As I explained on post 159, in pretty great detail,
1) Iron man(with Mk.51 and all other computer controlled suits allowed read post 159 to see suit powers)
2) Thor with Stormbreaker/hammer
3/4 I had a hard time with Vision and Scarlet Witch
5 Dr Strange
We will also be seeing the Mk.51 in the next avengers movie. The one we saw in Infinity war was the Mk.50 prototype. So i assume we see Iron man binding Thanos with the MK.51 armor(which vision cant even phaze into and can hurt people who can phase) and Thor finishing him off with StormBreaker.
Tbf tho Peter has gone through many power ups while Kingpin has slowly been depowered.
Prime Kingpin ragdolled Spiderman, Daredevil, Punisher, and Cap. They never made an attempt to show why he was so strong, fast, and durable beyond showing him training, but he clearly had superhuman abilites.
Kingpin has legit wins over Daredevil and Punisher. He could only stand and bang with Spidey because the Wall Crawler let him. Spider Man is terrified about what would happen if he hit a normal human - and the Kingpin is officially listed as Peak Human - with all his strength. This goes back to a story line where Spidey snapped and hit a vigilante killer called the Sin Eater with a full power shot. The Sin Eater was Peak Human as well; Spider Man left him crippled for life.
Since then, with few exceptions, Spider Man will pull his punches against non-Powered opponents. Even then, he does damage. In the Superior Spiderman arc, it's revealed that Doctor Octopus is dying from injuries he's suffered after being regularly KTFO by Spidey. When Otto later switches his consciousness with Peter and takes control of his body, he punches the Scorpion's jaw clean off his face. This brings home to Otto just how powerful Spider Man is, and how much he was holding back in their fights down the years.
In the context of comic nerdery and theoretical extrapolation of their known abilities and history? I don't know.
But that isn't how it works. As Stan Lee once said, the one who wins is the one the writer wants to win, and who the writer wishes to project the greatest metaphorical power. Before it was unclear who that would be. Following Avengers Infinity War it is now clear who the alpha of the MCU will be.
Kingpin has legit wins over Daredevil and Punisher. He could only stand and bang with Spidey because the Wall Crawler let him. Spider Man is terrified about what would happen if he hit a normal human - and the Kingpin is officially listed as Peak Human - with all his strength. This goes back to a story line where Spidey snapped and hit a vigilante killer called the Sin Eater with a full power shot. The Sin Eater was Peak Human as well; Spider Man left him crippled for life.
Since then, with few exceptions, Spider Man will pull his punches against non-Powered opponents. Even then, he does damage. In the Superior Spiderman arc, it's revealed that Doctor Octopus is dying from injuries he's suffered after being regularly KTFO by Spidey. When Otto later switches his consciousness with Peter and takes control of his body, he punches the Scorpion's jaw clean off his face. This brings home to Otto just how powerful Spider Man is, and how much he was holding back in their fights down the years.
That's all stuff that was retconned literally decades after the fact. At the time of the fights he would hit him as hard as he could and just bounce off like a rubber ball.
Partly because teenage and college Spidey wasn't as strong as he is now, but also partly because Prime Kingpin was a beast and much stronger than he is now.
At one point DD broke into his vault and Kingpin found him there. He spent an entire page hitting him with his clubs and just bouncing off of him. Kingpin didn't even try to dodge or fight back, just let him gas himself to prove a point.
Peter definitely wasn't holding back during those fights, his inner monologue during those fights was wtf why is he so tough. Holy shit my punches arent doing anything wtf is happening.
Oh shit he got a hold of me, hes strong as fuck too. Oh no. He was definitely getting beat up when he did not want to be.
They didn't directly address it but Kingpin always thrashed ALL the street level guys and clearly had superhuman abilities. Almost everyone he fought had an inner monologue moment of wtf why is he so strong, but it was never really explained outside of saying he isn't fat, that is actually all muscle.
Waaaaay later they implied he might be a mutant but never followed up on it. He definitely wasn't a typical peak human. Cap was listed as peak human at the time and kingpin beat his ass too.
That's all stuff that was retconned literally decades after the fact. At the time of the fights he would hit him as hard as he could and just bounce off like a rubber ball.
