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

Um, I, personally, wouldn't. I'm not a big sports fan, I just know enough to know that fouls are less common than reputed.

 

Am I the only one who constantly things of "Tom Marvolo Riddle" when they read this?

 

Well now I'm thinking it too.

 

Ooops.

 

Oh no! It's spreading!

 

Ah yes....Malvolio.

The one that was one of the suspects for comic fans when Hal went evil and called himself 'Parallax', because in the OG story Hal took this guys ring, whom was playing the long game to escape his little pocket dimension world. This was before they introduced the fear entity bug we all know and love.

Paul and Guy had a brief talk about what paul knew about this fella. Suspected he's the reason why the Guardians were hands off with regards to Alan Scott, because the similar uniform and likely the 'partially a green willed elemental' from stewing in will power for longer then most.

This should be interesting.

 

...

So... What you're saying is, this 'Lord Malvolio' turned his diary ring into a horcrux and tricked a young Chosen One into "vanquishing" him and taking his ring with him. All the while the ring gradually corrupted the Chosen One into becoming a villain and eventually releasing an ancient monster trapped many many years ago?

Damn.

Maybe moralrelativity was more on point then I thought.

 

J. K. Rowling you crook, you stole your ideas.

 

Hey Mr Zoat, according to your headcanon Maltusians can channel the whole Spectrum right? With the most used colour being mostly about their preferences and personalities?

It's only certain small groups that hyperfocus on particular lights to the point of permanently cutting off their ability to channel or even feel the rest of the Spectrum yes? Guardians for Green, Controllers for Orange, Zamarons for Violet...

So any of the er... 'average Maltusians' could in theory hyperfocus on another part of the Spectrum?

Where exactly do guys like Malvolio, Alan or even Paul I suppose fall on this scale? Will they ever be able to channel their lights like Guardians/Controllers do? Or is there a hard cap for those without midichlorians symbiotes?

 

Alan has been compared to a Guardian before, so maybe there's something there.

 

I have to ask at this point. Do you sleep Darko? Because it's been a little over four hours since you last posted and I've seen you post at basically any time of day.

Like, I'm pretty bad with my sleeping habits, but this is inhuman.

Fair point though.

 

Yes I do sleep.

Though it's more like a few naps at different times of the day.

 

Pretty much anyone can use the whole spectrum.

Yes.

Yes.

Hard to say. The Guardians are a bit hard core, but it's not clear whether that's because of their power in the green light or their huge age.

 

Finally dug around enough to find the converastion that Paul and Guy had about the fellow.

How'd You Even Know

 

I do want to help, but I'm still not entirely certain just what it is you're asking.

Malvolio...now there is a name I haven't heard in a LONG time. Nice to see someone else remembers that little tidbit, and how so many people were reckoning it was why Hal went so nuts before Kyle took the book.

Thing is, I don't think DC even remembered that Hal had Malvolio's ring at the time. Last I knew, it was still being treated as if he still had Abin Sur's ring.

I dunno what the continuity is now. I keep wanting to get back into GL comics...but I find that I like the Lantern concept better than the characters they use. I am a fan of Alan and Kyle though.

 

You type that as if anyone knows.

After every crisis, it's never ever clear what got retconned and what got kept after the reboot, every single freaking time.

The latest from DC was basically "You know what, we've never actually gave a shit about not contradicting ourselves before, so we're going to stop pretending we actually care about continuity."

Although the current Green Lantern run is big on continuity porn- The United Planet Superwatch which consists primarily of obscure Superman and girl expies, it also had the Qwa-Men return (previous appearance, Kyle's fantasy to which Batman's response was "Nintendo has a lot to answer for"), Olivia Reynolds, and the Planet Named Green Lantern.

 

I'm not sure what Jordan means here.

How did his boxing glove construct affect the Huntsman? I don't remember much of the original Hunstman fight on Venus, but Paragon clearly didn't expect it to work here.

 

Of course there's no space cellphone signal silly That would be too easy. Haven't you watched any horror movies.

