comic punching bags!

[herodad1]

what characters do you think always get the short end of the stick!this thread was started from discussions in the requests thread.who always seems to get their heads handed to them?dc.marvel,ect.

[marhawkman]

#1: W.O.L.V.E.R.I.N.E.

Yeah he dishes out pain too, but writers always seem to find a way to have at least one page in every book that shows him getting the crap beaten out of him. Often more than one.

[Talavar]

Yeah, certain characters are used as 'benchmarks' so to speak.  Whenever a new character is introduced, they'll punk some established character to demonstrate how powerful, cool and tough they are.  At Marvel, Wolverine is often used, at DC it's often Superman - at least for the high-end power tier.

Other characters who seem to be punching bags - Hank Pym and Tigra seem to get dumped on regularly.

[thanoson]

Taskmaster gets beat pretty good. He's a guy that knows everybody's fighting styles inside out, yet he still gets beat. Absorbing Man and Sasquatch.

[herodad1]

couple ive always noticed are 1.) the beast-for all his strength,speed,agility,and years of danger room training he always gets creamed.POW!!!usually right off the bat.  2.)the vision-he can become hard as diamond or intangible as smoke and has a computer fast mind yet...WHAM!!!he's down.in the early days he'd just get knocked out.now...dismembered or totally trashed.3.)wonderman-just under thor in power but CRUNCH!!!simon bites the dust.

[marhawkman]

Yeah really. Simon's appearance in War Machine #8 he gets punked by a guy who's slowly turning into an Ultimo. Who then gets whacked by Rhodes....

EDIT: I just thought of another. Kara Zor-El, she's gotten punked by almost every villain she's ever faced sometimes multiple times.

[thanoson]

Forgot Amazo and Super Adaptoid. Really, these two should never be beat. As fast as Wally is, he should not be able to beat Amazo. And Captain America beating Adaptoid while using a Cosmic Cube? C'mon!!! No way in hell. Also, did not like the abuse that Terrax suffered at the hands of Sentry. He snapped his Cosmic Staff in half. The one Galactus made for Morg. That's like him taking the Surfers board and snapping it in two. Wrong wrong wrong.

[NeoDarke]

Spider-Man. 'Cause the Man likes to keep the Spider-Man, down man. It's all part of some wild conspiracy, man.

[garf35]

The all-timer is The Spectre. He is so powerful that he gets punked in every big crossover early, just to (a) establish the threat level and (b) get him off the board.

[marhawkman]

Haha! So true.

[herodad1]

ok, what about GALACTUS?all time classic cosmic world eater.gets clobbered to much over the past few years!even doom gets his head handed to him to often lately.

[Zippo]

Despite being the "world's most powerful telepath" Xavier has gotten his mind-butt handed to him way too many times over the years. He would constantly encounter some "terrible mind" or "psychic feedback" that would knock him out and get him out of the picture for a while. Same goes for most powerful telepaths that aren't evil.

[The Enigma]

Juggernaut. He's often being beaten up by people, seemingly just to prove how awesome they are. That one does make a degree of sense, as he's easy to out-think, I guess.

[herodad1]

i know what you mean.the writers must not know what "invulnerable" means though.

[steamteck]

There is certainly a tendency for new bad arse characters to prove themselves by beating the top tier "old guard" even if the fight contrived and the old guard suddenly loses his/her skills , strengths to make it happen. I've never  reacted positively to this. If given what we know about both characters that's what would happen OK. That's practically NEVER what happens though. The old guard character loses power, durability and fails to remember his best strengths or tactics.
I've seen it happen to almost all the big guns and isn't just a modern occurrence. ( I almost ditched Luke Cage ( when he also first came up with the "yuck" Powerman name) way back when he knocked Iron Man's chest ring with one punch way way past what he had been shown like before and I liked him better where he was)

[marhawkman]

i know what you mean.the writers must not know what "invulnerable" means though.

To quote the Hulk: "Go be invulnerable in New Jersey!"

Which he said immediately prior to flinging Juggs a few miles....