Partly because teenage and college Spidey wasn't as strong as he is now, but also partly because Prime Kingpin was a beast and much stronger than he is now.
At one point DD broke into his vault and Kingpin found him there. He spent an entire page hitting him with his clubs and just bouncing off of him. Kingpin didn't even try to dodge or fight back, just let him gas himself to prove a point.
Peter definitely wasn't holding back during those fights, his inner monologue during those fights was wtf why is he so tough. Holy shit my punches arent doing anything wtf is happening.
Oh shit he got a hold of me, hes strong as fuck too. Oh no. He was definitely getting beat up when he did not want to be.
Spidey, like a lot of people, underestimated Fisk because he looked like a morbidly obese man. Not realising that the fat covered muscle that was at the peak of human performance. It should also be noted that in the early comics, Spider Man was still adjusting to his Powers. He - and to be fair the Writers as well - wasn't sure exactly what he was capable of.
Doesn't change the fact that Prime, Healthy, Motivated, Full Training Camp Spider Man with That Look in his eyes makes any version of Fisk his prison bitch.
I Love the character but he's just a human with a jetpack and a gun... since Ego. And He lacks the fighting skills and athletic prowess of a Falcon or Gamora.
Hes no tech expert like Rocket.
In the context of comic nerdery and theoretical extrapolation of their known abilities and history? I don't know.
But that isn't how it works. As Stan Lee once said, the one who wins is the one the writer wants to win, and who the writer wishes to project the greatest metaphorical power. Before it was unclear who that would be. Following Avengers Infinity War it is now clear who the alpha of the MCU will be.
Really? Black Panther in front of Stark?
My list, based purely on the Movies
20. Mantis (She is extremely useful though, and could potentially one shot anyone. Hard to place)
19. Hawkeye
18. Black Widow
17. Falcon
16. Winter Soldier
15. War Machine
14. Drax
13. Gamora
12. Ant-Man
11. Spider-Man
10. Captain America
9. Groot (Adult)
8. Star-Lord (Without Celestial Powers)- Rocket Raccoon (Tie, I think)
7. Black Panther
6. The Vision
5. Hulk
4. Iron Man (Nano Suit)
3. Scarlet Witch
2. Dr. Strange
1. Thor (with StormBreaker)
14-8 I feel is the weakest part of my list. A lot of argument can on there.
Like I said guys dont be surprised to see Iron man bind Thanos with the MK 52(in IW movie he had the MK51). He bound Juggernaut and Apocalypse by binding them. And... Thor for finished them off... both times(in these strips). I think will see it again since we dont have Adam Warlock.
(granted Jug isnt anywhere near overall as powerful as Thanos, he still is one hard mofo to stop)
Jeez can't have a good MCU thread without all these comic losers needing it up
I think people saying Cap > Thor are missing Cap's power. Thor could crush him, fry him with lightning and otherwise end him in an instance in a straight up fight. But Thor would follow Cap's lead into Hell and that's Cap's greatest power.
Jeez can't have a good MCU thread without all these comic losers needing it up
I think people saying Cap > Thor are missing Cap's power. Thor could crush him, fry him with lightning and otherwise end him in an instance in a straight up fight. But Thor would follow Cap's lead into Hell and that's Cap's greatest power.
There's a great line in Frank Miller's classic Daredevil: Born Again. DD has just fought Nuke, a flawed Super Soldier, reducing much of Hell's Kitchen to rubble. The Avengers arrive to clean up just after Daredevil has won, to take Nuke into custody and help the survivors.
A Soldier with a voice that could command a God,
Cap, "Put those fires out!"
And does
(Thor is shown standing on the roof of a building, summoning a storm)
Jeez can't have a good MCU thread without all these comic losers needing it up
I think people saying Cap > Thor are missing Cap's power. Thor could crush him, fry him with lightning and otherwise end him in an instance in a straight up fight. But Thor would follow Cap's lead into Hell and that's Cap's greatest power.
No we know that, it's just that in a 1v1 fight there's no way Cap could beat Thor. He's a better leader and imo a more interesting character, but there is just too much of a power gap.