And with a big bad Malvolio right there (somehow. Wasn't the Castle ship supposed to be on/around Earth? Malvolio's prison was in another Sector) there's no easy way to scan for Sheeda. Because of course not.

ya know, no matter how many times you pull the 'Ok, I may have been wrong about construct boxing gloves' thing it doesn't make them look any less stupid.

edit:

I think he's talking about Paul's anti-Hunstman ray gun construct. And maybe commenting on the fact that Paul knows too many random facts about too many random people in a way not even obsessive high rez ring scans can explain. Remember how even The Guy started to catch on to the fact?

I bet most of the Leaguers think Paul's either a time traveler or a precog and simply lies about it for whatever reason. It's simply more likely explanation than 'some entity that read a lot of comic books about us conjured him ex nihilo a couple of years ago'.

 

Boy, those Sheeda wards are a pain, eh? This is going to be one hell of a dungeon crawl, huh?

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

Hmm...Likelihood of this being Malvolio's little space-time bubble rising. Presumably the Castle made its way in here sometime, somehow. Dragged in by Mallie himself, perhaps?

You'd at least get a return ping, even if he was marked as offline.

Yep, warped space with no outgoing communications... This is Malvolio's prison, all right.

At least they can keep in touch if they split up.

If the Guardians catch them in time. It's not always obvious.

Case in point. The Guardians didn't even realise he'd conquered his homeworld until Hal visited...

No comic book logic here, for one thing. And honestly, would poking him be worth the risk? What benefit would there be in trying to interact with him?

It would have to be one detailed construct. Or he manually built everything using transmutation and let it run from there.

So no greedy-porting, huh? No easy way out for you, never mind the risks of taking the other along. And no Scry-and-die tactic to locate the Queen and bypass the dungeon.

Oh, hell no. Boys, play the song!

This is no time to be cocky, you yahoo. If the Queen has any more Anti-Lantern troops handy, you will die, given that you lack OL's more esoteric techniques for resisting them.

OL ain't main-ling Will. Of course he's not going to be as stubborn as Hal is.

No time to rectify that now, alas. Not the best time to break in new gear. Especially powered armour with its long calibration time.

IE, hope you don't hit an intervening wall. No telling how thick they are between rooms touching the outer hull.

OL, bringing the big booms. Pity Hal has to worry about restrictions like 'possibility of collateral damage' or 'mass casualties.'

Subtle. No need to worry about the guys inside if they're spread across the walls.

Oh, hell. We all know what that means...

But this time, OL's prepared and loaded for bear. Spangly, cosmic bear...

<facepalm> And I'm now reminded of that Justice League animated movie involving the formation of the New 52 League... Where glowy green douchebag guy Hal forms a big fist and slooooowly flies over to Darkseid, who just pimpslaps him into a wall...

...It caught him by surprise, maybe?

Muhahahahaa! Bye-bye, bad guy.

I'll give Hal props for not passing out from pain, but I have to dock them for trying the boxing glove again.

And dammit, now I have TF'86 Unicron's death scene playing in my head... An elderly Orson Welles trying to sound pained as a giant robot pulls its own leg of then explodes...

Easy kill, no XP for you. And no loot, either? lame.

Thanks for tanking, Hal. Next time, try not getting hit. Or we'll have to start calling you Green Distraction.

Sweep and clear. I have the feeling the Queen's going to have a lot less troops when this is done.

I see they've got the sense to not poke the sleeping god. With any luck, Malvolio'll stay out of it until the real fight's done. Still going to be a long, tough crawl...

---

Spoiler: Quite a few corrections.

Physically, he resembled Alan if he'd been taking steroids...

So assuming standard dimensions…

...annihilating each other in a colossal blast!

That repetition feels a little awkward...

The Huntsman crushes my construct-

Jordan nods, construct-splinting his arm...

 

I'd guess it's because it's not a boxing glove. It's more the idea of a strong, effective punch.

 

arm.

 

The constructs consist of emotion, they are as strong as Hal Jordan wills them to be, whether he's visualizing bug spray, a banana cream pie, a boxing glove, a missile barrage.

A banana peel construct could ward off a nuclear explosion.

