With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

[NameOrdane]

Like, as another simple example; Superman almost never bothers to learn how to fight. He never studies martial arts or anything like that, which leaves him open in the rare but inevitable circumstances where he runs up against someone that he can't just brute force his way through.

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That's already been addressed in the story. It was a whole plot point in the beginning of the story that Dinah teaching Kon was detrimental, as martial arts for baseline humans is useless with super strength. The only person who could teach him was Diana, and she learned through decades of experience.

Superman is improving himself now though, the moment he got access to Torquasm from Overgirl, which is the only meaningful way to train without sparring with Diana (which he did IIRC). Or Barda.

Edit: but yes, Hal could be doing more. I do remember him improving his constructs over time at least once.

 

[Neruz]

That's already been addressed in the story. It was a whole plot point in the beginning of the story that Dinah teaching Kon was detrimental, as martial arts for baseline humans is useless with super strength. The only person who could teach him was Diana, and she learned through decades of experience.

Superman is improving himself now though, the moment he got access to Torquasm from Overgirl, which is the only meaningful way to train without sparring with Diana (which he did IIRC). Or Barda.

Edit: but yes, Hal could be doing more. I do remember him improving his constructs over time at least once.

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I'm talking in general, in this story specifically thanks to Paul pointing out the flaws the various members of the Justice League have been addressing some of their issues.

 

[Mr Zoat]

"acquire"

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Thank you, corrected.

... maybe I'm having a blonde moment, but why are the (yellow) crystals disrupting Paul's orange constructs?
Green sure, noted canon weakness. Orange lacks that weakness.
Which implies that it's an innate feature of the crystals, rather than their color (which might stem from their creation method), and that would be... rather a big deal.

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There is a reason, and they work it out during the next episode. Fear projection wouldn't work on Lantern Jordan either.

Yes, they need to put in a lot of work to properly understand the mechanisms they're reproducing, but as we saw in the previous chapter, Hal is entirely capable of creating a MIM-104 Patriot.

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Eh... He can create a construct that looks like an MIM-104 Patriot. There's no actual fuel or explosive in there, it's just a construct.

This makes sense from an external narrative perspective as it makes stories standalone and thus allows new people to get into things at any point without needing to work their way through a vast amount of prior stuff in order to understand what is going on. But from an in-universe perspective it is an inexplicable blind spot that unnecessarily hampers the heroes, and from an in-universe perspective Paul is not wrong to lambast them for it.

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The issue is that time spent learning new skills is time not spent helping people with the skills you already possess.

The problem Paul has is that they don't invest the time, despite the fact that it's not really that major of an investment in the grand scheme of things and would exponentially increase their effectiveness. Even just six hours a week spent studying the relevant technologies would go a long way towards expanding their capabilities..

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Yeah, that.

It would take very little actual investment of time for Superman to learn even the basics of hand-to-hand fighting, but he never does, even after that lack bites him in the ass.

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Comic Superman from the era where I read comics and this story's Superman have both studied Torquasm. It actually required a lot of investment, not so much in time, but in finding an actual source when everyone who knew the style is dead due to Krypton exploding.

 

[Neruz]

Comic Superman from the era where I read comics and this story's Superman have both studied Torquasm. It actually required a lot of investment, not so much in time, but in finding an actual source when everyone who knew the style is dead due to Krypton exploding.

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Which doesn't really make sense given that most iterations of Superman have a Fortress of Solitude with an AI that has everything Jor-El could gather on Kryptonian culture, which should include things like Kryptonian martial arts. But that whole aspect is frequently criminally underutilized in general, with the Fortress's knowledge base being used only as a macguffin when there's no other way to learn something.

 

[Darko]

Which doesn't really make sense given that most iterations of Superman have a Fortress of Solitude with an AI that has everything Jor-El could gather on Kryptonian culture, which should include things like Kryptonian martial arts. But that whole aspect is frequently criminally underutilized in general, with the Fortress's knowledge base being used only as a macguffin when there's no other way to learn something.

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Reading things from a manual is useful, but it's not a guarantee that you'll be able to do what it describes.