You're focusing on the wrong things. Thor failed to stop Thanos as surely as Iron Man did, and besides, if Thanos really wanted Thor dead, he could have finished him off right there in his escape ship at the beginning of the movie with the power stone to the head. Thanos spared both of them-- left them for dead (probably assuming the ship's explosion would kill Thor, and the impalement would kill Tony). I'm not evaluating this through the lens of comic matchup histories, or logical speculation about how powers stack up. I'm evaluating this through the prism of critical reading. This is the most sensible approach because, as Stan Lee pointed out, the writer decides. Treat it like a poker table. Read the player, not the cards.
Let's break it down. There are only six heroes that Thanos himself addresses directly:
Thor
Gamora
Starlord
Dr. Strange
Tony Stark
Wanda
- Not counting Loki because he is an antihero
- Not counting Red Skull because he is a villain
Gamora is his "daughter", and therefore already conquered as are all "Children of Thanos". He shows sympathy for Wanda, but refers to her as his "child". He trades words with Dr. Strange, but only because he is a stone keeper, whom killed his right-hand henchman, and Strange goes out of his way to pronounce his title, but this-- the order of the Mystic Arts itself-- doesn't even seem to register on Thanos's concern thermometer. Starlord is one of Thanos's two greatest foils, due to their contrasting relationships to Gamora, but like Dr. Strange, he is dissolved at the end of the film.
That leaves us the two most prominent heroes: Thor and Stark.
Thanos acknowledges Thor in his opening speech, "I know what it's like to lose..." Thor can also be considered one of the greatest foils to Thanos, after Stark and Starlord, in that he is a creature of destiny. They are both fated, as they see it, to be guardians of the universe. Nevertheless, Thor fails for the same reason that Starlord fails. They both become too emotionally compromised in their quests for revenge. Starlord failed because he listened to the rage of Nebula instead of the reason of Stark, so they lost their only chance at wresting the Gauntlet, and killing Thanos. Thor failed because he was bloodlusting so viciously that he went for the heart, not the head.
Tony engineered that successful plan. Starlord wants to take credit, but he projects the same insecurity against Tony that he projected earlier against Thor when he says, "It was my plan". Sure, Starlord. Tony is happy to let you think that.
Tony is the only hero that Thanos himself acknowledges as an equal when he says, "You're not the only one cursed with knowledge." He's also the only hero Thanos addresses by name. They are yoked by their visions that date back to the second Avengers movie that results from what occurred in the first. Nobody else is granted this duality with Thanos. Nobody else registers as an equal. You can even sense a touch of hostility Thanos feels towards him that he doesn't feel towards anyone else, and we all know what the greatest engine of hostility is-- fear. He fears Tony. He fears what he has seen in his visions; that Tony alone could be the architect who unravels his grand campaign.
It's not about muscle. It's about what Tony represents. It's why Tony was unofficially anointed our champion and leader-- of the human race-- in this movie. As incomparably benevolent as Captain America is he functions as more of a spiritual & political leader. He represents freedom and morality. Tony is more than that. Tony is the smartest man alive. Tony represents intellect and technology. He represents our capacity to evolve outside nature. He represents Reason.
If you think about it, he's the very thing that Thanos is trying to kill: intelligent life that doesn't obey the balance of nature.
After all, Thanos himself isn't a slave to emotion. That's what enables him to kill Gamora. He knows his mission, and he understands what he must do to achieve it. Tony isn't so in control that he will contain his rage to prevent a war, as in Civil War, but this is about the survival of the human race. The single greatest difference between Stark and Thanos is that Thanos is obsessed with destroying life (in order to "save" it) while Stark is obsessed with creating life. This is why he's driving Pepper nuts neurotically swarming her over his dream of her being pregnant.
I fear I know what this "dream" means. It's tied to his visions. It's real. This means Pepper is pregnant. She will be endangered in the sequel, after the audience is made to know this, in order to create massive suspense. But she won't die. She can't. The baby is the metaphor separating Iron Man from Thanos. This means Iron Man is going to have to sacrifice himself in order to take Thanos down, and restore the universe. I think Thor will be his tool to kill Thanos. I think he will be forced to sacrifice himself in order to preserve the life of half the universe, and he will, for the reason that he is Thanos's greatest foil, and so it is only him who can execute the opposite of what Thanos alone could achieve, and that is to truly "save" the lives of half the universe's sentients.
