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DC Comics herald-level characters upgrade discussion - Part 2

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Antvasima

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Hello.

This will serve as the continuation of our preceding DC Comics herald-level characters scaling thread, which was closed in order to approach the subject with a clean slate and fresh eyes, focusing on the list of feats that garnered significant staff approval in order to re-examine them, given that the old thread turned far too long and messy to properly overview.

Here is a list of these feats in a more easily overviewed format:

The initial thread contained a great deal of other feats which were discussed amongst staff, but which ultimately didn't gain significant acceptance. Due to how long the thread became, and how much noise there was about all of the other feats, it was decided that the prudent thing to do would be to start fresh and focus on these main feats in order to ensure that they receive the appropriate amount of attention and discussion, which was not practical in the initial thread due to the huge list of feats.

All interested staff members are encouraged to look at these feats again with fresh eyes, and offer your thoughts anew, and do your best to consider the arguments both for and against these feats so that we are best able to determine which ones are valid, and what tiers they can be used to support.


Here is a less easily overviewed old list of these feats with previous staff opinions included. However, it may not be entirely accurate, as Deagonx mentioned that Eficiente's views were not always accurately summarised, and it was not mentioned that I disagreed with everything that did not have explicit mentioned approvals from me as far as I recall.
@Qawsedf234 @LordTracer @Firestorm808 @Theglassman12 @Eficiente @Planck69

Do the above summaries accurately portray your views about these issues?

Also, everybody please take note that although I personally genuinely think that tier 2 statistics are extremely inconsistent with the almost completely constant portrayals of these characters, I will accept what our staff consensus decides in this regard and not cause any problems if it reaches another decision than what I consider remotely reliable.

Given the potential controversy of this discussion, this will also be a staff only thread in order to avoid as much derailing and hostility as possible, and I request that our staff members will also all completely stay on topic and be polite to each other.

Thanks in advance for any help.

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
 
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Here are the main arguments against each of these feats that Deagonx compiled from our last thread for easier overview.

Infinite Man sculpting -
Sculpting space-time is an ability, and not an indication of AP unto itself. Looking at the comic for context, it says: "We thought we could find answers about our past in the past-- --and gave no thought to how badly the timestream was damaged before we took a deep plunge!" which clearly implies the timestream was damaged beforehand, and that what they did was an otherwise inoffensive thing that's only causing issues due to that damage the timestream already had.
In particular, the first scan reads: "The thirtieth century is crumbling. Each new second brings with another paradox... Each heartbeat, another contradiction in chronal continuity. Heroes thought long dead reappear without warning...while champions cherished as vital and alive vanish just as suddenly... ...and with each such entrance and exist the temporal fabric that knits the universe frays chllingly further." The timestream was already seriously damaged, Infinite-Man's power was a push further that would destroy it. This is following DC's rules on paradoxes and contradictions in a timeline that on their own damage a timeline, not AP.
That same first scan also says that Infinite-Man's power "might have contained the carnage", which means he might have been able to fix the paradoxes and contradictions talked about in that page, which is unqualifiable as they don't destroy the timeline or universe on its own, it's those 2 villains further damaging things that would cause that, and it's Space-Time hax that fixes some small things like people being in points in time where they're not meant to, use Space-Time hax to fix that isn't AP relevant.
Further, since nothing was stated about being able to recreate the entire universal continuum according to their whims, just the local galaxy, and even that was not clarified if it would be a very gradual feat. It doesn't seem explicit/self-evident/reliable enough for tiering.
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Astro force annihilating the cosmos -
"Cosmos" is a tricky word, while it can just mean the universe, it can also be unqualifiable sections of it as it refers to it as an orderly harmonious systematic universe. What makes it stop being orderly harmonious systematic? Whatever you feel like it stops the universe from being that, maybe you destroy a planet and it stops being that, maybe some solar systems, maybe a galaxy, who knows. By my own standards, I would not sure it as anything more than supporting evidence if other stuff already proves that a feat already targets the universe, it's too poetic of a word.
Wielding a power source =/= having its full Tier unless proven. Orion's regular AP for punches & kicks may differ from his Astro-Force.
It says there that of the other gods, only he can do it, this is an anti-feat for them and a clear portrayal of the Astro-Force as something above his regular stats (as he scales to other gods), that's the reasonable conclusion to make out of this.
I'm gonna read the comic in case there's even more stuff against this, as I reasonably don't trust that more info against the feat would have been recognized.
The armada "will move to destroy the Earth, and all the cosmos with it!"
The armada has a weapon whose power has the "potential to annihilate the entire universe".
The armada are made up of people less w/o gods as Darkseid killed their gods, they were stripped from all tha gives their lives meaning and purpose, and in the destruction of the universe they see nothing less than fitting retribution.
That's followed by the scan used in the OP, it's the next page.
"The device allegedly created to destroy the entire universe!", it makes the expantion of the universe be reversed, causing the universe to collapse in an instant into a colossal black hole
There is "one power in this universe" that "would be up to the task of contanning that effect, should the bomb be triggered. The Astro-Force, once wielded by Orion."
Darkseid says that the armada threatens all with oblivion as he kills their leaders, there is no reason to say he would have survived their weapon.
Orion comes into drawn in by his Astro-Force, sensing this device something which is the very opposite of its own nature.
So, a weapon that can destroy the universe can be stopped by the Astro-Force, either solely due to its a 3-A AP or AP being unqualifiable due to acting in a way that is the very opposite of its own nature (After all, there is no reason to believe it would still be able to stop the weapon should their natures not be opposites. For all we know if they weren't opposites the Astro-Force could be worthless for the job). No New God can stop this weapon. Orion doesn't scale to this use of his Astro-Force.
I am uncertain about that one, as we do not know in what manner that Orion's Astro Force would be able to stop the threat, since it was just a statement without practical application.
I am currently uncertain, as it was an unproven statement with unclear specifications regarding how it would be accomplished.
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Superman vs Time Trapper (Both)

Least of my issues with the thread, but why is this portrayed as 2 different feats?
Why is it that we claim that SP "Should be as powerful as the original Time Trapper" in his profile? His speed is also pretty wrong, being a sentient timeline and existing outside of the flow of linear time grants nothing speed wise, and he's not even outside of time but at the end of time. I don't see why he isn't just at the same level as regular Superbody-Prime.
But SBP isn't at his higher levels all the time, and TT was defeated via a paradox activated by SBP, not AP/Dura scaling.
I think that has to be interpreted as a regular everybody can fight everybody in order to make western superhero stories work issue, so I disagree. As I mentioned above, it was perceived as a massive event when post-Crisis Superman was powered up so much that he could move Pluto during the Our Worlds at War event, whereas Superboy Prime could withstand a point blank universe-destroying explosion.
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Ion remaking the universe:

Ion could remake the Universe (Green Lantern Vol. 3 #145, February 2002) ✔️
As the scans states, this is due to stealing power from many ton of sources, each of which are individually at Hal's level. If Ion's base is at Hal's level then it's an anti-feat that it needs all this to recreate the universe.
It was also an unproven statement, and we do not know if it would have been a gradual feat, and Kyle was powered up far beyond the rest of the Justice League during the first time he took the name Ion, which was unrelated to the entity of the same name at the time.
Wally's infinite and incalculable power:
"The power inside you" almost certainly refers to the Speed Force. He's talking about Flash being powerful in a way he doesn't understand and know yet, this is pure potential, not standard. He also refers to the way he defies physics, so in context this infinite and incalculable power would have nothing to do with High 3-A as even moving at lightspeed yields infinite energy, and do something incalculable via ignoring physics can be anything. The fact that he doesn't know if Superman is above him shows uncertainty, not scaling.
This, combined with the new rule on infinite power statements and the lack of clarity as to the nature of this infinite power, makes this unusable for tiering.
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Phantom-zone shaking:

