Valiant Hero Feats (List)

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DirtbagSailor
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Valiant Hero Feats (List)

Post by DirtbagSailor »

So, in Bloodshot: Rising Spirit #4, Bloodshot rips the roof off of a car.

Not impossible, and we have seen heroes in comic books do a LOT more. However, it got me thinking, since seems unlikely that Valiant is going to publish the limits of each character’s power and/or ability, WE might as well do it!

What are (going back in the pages of Valiant) the feats of Speed, Power, Strength, Energy, etc. that are good indications of their potential limits up to this point?

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Re: Valiant Hero Feats (List)

Post by DirtbagSailor »

DirtbagSailor wrote:So, in Bloodshot: Rising Spirit #4, Bloodshot rips the roof off of a car.
So, according to the IIHS (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety), car roofs must be able to withstand a crushing pressure of 4x the weight of the vehicle. So, depending on if this car is a Buick or a Volkswagen, that could equal 15,000 to 19,000 pounds.

However, that would be to “crush” which is the opposite of “tear off and throw.”

Bloodshot is able to accomplish this feat while standing, and with the use of two arms.

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Re: Valiant Hero Feats (List)

Post by BugsySig »

I remember people being up in arms when Armstrong ripped off the door to that vault back in the FVL run.
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Re: Valiant Hero Feats (List)

Post by Shadowman99 »

Sometimes the realities of super powers bug me. Like BS ripping the roof off the car: in reality he'd probably just rip through the roof with his hands and have difficulty getting any kind of a grip on it if he intended to rip it off, and even then I doubt it'd come off as a single, easily-drawn panel. It'd probably be much like any of us trying to rip a panel off of a sodden cardboard box I imagine, and he'd just tear something like a corner or so.


But reading comics requires suspension of disbelief at the best of times, so hey-ho :kidaround:
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Re: Valiant Hero Feats (List)

Post by Dallow Spicer1 »

BugsySig wrote:I remember people being up in arms when Armstrong ripped off the door to that vault back in the FVL run.
Let’s also not forget (thanks to FVL) that Armstrong can also take an arrow in each eye like it’s nothing and throw a tree at an airplane! facepalm

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Re: Valiant Hero Feats (List)

Post by Dallow Spicer1 »

I do think that Valiant have allowed its characters to become ‘over powered’. With the exception of Ninjak and a couple of others the rest are virtually unkillable! To me this makes them less interesting. For example, in Eternal Warrior #0 (I think) it shows Gilad being blown up and the last few panels show that it’s taken months to heal. I think that’s vastly more interesting than the FVL take on immortals whereby they heal instantaneously. Fast forward to a later arc also involving Gilad and now he can jump out of planes from great heights and not break his legs? :? Both of those examples we’re written by Kindt if memory serves me correctly.

Bloodshot has also got such a vast array of abilities that it’s getting too much, demon wings Bloodshot from Harby Wars 2 :? What happened to him needing protein on a regular basis to help repair his injuries? Now he rarely gets weakened it seems.

I thought the end of VDitti’s XO was a bit much too whereby the knowledge of the universe was absorbed into the armour?

Livewire changing abilities has been mentioned numerous times.

Is this (lazy?) writing for short term convenience hurting the books long term? I think maybe it is.

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Re: Valiant Hero Feats (List)

Post by kjjohanson »

Shadowman99 wrote:Sometimes the realities of super powers bug me. Like BS ripping the roof off the car: in reality he'd probably just rip through the roof with his hands and have difficulty getting any kind of a grip on it if he intended to rip it off, and even then I doubt it'd come off as a single, easily-drawn panel. It'd probably be much like any of us trying to rip a panel off of a sodden cardboard box I imagine, and he'd just tear something like a corner or so.


But reading comics requires suspension of disbelief at the best of times, so hey-ho :kidaround:
I would love to see a book where mishaps like what you describe happen regularly. I could totally see that working in a Q&W book.
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Re: Valiant Hero Feats (List)

Post by kjjohanson »

Off the top of my head (it's been a while since I've read some of the books), the biggest surprise I can think of is Harbinger 25 (or was it in Omegas; when Harada and Peter face off), when they both appear to be stretched and warped. I legitimately thought that they were getting rid of Peter.
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Re: Valiant Hero Feats (List)

Post by Shadowman99 »

kjjohanson wrote:
Shadowman99 wrote:Sometimes the realities of super powers bug me. Like BS ripping the roof off the car: in reality he'd probably just rip through the roof with his hands and have difficulty getting any kind of a grip on it if he intended to rip it off, and even then I doubt it'd come off as a single, easily-drawn panel. It'd probably be much like any of us trying to rip a panel off of a sodden cardboard box I imagine, and he'd just tear something like a corner or so.


