X-Men vs. the Ultimates (Ultimate Nightmare) Why'd it go down like that?

[DIrishB]

I'm the new... Captain? As in The Captain...as in former member?

Nah, was only joking, as in you being persecuted and ignored...but wait, The Captain isn't a member anymore? I could have swore I saw him posting just a few days ago...what'd he do this time?

 

[E]

Please let's not derail this thread. Stay on topic.

 

[DIrishB]

Please let's not derail this thread. Stay on topic.

CONSPIRACY!!!!!

 

[Nas-T!]

Forget the fact that the fight was unecessary, it was also UNBELIEVABLE!!

Wolverine taken down by a shot to the head with the butt of a gun!? What!? Okay, he wasn't "taken down", but it was still lame.

Colossus' eyes obviously aren't organic steel like his skin, but I always took it that they were covered in some kind of glazing that protects them (otherwise what's the point of being silvery? Does the X-Gene go: "Hey, this oughtta look cool and score him some chicks...or dudes...depending on his preferences!"?!?!?)

And Jean was gunned down!? Jean 'friggin' Grey!? The Phoenix chick?!?!?
A gun to Colossus' eye!? And after all that time I actually liked Sam Wilson's character (quite a fete[sp?] that is!), he goes and calls the X-Men "morons" for nothing! What an a-hole!

Wolverine's last line was good though. Very good. Oh well, now I'm just waffling...

Nas

 

[Ice]

Jean wasn't "gunned-down". Remember her focus was 'out of whack' because of the state her mind was in.

 

[Nas-T!]

Jean wasn't "gunned-down". Remember her focus was 'out of whack' because of the state her mind was in.

You have a point there. I guess I kinda forgot about that part. Now I remember that when she was 'gunned down' by Black Widow, the transmissions were still on and so she was all psyched up or out of whack or whatever.

Sorry for the mishap there. Thanks. Still think the X-Men (Colossus and Wolvie) should've easily handled Falcon, Widow and Fury (three humans) until Cap showed up.

Oh well...

Nas

 

[DIrishB]

I was glad to see this actually addressed in the Magnetic North arc, which also kind of showcased an animosity between the Ultimates and X-Men, which may or may not have been carried over from the events of Ultimate Nightmare, and compounded by the events in Magnetic North. Anyway, it didn't make much sense back then, but it makes more now, especially now that the X-Men are no longer under SHIELD jurisdiction. Almost like a really slow, drawn out break-up. But don't forget, timeline-wise, the Ultimate Nightmare arc only happened a few months before Magnetic North.

 

[David Blue]

Forget the fact that the fight was unecessary, it was also UNBELIEVABLE!!

I agree with you that the way the fight goes is very silly, but I think it also matters that it happened at all, when it should not have.

General Fury was trigger-happy in this adventure. The final, unncessary, fight wasn't the first or the second time the general showed that. (He showed it twice before with the English-speaking Russian who Captan America fought a duel with.)

As I read this story again, my opinion of General Fury gets even worse.

General Fury sees the X-Men, with Colossus gawping innocently and the other two X-Men further away from the general's team and doing nothing apparent. The X-Men show no indication of hostility.

The general empties his clip at the X-Men (I count fourteen shots from his rifle alone, from the ejecting brass), in a single long (inaccurate) burst, and calls "X-Men!" - so he knows who he is shooting at, and who he is effectively ordering his team to shoot. His targets apparently include Jean, who is not automatically bulletproof, and who could be killed immediately if she was just a little more mentally scrambled (by the Vision) than she actually is.

Despite being in a mentally distressed state, Jean holds out the hostile fire (at least two rounds to the head). Wolverine calls "Ambush!", and Wolverine and Colossus, lacking ranged attacks, respond to the attack in almost the only effective way they can, by advancing through the hail of gunfire from General Fury's team to engage in melee. In the third panel in that page, we can see the rifle barrels of the general and the Black Widow bent wildly, which evidently is the work of Jean.