The PZ wasn't called "Infinite" rather an "unregion of infinitely compressed space" by a character that talks odd. Not clear what "unregion" means, I think she means region, as in the PZ being limited, but more significantly she is clearly being hyperbolic on how compressed the PZ is in size, and calling a universe infinite is a common hyperbole, so the feat would only be shaking a universe at best.
The shaking also likely refers to the earthquakes in the distance, which would intuitively be the area around rather than every area of the anti-universe that could have earthquakes. Also also, it wasn't due to a punch, the punch happened, then more fighting was happening, and among it the fear happened. It was by the fight in general rather than that 1 punch seen the page before.
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Barbatos punch:
This is a chained up, imprisoned Barbatos, it stands to reason that he would be weaker. He was bound with 10th Metal chains at the time, which work like superpowered Kryptonite against him, and Superman could not do anything against Barbatos without this crutch during the preceding Metal event.
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WW Infinite Fireball:

The feat is taken out of context. The gods live on Mount Olympus and need to move on from there, doing so is a classic comicbook cosmic event that follows its own made up rules; They need to destroy Olympus first, so they harness "the greatest power in all Olympus", prayers from the only people that believe in them, put it along "the amassed strength of the entire pantheon (of gods)" and use all that to shoot the fireball at Diana, who is relying on the protective power of her bracelets, as they were part of Zeus' mightly aegis itself, the impenetrable shield formed from the hide of the great goat Amaltheia, who wet-nursed the infant Zeus & this provided the energy from which Olympus sprung, that it has the power of the aegis, that Amaltheia's power formed the corner stone of Olympus and her power will destroy it. Diana will charge a cosmic force, the accumulated energies of the gods intensified by Amazon prayer, and deflect it with her bracelets, the "fireball" will receive Amaltheaia's kiss (touch the bracelets) and be transformed into a burst more awesome than before. (Note!: Amalthea is the foster-motehr of Zeus, "Aegis" is a device carried by Athena and Zeus, the modern concept of doing something "under someone's aegis" means doing something under the protection of a powerful, knowledgeable, or benevolent source. One of its meanings is "The shield of a deity", which is pretty objectively its use here)
So,
The "fireball" has the accumulated power of all the gods in that comic (all of them minus Ares) intensified by prayers, which itself is a greater power than any one god that lives in Olympus. Note that even 1 god is more powerful than WW. WW did this solely due to their bracelets, her bracelets scale, not her at all. Even then she was pretty overwhelmed by doing this. WW has the ability to amp cosmic/godly energies deflected by her bracelets, so very situational Stats Amp for her.
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Superman > Hank Hall Monarch:

Looking at the scans, it syas: "He might have been on Earth to stop the Monarch. Indeed, the Monarch might never have arisen of course, there woud be nothing left for the monarch to covet." It sounds like Supes could have stopped him before the gained power, not that he can match his power & thus stop him. Even then it's very indecisive, this job for Superman may be like its own comic where he has an adventure where he wins at the end, he doesn't need to be as powerful as the villain. Reading the comics it's a time travel story where the present is before 2001, Monarch killed everyone in 2001 and rules the future 30 years from there, the villain is that future Monarch, it makes perfect sense that Supes would be able to stop him at a point where he was weaker.
"implied to be capable of defeating Extant" is just him going to attack and getting punched. Why would this be the same Monarch from that timeline 30 years into the future that didn't come to be?
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Tesseract:
Having a power source=/=being able to attack with his full power per blow unless proven, otherwise 1 attack would dry the Tesseract from all that infinite energy I assume it has, and it is an assumption, the thing having infinite space =/= it having infinite energy for CB to take, necessarily.
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Superman shattering boundaries of spacetime

Someone was saying this feat was invalid, I can see my own reasons but someone else said:
"The issue is that this takes place during Infinite Crisis, when the Multiverse was unstable due to tons of reality shenanigans."
Is anyone aware of this able to link sources to back this up?
Moving on, there were poor defenses for this like "If I destroy a wall around a kingdom, me busting the kingdom doesn’t suddenly become illegitimate", which is unreasonable as that's an example made when the whole thing being destroyed doesn't matter to the unstable smaller thing, yet you can make examples where parts of something being unstable means destroying all of it becomes far easier. You can make an infinite amount of examples of cases where destroying the whole thing is easier or isn't easier, it's worthless as you can't assume how much unstable the universe already was, you simply know that it is and work with that, which makes things inapplicable. And this is just from the vague knowledge that "the Multiverse was unstable", if we actually put some small care to look up all the scans that establish that, by how much it's unstable & its rules, we would obviously have a better idea of the matter.
"The entire event starts because Alex, GA Superman, and Superboy Prime watched the current incarnation of the Justice League continually fail at protecting the world whilst slowly becoming grittier, more horribly people, much like how comic fans at the time were complaining about the darker tone, so they try to reclaim and fix the world. This fight is symbolic of their different ideologies coming to head, they metaphorically believe the other is destroying the world while Alex is literally destroying the world. It's not a feat for Superman, it's a story telling device." - The Wright Way
Then I read the comics around this and have this to say (Spoilers the feat's wrong):
The images are in random order.
The "space shattering" effect used in the fight is used when Supes punches a regular human being too ("Minor")
All of this happens due to conceptual things; the ways the character should have acted being wrong in the eyes of the other character, rather than physical strength. For example Supes thinks Supes killed Lois by the way he handled his Earth, even though he saw her die of natural causes/for no reason right in front of him. It's not AP, and yes, it's at the same time dictated by their fight, such as punches. It's not binary, ok?
At one point when the Supermans are beating each other they do so while changing forms as suits/forms Superman have had over the years, throwing out of the question the state in which they are being standard.
It turns out that Alex was messing up the multiverse all along, which he was hiding from Superman. To achieve his multiverse-related goal Alex says that Superman is the key and that everything comes from him, he messes him up along many versions of him across the multiverse, similar to how the 2 Supes were changing forms before. Alex's actions are messing up alt. Earths/universes.
Edit!: Right after the battle was over Earth-Two Supes explains that the multiverse is unstable, that the Earths will become weaker and weaker as they're divided (Their current state), and if they aren't brought ack together soon the entire universe will explode in a new big bang & everything will be destroyed. He just knew this after being calmed down, at first both Sups blamed each other for the chaos because they didn't know any better, but they were wrong, the Earths were divided (visible from the sky) from before the battle started, and that is a state that, on its own, messes up the universe badly & will destroy it. Superman having a vague conceptual thing going on over this related to how writers do things in comics is not something that matters to his AP at all.
Furthermore, "shattered the boundaries of Space-Time and changed timelines" isn't Low 2-C, it would be 3-A for destroying the universe, which they didn't do nor could do at once, the over time thing they did do was to f*ck up the planet.
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Captain Atom vs Superman:

The comparison made is super vague, hit with everything he got can easily refer to the standard levels he works with given how normalized he has to not work with his peak levels.
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Superman damages Superboy Prime:

