Spider-Man vs. a Herald of Galactus.

[starwolf_oakley]

Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz did a great run on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. They made Spider-Man the "giant killer" of Marvel in the 1980s.
Despite that, this makes no sense whatsoever.



From AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #270, 1985. Spider-Man is not wearing the symbiote.









No. Just... no.

Maybe my opinion is shaped from reading too many Galactus and Silver Surfer stories, but when a being gets the Power Cosmic from Galactus, he/she isn't really a "being" anymore. Any man-made object used as a transport or focus (surfboard, ax, staff) isn't man-made anymore. It is Galactus-made. It is made up of the Power Cosmic. That's why I understand Terrax's ax being left on his planet after Phoenix Force "purged" it (in MARVEL POINT ONE), because an ax that Galactus made can withstand. any. thing.

tl;dr: Galactus built his heralds to last. Against anything. Except Galactus.

No matter how much determination/guts/power/responsibility he has, Spider-Man cannot beat Firelord unconscious. He just can't.

Comments

[auggie18]

...yeah. I mean, that's why it was supposed to be a big deal when Phoenix fought this dude to a standstill back during the Dark Phoenix Saga. Cosmic kids should have a level of untouchability. I mean, Spidey's cool and all, but I'm pretty sure he's a street level dude. And we all know that it goes street<sky<cosmic. Really clever street level people can sometimes beat sky people, really clever sky level heroes can sometimes beat cosmic, but past that...

[nefrekeptah]

I don't know if I agree that Spider-Man's street level. He's certainly a lot more powerful then characters like Daredevil, the Punisher and Luke Cage.

Although I agree that there's no way he should have been able to beat Firelord.

[biod]

This remains one of my favorite Spider-Man moments. Sure, it's an extreme, but it showcases a lot of the things I love about the character.
You could always rationalise it to Firelord giving up to save himself the trouble of dealing with such an unnaturally tenacious foe.

[owesome]

To be fair, I always considered Firelord kind of a low-tier Herald.

Actually, all of the Heralds other than the Surfer were kind of a let-down.

[icon_uk]

I liked Nova, and Terrax makes a good villain.

And I'm not sure you can get just a little bit of the Power Cosmic as Galactus Herald, it tends to be sort of an absolute thing. It's more often the personality of the Herald which makes the difference.

[silicondream]

He's no Surfer, but Firelord's still fistfought Thor pretty evenly, stayed conscious after being punched across interplanetary space into a moon, produced the energy output of a small star, swatted away an incoming Mjolnir with his staff, danced through meteor swarms, burned so hot that the Surfer had to flee from his immediate area, etc.

Peter really shouldn't be able to last five seconds against him if Firelord gets irritated. Heck, I'm not sure Firelord should even be able to feel his punches. (Recall She-Hulk slugging Surfer in the jaw and hurting her hand; Norrin described it as "This young woman sort of bumped into me.")

[korvar]

Ah, yes. The panels that are almost guaranteed to start a flamewar on any comics site anywhere. There was this huge thread on the Hero Games site back in the day, where people were arguing (using Hero Games stats) whether Spidey could possibly have actually done this.

[icon_uk]

I'm not sure what ground anyone would have for suggesting he could (Unless this was during his Captain Universe phase). Substitute Silver Surfer for Firelord in this one and see how far it would go.

[sherkahn]

This is all under the assumption that each of the Heralds are equal in strength and durability.

Silver Surfer =/= Firelord =/= Nova =/= Terrax =/= Morg =/= Airwalker, etc.

They were all heralds & scouts, not weapons of war.

[icon_uk]

They were all transformed by Galactus, using his insane levels of cosmic power, into beings at the VERY least capable of surviving in deep space, travelling at up to and beyond translight speeds, assorted energy manifestation attacks and surviving planetary re-entry like they were stepping outside their front door. They had to be able to fight entire fleets of ships every now and again, since Galactus tended to attract those who objected to his presence rather often.

None of them were pushovers and ALL of them should be way beyond Spider-Man, whose heart may be pure, but whose strength level is only in the 10 ton range. (I use only strictly in a subjective sense of course)

I'm all for the underdog in a fight (You can't be a Robin/Cypher fan and not be), but this is akin to Bucky punching out Juggernaut.

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

I know ten tons is more or less official, but it seems a bit much. He has the proportionate strength of a spider, but I don't think most spiders can lift over 50 times their own weight.

[arbre_rieur]

I think "10 tens" is because someone figured that's how much he had to have lifted in that famous Silver Age issue where, after much angst and struggle, he lifted a collapsed building off of himself. But that ignores that the whole point of the feat was that it was supposed to be beyond his ability, that he accomplished through sheer determination the impossible.