To resume firing on the X-Men, the general and his friends would need a moment to change weapons.

Now, in this panel General Fury tells the X-Men to stand down.

It seems the general is under the impression he has authority over the X-Men - that they are in his chain of command. He is also informed about them: he knows what they are called, and Sam Wilson the reservist later says: "She's an X-woman. They've got psychics. I've read about it." So if that information is available for reservists to read, the general presumably knows a lot more about the X-Men, or as much as he is willing to have reported to him.

Yet General Fury prefers to shoot the X-Men - without warning or provocation - as long as he has a firearm in his hands capable of shooting.

Only when he needs to rearm does the general bother ordering his intended victims not to fight back - as though it would be reasonable to obey an order like that anyway.

In my opinion, the general is mentally unfit for command.

I think this fight happened because the general made it happen. Nobody else was doing anything bad till the general did.

 

[E.Vi.L.]

I think Fury was in "This robot thing belongs to SHIELD and no one else is going to take it" mode. Maybe he felt if he didn't neutralize the X-Men there might a dispute over who would actually claim that piece of tech.

Silly of course. Despite the apparences, the X-Men, or rather Jean Grey, won the fight. When she got free and blanked the mind of everyone so they could retreat, they might as well have killed/neutralized the Ultimates and/or take Vision. They didn't take Vision and wouldn't have known what to do with it anyway.

 

[David Blue]

I think Fury was in "This robot thing belongs to SHIELD and no one else is going to take it" mode.

There's a mode just for that?

I thought he was in "trigger-happy smart-mouth" mode, which can be applied to all sorts of situations.

General Fury: "Well, gee, I guess we should negotiate. No, wait -- let's just kill him."

General Fury: "Cap, I got an idea. Let me run this up the flagpole and see who salutes it. Let's just shoot him a lot and keep going."

To me that sounds like a trigger-happy smart-mouth. And his actions were no better than his words.

 

[TheManWithoutFear]

Probably my least favorite debate in the UU...

I love how everyone's like this should've happened instead of that. It's like what if they turned left instead of right. I still think the entire thing was justifieable especially since DIrishB (?) said it was a drawn out falling out that lead up to the recent UXM issue.

 

[John Q. Public]

I was originally going to respond to the poll, specifically the :roll: observations of Dr. Blue dude, but I see there's an offshoot thread. Sooo....

What makes "Ultimate Nightmare" one of the outstanding stories of the UU isn't just the gritty art, smart dialogue, and intense atmosphere. What's often overlooked is the parallels between the two teams during the adventure.

On one hand, you've got dotty Dr. X, genius without street smarts, idealist to a fault. He hears a transmission and in his insular little world thinks it's a mutant crying for help. He sends off three young and incompatible students to check it out.

Fury's team thinks more broadly. He picks the perfect team, and they bond and grow into a cohesive fighting force while their X-Men counterparts bicker and blunder their way to the big secret at the end.

To address a critique that is really nothing more than a bunch of quibbles Mr. Bloo raised in the poll thread:

Spend any time in or near the military? Living that life, 24/7, veterans reflexively revert to sir and salute when they run into an old superior. That's a page ripped right out of the real world, not (ahem) Dungeons and Dragons.

Also Sam, in kind of an inside joke, asks if he needs to call Black Widow by some comic booky name. Fury just says something about security, and Sam says, hey, I'm going into hell with you guys, let's drop the formalities. Natasha gets it, which is why she smiles and says "Natasha." (As if a Russian named Natasha means blowing her cover).

As Sam earns the rest of the team's trust by with either an amazing act (using his wings as razor blades) or makes some insight, the formalities keep dropping. "Call me Cap" later turns into "Call me Steve." "Nice job, Mr. Wilson," is answered by "Call me Sam." Little touches like this parallel with Jean Grey losing her mind, Woverine getting frustrated by a mission he obviously doesn't believe in, and Colossus, a C-level character with zero personality, kind of just stumbles along.