Yeah, Superboy-Prime's at that level. Have you seen his profile and feats? Also remember when he wanted to blow up the universe and thus kill everyone minus himself, including Superboy?
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Superman vs Mordru:
I like this one, it's just a simple, innocent outlier. Mordru criticizes Supes for attacking head-on, Mordru then gets tagged by magic from behind as the attacker brags about how it was an attack from behind (I would think they're trying to justify having been able to achieve this), Supes follows up with a punch. This is just a standard comic outlier, Mordru was taken off-guard, an out load reason was given as to why this was achieved, and he was attacked with magic of unknown effects (could be hax, if so not even an outlier).
Also I don't think Mordru is just always 2-C, possibly 2-A, in his fight with Hector Hall we see a future version of him defeated by regular heroes.
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GLC Central Battery:
Many things wrong here. The GLC Central Battery can do that, but it's not that simple, you portray it as if its average attack was that strong, when it's not. It first needs to siphon all GL energy back to itself, this alone meaning that it can't do the feat w/o doing that yet. After that it will overload, have a power builtup & destroy itself, meaning that the feat's more than it can handle, hence it happens after an overload (It having more power than it can load), a power builtup (leads to the latter), and it destroys itself doing the feat (Your regular punches, kicks, blasts, etc. don't scale to some feat where you self-destruct).
Even then, being amped by a power source =/= having a Tier=to that power source, obligatory. Otherwise one attack alone would cause the thing to be drained into having 0 power, it needs to be proven that their stats are the same.
Hal Jordan got stomped by Sinestro with those powers, who considered himself godlike despite already scaling to Hal's level in base. Sinestro was enjoying attacking Hal immensely, so you have 3 solid reasons to dismiss that feat, that being before Hal got healed & a powerup to match Sinestro on that level.
Those scans don't show that Molly has all that, just that something has it, and it doesn't show that they have the full power of those things, just access to it. All that power is also spreading through time, so there is no reason for the full sum of it to be in the present where she's using it.
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Hal vs Crispus Allen Black Lantern
This is a black lantern-revived Spectre, he's zombified / rotten / with less durability by the decomposed state he's in.
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Hal kills Krona
He could control them as in their actions, he sent them to possess other Guardians. That's not the same as he getting each of their AP added into his own while they also remain their own AP.
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Auteur.io
Many things. Playing along it's only 3-A as said before. It's far less as it's just to set tapes on fire to burn them away. When the characters from this tape realities come out they do so as miniture versions, no reason to believe that this universes are as big & complex as real universes. Even if they were, it would be a Creation feat rather than anything that could be used offensively.
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And here is a list of anti-feats that he compiled to demonstrate instances where the characters involved in the above listed feats, or ones comparable to them in terms of raw power, are consistently shown struggling or explicitly capped at planetary feats, which is also important to consider.

1) A combined effort of Superman, Wonder Woman, Kyle Rayner, Martian Manhunter, Power Girl and Marvel Family was required to move the Moon that at the time was covered in debris (JLA/Titans #3).

Key quote: "I moved the moon alone once when I had electro-magnetic powers. This time we have to rely on team work and brute strength." Moving a moon is clearly portrayed as very difficult within the storyline (although the Cyberion station was larger than the moon, it was still very clearly sub-planetary)

2) It takes 9 Heroes/Villains hitting the earth with everything they have at max-speed to destabilize it (DC Death Metal #5)

3) Two Lanterns and Superman are needed to move the moon (GMP Justice League #2)

Key quote: "We have to move the moon into position. We'll need both Lanterns and Superman." "You do know this isn't going to be easy?

4) Superman has nothing like the power to push planets around (Superman: The Earth Stealers)

Key quote: "Lois is absolutely right, I have nothing like the power to push planets around."

5) Superman can't move a planet under normal circumstances (Superman vol. 2 "1987" #167)

Key quote: "What do you mean move the planet? You can't move a planet back home, what makes you think you can here?"

6) Superman is cooked by the Earth's core and says it's hotter than his heat vision (Justice League #3)

Key quote: "Heat and pressure like being cooked. Barely open my eyes."

7) Superman is unsure how to destroy a bomb capable of withstanding the Earth's core (Man of Steel #6)

Key quote: "How do I destroy a planet-destroying device strong enough to survive the Earth's core?"

8) Darkseid is the only being in the Universe with the power to destroy a world (Forever Evil #7)

9) Superman, Wonder Woman, and Kyle admit they couldn't pull the moon again (JLA (1997) #58)

Key quote: "We couldn't do that again given twice the stakes."

10) Superman, Wonder Woman, and MMH were losing their grip pulling the Earth (JLA (1997) #75)

Key quote: "The earth is back under control, but we were losing it, how?"

11) Hal considers moving the planet impossible and needs to add his power to Superman's (Justice League of America (2006) #29)

Key quote: "We've got to restore Earth's proper orbit. Well, you and I are the only two strong enough to even try it."

12) Alan Scott and John Stewart struggle to hold the Earth together (Adventures of Superman #618)

13) Hal can only briefly hold the world together (JLA: Year One #10)

Key quote: "Lantern's doing all he can -- but even he can't stop the world for long."

14) Superman needs all his strength to move a Venus sized planet 13 meters (Superman Red and Blue #1)

15) Eradicator one-shots Superman by using the power of the sun's core (Superman Vol. 2 #57)

16) Metallo tapping into the Earth's magnetic field no-sells Superman (Damage #0)

17) Superman can't move a spore the size of a planet by himself... ...and Hal and another lanterns needed Superman's help to do so (DC Comics Presents #27)

18) Pressure similar to that of a star crushes Superman (Adventures of Superman #498)

Key quote: "The pressure inside the temple was enormous, like being at the center of a star. The gravity was literally crushing me."

19) Ship is accelerated to the point where it would merely destroy a continent... ...Superman passes out after stopping it (Action Comics #901-902)

20) Hal Jordan fails to hold the Earth together (Trinity (2008) #49)
 
 
Would it be acceptable to simply close this thread until Emirp has posted his counterarguments here? Otherwise our counterpoints will likely be drowned out and not considered due to being lost in a torrent of posts from people who support upgrades.

I do not mind talking with Emirp, but I have very limited time available due to combined real life and wiki patrolling duties.
 
Look, I mainly simply won't remotely have the time available to argue here extensively at all and want all of the arguments from each side to be clearly visible and easy to overview from the start, rather than have only one side properly represented and any counterarguments lost in the crowd of over a thousand other posts and requiring unreasonable amounts of work to find, as that is what happened the last time.

As I mentioned here from the start, I will not cause any problems if our staff consensus decides in favour of this upgrade, but I want them to be able to easily overview all of the counterarguments from the start, so I know that both sides are fairly taken into account. That is all. It is not a genuinely big deal if we close this thread, delete all derailing posts, let Emirp post his own arguments here tomorrow, and then let our staff evaluate as they will, while we try to stay on topic, rather than derail.

I would greatly appreciate if you are willing to show some consideration in this regard, as my combined duties IRL and with constantly patrolling our wiki to prevent vandalism do not remotely allow me to be particularly active in this forum anymore. Thanks in advance for any help.

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
 
Antvasima said:
Infinite Man sculpting -
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That doesn't work with our AP system
Characters or objects that are capable of significantly affecting[1], creating and/or destroying an area of space that is qualitatively larger than an infinitely-sized 3-dimensional space. Common fictional examples of spaces representing such sizes are space-time continuums (the entire past, present and future of 3-dimensional space) of a universal scale. However, it can be more generally fulfilled by any 4-dimensional space that is either:
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  1. "Significantly affect" is here used as an umbrella term for feats that don't involve direct creation or destruction but are comparable to them in power, such as warping and distorting the entirety of the structure in question, sustaining its existence with one's own, etc.
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The fact that Infinity Man can contain and stop the paradox is an AP feat.
Antvasima said:
So, a weapon that can destroy the universe can be stopped by the Astro-Force, either solely due to its a 3-A AP or AP being unqualifiable due to acting in a way that is the very opposite of its own nature
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Going by New Gods #13 (1977) the Astro-Force can control binding forces and can directly shatter bonds. Him countering the weapon isn't some like, Kryptonite thing. It's the Astro-Force's control over that aspect of reality that lets him counter that force.
But SBP isn't at his higher levels all the time, and TT was defeated via a paradox activated by SBP, not AP/Dura scaling.
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This isn't a relevant portion. The argument is that SBP and TT were harmed by Superman, which they were, which is enough for the scaling. Superman winning through brute force isn't needed for the justification.
As the scans states, this is due to stealing power from many ton of sources, each of which are individually at Hal's level. If Ion's base is at Hal's level then it's an anti-feat that it needs all this to recreate the universe.
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The scan doesn't state that
But if Nero is siphoning off that mass of energy, the oblivion force coupled with the parallax power- siphoning from Kyle- he could avoid it all by cutting off the link. That's how Sinestro's ring worked, stealing power from GL rings, GL lanterns, and Nero is drawing it from Kyle's ring.
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He's making a comparison here about how Nero is acting like Sinestro's original yellow ring, which drew powers from the Green Lanterns and their batteries. They're saying Kyle needs to cut off his connection to the Lantern Ring to prevent the siphon, not that the siphon needs every GL to do what it needs. It's drawing from the main power source.

