Marvel Characters

Marvel Characters

Iron Man

Common theme throughout most of this; Recent movie portrayals of these guys are pussies compared to the comic book iterations. This guy is one of those people.

Character Background

One day, billionaire Tony Stark was in Vietnam supervising a weapons demonstration to the U.S. military, when suddenly his site was attacked, he was taken hostage, and he got a piece of shrapnel lodged in his chest. The Vietcong said they would let him live if he built them a super-weapon, which was a lie, and he knew it, but he needed tools and time to build something to escape, so he agreed. During his time, he made a rough draft of what would eventually be his famous Iron Man suit, complete with pacemaker to keep him alive once the shrapnel went into his heart. Once he was finished, he killed all of the Vietcong and escaped to a U.S. base, where they took him back to the U.S. When there, he reduced the size and weight of his pacemaker and suit, increased the weaponry, and became Iron Man.

Powers and Abilities

Without his suit, Tony Stark’s only ability is that he is immune to telepathy. With the suit, he is capable of lifting 100 tons without the help of his boosters (up to 500 tons with them) and he can fly up to Mach 8, which is extremely fast. The suit also has magnetic abilities, which allows him to push and pull most metal objects.  The suit can absorb energy from various power sources to stay active for long periods of time, and can project holograms of itself to confuse the enemy as to his actual location. The suit itself is made of crystallized iron enhanced by magnetic fields and augmented by layers of other metals like titanium. The result is a suit of armor that provides unshakeable defense against everything from tank shells to small nuclear explosions. The suit also has energy shields which further augment its defense, and at full power, literally nothing can pierce through both his energy shields and his suit in one shot. As far as offensive abilities go, his most used power is his repulsor rays, which come from the orbs on his hands. The power of them varies, but they can generally go through multiple inches of steel with ease.  He can also repurpose the energy for his energy shields into a sword for deadly results. He can also throw pulse bolts from his hands rapidly, which is basically a way to throw a lot of energy grenades at once. He also has missile boxes, which contain smart missiles that automatically scan and aim for the weak points of any structure or target. He can even overcharge his armor to boost all of his abilities to obscene levels, but he can cause serious damage to his suit this way. On top of this, Tony Stark is also a genius and master strategist.

Weaknesses

Iron Man’s weakness is that he must keep his suit charged or else he dies. This means that in areas without an easily accessible power source, every attack he makes is bringing him closer to his own demise. At that point it’s a contest of how long you can endure the Iron Man’s attacks, which is not an easy thing to do at all. He can also be stunned by large amounts of electricity, but he will most often simply absorb the electricity and kill you with the extra energy, so bad idea Mickey Rourke.

Thor

He’s a God, with all of the Godly powers that come along with being a God of Thunder. How do you kill a God? You’d be surprised.

Godly Background

Most of you already know about Thor, God of Thunder among many Germanic peoples, and his direct relation to the ultra-god Odin himself. This background, however, will be more focused on his Marvel backstory, since I could write a ten page paper about Thor the God. His eventual assimilation into the Avengers began with his father wanting to teach him a lesson in humility, since he tended to be a “shoot lightning first, ask questions never,” kind of guy. So Odin took away his hammer (the main source of all his power) and erased his memory. He then sent him to Earth to live as a crippled medical student (irony) named Donald Blake. When he was told his identity a few months later (and given his hammer) he had learned to love humanity enough to spend a lot of his time on Earth, still under his fake identity. Eventually he decided his Godly powers could be used for taking out the more supervillainous of people, so he joined up with some other powerful guys and made the Avengers.

Godly Powers

Alright, he’s the 2^nd strongest being in the world as far as strength goes, let’s just get that out of the way. He’s been able to stop the Juggernaut, which is basically the one thing that guy has over anyone else. He’s also fast, like the speed of light fast. He can take a hit too… from anyone. His durability is slightly greater than The Thing from Fantastic Four, whose main contribution to that group was his inability to die. He also has extreme senses, able to hear someone cry out on the other side of the planet. While that sounds cool, I’m assuming he can turn that ability up or down a notch depending on the situation, because that would be beyond maddening to hear an entire world happen at once all of the time. He can also create massive earthquakes, beyond that available to the Richter scale, but he never gets too high for fear of destroying Earth. He has also lived a billion years, and has been fighting in Valhalla for most of that time, so he knows his way around a battlefield. His hammer, Mjolnir, has the ability to absorb, project, and reflect energy blasts as well, and he actually has one of the most powerful attacks in the universe; the Godblast. This blast may be able to make Galactus run in terror, but he rarely uses it, and never when he’s anywhere near Earth, which is where all of these fights are taking place, so he won’t be able to use it. He can fly too, but not as fast as he can run, since he can only fly at the speed of sound. His main form of attack is to hurl Mjolnir at his enemy, which is a great way to kill someone, but kinda stupid on his part due to his main weakness…