I could go on, but I've wasted enough time on this post. Probably one of the great scenes in the UU ever is the UU version of Red Guardian. Cap is indulging himself in a fight? No, he's diverting the most dangerous enemy in the whole complex while the rest of the team gets to the place where they can stop and study the transmission. The banter during the fight is priceless. Cap is deploying what good fighters do, which is to talk a lot of smack about how he's going to "put him in the dirt in five minutes" even though he knows he has his hands full. He's using verbal intimidation to create doubt in RG's twisted head. It's just classic bar brawl baloney; his real goal is to bide time for the rest of the team.

When he finally knocks the Red Guardian senseless, he signals to the team that the threat is negated and go through the final door. And then comes the greatest single moment in the history of the UU Cap. His opponent is on the ropes, but still a threat, so he picks up a splinter of wood, jams it down the inside his collarbone and delivers the line that sums up the pragmatism of the whole Fury squad and the UU in general.


So it's not the least bit illogical that this bonded, savvy, experienced team of current or former soldiers is easily able to out-think and out-fight a trio of super-powered young stumblebums who rely too heavily on their powers and not a bit on their wits. It's like when the NFL New England Patriots won their first Super Bowl against the superior talent and seeming invincibility of the St. Louis Rams. They played as a team and outfought superior firepower.

Stories like this is why a site like this exists.

 

[TheManWithoutFear]

I was originally going to respond to the poll, specifically the :roll: observations of Dr. Blue dude, but I see there's an offshoot thread. Sooo....

What makes "Ultimate Nightmare" one of the outstanding stories of the UU isn't just the gritty art, smart dialogue, and intense atmosphere. What's often overlooked is the parallels between the two teams during the adventure.

On one hand, you've got dotty Dr. X, genius without street smarts, idealist to a fault. He hears a transmission and in his insular little world thinks it's a mutant crying for help. He sends off three young and incompatible students to check it out.

Fury's team thinks more broadly. He picks the perfect team, and they bond and grow into a cohesive fighting force while their X-Men counterparts bicker and blunder their way to the big secret at the end.

To address a critique that is really nothing more than a bunch of quibbles Mr. Bloo raised in the poll thread:

Spend any time in or near the military? Living that life, 24/7, veterans reflexively revert to sir and salute when they run into an old superior. That's a page ripped right out of the real world, not (ahem) Dungeons and Dragons.

Also Sam, in kind of an inside joke, asks if he needs to call Black Widow by some comic booky name. Fury just says something about security, and Sam says, hey, I'm going into hell with you guys, let's drop the formalities. Natasha gets it, which is why she smiles and says "Natasha." (As if a Russian named Natasha means blowing her cover).

As Sam earns the rest of the team's trust by with either an amazing act (using his wings as razor blades) or makes some insight, the formalities keep dropping. "Call me Cap" later turns into "Call me Steve." "Nice job, Mr. Wilson," is answered by "Call me Sam." Little touches like this parallel with Jean Grey losing her mind, Woverine getting frustrated by a mission he obviously doesn't believe in, and Colossus, a C-level character with zero personality, kind of just stumbles along.

I could go on, but I've wasted enough time on this post. Probably one of the great scenes in the UU ever is the UU version of Red Guardian. Cap is indulging himself in a fight? No, he's diverting the most dangerous enemy in the whole complex while the rest of the team gets to the place where they can stop and study the transmission. The banter during the fight is priceless. Cap is deploying what good fighters do, which is to talk a lot of smack about how he's going to "put him in the dirt in five minutes" even though he knows he has his hands full. He's using verbal intimidation to create doubt in RG's twisted head. It's just classic bar brawl baloney; his real goal is to bide time for the rest of the team.

When he finally knocks the Red Guardian senseless, he signals to the team that the threat is negated and go through the final door. And then comes the greatest single moment in the history of the UU Cap. His opponent is on the ropes, but still a threat, so he picks up a splinter of wood, jams it down the inside his collarbone and delivers the line that sums up the pragmatism of the whole Fury squad and the UU in general.