Probably still not a universal justification though, since they still needed the Oblivion Force, but they aren't saying that Kyle is being amped by every Green Lantern.
The fact that he doesn't know if Superman is above him shows uncertainty, not scaling.
This, combined with the new rule on infinite power statements and the lack of clarity as to the nature of this infinite power, makes this unusable for tiering.
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Flash would pass this rule, as the Speedforce has directly shown to be capable of generating infinite amounts of energy and higher dimensional levels of energy. It's why Barry and Wally have a Tier 2 rating when tapping into the speedforce.
The shaking also likely refers to the earthquakes in the distance, which would intuitively be the area around rather than every area of the anti-universe that could have earthquakes. Also also, it wasn't due to a punch, the punch happened, then more fighting was happening, and among it the fear happened. It was by the fight in general rather than that 1 punch seen the page before.
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Shaking an infinite zone is still a Low 2-C feat to a High 3-A one. Doesn't matter if it was one punch or several. The Phantom Zone also exists in the 4th World and acts as a membrane between multiverses (Dark Nights: Metal #3). The size qualifies for a Tier 2 standard.
This is a chained up, imprisoned Barbatos, it stands to reason that he would be weaker. He was bound with 10th Metal chains at the time, which work like superpowered Kryptonite against him, and Superman could not do anything against Barbatos without this crutch during the preceding Metal event.
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While I don't know about Kryptonite, the weakining would make sense.
Having a power source=/=being able to attack with his full power per blow unless proven, otherwise 1 attack would dry the Tesseract from all that infinite energy I assume it has, and it is an assumption, the thing having infinite space =/= it having infinite energy for CB to take, necessarily.
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Having an infinite energy source means you can use an infinite amount of energy and infinite amount of times. It wouldn't dry up ""realistically"". The child also stated they drew energy from the Tesseract of infinite size. drawing energy from an entire infinite object would give you infinite energy.
The comparison made is super vague, hit with everything he got can easily refer to the standard levels he works with given how normalized he has to not work with his peak levels.
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This makes no sense. If someone states "I hit them with everything I have got" it means they hit them with maximum force. Not some vague undefinable force. If you want to dismiss the scaling because Captain Atom never did the thing sure, be the statement is direct.

This was also the arc where he was exploring his powers more so I don't think the normalized level really works.
Yeah, Superboy-Prime's at that level. Have you seen his profile and feats? Also remember when he wanted to blow up the universe and thus kill everyone minus himself, including Superboy?
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This is a counterpoint, though it should be noted that damaging someone who is Low 2-C but dying to something that is Low 2-C doesn't need to be an anti-feat, it could just mean that they're a lower Low 2-C.
I like this one, it's just a simple, innocent outlier.
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It being an outlier can be valid, but that's ultimately what this thread is about. Superman harmed him, it's now determining if that's a valid position to hold for a regular rating.
Many things. Playing along it's only 3-A as said before. It's far less as it's just to set tapes on fire to burn them away. When the characters from this tape realities come out they do so as miniture versions, no reason to believe that this universes are as big & complex as real universes. Even if they were, it would be a Creation feat rather than anything that could be used offensively.
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Physically separating two things with raw strength wouldn't be a creation feat. It should also be noted that even if they come out mini, they still come out at a visible size compared to the regular Superman and Batman. Meaning even if the universe was smaller it would still qualify for a 3-B or 3-A rating on its own.
1) A combined effort of Superman, Wonder Woman, Kyle Rayner, Martian Manhunter, Power Girl and Marvel Family was required to move the Moon that at the time was covered in debris (JLA/Titans #3).
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Multiple notes
  • This is before Superman unlocked his mental limits
  • They could move the moon and did. It's just that by moving the moon he was messing up the Earth due to gravity so they had to move in a specific way. Orion firing on the moon caused cataclysmic Earth wide destruction and it was stated multiple times in that comic that they have to be careful about touching the moon so the Earth isn't destroyed
  • That's not "debris" it a mass of alien machinery that dwarfs the moon multiple times over
  • This is a lifting strength incident, not AP. You can have 1-A AP but having normal Human LS without that effecting your 1-A AP rating
2) It takes 9 Heroes/Villains hitting the earth with everything they have at max-speed to destabilize it (DC Death Metal #5)
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Because they're trying to destabilize it in a specific fashion for the plot to work. This was debunked on site when this issue first came out.
3) Two Lanterns and Superman are needed to move the moon (GMP Justice League #2)
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As before, this is lifting strength. Which is not tied to AP
4) Superman has nothing like the power to push planets around (Superman: The Earth Stealers)
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This is from 1995 and came before multiple powerups by Superman. We separated him into keys for a reason, so this isn't an anti-feat.

Also again, lifting strength =/= AP.
5) Superman can't move a planet under normal circumstances (Superman vol. 2 "1987" #167)
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This is possibly the worst panel to use. Because in that very same story arc Superman moved Krypton and he also contradicted Lois in this very same panel that Deagon cropped out for some reason
6) Superman is cooked by the Earth's core and says it's hotter than his heat vision (Justice League #3)
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That would be a good anti-feat, if this wasn't during the time before Superman fused with Post-Flashpoint Superman was explicitly having power fluxes and wasn't at his normal levels of power due to being out of sync with the universe.
7) Superman is unsure how to destroy a bomb capable of withstanding the Earth's core (Man of Steel #6)
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Legit
8) Darkseid is the only being in the Universe with the power to destroy a world (Forever Evil #7)
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Within a few months of this comic Superman fights someone who blows up a planet
9) Superman, Wonder Woman, and Kyle admit they couldn't pull the moon again (JLA (1997) #58)
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They're not just pulling the moon, they're moving it so it lits Earth's atmosphere on fire to kill the White Martians, which is why Superman said they only have one chance to do this because MMH had mind controlled them to not notice the moon being moved.

Also this is a lifting strength feat, not AP.
10) Superman, Wonder Woman, and MMH were losing their grip pulling the Earth (JLA (1997) #75)
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They've all been dead and have just been resurrected when this scene happens. They also did move the planet, just not fast enough which is why Kyle needed to come in since none of them regained their full power when this happened.

Also this is lifting strength. Not an AP anti-feat
11) Hal considers moving the planet impossible and needs to add his power to Superman's (Justice League of America (2006) #29)
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The Earth is being dragged into the sun by Starbreaker. They aren't fighting against the Earth's inertia but Starbreaker's attempt to throw it into the sun.

Also this is lifting strength. Not an AP anti-feat
12) Alan Scott and John Stewart struggle to hold the Earth together (Adventures of Superman #618)
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This is leaving out the context that the two floating people here cast a magical spell that is pushing the planet apart and causing reality to unravel itself. They are not holding the Earth together against nothing, but protecting it until Superman can try to disable the spell.
13) Hal can only briefly hold the world together (JLA: Year One #10)
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This is lifting strength (again), but in this case GL is trying to stop a Terraformer machine so it would be a legitimate AP anti-feat. it should be noted that GL in this comic is within his first year of being a hero, got his ring a short time ago and is still weak to the color yellow. A anit-feat this early in his career doesn't need to equate to an anti-feat for a prime Lantern.