Godly… Weaknesses

If he loses hold of his hammer for more than 60 seconds, he loses his powers and reverts back to his human guise. This isn’t as dumb as it may seem, since the hammer is enchanted to be unliftable to anyone who is unworthy to wield it, but there are those (*cough* America *cough*) who can pick it up, and anyone who successfully does this and keeps it away from him for 60 seconds automatically wins, since I could fucking kill a crippled med student. Other than this, not much can hurt Thor, but his inability to use his best powers isn’t helping him at all.

Captain America

Name: Captain America

Likes: America, tall chocolate malts

Dislikes: Rainy days, Nazis

Character Background

Steve Rogers was a very frail young boy who grew up during the depression. He was fine living his life until one day he saw a news broadcast about the Nazi regime ransacking Europe and being general douchebags. He decided to join the army, but was rejected because of his small frame. Inspired by Roger’s plea to serve his country, an army general gave him the chance to partake in a secret performance enhancing drug trial called “Operation Rebirth.” The trial was a success, so he was put through three months of intensive military training and sent to Germany to kick Nazi ass. At the end of the war, he was thrown from a plane crash into the icy waters of the English Channel, where he stayed frozen until a newly formed group of superheroes called “the Avengers” found and thawed him.

Equipment and Abilities

Captain America has no true super-human powers; however the drug trial enhanced him to the absolute peak of human conditioning. He can bench 1,100 pounds, has a vertical jump of 20 ft, and can run up to 50 MPH. He is also very durable, able to take punishment that would break most people’s bones and shrug it off like nothing. His senses were enhanced as well, sometimes being able to dodge bullets because he can see faster than they move (although that’s also a testament to his agility.) His training combined with his mental enhancements allowed him to master multiple martial arts in a matter of months, making him deadly in close combat. He is immune to mind control as well, and is proficient in all kinds of weaponry, including everything from swords to firearms, even though he prefers to use only one weapon while in combat; his shield. It may seem strange to use a shield as a primary weapon, but he can throw this thing like a motherfucker. He could use it like a boomerang to hit enemies from behind and return to him, or have it ricochet from enemy to enemy; taking down many at once, and that was before Tony Stark got a hold of the shield and allowed it to be controlled remotely while in flight. The shield itself is made out of Vibranium (predecessor to adamantium, aka wolverine’s claws), which makes it indestructible by any normal means. His costume is made of Kevlar and titanium, making it completely bulletproof and fire retardant.

Weaknesses

Captain America is kind of in a transition between human and superhuman. No one on Earth can hope to compete with him, but a superhuman would have no problem overpowering him. This is a problem, because did you see that guy above him? Yeah, you did, and you know who would win that fight. His intelligence will serve him well against some of the dumber, greener guys though.

The Hulk

The angrier he gets, the stronger he gets. I hope he didn’t spend money on The Devil Inside, because he could level Detroit with that kind of rage.

Character Background

When Bruce Banner was a young boy, his father hated him and his mother’s affections for Bruce so much that he murdered his wife and was sent to a mental hospital. Bruce decided to do the right thing and bottled all that rage and pain he was feeling so he could continue his life as a parentless child prodigy. As an adult, however, he developed the first gamma bomb, which is like a nuke with less explosive power and more radiation. During the first test, he was forced to run into the unsafe zone to save a dumbass civilian who wandered in there. He saved the dumbass, but couldn’t get to safety in time and was hit with huge amounts of gamma radiation. Due to unknown factors in his DNA, he was not killed by the explosion, but was instead transformed into a green monster fueled by rage with unlimited strength.