The shape is generally meaningless fluff.

Unless the lantern is actually emulating a machine, or creating virtual matter.

Kyle has created a flamethrower to shoot actual flames at people, ice guns to freeze his enemies, and kryptonite to weaken Superman, for example.

Kyle also once knocked Alan out by creating a knockout gas construct.

 

The one thing that annoys me about the Malvolio plotline (specifically the fact that Mr Z is using him to prevent the team from using 'call for backup', 'summon bigger fish', 'scry-and-die' and 'dungeon bypass' tactics) is that it is both unnecessary and repetitive (he did practically the same thing on the Columbian colony planet: no calls out, no Ophidian interrupt, no greed-porting).

Power rings are apparently weak to magic and Sheeda are all about magic. Scry wards are already a thing. It's not a stretch to come up with a magical AoE greed-port blocker. Or a magical comm jammer. There was no need to transport an entire Castle ship into some distant Negative Space Wedgie ruled by some angry god when the ship itself could just as easily be a Negative Space Wedgie.

Ha! Their chance of avoiding a Malvolio interrupt in the most narratively dramatic moment is pretty close to 0%.

Ah! But how do you know those weren't construct flames/ice rays/kryptonite radiation/knock out gas. They don't seem very 'actual' to me. I'm always amused by the construct diner some Lantern projected. Along with construct waitress delivering hearty construct food. All those time where 'conjured matter doesn't last' trope is in full strength get ignored for the scene to work.

 

Bah! You should see the lists ThrawnCA sends me.

Thank you, corrected.

The problem with the Sheeda is that they're the opposite of normal supervillains: they flat out can't take the heroes in a direct fight, but will always cause so much societal damage that civilisation has to change. In the comics the Sheeda were only a threat because they were fighting people with no/barely any powers. Superman would have brought the plot of Seven Soldiers to a stop in two issues. Maybe three if he needed help with Zor.

 

No, no, I get why this is necessary, the problem is that it is necessary. Lately OL barely has any fights that aren't against the opponents that either counter or flat out ignore all of his main advantages.

When you started the story the MC was relatively rational, pragmatic and genre savvy... it didn't last. He got so powerful so quickly that you had to resort to making excuses for him passing on power ups that would make him even more OP than he already was. Sometimes you did it nuancedly (you made regular magic and most OP superserums requiring a standard soul and then you gave OL a nonstandard one) other times you just ignored it or gave some pretty weird justifications (most of the equipment based superpowers - like... I dunno, the TK headband). I completely get it on Doylistic level but it just doesn't make much sense to me on the Watsonian one. The SI stopped acting as an SI at some pretty early point. Some of it is good some of it is bad.

 

Im a simple man, me like it when SI do good smart thing

 

When a GL is going for non lethal i like them. Boxing gloves are supposed to be a safety feature when you hit someone so being based on willpower, I imagine a GL can only hit you hard enough to knock you out. In a war/Lethal fight,i agree they will always seem silly.

I agree on the power scaling. If someone doesn't have magic, they can't do anything and now everyone has magic. i'm getting bored of reading "my spell eater overheated" to signify a real fight. I kind of feel the last few arcs for paragon, all could have been stories final paragon arc. Paul plateaued a while ago and all his enemies became streamlined. Grayven's story is the one i'm really interested in atm because his story feels different and challenging.

 

Because Hal can hit really, really, really hard.

And, despite all his snark, his and OL's approach aren't THAT different. Hal uses large kinetic impact over a wide area with a blunt force construct of hard light. OL makes a hard light construct to fire a solid slug projectile. Also, lets face it, OL has it easy in a sense. He just has to want something. Hal has to will it into existence.

Beyond that, much of what a construct actually does is based upon the users belief and mindset. A master Power ring user's construct would only exist for an instant, a mere moment before it struck. So why doesn't everyone do that?

Because it's really hard. Not just in effort, but in mindset. Why does Hal generate a fist, wind it back, and then blast someone with it instead of just having it instantly appear and smash into the person? Because in his mind, as he perceives how things work, he has to do that to generate the force required.

He doesn't. But power rings create constructs that perform as their user THINKS they should.