Though this is an anti-feat.
14) Superman needs all his strength to move a Venus sized planet 13 meters (Superman Red and Blue #1)
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Alright
15) Eradicator one-shots Superman by using the power of the sun's core (Superman Vol. 2 #57)
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16) Metallo tapping into the Earth's magnetic field no-sells Superman (Damage #0)
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17) Superman can't move a spore the size of a planet by himself... ...and Hal and another lanterns needed Superman's help to do so (DC Comics Presents #27)
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  • This is lifting strength and not AP
  • This comic is from 1980. This isn't even Post-Crisis Superman in this story
18) Pressure similar to that of a star crushes Superman (Adventures of Superman #498)
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19) Ship is accelerated to the point where it would merely destroy a continent... ...Superman passes out after stopping it (Action Comics #901-902)
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This was after Superman was beaten into submission by Doomsday, but yeah this is still an anti-feat for Tier 2 Superman
20) Hal Jordan fails to hold the Earth together (Trinity (2008) #49)
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I wonder what cosmic entity was there just moments before that may have influenced Hal's ring rapidly failing

So in my view Ant, the vast bulk of these debunks don't work within their own context and most that do count are using a canonically inferior version of Superman that we already acknowledge is weaker than his prime self.
 
Thank you for your matter-of-fact and polite evaluations, Qawsedf234.

As I mentioned above, I will not cause problems if our staff politely stick to the topic here (including avoiding hostility and accusations), and eventually collectively decide to approve this revision. I just personally find it completely inconsistent with how these characters have almost always been portrayed, and as such extremely unreliable, but we have plenty of other unreliable verses in our wiki. I just happen to know a lot about this one, which causes me to notice.

I will try to respond to your arguments when I find the time and energy.

@Firestorm808 @Eficiente @Deagonx @DarkDragonMedeus @Maverick_Zero_X

What do you think?
 
Qawsedf234 said:
That doesn't work with our AP system

The fact that Infinity Man can contain and stop the paradox is an AP feat.
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Well, it seems like Deagonx did not include my own old arguments regarding that all that was stated in those scans is that the two villains would sculpt the local galaxy to their whims in the first scan, and that I do not know if the second scan was directly connected to this particular story or to something else, such as the Zero Hour event.
Qawsedf234 said:
Going by New Gods #13 (1977) the Astro-Force can control binding forces and can directly shatter bonds. Him countering the weapon isn't some like, Kryptonite thing. It's the Astro-Force's control over that aspect of reality that lets him counter that force.
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Okay. That is a valid point. However, did we ever see Orion actually display such power in practice, or was it just speculation?
Qawsedf234 said:
This isn't a relevant portion. The argument is that SBP and TT were harmed by Superman, which they were, which is enough for the scaling. Superman winning through brute force isn't needed for the justification.
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Well, my own old arguments, which Deagonx seems to have forgotten to include again, were that Superboy Prime has been damaged by lots of characters that personally have feats infinitely below his own, including Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark). He is far too inconsistent to scale other characters from, and in addition he was significantly powered-up when he performed his greatest feat of a point-blank explosion that destroyed a space-time continuum, but this knocked him out, and as such it is a peak showing. He should probably be rated as "At least 4-B, likely Low 2-C" rather than scaling him from Pre-Crisis Superman as we currently do.
Qawsedf234 said:
The scan doesn't state that

He's making a comparison here about how Nero is acting like Sinestro's original yellow ring, which drew powers from the Green Lanterns and their batteries. They're saying Kyle needs to cut off his connection to the Lantern Ring to prevent the siphon, not that the siphon needs every GL to do what it needs. It's drawing from the main power source.

Probably still not a universal justification though, since they still needed the Oblivion Force, but they aren't saying that Kyle is being amped by every Green Lantern.
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Deagonx and Eficiente will have to comment here, since these were not my own arguments, but from what I recall, this was a one-time power-up for Kyle Rayner, that placed him far above all of the other Justice League members, and he only shared the same name as the emotion-based entity. I do not think that the storylines were directly connected/referenced to each other in any other way.
Qawsedf234 said:
Flash would pass this rule, as the Speedforce has directly shown to be capable of generating infinite amounts of energy and higher dimensional levels of energy. It's why Barry and Wally have a Tier 2 rating when tapping into the speedforce.
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Well, the problem is that the Flash is only sometimes portrayed to be of this scale of power, whereas the Post-Crisis incarnation of Superman had no feats remotely approaching this scale.
Qawsedf234 said:
Shaking an infinite zone is still a Low 2-C feat to a High 3-A one. Doesn't matter if it was one punch or several. The Phantom Zone also exists in the 4th World and acts as a membrane between multiverses (Dark Nights: Metal #3). The size qualifies for a Tier 2 standard.
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Well, it depends on if he could shake the entire Phantom Zone or just the local area, but the Post-Rebirth incarnation of Superman seems to have been greatly powered-up compared to his Post-Crisis self, so I am much more open to accepting this.
Qawsedf234 said:
While I don't know about Kryptonite, the weakining would make sense.
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Yes. Agreed. It wouldn't make sense for Barbatos' portrayal to change to such an extreme degree under the same writer otherwise.
Qawsedf234 said:
Having an infinite energy source means you can use an infinite amount of energy and infinite amount of times. It wouldn't dry up ""realistically"". The child also stated they drew energy from the Tesseract of infinite size. drawing energy from an entire infinite object would give you infinite energy.
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Yes, this is a good point. However, it still seems like a massive outlier for the post-Crisis era.
Qawsedf234 said:
This makes no sense. If someone states "I hit them with everything I have got" it means they hit them with maximum force. Not some vague undefinable force. If you want to dismiss the scaling because Captain Atom never did the thing sure, be the statement is direct.

This was also the arc where he was exploring his powers more so I don't think the normalized level really works.
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Deagonx and Eficiente will have to respond here, as these were not my arguments.
Qawsedf234 said:
This is a counterpoint, though it should be noted that damaging someone who is Low 2-C but dying to something that is Low 2-C doesn't need to be an anti-feat, it could just mean that they're a lower Low 2-C.
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Well, my own view is that Superboy Prime was constantly all over the place in terms of either being able to harm characters far above his league, such as The Darkest Knight and Mxyzptlk, or being harmed by Cassie Sandsmark and other Teen Titans members that are far below it, so he is unreliable to scale from, and should preferably get an "At least 4-B, likely Low 2-C" tier to accommodate for this.
Qawsedf234 said:
It being an outlier can be valid, but that's ultimately what this thread is about. Superman harmed him, it's now determining if that's a valid position to hold for a regular rating.
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I firmly believe that it is not reasonable to scale Superman from Mordru. Given that Marvel Comics and DC Comics run on "everybody can fight everybody" plot conventions, I think that the characters should largely scale from their own raw power feats and those of characters that they have always been shown as comparable to, in order to make our pages as reliable as possible.
Qawsedf234 said:
Physically separating two things with raw strength wouldn't be a creation feat. It should also be noted that even if they come out mini, they still come out at a visible size compared to the regular Superman and Batman. Meaning even if the universe was smaller it would still qualify for a 3-B or 3-A rating on its own.
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Unless you are talking about the human-sized pocket universe, I am not sure what you are referring to here, so it is likely best if @Eficiente , @Deagonx , and possibly @Firestorm808 comment instead.
Qawsedf234 said:
Multiple notes
  • This is before Superman unlocked his mental limits
  • They could move the moon and did. It's just that by moving the moon he was messing up the Earth due to gravity so they had to move in a specific way. Orion firing on the moon caused cataclysmic Earth wide destruction and it was stated multiple times in that comic that they have to be careful about touching the moon so the Earth isn't destroyed
  • That's not "debris" it a mass of alien machinery that dwarfs the moon multiple times over
  • This is a lifting strength incident, not AP. You can have 1-A AP but having normal Human LS without that effecting your 1-A AP rating

Because they're trying to destabilize it in a specific fashion for the plot to work. This was debunked on site when this issue first came out.

As before, this is lifting strength. Which is not tied to AP

This is from 1995 and came before multiple powerups by Superman. We separated him into keys for a reason, so this isn't an anti-feat.

Also again, lifting strength =/= AP.

This is possibly the worst panel to use. Because in that very same story arc Superman moved Krypton and he also contradicted Lois in this very same panel that Deagon cropped out for some reason

That would be a good anti-feat, if this wasn't during the time before Superman fused with Post-Flashpoint Superman was explicitly having power fluxes and wasn't at his normal levels of power due to being out of sync with the universe.