It fits together with a more general insight I had into the movie. Thanos has two foils: Iron Man and Starlord.
That wasn't clear until this movie. It occurred to me that Gamora loves Starlord for the same reason she weeps over Thanos, and that they are mirror images. Thanos is willing to kill what he loves most to kill half the universe (even if he ultimately wants to preserve life). Starlord is willing to kill what he loves most to save half the universe. This is why Thanos said, "I like him". Starlord may only be doing it because she demands it, but he and Gamora share the same vision for what is right. Thanos has no patience for idealists who are so pure they lack the will to effect their goals. He despises everyone like this...except for Gamora.
Distance is created between all three in this one capacity. Gamora, unlike Starlord, is unwilling to do this. She'll kill Thanos, but she will not let her sister die to deprive him of the Soul Stone. She knows Starlord and the rest of the Guardians would be next, but still...if she was willing to practice what she preaches, she would let them die to save half the universe.
In my personal opinion, this more of less perfectly distills the difference between masculinity and femininity, and more importantly, how they complement and balance one another. Without Gamora, Starlord would just be Thanos. Without Starlord, Gamora would just be Thanos's daughter. You cannot be whole alone. You can only be half an equation.
That is what Thanos himself is. His campaign is to spare half the universe, but his solution is to cull it. We accept that for fauna, but this isn't about fauna. Planets and nature aren't threatened by what are merely alternative versions of themselves. This is "basic calculus"; this is about those who exist outside of nature, and bend it to their will: intelligent beings. He justifies his culling of Gamora's world with "full bellies" and creature comfort. He values the quality of life, or at least the preservation of it, over the sanctity of life itself. Still, there are echoes of Peter when he says, "You can't be the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man if there's no neighborhood." But that isn't guaranteed, and that's where Thanos goes wrong.
Merely because his home planet Titan fell to ruin, and failed to self-correct, doesn't mean that other planets will also fail. He has deprived them of that chance. Furthermore, while I noticed the press drew a lot of analogies between Thanos and Trump, it's impossible not to notice his blind toll collects from rich and poor, young and old, powerful and weak, good and evil...it's quite socialist. Nothing you do distinguishes or spares you. Thanos has adopted the role of God, which I think Loki intended to warn him he would never be, but this is inherently contradictory. After all, if you thought the natural model of intelligent life was flawed, then why would you "reset" it rather than work to correct the imbalance? Perfect systems don't require correction-- only participation. All you have done is moved more murder down the road.
While in the movie the following line is interpreted as a matter of logistics, I think it is intended to have a dual, metaphorical meaning when Thanos tells Thor, who just drove an axe into his chest, "You should have gone for the head." The reason is that his heart is gone, figuratively. Gamora is dead. If you are willing to kill what you love most, then you are willing to kill anything. For what? Quality of life? Herd insurance against the unknown?
You are not God, sir. You don't determine what quality of life an individual is willing to endure, what value that has, nor do you don't know what the future holds. When "God works in mysterious ways" we must accept it because we cannot change it. God is God. Call it nature. Call it physical law. Call it good, or evil. Doesn't matter what you believe. You aren't at those controls, and you don't understand how they work. Thanos, on the other hand, is known/knowable to us, and so are his motives, so he must justify them.
The solution to Death cannot be Death. You need Life to have Death. Thanos is so obsessed and alone that he does not think to create. He forgets what he serves in believing he could be the Master of Death. The end becomes the means. All head, no heart. Half an equation: like a husband without a wife, or a wife without a husband. Perhaps that is why he calls his minions "children". It's no mistake that Ebony Maw delivers the opening lines, "Rejoice! For even in death you have become Children of Thanos."