That's why Lanterns create hammers and claws and whips and guns and missiles and Kaijuu and Giant Green versions of Calvin from Calvin and Hobbs (My boy Kyle there)

Because concentration is required, and various shortcuts are created. Technically Hal could fire a simple green beam that would strike with the same or greater force than his glove. But he thinks that the glove would do more damage...thus it does.

Hence why a Power ring is an imagination based power.

Technically Hal could transmute the oxygen around you into something explosive, or literally split the atom to create an atomic blast. But that requires a LOT of concentration and control...whereas he can quickly punch you in the face.

Furthermore, as Hal is Ex-Air force he is almost certainly familiar with boxing. Coupled with the fact that when Hal was created, Boxing was King in America. The "Fight of the Century" between Ali and Frazier was so huge because of how big boxing was in America at that time.

To the point, many Military bases had boxing clubs of a kind back then. Martial arts really weren't a thing yet in America. Boxing and later Judo post WW2 where about all there was. Hence why, if you read Old Batman comics, his entire fighting style tends to reference either boxing or Judo.

Or some sort of pro wrestling due to it's impressive regional popularity.

So when Hal cranks back and let's fly, his simply doing what he knows to do in a fight. Also? Hal's glove can hit with MORE force than OL's random bullets if Hal puts enough concentration and will into it.

I like OL...but he's kinda a construct snob. As much as he makes fun of Hal and the Greenies...his construct use has badly devolved over the course of the story. He stated out much more creative, such as his 4 corner sonic boom blasting construct.

Now? Make gun, shoot.

I'm mostly impressed that he's started making various constructs like crumble and cold, rather than taking the actual weapons out of subspace.

But he's really stopped thinking out of the box and even trying to push the limits of what his ring can. Perhaps it's his utilitarian mindset holding him back? Because just as Hal perceives his glove as a powerful kinetic slam, OL perceives a gunshot to be the way to go.

They are both right, and both wrong...and both can do much better. But OL literally HAS to want it.

So...much...typing....

Okay!

So yes and no. Boxing gloves ARE a safety feature....for the puncher. They protect your hand...they don't do SHIT to protect the other guy's head.

In fact, they allow a puncher to throw even HARDER punches without fear of breaking his hand. Furthermore, they spread the impact over a wider area. Which leads to a less precise application of force, often allowing the other fighter (who trains to absorb blows, or is just tough as hell) to resist what would have been a knockout. While also causing even MORE jarring of the brain.

So while the impact is more spread out, it leads to a boxer taking more punches then he would perhaps otherwise take...leading to more brain injury in the long haul.

You'll notice boxers tend to take a LOT more direct shots to the head and shrug them off than a MMA fighter with the much smaller, lighter gloves.

It's also worth noting that some of the nastiest knockouts occur when a titanic amount of force blasts the boxer to the ground, and then the back of his head smashes violently into the solid canvas (which is literally just some padding, sometimes less sometimes more depending on whose canvas it is. Different thickness canvases favor different types of fighters. A runner vs a puncher for instance...getting off track, atop solid wood.)

This is also why amature wrestling has strict rules against slams, while something like Judo does not.

Because in wrestling...they literally just fucking roll out a tiny rubber mat over a basketball court. While I've seen Judo mats over 6 inches thick. I've taken, and given, back suplex slams ON THE HEAD in Judo that I barely felt, and took no injury from...that would have knocked me the fuck out and potentially led to brain damage had it been a wrestling mat.

Moral of the story, push for thicker mats in your local school's wrestling program. Cheap fucks don't want to pay. With thicker mats, kids would learn and could use a wider range of wrestling grapples and throws...while also receiving less injury.

Maxx out.

 

i have been punched in the face by someone wearing boxing gloves and someone not. It hurts alot more with no glove, and his knuckle cut my eyebrow open. Long term, gloves allow the fight to continue so more damage is accumulated. Im comparing a single punch bare vs gloved since GL is only hitting once. It is because like you say in first half he has to will it. Boxing gloves represent safety for GL so he does so not to kill accidently with a punch.