Legit

Within a few months of this comic Superman fights someone who blows up a planet

They're not just pulling the moon, they're moving it so it lits Earth's atmosphere on fire to kill the White Martians, which is why Superman said they only have one chance to do this because MMH had mind controlled them to not notice the moon being moved.

Also this is a lifting strength feat, not AP.

They've all been dead and have just been resurrected when this scene happens. They also did move the planet, just not fast enough which is why Kyle needed to come in since none of them regained their full power when this happened.

Also this is lifting strength. Not an AP anti-feat

The Earth is being dragged into the sun by Starbreaker. They aren't fighting against the Earth's inertia but Starbreaker's attempt to throw it into the sun.

Also this is lifting strength. Not an AP anti-feat

This is leaving out the context that the two floating people here cast a magical spell that is pushing the planet apart and causing reality to unravel itself. They are not holding the Earth together against nothing, but protecting it until Superman can try to disable the spell.

This is lifting strength (again), but in this case GL is trying to stop a Terraformer machine so it would be a legitimate AP anti-feat. it should be noted that GL in this comic is within his first year of being a hero, got his ring a short time ago and is still weak to the color yellow. A anit-feat this early in his career doesn't need to equate to an anti-feat for a prime Lantern.

Though this is an anti-feat.

Alright



  • This is lifting strength and not AP
  • This comic is from 1980. This isn't even Post-Crisis Superman in this story


This was after Superman was beaten into submission by Doomsday, but yeah this is still an anti-feat for Tier 2 Superman

I wonder what cosmic entity was there just moments before that may have influenced Hal's ring rapidly failing

So in my view Ant, the vast bulk of these debunks don't work within their own context and most that do count are using a canonically inferior version of Superman that we already acknowledge is weaker than his prime self.
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Well, DC Comics has generally tended to show the raw power levels of characters through what they can lift, and they mostly lack other explicit feats.

In addition, it was first after Superman powered up by sparring with Mongul in preparation for the Imperiex war that he was able to move dwarf planets such as Pluto on his own. He was not remotely implied to have powered-up by an infinite degree.

I also think that we do scale character power levels from moving planetary bodies. We simply acknowledge that their attack potencies can vastly exceed their lifting strengths if they have destructive or dirability feats far beyond that scale.
 
Okay. We can wait for Emirp if you prefer.
 
Antvasima said:
I also think that we do scale character power levels from moving planetary bodies.
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We scale them based on feats and showings. If their best feat is moving a planet we can use that, but if it isn't we don't limit the character only to that showing. Saitama only being Pre-Stellar or all of Dragon Ball are prime examples where we disconnect LS from AP.
 
Well, the issue is just that as far as I recall these characters were displayed at either around tier 5 or 4 through their own feats far more frequently than anything considerably higher.

Anyway, we should preferably wait for Emirp here.
 
I know there is a lot to go over, and I won't really give any uber extensive arguments, but I still tend to lean towards Deagonx's views yeah. But I already voiced that the Phantom zone feats are chain reactions, as well as some "Infinite power" statements being hyperbole. As for Timetrapper Superman, he clearly appeared to be toying with Superman and the others when he was sort of damaged, plus he stomped them outright when he got serious. Infinite Man's power does appear to be a solid universal feat based on Qawsed's interpretation, though can't judge who scales from it or whether or not it is an outlier.

I do agree with waiting for Emirp to be ready, so I won't argue extensively. I do agree with either getting rid of the 4-B IMP scaling given it kind of dodges the bullet on KE standards and Flash's is either the High 3-A suicide attack, or the Dwarf Star statement is actually a High 5-A statement wise when it comes to the version moving near light speed. IIRC, Superman's own version that he only performed once has High 4-C statement however (Furthermore, it outrights states that Superman lacks the infinite kinetic energy required to perform Wally's true Infinite Mass Punch). And there are plenty of feats ranging from Tier 5 to 4-C for Superman. And Green Lanterns have some feats where it took all their might to perform baseline 4-B feats. As for whether or not the lifting feats are anti-feats, I will agree they may not be anti-feats for the alleged striking strength Tier 2 feats, but some alleged Tier 2 feats would also double as Immeasurable lifting strength feats; which struggling to move planets or stars would be anti-feats against those. There are also plenty of times where it took a dozen Green Lanterns who were also massively amped with the power of Unity just to perform a galaxy level feat, but given Green Lanterns jump astronomically in unity, not sure if we can downscale that to 4-A. There will either be an upgrade or a downgrade either way for the 4-B ends. But as I said, I will wait for Emirp to come back. And will only post this once until that happens.
 
I'll write the respones to the counterarguments later, but this is the response to the anti-feats presented.

1) A combined effort of Superman, Wonder Woman, Kyle Rayner, Martian Manhunter, Power Girl and Marvel Family was required to move the Moon that at the time was covered in debris (JLA/Titans #3).
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That isn't debris, it's giant alien machinery that dwarves the moon. They also needed to push it a specific way so that Earth wouldn't receive repurcussions. This is also LS related and not AP.

2) It takes 9 Heroes/Villains hitting the earth with everything they have at max-speed to destabilize it (DC Death Metal #5)
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The way Earth is being used here is also as a core to the Multiverse linked directly to TDK as a power source, so you could say they're also fighting the energy fueling TDK.

3) Two Lanterns and Superman are needed to move the moon (GMP Justice League #2)
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This is from a cereal box tie in comic bruh.

4) Superman has nothing like the power to push planets around (Superman: The Earth Stealers)
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This is from 1988, an early Post-Crisis Superman story. At this point, Clark doesn't know his own strength. Some easy examples are Eclipso: The Darkness Within #2 and DoS, with the later having a statement from The Death and Life of Superman stating he tapped into never before used power reserves.

5) Superman can't move a planet under normal circumstances (Superman vol. 2 "1987" #167)
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This scan is cropped for some reason, this is the full scan. Superman even contradicts Lois in that same page. Secondly is that this weakened Superman (under a red sun) is needed in finishing the task, and while he obviously is helped by Jor-El's engines, he did greatly contribute to moving the planet. So using this is an anti-feat for planetary is very odd.

6) Superman is cooked by the Earth's core and says it's hotter than his heat vision (Justice League #3)
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Like Qawsedf said, Superman's power was fluctuating heavily during this period of time and wasn't at his normal power levels. Plus the feat is like, Tier 9 or 8, the core of the Earth is about 5200 °C, for comparison steel melts at around 1000 °C. Pretty worthless overall.

7) Superman is unsure how to destroy a bomb capable of withstanding the Earth's core (Man of Steel #6)
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Same issue as 6, as well as the fact it likely may not even be an AP issue.

8) Darkseid is the only being in the Universe with the power to destroy a world (Forever Evil #7)
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This is New 52, unrelated to the CRT which focuses on Post-Crisis and Rebirth even so, Superman and other characters have consistent Tier 5 to Tier 4 feats in New 52 that go against this statement.

9) Superman, Wonder Woman, and Kyle admit they couldn't pull the moon again (JLA (1997) #58)
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Idk why this is cropped. Also they couldn't do it again or else the white martians would've figured out what they were doing, which was them moving the moon so the the trio could burn them.

Also this is LS related, not AP.

10) Superman, Wonder Woman, and MMH were losing their grip pulling the Earth (JLA (1997) #75)
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Like Qawsedf said, they had just recently been resurrected from the dead. This would also fall under as an LS Anti-feat and not AP.

11) Hal considers moving the planet impossible and needs to add his power to Superman's (Justice League of America (2006) #29)
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They're not just pulling the Planet, they're also fighting the pull of Starbreaker, who's tryna drag it into the sun. Further confirmation that Supes and Hal fought back enough of Starbreaker's power for him to be fatigued without it. Like Qawsedf said, they aren't fighting against the planet's inertia but rather fighting Starbreaker's LS.