Powers and Abilities

Remember how up in Thor’s power section it was mentioned that he was the second strongest being in the world? That’s only because the Hulk is also on that world. He’s been shown holding a planet’s tectonic plates together, tearing through a bunker designed to withstand thousands of megatons of explosive force, supporting a 150 billion ton mountain (with leverage, of course) and picking up Thor’s hammer. And no, he’s not worthy; I guess an incredibly powerful enchantment from the central god of pagan mythology can’t stop the Hulk from picking up whatever he damn well pleases. This incredible strength is also carried into his legs, allowing him to leap hundreds of miles and run up to 700 MPH. His durability is also extreme, but connected to his anger, so while he has survived a blast from Galactus before, that’s not his absolute power level. Even in a calmed state, however, the only metals able to pierce his skin are adamantium and vibranium. On top of this, he can heal himself very quickly from injuries, and he never gets tired so he can fight for days. It has been said before that the Hulk is basically immortal.

Weaknesses

The Hulk is a slow, dumb motherfucker. By slow, I mean he can’t dodge anything. By dumb, I mean his entire fighting style revolves around him doing two things:  1.) Chasing the enemy   2.) Punching the enemy. His power is derived entirely from how angry he is too, so if you can calm him down and kill him quickly before he gets pissed, you could potentially get an easy kill. However once he’s really angry, he’s going to be a bastard in every sense of the word.

Carnage

Why is this guy here and not Spiderman? Because it took Spiderman, Venom, and the Fantastic Four teaming up to take this guy down.

Character Background

Cletus Kasady was born a homicidal maniac. He killed his grandmother, tortured his dog, pushed a classmate in front of a moving bus, and burned down an orphanage. While he was serving 11 consecutive prison sentences for murder in every degree, he got transferred to the same cell as Eddie Brock, who was waiting for the Venom symbiote to come and help him break out. When it came, it gave birth to another symbiote, and during the prison riot, it bonded with Kasady. He used his power to go on a violent killing spree, always leaving his callsign, “Carnage Rules,” at the crime scene written in his own blood.

Powers and Abilities

Carnage has many of the normal superhuman powers, enough strength to lift 80 tons, speed, agility, ect. He’s durable enough to withstand huge falls and anti-tank rifle cartridges, and he can regenerate most damage in seconds. On top of this regeneration is the ability to absorb living things’ life force at his touch, allowing him to augment his regenerative capabilities and power himself up. He can run on most surfaces and shoot webbing just like Spiderman too. One of his most useful powers is his shape-shifting ability, which lets him transform sections of his body into weapons like tentacles or blades. He can also project spikes from anywhere on his body, as well use as other projectile attacks.

Weaknesses

As a Symbiote, fire and sonic attacks are this guy’s ultimate weakness, with either of them rendering him helpless. However, because he is not too well known outside of Spiderman comics, the only guy who will know this is Mister Fantastic. Everyone else will have to fight this guy the old fashioned way; by kicking the shit out of him before he kicks the shit out of them.

Silver Surfer

This guy probably has the saddest life of any superhero or villain before him, with his entire life being filled with hatred and betrayal towards him. He’s had numerous potential lovers killed and very few lasting friendships that didn’t end with someone trying to steal his powers. It’s a miracle he hasn’t gone postal yet.

Character Background

Born on a technologically advanced alien planet as Norrin Radd, the Surfer’s early life wasn’t too out of the ordinary from anyone else on his planet. His mother committed suicide, but he wasn’t traumatized or anything, and his father still pushed him to pursue the knowledge of the universe. Then, as an adult, an alien spacecraft piloted by Galactus came to his planet and threatened destruction. In exchange for sparing his own planet, Radd agreed to become a herald of Galactus, looking for suitable planets for him to eat. Galactus gave him the power cosmic and the appearance best known as the silver surfer.

Powers and Abilities

The Silver Surfer has the power cosmic, which allows him to control all of the fundamental forces of the universe. This means that he can do pretty much anything. He can do normal stuff, like channel his energy to make him extremely strong and fast, and shoot extremely powerful blasts of energy, but he can also rearrange matter on a molecular level, even going so far as to transmute elements. There is essentially no limit to the things the Silver Surfer can do with his powers. His skin and surfboard are made of “Galactic Glaze,” which means it’s damn near indestructible. He also has refined senses that can be used to detect any incoming danger, sort of like a spider sense that gives him more than half a second to react.