The AI himself may not have been of much help, since if Jor-El didn't know the martial art himself, then his AI may not have been able to give pointers.

 

[Neruz]

Reading things from a manual is useful, but it's not a guarantee that you'll be able to do what it describes.

The AI himself may not have been of much help, since if Jor-El didn't know the martial art himself, then his AI may not have been able to give pointers.

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My brother in christ, martial arts manuals are literal things that exist. Do they convey perfect understanding of the subject? No. Are they better than nothing? Absolutely. And I refuse to believe that a civilization as advanced as Krypton's doesn't have something better than drawn pictures.

 

[boo600]

Like I said; it's not easy, it would take an intentional effort and investment of time. But it's absolutely doable, and given the stakes there is no good in-universe reason to not invest that effort and time at least a little bit.

But comic book superheroes tend to have a very cavalier attitude towards their roles, just sort of assuming that they'll be able to handle anything that happens without needing to worry about it. To a degree this is understandable, but they tend to retain that attitude even after they've run into situations that they couldn't handle, so from an in-universe perspective it comes across as a degree of hubris that would make ancient Greek philosophers waggle their finger something fierce.

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Oh, I'm not disagreeing, just categorizing for bookkeeping purposes. Hey, remember that time that Roy shot a machine that let an Elder God/New Titan thing (Siivaa, the dancer who destroys the universe), nearly getting the entire universe destroyed or at least him and his team murdered on the spot? To get out of a fight with a squad that OL totally outclassed even when they turned him into an octopus?

Roy wanted to employ basic fucking hindsight, and ended up sold on 'magic sensors' in a set of magic armor. Literally information first, protection second, firepower last. And remember Ollie's response?

"Well, bad days happen, and you make mistakes, but that's no reason to try and learn from them in a job that's risky to your life and where failure means other people - innocent people, usually - die, often horribly. And nearly destroying the universe has a nearly, so there's no reason to ever change your approach!"

Fuck, I swear that if he said that in front of the Team, they should have beaten him into the ground. That lack of care for their own damn lives, and for protecting people, supposedly the motivation of any good superhero?

I swear that being a costumed vigilante is just a prolonged midlife crisis for that man. Except that every other League Member also manages to give that impression, so instead it's just clear that Smiley has been shaping them from the sidelines (even if he can't directly alter their minds), and that they fulfill his credo and goals perfectly.

And let's not forget putting off mind-control detecting tech, which (with Mars next door and Lantern databases for the Watchtower [a Lantern station]) they basically had lying around to the point it only took them a week to implement it after Paul forced them to recognize it could get them all killed... more than a full goddamn year after the entire league was controlled by the fucking Light (mainly Klarion and Savage, the genocide buddies WHO THE LEAGUE KNOW ARE LIKE THAT). And some of them went missing for ten hours. You know, the ones strong enough to stand in for nukes or other genocide-capable weapons.

Never having any of them die seems to make them feel above all consequence and review, and being able to keep their activities secret from the UN (which has no actual way of punishing or controlling them anyways) isn't fucking helping. They were avatars of anti-accountability and corruption before Nabu ever woke up, I swear... though given that the central premise of the series is child soldier black ops, I suppose that was always obvious.

Because damn, looking back... legally Queen Bee was in the clear to murder these black ops children every time they showed up in Bialya. As opposed to having Martian Manhunter (invisibility+shapeshifting+telepathy, all of which he is much more experienced with than M'gann) plus maybe the Flash do it, and only having the Team do 'quiet' missions with non-mission time spent covering the Leaguer's cities for them, giving the League more time to do said missions themselves with a black mask on or whatnot. "We want responsibility, and us fighting is socially acceptable?" Hey, how's "please cover my home city of Metropolis/Gotham/Central City/etc" for trust and responsibility? I think that might've scratched that itch!

Forget about their history of irresponsibility, like not checking Connor for telepathic implanted commands from the start. Or the only therapist available not being an accredited therapist, and also being part of the League. (Though Black Canary, to her credit, cared and was good at listening and commenting... though her being part of the League should have been a clear conflict of interests. What if the League was part of a problem stressing these kids out?)