So it's not the least bit illogical that this bonded, savvy, experienced team of current or former soldiers is easily able to out-think and out-fight a trio of super-powered young stumblebums who rely too heavily on their powers and not a bit on their wits. It's like when the NFL New England Patriots won their first Super Bowl against the superior talent and seeming invincibility of the St. Louis Rams. They played as a team and outfought superior firepower.

Stories like this is why a site like this exists.

:shock:


Yeah, what he said :twisted:

 

[DIrishB]

Probably my least favorite debate in the UU...

I love how everyone's like this should've happened instead of that. It's like what if they turned left instead of right. I still think the entire thing was justifieable especially since DIrishB (?) said it was a drawn out falling out that lead up to the recent UXM issue.

I was only saying it didn't make sense given the amicable relationship between SHIELD and the X-Men at the time.

It wasn't a case of saying something should've happened instead of that, just that that shouldn't have happened, least not the way it did.

 

[John Q. Public]

Re-reading the TPB, I noticed at the beginning, when Cap is wondering why Tony Stark isn't the science guy, and Fury says Tony's unreliable, needs a 100-person support crew and stuff about "the friendly little two-brained freak" pulling one of his weak sister acts.

Two-brained freak? Is there where Card got the idea for the worst story in UU history?

 

[Ice]

Two-brained freak? Is there where Card got the idea for the worst story in UU history?

That would mean that Card actually read something on Ultimate Iron Man. Card doesn't read. Throw that question out the window right now before my death ray toe zaps* you.




*Brought to you buy Card Genuis Ideas, Inc.

 

[John Q. Public]

That would mean that Card actually read something on Ultimate Iron Man. Card doesn't read. Throw that question out the window right now before my death ray toe zaps* you.




*Brought to you buy Card Genuis Ideas, Inc.

No. It all makes sense now. Card is really the keeper of continuity. He's a giant with the power of a god. He handed Thor his ***. He's....he's....nah, you're right. He's a 'tard.

 

[DIrishB]

No. It all makes sense now. Card is really the keeper of continuity. He's a giant with the power of a god. He handed Thor his ***. He's....he's....nah, you're right. He's a 'tard.

Besides, Card's version doesn't have two brains, just one huge one throughout his body. Besides, I think Fury was only being fecetious in that statement.

 

[Nas-T!]

I was originally going to respond to the poll, specifically the :roll: observations of Dr. Blue dude, but I see there's an offshoot thread. Sooo....

What makes "Ultimate Nightmare" one of the outstanding stories of the UU isn't just the gritty art, smart dialogue, and intense atmosphere. What's often overlooked is the parallels between the two teams during the adventure.

On one hand, you've got dotty Dr. X, genius without street smarts, idealist to a fault. He hears a transmission and in his insular little world thinks it's a mutant crying for help. He sends off three young and incompatible students to check it out.

Fury's team thinks more broadly. He picks the perfect team, and they bond and grow into a cohesive fighting force while their X-Men counterparts bicker and blunder their way to the big secret at the end.

To address a critique that is really nothing more than a bunch of quibbles Mr. Bloo raised in the poll thread:

Spend any time in or near the military? Living that life, 24/7, veterans reflexively revert to sir and salute when they run into an old superior. That's a page ripped right out of the real world, not (ahem) Dungeons and Dragons.

Also Sam, in kind of an inside joke, asks if he needs to call Black Widow by some comic booky name. Fury just says something about security, and Sam says, hey, I'm going into hell with you guys, let's drop the formalities. Natasha gets it, which is why she smiles and says "Natasha." (As if a Russian named Natasha means blowing her cover).

As Sam earns the rest of the team's trust by with either an amazing act (using his wings as razor blades) or makes some insight, the formalities keep dropping. "Call me Cap" later turns into "Call me Steve." "Nice job, Mr. Wilson," is answered by "Call me Sam." Little touches like this parallel with Jean Grey losing her mind, Woverine getting frustrated by a mission he obviously doesn't believe in, and Colossus, a C-level character with zero personality, kind of just stumbles along.