This is where Tony comes in. Tony is the smartest man alive. Tony is Thanos's foil because he, too, is "cursed with knowledge", and this isn't just a reference to their mind-bond, but to the fact that Tony has tried to warn his own planet to not be so self-involved, and to prepare for threats of the unknown. Yet he has mostly gone unheeded. His own efforts to prepare have been received with hostility, or proven Faustian in their own right. Remember Ultron? He shared Thanos's same solution to the virus-like spread of intelligent organic life, but his was no half-measure. Tony's own security measures proved too authoritarian for some, and drove The Avengers to civil war. It's this very end that Thanos sought to avoid. Some say the world will end in fire.
Tony also doesn't have children. He frets deeply about this to Pepper at the beginning of the movie, and that sets the tone. He is obsessed with creating life, not "saving" it. He does have something of a surrogate son, though, doesn't he?
Part of me wonders if this is where Thanos cheated, and wasn't random with his glove. Starlord is immortal. Death could be construed as "mercy". He also killed all of her crewmates, except Rocket, who abandoned them, and obviously needs the group the most despite that he pretends he needs it the least. Meanwhile, he dislikes Tony, but I don't think that's for a lack of will. I noticed he killed Spider-Man, and he took his sweet time doing it. Didn't feel so random that time.
Kingpin has legit wins over Daredevil and Punisher. He could only stand and bang with Spidey because the Wall Crawler let him. Spider Man is terrified about what would happen if he hit a normal human - and the Kingpin is officially listed as Peak Human - with all his strength. This goes back to a story line where Spidey snapped and hit a vigilante killer called the Sin Eater with a full power shot. The Sin Eater was Peak Human as well; Spider Man left him crippled for life.
Since then, with few exceptions, Spider Man will pull his punches against non-Powered opponents. Even then, he does damage. In the Superior Spiderman arc, it's revealed that Doctor Octopus is dying from injuries he's suffered after being regularly KTFO by Spidey. When Otto later switches his consciousness with Peter and takes control of his body, he punches the Scorpion's jaw clean off his face. This brings home to Otto just how powerful Spider Man is, and how much he was holding back in their fights down the years.
The whole pulling punches thing is retarded. If a super powered person wanted to defeat a normal human without hurting them, why wouldn't they just grapple and overpower them?
You're focusing on the wrong things. Thor failed to stop Thanos as surely as Iron Man did, and besides, if Thanos really wanted Thor dead, he could have finished him off right there in his escape ship at the beginning of the movie with the power stone to the head. Thanos spared both of them-- left them for dead (probably assuming the ship's explosion would kill Thor, and the impalement would kill Tony). I'm not evaluating this through the lens of comic matchup histories, or logical speculation about how powers stack up. I'm evaluating this through the prism of critical reading. This is the most sensible approach because, as Stan Lee pointed out, the writer decides. Treat it like a poker table. Read the player, not the cards.
Let's break it down. There are only six heroes that Thanos himself addresses directly:
Thor
Gamora
Starlord
Dr. Strange
Tony Stark
Wanda
- Not counting Loki because he is an antihero
- Not counting Red Skull because he is a villain
Gamora is his "daughter", and therefore already conquered as are all "Children of Thanos". He shows sympathy for Wanda, but refers to her as his "child". He trades words with Dr. Strange, but only because he is a stone keeper, whom killed his right-hand henchman, and Strange goes out of his way to pronounce his title, but this-- the order of the Mystic Arts itself-- doesn't even seem to register on Thanos's concern thermometer. Starlord is one of Thanos's two greatest foils, due to their contrasting relationships to Gamora, but like Dr. Strange, he is dissolved at the end of the film.
That leaves us the two most prominent heroes: Thor and Stark.
Thanos acknowledges Thor in his opening speech, "I know what it's like to lose..." Thor can also be considered one of the greatest foils to Thanos, after Stark and Starlord, in that he is a creature of destiny. They are both fated, as they see it, to be guardians of the universe. Nevertheless, Thor fails for the same reason that Starlord fails. They both become too emotionally compromised in their quests for revenge. Starlord failed because he listened to the rage of Nebula instead of the reason of Stark, so they lost their only chance at wresting the Gauntlet, and killing Thanos. Thor failed because he was bloodlusting so viciously that he went for the heart, not the head.
Tony engineered that successful plan. Starlord wants to take credit, but he projects the same insecurity against Tony that he projected earlier against Thor when he says, "It was my plan". Sure, Starlord. Tony is happy to let you think that.