[korvar]

There are those who consider that to be his actual superpower...

[icon_uk]

And I'm one of them, Spider-Man managing a supreme effort is a fine and noble thing, but when he, metaphorically, shifts the moon out of orbit to achieve his win, then it loses that sense of awesomeness.

[korvar]

Basically it was comparisons to Thor, that one time Thor got hit by that thing that Firelord got hit by and their different reactions to it, some Kevin-Bacon-esque degrees of separation to some thing that Spider-Man did that one time... and so on. Plus, the fact that it happened in the comic, and thus must be true.

It must also be said that, if you're a former Herald, and you haven't had your own comic (or maybe "aren't the Silver Surfer"), you become a lot wussier than when you're an active Herald. Kind of like Spikification, where a terrifying bad guy becomes less competent when they turn good.

[icon_uk]

Fair point, I don't think Galactus ever really thought through a retirement plan for his heralds. Still, a guy who can still fly through space unaided at lightspeed plus, and survive atmospheric re-entry without needing an actual spaceship should be able to deal with Spider-Man on a physical level in any event.

And I'm a firm believer in the "fanwank to explain discrepancies" approach, but I think this one would have defeated me in trying to explain it. Kudos to those who managed it, however misguided they have have been to do so! :)

[korvar]

Bizarrely, if I remember this correctly, the anti- faction did a better job of convincing me that it could happen than the pro- faction did :)

Ah, flamewars :)

[icon_uk]

Ah, flamewars :)

It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye. (Or their cool)

[korvar]

...how much "cool" do you think people arguing Spider-Man versus Firelord can have? :)

[arilou_skiff]

To be fair, for most of the fight Firelord IS playing with Spidey. (remember, the entire thing started becuase Firelord wanted pizza)

Although it should be noted that Firelord is apparently capable of increasing the temperature of his skin to the point where it melts bullets before they can hit him so... How is Spidey punching him again?

[stolisomancer]

He's capable of it, but if you read the story, Spider-Man doesn't touch him directly for most of it. He kicks the guy in the introductory panel, but the rest of the fight involves throwing things at him, tricking him into explosions, and dropping a building on his head. By the time he starts actually hitting him, Firelord's been winded by multiple assaults and is utterly enraged, to the point where he's not actually thinking that clearly.

[icon_uk]

And in fairness, that tends to be a fairly common superheroic approach to such things too, keep the bad guy too off balance to focus their powers and you stand a better chance.

[halloweenjack]

I was thinking that it was the Uni-Power too, but I don't think that it's that proximate to Acts of Vengeance. (Having the issue number that this came from would be nice, cough cough.) Just bad writing. The closest thing that I can think of to this was Nova knocking out Thor during Nova's first series, but Marv Wolfman was always dropping hints that Nova was much more powerful than Rich Rider knew.

[starwolf_oakley]

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #270 from 1985.

[halloweenjack]

So... a few years before Acts of Vengeance. Got it, thanks.

[tpsreports]

Listen, I have it on good authority that off panel Firelord was drinking Olympian mead with Herc, and Spider-Man didn't so much knock him out as he passed out. It's true because John Buscema told me so.

[dr_archeville]

Here's what gets me about this: Spidey's in his original black costume.

The costume that was eventually revealed to be a Symbiote (i.e., Venom).

A Symbiote that is vulnerable to sonics and to heat.

If anything, Spidey should be going down faster against Firelord than usual.

[starwolf_oakley]

This takes place after WEB OF SPIDER-MAN #1, so Spider-Man is wearing a regular cloth non-symbiote black suit.

[mastermahan]

Huh. I always took this scene to be a hint of how the symbiote was seriously boosting his power level. So much for that theory.

[stolisomancer]

This comic came out when I was a kid, so I have a nice shiny pair of nostalgia goggles on when it comes to this one. It still stands out to me as one of the quintessential unbalanced punch-ups, and is probably one of the reasons why I tend to brush off concerns to this day that relate back to pure power-level complaints. Anybody can beat anybody if the circumstances are right, particularly in the Marvel Universe.

One of the consistent threads in the discussion, though, wherever it shows up, is always people complaining about the fight as if the last two pages' worth are the entirety of it. It's not Spider-Man swooping down out of nowhere and doing the everywhere-at-once punch-up until Firelord falls over; it's two full issues of hit-and-run, whittling Firelord down and hitting him with everything, including being at ground zero when a full gas station exploded, tricking him into getting hit with a subway car, and dropping an entire tenement building on his head. It's only after he's completely out of options that Spider-Man actually attacks, going into such a berserk frenzy on the guy that he doesn't notice he's been knocked out, and this is a guy who can total cars with his bare hands, moving faster than the eye can conveniently track.