I could go on, but I've wasted enough time on this post. Probably one of the great scenes in the UU ever is the UU version of Red Guardian. Cap is indulging himself in a fight? No, he's diverting the most dangerous enemy in the whole complex while the rest of the team gets to the place where they can stop and study the transmission. The banter during the fight is priceless. Cap is deploying what good fighters do, which is to talk a lot of smack about how he's going to "put him in the dirt in five minutes" even though he knows he has his hands full. He's using verbal intimidation to create doubt in RG's twisted head. It's just classic bar brawl baloney; his real goal is to bide time for the rest of the team.

When he finally knocks the Red Guardian senseless, he signals to the team that the threat is negated and go through the final door. And then comes the greatest single moment in the history of the UU Cap. His opponent is on the ropes, but still a threat, so he picks up a splinter of wood, jams it down the inside his collarbone and delivers the line that sums up the pragmatism of the whole Fury squad and the UU in general.


So it's not the least bit illogical that this bonded, savvy, experienced team of current or former soldiers is easily able to out-think and out-fight a trio of super-powered young stumblebums who rely too heavily on their powers and not a bit on their wits. It's like when the NFL New England Patriots won their first Super Bowl against the superior talent and seeming invincibility of the St. Louis Rams. They played as a team and outfought superior firepower.

Stories like this is why a site like this exists.

Wow! Awesome post, dude! I suppose that kinda takes the sales outta my "the X-Men shouldn't have been taken out so easily" argument, BUT you did it properly (albeit, a little arrogantly) and I appreciate the thought behind it all. Even though we were all having this conversation, I must point out that I did thoroughly enjoy this mini and noticed some of the parallels between the two teams (and within each team itself), but not on the level that you did ("able to out-think and out-fight a trio of super-powered young stumblebums who rely too heavily on their powers and not a bit on their wits." was a GREAT way to put it!!).
The X-Men have often been portrayed exactly as you put it (in the UU, of course). HOWEVER, the X-Men DID beat The Ultimates in Ultimate War (though barely) because they forced The Ultimates to revert to the same kind of non-strategy strategy in order to fight them.

Cap's use of dialogue to distract and intimidate his opponent is nothing new. He's used it against Hank Pym (forcing him to grow and insulting him to make him angry) and Wolverine (bringing up old memories to slow him down so he could shoot him). It makes sense.
Of course, I do feel that the Red Guardian was slightly over-valued in your post as, while he was definitely a Cap-level fighter, I doubt that he really had Cap worrying or thinking that he had his hands full. Cap's downed The Hulk, Red Guardian is NOTHING!! hehe!

So, cool post. HOWEVER, I've also got to side with DIrishB on this one. He never said anything about this, he was just talking about the fact that the X-Men and Ultimates fought at all. The X-Men are a friggin' government-funded training school FOR The Ultimates, why on Earth would they wanna shoot at them!?
And don't say it's because they were on edge and didn't know what was coming. Fury clearly shouts: "X-Men!" while shooting. That part was just plain dumb, and I thought that the X-Men were right to jump into battle as awkwardly and quickly as they did.

Lastly, (Ultimate) Colossus is, IMO, not the same C-Level hero with no personality from the 616 universe. Not at all, in fact. He's given adequate dialogue and screentime (as opposed to 616 Colossus, who we basically only ever see in battle or talking with Kitty Pryde) and I've grown to seriously like him.
There have been taunts that fly his way because even the people IN the UU see him as that C-Level hero with no personality (Magneto calls him the "school jock"), while Millar contrasted things like that by showing Colossus to be caring (he saved those guys trapped in the submarine, IMO, not because of guilt, but because he really wanted to help) and well educated (remember that scene where Cyclops, Storm and Colossus were on that Japanese talkshow?). I really believe in Colossus as a character in the UU and see him as more than just muscle. Brian Vaughan used him expertly in the "The Most Dangerous Game" arc, which also highlights your points on the X-Men being a bunch of inexperienced kids because, even though we're looking at two seperate X-teams, we see the same jumpy and awkward techniques applied by both of them. The X-Men nearly get their butts handed to them by, of all people, Arcade and the other group almost fall to Spiral.
It's quite interesting.
Fascinating, in fact.

