effective strategy to actually win against the Goblin, especially if you assume that the Goblin has equal warning to protect against whatever the Joker might try. But the Joker may be crazy enough to decide that since Osborn is driven to win, then just making sure that the Goblin doesn’t win is enough of a win for him. So when the battle starts, the Joker sets off a bomb large enough to take them both out. Of course, this being the comic book world, they both survive but are eliminated since they are unable to continue fighting.

Matthew Davis said on 12-03-2010
Matthew Davis

You have a good point, unless said hostage is Harry. I think in that case Norman might give pause.

tmntman said on 12-03-2010
tmntman

I couldn’t say as my knowledge of comic book history isn’t that extensive. But I’ve seen a number of other people point out that Osborn has tried to kill Harry on more than one occasion himself. So if it meant winning, I don’t think Norman would have any problem letting Harry die.

ZeroCorpse said on 13-03-2010
ZeroCorpse

If the Joker paraded Harry in front of Norman Osborn, threatening to kill him, then Norman would kill both of them. Harry is NOT an effective human shield or psychological defense against Norman.

Too many people seem to base the outcome of this fight on the 1990s animated shows, or the movies, instead of the comics. In the comics, Norman pretty much hates his son and considers him a complete failure. The only reason Harry survived his last encounter with his dad is because Spider-Man saved him.

thereisnospoon said on 14-03-2010
thereisnospoon

…GG wanted to kill Harry, so he tried to kill him. ( failing, btw) If Harry was Joker’s hostage, I’m pretty sure the Egomaniac in GG would have some kind of mind-clouding control issues about someone else meddling with his shit.
Bottom line, the Joker is too unpredictable to … predict a proper counter strategy, and I just can’t see Norman not being manipulated by Mr. J. Mr. Osborn can’t even control his own thoughts, for shit’s sake.
…And yeah, I just think the Joker is waaaay cooler than the Green knob-gobbler, so in the comic book universe that alone spells victory. (in my humble opinion)

SAucyJack said on 12-03-2010
SAucyJack

You guys got the right decision, not the right path to it though. In an arena GG has overwhelming advantage…the only thing joker has is he has nothing to lose as compared to GG who has a family and a company and a fortune. No matter how crazy he may seem, he still knows on some level he has something there to lose.

Joker has nothing to lose…nothing.

Never fight with someone who has nothing to lose.

And the Joker says ‘Fuck your fucking rules’…given 2 days to prep, Joker would just kill GG 2 days prior to the event, strap GG’s corpse to his flying skateboard, remote control the whole gruesome cargo into the arena on fight day and make it appear he killed him in the arena.

These are villians, rules schmules and when it comes to rule breaking, Joker is par excellence

RobbieRobTown said on 14-03-2010
RobbieRobTown

Interesting.

thereisnospoon said on 14-03-2010
thereisnospoon

…sounds like a familiar strategy I may have heard somewhere before…

sayWhat said on 12-03-2010
sayWhat

I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come… GG is sadistic and mental and would kill the crowd to kill the joker. I just don’t get how a guy w/ no abilities is going to pull one over on GG. Sure the joker is crazy smart and sure he has nothing to lose. But I can only see Joker beating GG if GG had no idea who Joker was and no idea that there was even a match.

I think it all boils down to the sad fact that you’re all homophobes and hate his jet platform. Lame.

RobbieRobTown said on 14-03-2010
RobbieRobTown

Please see comment above from Steve, but I will admit to hating the jet platform. In fact, I will switch to calling it retarded.

Cate said on 12-03-2010
Cate

OK, the Heath Ledger comment honestly made my night XD I love how the Correctness will always let my inner-geek come out
Reply

SeriouslyAGeekGirl said on 12-03-2010
SeriouslyAGeekGirl

Wow…I think this smackdown will be more rife with controversy than the superhero one…and I wouldn’t have thought that

RobbieRobTown said on 14-03-2010
RobbieRobTown

You and me both, Sister, you and me both.

SeriouslyAGeekGirl said on 14-03-2010
SeriouslyAGeekGirl

Is it wrong that I’m excited about said controversy though?

Jag007 said on 12-03-2010
Jag007

This article was spot on! The reason the Joker wins is the chaos incarnate he is. GG can be as ruthless as he wants, kill the crowd, kill Harley, kill anyone he likes. But at the end of the day, the Joker just doesn’t care. GG is still stuck in a logical (if dark and twisted) world. The Joker is not bound by this. GG can’t prepare for the Joker if you give him 2 days or 2 years. And the Joker has contacts in any and everywhere. In two days, it’s feasible for him to find out who GG is, his loved ones and bring them into the mix. The Joker would stay wired on caffeine, cocaine, whatever for the whole 48 hours and just not stop.

ZeroCorpse said on 12-03-2010
ZeroCorpse

Clearly, the guys don’t know jack about the Green Goblin, and they think the Joker has Bugs Bunny’s powers.

1. Green Goblin has super strength (can lift 9 tons), super-reflexes (can keep up with Spider-Man), superior speed & endurance, heightened (genius) intellect (on par with Stark) and has a healing factor which has allowed him to survive being impaled (he can regenerate organs and tissues in hours).