As has already been pointed out, the heralds after the Silver Surfer tend to be much weaker than he was, to the point where most of them are cosmic-level cannon fodder. Terrax, for example, gave the Fantastic Four and New Warriors a good fight, but lost. The Surfer is really in a class all his own, and looking at all the heralds who came after him, you have to figure that Galactus never decided to make another one on his level. Firelord in particular has been a jobber almost since his introduction.

[icon_uk]

Normal level Terrax didn't fight the New Warriors IIRC, it was a much weaker construct made out of some vaguely cosmic enhanced dirt which sort of thought it was Terrax, and it was still a force to be reckoned with.

[arilou_skiff]

Even so, a single person (heck, most of a PLANET) probably wouldn't be able to wind someone who routinely travels in the vaccuum of space.

Firelord could probably beat up the entire sum-total of the militaries of earth and not break much of a sweat.

[silicondream]

Barring superheroic intervention, Firelord could probably beat up the actual planet Earth if he really wanted to. You can be a fairly crappy Herald and still nuke continents.

Even after he quit working for Galactus, Firelord stayed conscious after Nova-Force Richard Rider blasted him across an entire solar system. Multiple blows from a murderously angry Drax the Destroyer (who has, y'know, punched small planets to pieces) dazed him for a couple of seconds. Spidey could run freight trains into the guy's face all day and it really shouldn't bother him.

There are ways to write a believable and entertaining even fight between Spider-Man and Firelord, I'm sure. But they'd need to involve Spidey getting Asgardian/Richardsian tech, or Firelord having most of his powers revoked by Galactus or something.

[stolisomancer]

Both of you seem to be operating on what you think Firelord's power levels are and not what they actually are.

At the time the Spidey vs. Firelord story was written, Firelord was a middleweight Thor villain/occasional ally. He was powerful enough to make for a good fight but not so powerful that he nuked planets off the map. (He says to himself that he could probably just blow up New York, but it wouldn't be honorable.) In the issue of Avengers that immediately follows this, Firelord wakes up, gets pissy, and is instantly slammed into a wall by one punch from Hercules. He promptly spends the next entire arc of that book getting smacked around by Nebula. He is not that big of a deal.

In his modern appearances, Firelord benefits heavily from the widescreen comics trend, particularly in Annihilation, which operates on its own sort of sliding power scale. Everyone in Annihilation is either overtly or quietly powered up from what they used to be, because that's a series of books in which you aren't shit unless you can blow up planets singlehandedly. Even then, Firelord nearly gets killed in the second issue of Annihilation and sits the rest of the story out, regenerating in a tube.

Being a herald of Galactus is a big deal, but the guys who had the job post-Surfer are all distinctly less powerful than he is, and most of them are cosmic-level jobbers. They're the Worfs of the space-based Marvel Universe; when a serious space threat comes along, they announce themselves as a big deal by either pummeling Gladiator or one of Galactus's heralds.

[silicondream]

I wasn't talking about Annihilation at all.* All the feats I've mentioned in this thread are from this very era, or from a few years later circa the Infinity Gauntlet and other Starlin stuff.

In part 1 of this story, Firelord nukes a meteor "the size of a small planet" and weaves in and out of a meteor swarm for kicks.

When Firelord was "a middleweight Thor villain," he could stalemate Thor in combat, take hammer hits to the face without falling over, and swat Mjolnir out of the air while Thor was using it to power-drain him.

When Firelord was "getting smacked around by Nebula", he was able to generate "all the fiery power of a small star," and stayed conscious when her ship blasted him across space and into a moon.

In the Infinity Gauntlet era, he's getting knocked across solar systems and coming back for more, burning so hot the Surfer can't endure it, trying to talk Drax down while taking his punches, etc.

Yes, Firelord is not that big of a deal if you're Thor, or the Surfer, or someone on that level. If you're Spider-Man he turns you into paste, and all the subway trains and collapsing tenements and exploding gas stations** in NYC aren't going to change that.

*But for the record, I disagree that everyone's powered up in Annihilation. The little guys are, but the upper tier--Surfer, Thanos, Galactus, etc.--are mildly to extremely depowered. Which was necessary for the story, of course; otherwise the cosmics would be hitting so hard that even low-end planetbusters would be irrelevant.

**I mean, an exploding gas station? Against a guy who can not only hang out inside stars, but specializes in generating/absorbing/manipulating fire and heat? This is like trying to kill Bobby Drake with an avalanche.