Tony is the only hero that Thanos himself acknowledges as an equal when he says, "You're not the only one cursed with knowledge." He's also the only hero Thanos addresses by name. They are yoked by their visions that date back to the second Avengers movie that results from what occurred in the first. Nobody else is granted this duality with Thanos. Nobody else registers as an equal. You can even sense a touch of hostility Thanos feels towards him that he doesn't feel towards anyone else, and we all know what the greatest engine of hostility is-- fear. He fears Tony. He fears what he has seen in his visions; that Tony alone could be the architect who unravels his grand campaign.
It's not about muscle. It's about what Tony represents. It's why Tony was unofficially anointed our champion and leader-- of the human race-- in this movie. As incomparably benevolent as Captain America is he functions as more of a spiritual & political leader. He represents freedom and morality. Tony is more than that. Tony is the smartest man alive. Tony represents intellect and technology. He represents our capacity to evolve outside nature. He represents Reason.
If you think about it, he's the very thing that Thanos is trying to kill: intelligent life that doesn't obey the balance of nature.
After all, Thanos himself isn't a slave to emotion. That's what enables him to kill Gamora. He knows his mission, and he understands what he must do to achieve it. Tony isn't so in control that he will contain his rage to prevent a war, as in Civil War, but this is about the survival of the human race. The single greatest difference between Stark and Thanos is that Thanos is obsessed with destroying life (in order to "save" it) while Stark is obsessed with creating life. This is why he's driving Pepper nuts neurotically swarming her over his dream of her being pregnant.
I fear I know what this "dream" means. It's tied to his visions. It's real. This means Pepper is pregnant. She will be endangered in the sequel, after the audience is made to know this, in order to create massive suspense. But she won't die. She can't. The baby is the metaphor separating Iron Man from Thanos. This means Iron Man is going to have to sacrifice himself in order to take Thanos down, and restore the universe. I think Thor will be his tool to kill Thanos. I think he will be forced to sacrifice himself in order to preserve the life of half the universe, and he will, for the reason that he is Thanos's greatest foil, and so it is only him who can execute the opposite of what Thanos alone could achieve, and that is to truly "save" the lives of half the universe's sentients.
It fits together with a more general insight I had into the movie. Thanos has two foils: Iron Man and Starlord.
That wasn't clear until this movie. It occurred to me that Gamora loves Starlord for the same reason she weeps over Thanos, and that they are mirror images. Thanos is willing to kill what he loves most to kill half the universe (even if he ultimately wants to preserve life). Starlord is willing to kill what he loves most to save half the universe. This is why Thanos said, "I like him". Starlord may only be doing it because she demands it, but he and Gamora share the same vision for what is right. Thanos has no patience for idealists who are so pure they lack the will to effect their goals. He despises everyone like this...except for Gamora.
Distance is created between all three in this one capacity. Gamora, unlike Starlord, is unwilling to do this. She'll kill Thanos, but she will not let her sister die to deprive him of the Soul Stone. She knows Starlord and the rest of the Guardians would be next, but still...if she was willing to practice what she preaches, she would let them die to save half the universe.
In my personal opinion, this more of less perfectly distills the difference between masculinity and femininity, and more importantly, how they complement and balance one another. Without Gamora, Starlord would just be Thanos. Without Starlord, Gamora would just be Thanos's daughter. You cannot be whole alone. You can only be half an equation.
That is what Thanos himself is. His campaign is to spare half the universe, but his solution is to cull it. We accept that for fauna, but this isn't about fauna. Planets and nature aren't threatened by what are merely alternative versions of themselves. This is "basic calculus"; this is about those who exist outside of nature, and bend it to their will: intelligent beings. He justifies his culling of Gamora's world with "full bellies" and creature comfort. He values the quality of life, or at least the preservation of it, over the sanctity of life itself. Still, there are echoes of Peter when he says, "You can't be the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man if there's no neighborhood." But that isn't guaranteed, and that's where Thanos goes wrong.