2. Green Goblin is mega-rich, owns Oscorp which designs high-tech weapons and bio-weapons, and has an arsenal that makes Joker’s look pretty lame by comparison. This also means that the Joker isn’t getting anywhere near the Goblin’s gear during the prep phase… In fact, thanks to Norman’s resources, the Joker is going to be too busy fending off hit men, robotic assassins, and super-powered lackeys to make many plans.

3. Green Goblin’s costume isn’t just a rubber mask and tights. It’s ARMOR, not unlike Starktech. It’s resistant to bullets and has allowed him to survive explosions. It’s also got a gas mask built into the headpiece (as well as multi-optics, scanners, and pretty much everything Batman has in his cowl), so Joker’s gas attacks would be worthless, as would his attempt at administering an injection. You’re not poking a hypo needle through triple-weave Kevlar/Vibranium.

4. Norman hates Harry. Norman has tried to kill Harry a few times himself… So if the Joker killed Harry, Norman would laugh, and then break Harley Quinn’s neck for laughs.

5. Norman has murdered THOUSANDS of people– A whole stadium full, recently– just to get what he wanted. Gassing the arena wouldn’t give Norman pause. He wouldn’t give a damn.

6. Should Spider-Man show up due to some “kidnap MJ” plan, there’s just as good a chance that Spidey knocks out the Joker FIRST before going after Norman.

7. Just mentioning again: Norman’s WAY more intelligent than the Joker. He’s on Tony Stark’s level (Marvel rates both Osborn and Stark’s intelligence at “6″ on their scale of 1-7). He didn’t just buy his gear from the Tinkerer– He invented it. He’s a skilled engineer, biochemist, and strategist. He is a genius, and the Joker’s just a clever nutjob.

8. Norman’s also crazy enough to kill everyone in the arena, and single-minded enough to do it in order to win. He has an ego the size of Galactus, and willpower to match. He’s fighting for a goal, while the Joker would only be interested in chaos.

9. You’re high if you think the Green Goblin wouldn’t just fly in, zap the joker with a bolt from his 10,000 volt gloves, and then skewer him with the horns on his glider. Nothing the Joker could do would harm GG through his armor, save maybe for high explosives, and that would kill the Joker, too. In fact, after everyone’s dead from the Joker’s explosion, Norman’s guts would knit back together (healing factor) and he’d walk out the winner anyway.

ZeroCorpse said on 12-03-2010
ZeroCorpse

Here. Read and LEARN.

http://asylums.insanejournal.com/scans_daily/470385.html

in_brightest_day said on 13-03-2010
in_brightest_day

not a big marvel fan myself, and i still think that the joker would win… but, nicely said.

Tbinns said on 13-03-2010
Tbinns

Your point is well argued. Way too late to change the outcome, mind you but a damned good arguement nonetheless.

Cate said on 13-03-2010
Cate

You know, I agree with most of this, but my main thought it this: Batman and the Joker are always well matched, and its set so Batman BARELY manages to defeat Joker at the end. Same goes for Spider-man and the Green Goblin. At the end of almost all these comments, the Superhero ends up winning. No, if I remember correctly, these 2 never fought during the Superhero Smackdown, but do you REALLY think Spider-man would defeat Batman in a fight? I think if the Joker can take on Batman, and Batman could kick the ass of the guy who could take on Green Goblin, then the Joker probably has the best chance of winning. Obviously there’s a lot of other factors, but it’s just my theory.

1/4 20 said on 13-03-2010
1/4 20

kinda cool theory. but there are angry geeks in the crowd tonight and logical arguments will not satisfy their lust for blood. but i like it.

RobbieRobTown said on 14-03-2010
RobbieRobTown

Cate, this is essentially the theory we are operating on- the IF Bats=Awesome THEN Joker=Scariest.

thereisnospoon said on 14-03-2010
thereisnospoon

the whole healing factor stupidity is like a kid saying “I know you are but what am i” or “yeah, well… infinity plus 1.”
“What, my guy sucks? …well he has a healing factor, so Mr. Incredibly potent douchebag Child-molester Republican SuperTamponman wins.”

/ugh
Reply
BabyBabyRuth said on 13-03-2010
BabyBabyRuth

You know what’s crazier than both these guys put together?

RobbieRobTown said on 14-03-2010
RobbieRobTown

…the hell???

Tomass said on 15-03-2010
Tomass

nice jooorb!

netweavr said on 15-03-2010
netweavr

Upon further consideration, Green Goblin outclasses Joker in every way. The only way Joker comes out of this alive is by not showing up.

And even that method of survival would only be temporary.

cybersherpa said on 19-03-2010
cybersherpa

Joker would hold the stadium, city, MJ, Bat Girl, Harry Osborne, Lois Lane and your momma hostage, frame GG and have Batman, Spiderman, Superman and your old man capture GG when he shows up to the match. Then Joker, disguised as a beat cop, would shoot him in the head while he was cuffed.