Nas

I agree with you that the way the fight goes is very silly, but I think it also matters that it happened at all, when it should not have.

General Fury was trigger-happy in this adventure. The final, unncessary, fight wasn't the first or the second time the general showed that. (He showed it twice before with the English-speaking Russian who Captan America fought a duel with.)

As I read this story again, my opinion of General Fury gets even worse.

General Fury sees the X-Men, with Colossus gawping innocently and the other two X-Men further away from the general's team and doing nothing apparent. The X-Men show no indication of hostility.

The general empties his clip at the X-Men (I count fourteen shots from his rifle alone, from the ejecting brass), in a single long (inaccurate) burst, and calls "X-Men!" - so he knows who he is shooting at, and who he is effectively ordering his team to shoot. His targets apparently include Jean, who is not automatically bulletproof, and who could be killed immediately if she was just a little more mentally scrambled (by the Vision) than she actually is.

Despite being in a mentally distressed state, Jean holds out the hostile fire (at least two rounds to the head). Wolverine calls "Ambush!", and Wolverine and Colossus, lacking ranged attacks, respond to the attack in almost the only effective way they can, by advancing through the hail of gunfire from General Fury's team to engage in melee. In the third panel in that page, we can see the rifle barrels of the general and the Black Widow bent wildly, which evidently is the work of Jean.

To resume firing on the X-Men, the general and his friends would need a moment to change weapons.

Now, in this panel General Fury tells the X-Men to stand down.

It seems the general is under the impression he has authority over the X-Men - that they are in his chain of command. He is also informed about them: he knows what they are called, and Sam Wilson the reservist later says: "She's an X-woman. They've got psychics. I've read about it." So if that information is available for reservists to read, the general presumably knows a lot more about the X-Men, or as much as he is willing to have reported to him.

Yet General Fury prefers to shoot the X-Men - without warning or provocation - as long as he has a firearm in his hands capable of shooting.

Only when he needs to rearm does the general bother ordering his intended victims not to fight back - as though it would be reasonable to obey an order like that anyway.

In my opinion, the general is mentally unfit for command.

I think this fight happened because the general made it happen. Nobody else was doing anything bad till the general did.

I agree with this, except that it's too bad that we have to blame General Fury himself for his actions, when it's obvious that it was just Warren Ellis' take on Fury's personality that is so wrong.

Also, on your point about Sam Wilson knowing about Jean Grey. It appears that there's one thing (just one) that almost every writer to write Ultimate X-Men since Millar has blatantly forgotten (or they pretended to forget it) and that is that these X-Men, the Ultimate X-Men, are in fact public figures! EVERYone knows who they are. They have websites and message boards dedicated to them! Hell, this is what happens when Beast dies, we just forget all the X-Men geeks of the UU !!
Nas

Besides, Card's version doesn't have two brains, just one huge one throughout his body. Besides, I think Fury was only being fecetious in that statement.

That's how I took it, DIB. It was just a joke. Just the General being a d!ck (like that time he said Tony Stark was like Johnny Depp doing Ed Wood in an Iron Man suit!)...again! But it did make me think of Card's story when I read it recently. It was a very weird moment.

Nas

 

[DIrishB]

I was originally going to respond to the poll, specifically the :roll: observations of Dr. Blue dude, but I see there's an offshoot thread. Sooo....

What makes "Ultimate Nightmare" one of the outstanding stories of the UU isn't just the gritty art, smart dialogue, and intense atmosphere. What's often overlooked is the parallels between the two teams during the adventure.