Merely because his home planet Titan fell to ruin, and failed to self-correct, doesn't mean that other planets will also fail. He has deprived them of that chance. Furthermore, while I noticed the press drew a lot of analogies between Thanos and Trump, it's impossible not to notice his blind toll collects from rich and poor, young and old, powerful and weak, good and evil...it's quite socialist. Nothing you do distinguishes or spares you. Thanos has adopted the role of God, which I think Loki intended to warn him he would never be, but this is inherently contradictory. After all, if you thought the natural model of intelligent life was flawed, then why would you "reset" it rather than work to correct the imbalance? Perfect systems don't require correction-- only participation. All you have done is moved more murder down the road.
While in the movie the following line is interpreted as a matter of logistics, I think it is intended to have a dual, metaphorical meaning when Thanos tells Thor, who just drove an axe into his chest, "You should have gone for the head." The reason is that his heart is gone, figuratively. Gamora is dead. If you are willing to kill what you love most, then you are willing to kill anything. For what? Quality of life? Herd insurance against the unknown?
You are not God, sir. You don't determine what quality of life an individual is willing to endure, what value that has, nor do you don't know what the future holds. When "God works in mysterious ways" we must accept it because we cannot change it. God is God. Call it nature. Call it physical law. Call it good, or evil. Doesn't matter what you believe. You aren't at those controls, and you don't understand how they work. Thanos, on the other hand, is known/knowable to us, and so are his motives, so he must justify them.
The solution to Death cannot be Death. You need Life to have Death. Thanos is so obsessed and alone that he does not think to create. He forgets what he serves in believing he could be the Master of Death. The end becomes the means. All head, no heart. Half an equation: like a husband without a wife, or a wife without a husband. Perhaps that is why he calls his minions "children". It's no mistake that Ebony Maw delivers the opening lines, "Rejoice! For even in death you have become Children of Thanos."
This is where Tony comes in. Tony is the smartest man alive. Tony is Thanos's foil because he, too, is "cursed with knowledge", and this isn't just a reference to their mind-bond, but to the fact that Tony has tried to warn his own planet to not be so self-involved, and to prepare for threats of the unknown. Yet he has mostly gone unheeded. His own efforts to prepare have been received with hostility, or proven Faustian in their own right. Remember Ultron? He shared Thanos's same solution to the virus-like spread of intelligent organic life, but his was no half-measure. Tony's own security measures proved too authoritarian for some, and drove The Avengers to civil war. It's this very end that Thanos sought to avoid. Some say the world will end in fire.
Tony also doesn't have children. He frets deeply about this to Pepper at the beginning of the movie, and that sets the tone. He is obsessed with creating life, not "saving" it. He does have something of a surrogate son, though, doesn't he?
Part of me wonders if this is where Thanos cheated, and wasn't random with his glove. Starlord is immortal. Death could be construed as "mercy". He also killed all of her crewmates, except Rocket, who abandoned them, and obviously needs the group the most despite that he pretends he needs it the least. Meanwhile, he dislikes Tony, but I don't think that's for a lack of will. I noticed he killed Spider-Man, and he took his sweet time doing it. Didn't feel so random that time.
The whole pulling punches thing is retarded. If a super powered person wanted to defeat a normal human without hurting them, why wouldn't they just grapple and overpower them?
Spidey often fights multiple opponents, and/or enemies with weapons. Even with superhuman strength it's a lot easier and faster to KO people in that kind of situation than grapple with them.
Also, striking is both easier to draw and cooler to look at in a comic than grappling.
Cap vs Panther is almost too close to call. They both have similar powers and skills and weapons. Cap might take a straight fight due to his greater experience.
Tony in the Suit beats Spider Man easily. While Peter is a genius, Tony is the smartest man on the planet(at least until Reed Richards turns up). The Iron Man Armour is simply too strong and packs too much firepower for Spidey to handle.
Spidey often fights multiple opponents, and/or enemies with weapons. Even with superhuman strength it's a lot easier and faster to KO people in that kind of situation than grapple with them.
It most certainly is not. The quickest way to end fights would be to use his webs to incapacitate his enemies. Not time precision punches with the exact amount of power to KO someone but not seriously injure them, which isn't even a real thing.
Not like it matters, his go to strategy is to strike regardless of how many opponents there are.
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