But reading comics requires suspension of disbelief at the best of times, so hey-ho :kidaround:
I would love to see a book where mishaps like what you describe happen regularly. I could totally see that working in a Q&W book.
I have to admit, thinking about it now, it could prove a pretty funny comedy super hero concept :) Like, say Incredible Hulk can jump really really high and far: but that doesn't necessarily mean that his bones can take the impact upon landing :o And, actually, [pet] rabbits (this is true) have such power in their rear legs that they sometimes break their own backs as a result of jumping/kicking too hard and have to be put down. Maybe the Hulk, in reality, couldn't even jump like he does without snapping his thigh muscles clean off his bones :|
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Re: Valiant Hero Feats (List)

Post by Shadowman99 »

Dallow Spicer1 wrote:I do think that Valiant have allowed its characters to become ‘over powered’. With the exception of Ninjak...
Ever since Kindt got his hands on Ninjak and wrote that whole 'hidden temple' piece where Colin survived months out in the freezing Himalayan temperatures (day and night) without moving a muscle (so, no eating during that time either...) whilst he learned to manipulate control of his entire body on a cellular level as a means to heal his own broken back from the final exam, he's basically been unkillable short of a severe injury directly to the brain (presumably...). That little plotline basically took any kind of dramatic tension out of the action sequences in subsequent Ninjak comics for me facepalm.

I mean, he survived those conditions whilst still learning those skills, meaning that he couldn't have controlled himself adequately enough in a way that would have prevented him from succumbing to the fatal environmental conditions whilst he was still in the process of learning, meaning there could have been no possible alternative outcome to than him dying right there and then.

But hey; 'comics' :roll:
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Re: Valiant Hero Feats (List)

Post by DirtbagSailor »

Remember early Valiant, when the Eggbreaker “Thumper” who has super strength, needed heavy ankle weights to hold her in place when throwing a punch due to her actual body being so light?

That was a gold standard for how to handle powers in the Valiant Universe.

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Re: Valiant Hero Feats (List)

Post by BugsySig »

DirtbagSailor wrote:Remember early Valiant, when the Eggbreaker “Thumper” who has super strength, needed heavy ankle weights to hold her in place when throwing a punch due to her actual body being so light?

That was a gold standard for how to handle powers in the Valiant Universe.
Yeah. Superheroes require the suspension of disbelief—not to mention the laws of physics, biology, etc.—but I love it when the creators try to make them have “real” consequences like that.

Avengers: The Initiative had a character named Butterball who became invulnerable via some accident, but it also meant no matter how much he trained and exercised, he couldn’t change his strength, speed, stamina, etc. He also could still drown or choke on smoke, etc. So he was just an out of shape kid who could walk through a mine field. They eventually just sent him home. Loved it.

Or Painkiller Jane, who had super healing powers but still felt all the pain and needed massive drugs to just maintain.

Thunder Agents always had characters dying or being disabled by the devices giving them their powers.

Need more of that in comics.
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Re: Valiant Hero Feats (List)

Post by grendeljd »

kjjohanson wrote:Off the top of my head (it's been a while since I've read some of the books), the biggest surprise I can think of is Harbinger 25 (or was it in Omegas; when Harada and Peter face off), when they both appear to be stretched and warped. I legitimately thought that they were getting rid of Peter.
I actually really liked that at the time. I did a drawing of Pete based on that warped damage look - Hawkeyeps has it!
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Re: Valiant Hero Feats (List)

Post by grendeljd »

Dallow Spicer1 wrote:
BugsySig wrote:I remember people being up in arms when Armstrong ripped off the door to that vault back in the FVL run.
Let’s also not forget (thanks to FVL) that Armstrong can also take an arrow in each eye like it’s nothing and throw a tree at an airplane! facepalm
I thought that was cool at the time the way Armstrong healed his eyes. A bit fast, maybe, yes, but cool. I cant remember if it was officially stated by Valiant or FVL, or just discussed by us nerds [possibly on VCR], but I always thought of Armstrong as being different from his immortal brothers, in that his immortality came from absorbing the power of The Boon - which was all the souls of the population of earth that time when it was triggered by Ivar. That is a cool idea to me - that Armstrong carries the energy within him of the souls of millions, and that he burns it to stay alive and/or heal. It should have also been part of what drives his character to drink - a deep sense of guilt, and of experiencing the human condition for thousands of years.