On one hand, you've got dotty Dr. X, genius without street smarts, idealist to a fault. He hears a transmission and in his insular little world thinks it's a mutant crying for help. He sends off three young and incompatible students to check it out.

Fury's team thinks more broadly. He picks the perfect team, and they bond and grow into a cohesive fighting force while their X-Men counterparts bicker and blunder their way to the big secret at the end.

Good points so far.

To address a critique that is really nothing more than a bunch of quibbles Mr. Bloo raised in the poll thread:

You're really beating a dead horse with the whole play on member names thing. So far you've perverted TGO's, Bass', I think Moonmasters...well in Moony's case I can't blame you. Its only a matter of time before I become DIdiotB, isn't it?

Spend any time in or near the military? Living that life, 24/7, veterans reflexively revert to sir and salute when they run into an old superior. That's a page ripped right out of the real world, not (ahem) Dungeons and Dragons.

Thats true to a point.

Also Sam, in kind of an inside joke, asks if he needs to call Black Widow by some comic booky name. Fury just says something about security, and Sam says, hey, I'm going into hell with you guys, let's drop the formalities. Natasha gets it, which is why she smiles and says "Natasha." (As if a Russian named Natasha means blowing her cover).

As Sam earns the rest of the team's trust by with either an amazing act (using his wings as razor blades) or makes some insight, the formalities keep dropping. "Call me Cap" later turns into "Call me Steve." "Nice job, Mr. Wilson," is answered by "Call me Sam." Little touches like this parallel with Jean Grey losing her mind, Woverine getting frustrated by a mission he obviously doesn't believe in, and Colossus, a C-level character with zero personality, kind of just stumbles along.

I was waiting on Nick to turn to Sam and say, "Call me Bobo." Didn't happen, unfortunately.

I could go on, but I've wasted enough time on this post.

Like you really have anything better to do?

Probably one of the great scenes in the UU ever is the UU version of Red Guardian. Cap is indulging himself in a fight? No, he's diverting the most dangerous enemy in the whole complex while the rest of the team gets to the place where they can stop and study the transmission. The banter during the fight is priceless. Cap is deploying what good fighters do, which is to talk a lot of smack about how he's going to "put him in the dirt in five minutes" even though he knows he has his hands full. He's using verbal intimidation to create doubt in RG's twisted head. It's just classic bar brawl baloney; his real goal is to bide time for the rest of the team.

Apparently your experience with fighting is limited to Spidey comic books (which may or may not be a bad thing depending on how often you tick people off), as I've never seen or been in a fight involving either person engaging in "banter". Most fights don't even last long enough for people to come up with something witty to say, let alone allow them enough respite to get out more than a grunt or groan. If you're not swinging you're blocking or parrying, so its tough to get the one-liners out at the same time. Unless you're Cap and juiced up on some government-sanctioned steroids, apparently.

Though in terms of the point you were making it was a spot on assessment, if not overly obvious without you pointing it out. Captain Obvious award of the day goes to you, John Q (hey, that rhymed!). Take it as an honor, as Icemastertron usually gets it every day.

When he finally knocks the Red Guardian senseless, he signals to the team that the threat is negated and go through the final door. And then comes the greatest single moment in the history of the UU Cap. His opponent is on the ropes, but still a threat, so he picks up a splinter of wood, jams it down the inside his collarbone and delivers the line that sums up the pragmatism of the whole Fury squad and the UU in general.

So it's not the least bit illogical that this bonded, savvy, experienced team of current or former soldiers is easily able to out-think and out-fight a trio of super-powered young stumblebums who rely too heavily on their powers and not a bit on their wits. It's like when the NFL New England Patriots won their first Super Bowl against the superior talent and seeming invincibility of the St. Louis Rams. They played as a team and outfought superior firepower.

I love when people bring up the Patriots, or any New England/Boston sports team for that matter. You're my new favorite member John Q.

Stories like this is why a site like this exists.

And so Bass can draw attention to himself.