This would also fall under LS and not AP.

12) Alan Scott and John Stewart struggle to hold the Earth together (Adventures of Superman #618)
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This is leaving out the fact that the Mr Mxy twins were casting a spell to mess up the planet and causing reality. It's more John and Alan fighting against the Mxy twins trying to break the planet apart.

There's also to mention they're doing much more than just holding the planet together. To cast an aura that's the exact strength as earth's gravity, completely uniform, breathable and also doesn't turn people into paste.

Also considering the bottom of the scan talking about how in order keep Earth together, they have to get a counter to 5D magic, it does seem like the GLs are actively fighting against what Mxy is doing.

If anything, this isn't an Anti-feat but more a massive outlier for the GLs.

13) Hal can only briefly hold the world together (JLA: Year One #10)

Key quote: "Lantern's doing all he can -- but even he can't stop the world for long."
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I don't see how this can be an Anti-feat when this is Hal is in his early Green Lantern years, who, chronologically speaking, hadn't performed his higher end feats, and his feats around this time of his life weren't as impressive compared to later on.

14) Superman needs all his strength to move a Venus sized planet 13 meters (Superman Red and Blue #1)
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Similar to 13. Pretty out of context, notice the text saying this is the only time he's sweat before, with Clark having sweat while fighting Doomsday, racing with Flash, being in extreme heat, etc, so this is likely a VERY early feat for him. Also considering Red and Blue has mentioned Pre-Crisis events

15) Eradicator one-shots Superman by using the power of the sun's core (Superman Vol. 2 #57)
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This is from early Post-Crisis Superman, before he had unlocked his limits. Plus not sure how this is much of an Anti-feat when Eradicator, the Kryptonian clone he is, gets amped by Solar Radiation.

16) Metallo tapping into the Earth's magnetic field no-sells Superman (Damage #0)
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Like Qawsedf said, this is Action Comics #710. And it's just being misinterpreted, nothing's mentioning using the full power of the magnetic field, it's just magnetically anchoring him to the ground, so it's pretty unusable. And Superman later on even moves Metallo anyway.

17) Superman can't move a spore the size of a planet by himself... ...and Hal and another lanterns needed Superman's help to do so (DC Comics Presents #27)
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This is from Action Comics #589, miscited again. And this would fall under LS and not AP. Plus it's from early Post Crisis Superman before DoS

18) Pressure similar to that of a star crushes Superman (Adventures of Superman #498)
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This is from Adventures of Superman #623. Plus it doesn't really harm Superman at all and he's shown to be perfectly fine.

19) Ship is accelerated to the point where it would merely destroy a continent... ...Superman passes out after stopping it (Action Comics #901-902)
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Somewhat out of context. At first, it was going to lifewipe the Planet, then, due to Supes and co. slowing it down, then he reverse engineers it so it'll be merely Continental. After stopping it, Clark isn't passed out either, he just collapses, but is immediately shown to be conscious the next panel.

While it is still a valid Anti-feat, the way its presented is a bit dishonest.

20) Hal Jordan fails to hold the Earth together (Trinity (2008) #49)
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This forgets the cosmic entity trying to rip the planet apart with his bare hands. Hal isn't just trying to hold the planet together, but fighting against Krona's pull.

I have also one last thing to ask, what exactly are you even proposing here? All of your anti-feats seem to contradict one another, and I honestly cannot tell if you're proposing them to be Tier 5 or Tier 6 because there is no consistency with one another.
 
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We were waiting on Emirp to respond, and since he has done so I will address Emirp and Qawsedf together.

It wouldn't be productive to go line by line back and forth about every single one of the anti-feats, because it although there are several valid ones in the sense of "this is genuinely an instance in which this character couldn't do this thing" they are being challenged on two general concepts, so I think it would be more effective to discuss those concepts overall.

1) Lifting strength.

I understand the objection, broadly speaking, and I don't think it is necessarily a bad one, but I believe there is some degree of common-sense restraint that must be applied even when using this as a rebuttal to an anti-feat. First, Superman's nature as a character and fighter is such that his raw physical strength is by and large the primary means for him to attack, and thus should be linked to his lifting strength. It seems very far-fetched to me that a character like Superman could punch something with universal durability to death but have struggle physically lifting a planet. Certainly there's room for some level of disparity, but I think the evidence we have is nonetheless sufficient to say "universal is a bit far fetched." Thus, if we can avoid the back and forth about specific feats and agree that there is a decent handful of legitimate "LS anti-feats" then perhaps we can discuss this concept in more detail.

2) Pre-DoS feats

Qawsedf pointed out that some of these feats are before Clark's mental limits were unleashed. I think this also falls into a similar situation above where we should have some sense of realistically, how much power would he be gaining from such a thing? And if he was really going from a planet level guy to universal, it seems odd that his lifting strength anti-feats remain a constant.

I can go digging for more concrete combat related feats, I used these feats because often when combat is involved anti-feats are handwaved with the possibility that Clark was holding back, so using things like "struggling to move a planet" seems very concrete and objective, but I can keep looking for more. However, it appears that even amongst the rebuttals we have some agreeance of valid anti-feats, such as:

Emirp sumitpo said:
Somewhat out of context. At first, it was going to lifewipe the Planet, then, due to Supes and co. slowing it down, then he reverse engineers it so it'll be merely Continental. After stopping it, Clark isn't passed out either, he just collapses, but is immediately shown to be conscious the next panel.

While it is still a valid Anti-feat, the way its presented is a bit dishonest.
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Qawsedf234 said:
This was after Superman was beaten into submission by Doomsday, but yeah this is still an anti-feat for Tier 2 Superman
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Qawsedf234 said:
This is lifting strength (again), but in this case GL is trying to stop a Terraformer machine so it would be a legitimate AP anti-feat. it should be noted that GL in this comic is within his first year of being a hero, got his ring a short time ago and is still weak to the color yellow. A anit-feat this early in his career doesn't need to equate to an anti-feat for a prime Lantern.

Though this is an anti-feat.
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Qawsedf234 said:
Legit
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Deagonx said:
Certainly there's room for some level of disparity, but I think the evidence we have is nonetheless sufficient to say "universal is a bit far fetched." Thus, if we can avoid the back and forth about specific feats and agree that there is a decent handful of legitimate "LS anti-feats" then perhaps we can discuss this concept in more detail.
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While I do agree with you on an outside level, the site separates AP and Lifting Strength explicitly. We have some Tier 1 and 2 characters that can be outlifted by Tier 8 or 7 characters for that reason. So them struggling to move something cannot be held against their AP, for the same reason why we have Marvel characters that scale to Thor or Hercules AP wise without scaling to their Infinite or Immeasurable lifting strength.
Deagonx said:
However, it appears that even amongst the rebuttals we have some agreeance of valid anti-feats, such as:
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Sure, there's always anti-feats for these. The thing regarding the thread is if we ignore them for a Tier 2 rating or not like we do with Marvel.
 
Qawsedf234 said:
While I do agree with you on an outside level, the site separates AP and Lifting Strength explicitly. We have some Tier 1 and 2 characters that can be outlifted by Tier 8 or 7 characters for that reason. So them struggling to move something cannot be held against their AP, for the same reason why we have Marvel characters that scale to Thor or Hercules AP wise without scaling to their Infinite or Immeasurable lifting strength.
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I think it makes more sense in the reverse, since most people can lift things they can't destroy. I have no hope of destroying a bowling ball, but lifting it is trivial. And there are of course characters who have AP-based abilities like offensive spells, energy manipulation, etcetera who could otherwise be physically unremarkable.

Thats why I think for Superman, a character whos iconic strength is the source of his AP and his LS, this separation should be reined in to a degree. That's just my take on it. I think the LS anti-feats bear some consideration in the full context of the discussion.

Qawsedf234 said:
Sure, there's always anti-feats for these. The thing regarding the thread is if we ignore them for a Tier 2 rating or not like we do with Marvel.
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Yeah, I suppose we will have to do our best to reach a staff consensus on the matter.
 