Pharcyde said on 20-03-2010
Pharcyde

I posted my big ‘nerd’ post on the rules and brackets post..

Here I just want to say you guys could not have been more correct with this one. Pretty much exactly what was going through my head when I saw the match up.

Also..you’re right..its an imasculating mode of transportation..that would quickly be made a liability by the Joker as it sent Osborne rocketing into the pavement at terminal velocity.

BRA-F%CKING-VO!

Tempto said on 03-04-2010
Tempto

I have to re-iterate, I am a Spider-man Fanboi, but I have to agree that the Joker takes this one.

Here’s the problem with all the “Genius vs. Clever” arguments.

Being clever denotes a certain amount of cunning, quick thinking, even a level of common sense (although I hesitate to use the terminology “common sense” when referring to the joker..crucify me at the end, please), while being a genius simply means you’re great in school, at taking tests, and even doing things in a lab. It does not, in any way, mean a genius can outwit a clever person.

To be honest, the joker is more devious and more cunning, and all around more psychotic that the green goblin ever was, even at the peak of his insanity.

The fanboi in me is crying for justice, but I stick with it…the Joker is indeed the winner here.

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

Part 4 in our series in which we deny up and down that it is a piss poor excuse to post pictures of hot actresses. This justification comes from our earnest belief that some of our favorite Comic Book Heroines have been horribly miscast, and we suggest a few alternatives. Today we recast Storm arguably the most powerful mutant in the Marvel Universe. (In any kind of real life scenario, someone who controls the weather runs the world, but we’ll save that for another article)

Who is being recast?

Halle Berry

Now why would anyone in their right minds recast an Oscar winning actress widely known to be one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood? Well, I’ll tell you why. SHE’S TERRIBLE in this role. The accent in the first X-men movie was Costner-like in its inconsistency. And because of her top billing status, she demanded and got, more screen time thus pushing Cyclops to a much undeserved death in the 3rd movie. Even when she dropped the accent Storm didn’t seem like she could lead a cub scout troupe much less a band of powerful mutants. Besides, Catwoman means we get to retroactively revoke her comic book character card for good.

Now this was a tough one. I never used to think that there was racial and sexual inequality when it comes to casting in Hollywood until I tried to come up with a shortlist for this article and drew a huge blank. I actually had to do some digging around to find out who was out there. That means either a) There really aren’t that many great roles for African American women out there, or b) I am a horrible racist bastard.

I am sincerely hoping it’s A)

Honorable Mentions

Cassie Ventura

I personally had never heard of her until my friend Trevor suggested her. She is evidently a model and a singer, as well as a dancer. The pictures seem to say she’d look fantastic, and the dance training suggests she can probably do the wire work required for flying pretty well, but I’d have pretty severe reservations until I’d actually seen her act. Trevor, on the other hand would cast her in anything and everything and threatened the life of my cats if I did not include her on the list. So this one is for the well being of Mauser and Fluffypudge.

Sanaa Lathan

Another award winner, this one a Yale Graduate who cut her teeth on Broadway and has been in such heavy hitters as the TV adaptation of A Raisin In The Sun. You probably know her as Vanessa from Blade, or for the four of you who watched it, Alexa from AvP. She is also a regular on the Clevleand show, but again we’ll try not to hold that against her. I haven’t seen enough of her work to know for sure, but that is an impressive resume, and great screen presence right there.

Nia Long

Nia Long is used to handling the dramatic heavy lifting on Third watch, and some of the comedic heavy lifting (If there is indeed any to be had) on the Cleveland show. She’s also been in the Big Momma’s House movies, but her agent contacted us and asked us not to emphasize that too much. She seems to have that air of dignity and confidence that would be required for Storm. Definitely someone I hope to see more of.

BONUS QUESTION: What happens to a Toad when it is struck by lightning?

Answer: Everybody in the audience rolls their eyes

The “If I had a Time Machine Award” goes to

Nichelle Nichols Circa 1965

Yeah, I went there. At least I am a self aware huge Nerd. What about you? You are reading an article about Storm. Don’t judge me!

The Top 3

3. Gina Torres

Kicking ass and taking names aboard Serenity, Gina is the epitome of the strong black woman. She has the looks, the brains and the leadership qualities needed to make a great Storm. For the record, both Wash, and Morphius agree with me.

2. Zoe Saldana

Being the lead in the highest grossing science fiction film of all time (kind of) AND Playing Uhura sends Zoe’s geek cred through the roof. She was one of the highlights of a great Trek reboot, and if you insisted on skewing younger with the part, you couldn’t do much better than Zoe

And my #1 choice for Storm is…

Angela Basset

Okay she probably should have gone under the Time machine heading circa 1998, but hear me out…

This is, if I may be so bold as to pun horrifically “The Perfect Storm.” Strength, Charisma, Wisdom and all of those other D and D stats that go into making a great superhero. An amazing actress who looks like she could be kind and motherly one moment and whoop your ass the next. If I were an X-man, I would follow Angela Basset.

So that about wraps it up for this edition of the Casting Couch. Join us again soon…you don’t have to be blind to see that Elektra could use a bit of recasting.