As far as him having slightly ridiculous levels of super strength, I suppose thats more of a stretch but not really, to me. I could see him having at least a slightly inhuman level of strength based on that same premise.
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Re: Valiant Hero Feats (List)

Post by grendeljd »

BugsySig wrote:
DirtbagSailor wrote:Remember early Valiant, when the Eggbreaker “Thumper” who has super strength, needed heavy ankle weights to hold her in place when throwing a punch due to her actual body being so light?

That was a gold standard for how to handle powers in the Valiant Universe.
Yeah. Superheroes require the suspension of disbelief—not to mention the laws of physics, biology, etc.—but I love it when the creators try to make them have “real” consequences like that.

Avengers: The Initiative had a character named Butterball who became invulnerable via some accident, but it also meant no matter how much he trained and exercised, he couldn’t change his strength, speed, stamina, etc. He also could still drown or choke on smoke, etc. So he was just an out of shape kid who could walk through a mine field. They eventually just sent him home. Loved it.

Or Painkiller Jane, who had super healing powers but still felt all the pain and needed massive drugs to just maintain.

Thunder Agents always had characters dying or being disabled by the devices giving them their powers.

Need more of that in comics.
I really enjoyed John Byrnes Next Men in the 90's for being much like that. Side effects and consequences to having specific kinds of powers.
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Re: Valiant Hero Feats (List)

Post by grendeljd »

Dallow Spicer1 wrote:I do think that Valiant have allowed its characters to become ‘over powered’.

Is this (lazy?) writing for short term convenience hurting the books long term? I think maybe it is.
In general, yeah I kind of agree with you - the writing has gotten lazier in terms of keeping these characters abilities consistent &/or in check. Nothing wrong with having clever new interpretations of what a particular power might be able to do [As an example, I thought that Magneto in the early XMen movies did some really cool stuff that I never would have thought of from reading his older comics appearances], but it needs to still make some sense internally to the work of fiction.

Yeah, these are fictional comics & you will always be expected to suspend disbelief to enjoy them to some degree - but the best writers will know how to minimize that suspension to great effect. There is a line that can be crossed. Go too far and theres no reason to get invested in anything about the story. I generally can't stand a story if its at a point where people just have to hand-wave all logic & reason away to enjoy it.
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Re: Valiant Hero Feats (List)

Post by Shadowman99 »

grendeljd wrote:
Dallow Spicer1 wrote:I do think that Valiant have allowed its characters to become ‘over powered’.

Is this (lazy?) writing for short term convenience hurting the books long term? I think maybe it is.
In general, yeah I kind of agree with you - the writing has gotten lazier in terms of keeping these characters abilities consistent &/or in check. Nothing wrong with having clever new interpretations of what a particular power might be able to do [As an example, I thought that Magneto in the early XMen movies did some really cool stuff that I never would have thought of from reading his older comics appearances], but it needs to still make some sense internally to the work of fiction.

Yeah, these are fictional comics & you will always be expected to suspend disbelief to enjoy them to some degree - but the best writers will know how to minimize that suspension to great effect. There is a line that can be crossed. Go too far and theres no reason to get invested in anything about the story. I generally can't stand a story if its at a point where people just have to hand-wave all logic & reason away to enjoy it.
I agree - back in the 2012 issues of Bloodshot there was always the 'danger' that he might run out of protein resources and not be able to bounce back from whatever he was facing at the time (we all remember the slaughterhouse issue, right?), but writers these days have forgotten all about this limitation on his abilities, ending up with him being overpowered... *sigh*
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Re: Valiant Hero Feats (List)

Post by DirtbagSailor »

What needs to happen (this was an issue with Superman too) is that a character’s abilities and/or limitation must be somewhat set in stone or any level of wackiness can occur.

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Re: Valiant Hero Feats (List)

Post by DirtbagSailor »

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