Weaknesses

While not having any real weaknesses, the Silver Surfer has very little to no close combat skills whatsoever, relying completely on his mastery of the universal energies. This means that if a guy like the Hulk gets close enough to grab the bastard, he is suddenly very vulnerable to multiple face-smashings. Other than that, this guy is like a cosmic Iron Man; generally awesome in most every department of awesomeness.

Magneto

If I went through the stuff this guy did, I’d probably hate humanity too.

Character Background

If Silver Surfer has the saddest life of anyone, then Magneto is a close second. After spending his teenage years working in the chemical shower department of Auschwitz, he got out and married his longtime love under a new identity in the Soviet Union. Then, the KGB came along and burned his daughter alive before him. This is when he first got pissed enough to destroy everything around him with his powers. His wife also ran away and died because of how scared she was, so he got to bury his child alone. After this, he spent his time refining his powers and hunting Nazis for the CIA, until he went postal, donned a costume, and started the Brotherhood of Evil mutants.

Powers and Abilities

His obvious power is that he can control metal and magnetic fields, but he can use this in ways that you couldn’t imagine. His most prominent defensive power is to create a magnetic force field around him, the power of which is immense; as in able to absorb nuclear blasts. He can also repel himself from the earth to achieve flight at speeds very near the speed of light. He can also manipulate metal particles on the subatomic level, allowing him to create metal objects from the air around him, and even to control non-metal objects by surrounding the object with metal particles and moving the metal particles around it. He can even manipulate the iron in people’s bodies, disorienting them and possibly knocking them unconscious. His speed, strength, and agility can also be enhanced by channeling magnetic currents through him. He can lift in excess of 100 tons in good health. Besides his magnetic powers, he can also control any energy along the electromagnetic spectrum, including radiation and electricity. He’s also immune to telepathy, and has military training in strategy and tactics.

Weaknesses

Magneto’s weakness is exponential, because the weaker he is physically, the less he can use his powers. This means that he will be able to do anything at the start of a battle, but the more abuse he takes the less dangerous he becomes. You could argue that it is like that for everyone on this list, but pretty much everyone else has enough stamina to fight until his heart stops beating, and even then there’s a small chance that they’ll rip their own heart out and punch it until it starts beating again. Magneto cannot do this, so he’ll have to kill them while he’s at full power to win the fight.

Mr. Fantastic

Often described as one of the smartest people in the Marvel universe, Mr. Fantastic may be the most infuriating opponent to face because of his ability to fuck up any attack you throw at him.

Character Background

Dr. Reed Richards was a child prodigy who had particular aptitude in Math, Physics, and Mechanics. This gave him an ambition to create a starship for interstellar travel, which he eventually did build. When testing the starship, however, the shielding proved inadequate against the radiation caused by a solar flare, and he and his counterparts in the flight gained special powers. They learned to control their powers and became the Fantastic Four, with Richards as their unofficial leader.

Powers and Abilities

Mr. Fantastic is able to convert his body into a highly malleable state of matter. He can stretch hundreds of feet, bounce bullets off his body, and dissipate into a semi-liquid form that allows him to fit through tiny spaces. His body is basically immune to any kind of cuts of piercings, and he can even absorb explosions with his body. He can also alter his size and density to become nearly as strong and dense as the Thing. He can do this to specific parts of his body, allowing him to create giant hammers on his fists and springs on his feet to get around. He has a limited flight ability, that basically boils down to him sling-shotting into the air and transforming into an aerodynamic shape to glide with. Besides the ridiculous amount of uses that he has with his body, he is also a genius of epic proportions, with the cosmic radiation enhancing his already huge intellect. This will likely allow him to find and exploit weaknesses of other people.

Weaknesses

Extreme temperature is a good way to stop him (preferably freezing, because he could probably pull off a T-1000 if he melts,) as regular attacks of any kind will bounce off him doing no damage. He is also not very offensive in his abilities, so while he can take a huge amount of punishment, he can’t dish out too much. Other than that, there’s not very many ways to hurt him, as even adamantium would be stopped or dodged by him.