@Deagonx @Qawsedf234 Actually, I probably should have mentioned this. But some of his "Lifting Strength Anti-Feats" actually double as an anti-feat against his durability. There have been cases where Superman basically tore his muscles and nearly gave himself a heart attack trying to move some of those planets or stars. A character with Tier 2 durability but not as much lifting strength should simply be stunned but not quite hurt trying to move or lift heavy objects. So that implies Tier 5 or Tier 4 levels of Gravitational Potential Energy equivalent was still enough to often times hurt Superman. And something being an anti-feat for his durability, it would also be an anti-feat for his AP since by Newton's 3rd law, Durability => Striking Strength, not the other way around.

Now as for Deagon talking about it, well it's not just about "Not being able to destroy things you can't lift." Striking Strength and lifting strength are actually two different things IRL, not just something on the wiki. Bruce Lee was one of the people who did the scientific study where tripling your lifting capacity =/= tripling your striking strength. As hitting hard has less to do with having bigger biceps with stronger lifting capacity and more to do with having more momentum to strike harder. The speed of your punch is basically the main deciding factor for how much damage it is IRL. Though we have calc stacking rules for separating combat speed from striking strength for the sake of feats/power scaling rules and verses treating strength and speed as two different superpowers. But there are plenty of characters who can bust planets or universes with punches and/or Ki blasts but struggle to lift a couple thousand tons. Though it was agreed that those who can hold up the GBE of a giant object would at least get a durability upgrade.
 
I feel like we should also remember that the existence of anti-feats isn't a defining counter in and of itself, no character past Tier 5 lacks those, but rather whether or not those anti-feats are glaring enough to discard the tiering being suggested.

So far, to me at least, that doesn't seem to be the case.
 
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Just a note that these are our standards for moving celestial bodies, if that is useful for this discussion:

vsbattles.fandom.com

Celestial Body Feats

In fiction, some of the more impressive feats are those involving constellations and celestial bodies in general. Those feats are often hard to quantify due to going beyond the physics. The following is the agreement on how it will be done. If a constellation is created by moving stars...
vsbattles.fandom.com vsbattles.fandom.com

Also, DC Comics superheroes have usually been defined by their physical lifting strength feats in terms of their highest measurable gauges of raw power.
Planck69 said:
I feel like we should also remember that the existence of anti-feats isn't a defining counter in and of itself, no character past Tier 5 lacks those, but rather whether or not those anti-feats are glaring enough to discard the tiering being suggested.

So far, to me at least, that doesn't seem to be the case.
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Well, the main problem appears to be that the tiering being suggested almost exclusively seems reliant on occasional fighting matchup scaling to characters that have demonstrated enormously higher actually measurable feats than the herald-level characters have demonstrated themselves, and as such is classified as the continuous "everybody can fight everybody" plot convention that Marvel and DC Comics stories are infamous for.
 
Ant, I am aware that comic books are infamous for such scaling issues but when Emirp posts more accepted Tier 2 feats than we allow 90% of the tier to use to get outright ratings within a reasonable comic book era's timeframe, explains away most of the anti-feats occurring within that period and most of the rebukes are either debunked, use lifting strength or come from outside of that (I'm pretty sure there's a "debunk" here that comes from a cereal box tie-in), you can see why I'd agree with the suggested change.

And you're response can be said for any tier we could have them at.
 
Well, I just want to scale them from at least reasonably consistent and reliable measurable raw power feats rather than the times they have fought characters that should be far out of their leagues.
 
Antvasima said:
Also, DC Comics superheroes have usually been defined by their physical lifting strength feats in terms of their highest measurable gauges of raw power.
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For the record that I need to repeat again, it's not as if I'm putting every herald dude at Tier 2. A good chunk of them are staying in either Tier 5 or 4.

Also "everybody can fight everybody" doesn't always apply when many of them have either Varies gimmicks or hold back.
 
Planck69 said:
I feel like we should also remember that the existence of anti-feats isn't a defining counter in and of itself, no character past Tier 5 lacks those, but rather whether or not those anti-feats are glaring enough to discard the tiering being suggested.

So far, to me at least, that doesn't seem to be the case.
Click to expand...
Yeah that's just one side of it. Emirp is still working on his response to the main arguments about the feats being proposed for higher tiers
 
DarkDragonMedeus said:
basically tore his muscles and nearly gave himself a heart attack trying to move some of those planets or stars.
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When did either of those happen?

Antvasima said:
fought characters that should be far out of their leagues.
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Like others have said, not everyone scales to this. For the same reason not every character scales to Thor. We're not making Deathstroke or Solomon Grundy Tier 2.
 
Emirp sumitpo said:
For the record that I need to repeat again, it's not as if I'm putting every herald dude at Tier 2. A good chunk of them are staying in either Tier 5 or 4.
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What do you have in mind regarding the scaling more exactly? Our Marvel Comics herald-level characters scaling still seems very messy/incoherent and hard to understand many months afterwards.
 
Qawsedf234 said:
Like others have said, not everyone scales to this. For the same reason not every character scales to Thor. We're not making Deathstroke or Solomon Grundy Tier 2.
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You're not wrong but not too good examples tbh, I mean guys like Blue Beetle, Hawkman, Red Tornado, Guy Gardner, early Kyle Rayner, Livewire, Despero, just to name a few

Armorchompy said:
I don't think most of the anti-feats are viable. Most of my disagreements were covered by Emirp, and I agree with him.
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Also I only agreed with one of the Anti-feats being viable, and that was continental drop feat
 
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Antvasima said:
What do you have in mind regarding the scaling more exactly? Our Marvel Comics herald scaling still seems very messy many months afterwards.
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In summary, if it's a character like Superman who Varies, they would require evidence that Superman was forced to go all out against them or not hold back against them, such examples being Darkseid or Doomsday, or via feats or statements that they are equal to someone like Superman, someone like Wonder Woman who has very consistent statements of being nearly if not on par with Superman, or they can fight someone who Superman has been forced to go all out against, like Doomsday. It all depends on the context of their interactions.

If a character doesn't fall under any of these, they should scale to their own feats or scale to someone else. This type of rule would apply to other characters with variable gimmick characters like the Flashes or the GLs.

Who scales to what will be handled in a second thread. Second thread will involve who gets to scale to Tier 2 and who doesn't. And depending on whether I can salvage Tier 4, many characters are getting hammered to Tier 5. I will also add a mass deletion for terrible pages that either no one wants to fix or have not much scaling relevancy.

Also I don't involve myself with Marvel Herald scaling, so I'm not entirely sure what's happening over there, but I did heard someone was gonna fix them apparently? (Was it Efficiente? I can't remember)
 
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And also, I'm not a fan of how we scale characters to variable characters. For instance, I think it's fairly abritrary to assume every villain that fights Superman is 5-A considering we know how low he can hold back himself to, and we don't have proof Superman is always using 5-A level power to fight them unless further context.

They should instead:
  • Scale to someone who doesn't hold back or don't have a Varies gimmick
  • Scale to their own feats
  • Scale to whatever feat they were performing during the fight (Say, character A fights Superman and Superman performs a 7-B feat in that fight, character A would scale to 7-B)
  • Require proof the Variable character is going all out or evidence that they are comparable to the variable character's high end peak, whether it be via feats or statements.
I feel this same thing should apply to Marvel but that's for another thread, and I don't wanna convolute this thread with this.
 
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I do agree with that statement as even some of Superman's "5-A feats" were actually done while Superman was pretty serious. His power varies based on two factors; his mental empowerment (Such as seriousness combined with self confidence) and his physical empowerment (Which is basically how solar charged he is). If anything, a held back Superman could technically lower himself all the way down to Batman level. So characters like Lex Luthor probably shouldn't even scale to the Tier 5 stuff unless he has his own. I know some people might say, "Even if we can't use Superman, him fighting on par with Wonder Woman or Shazam still exists." But they can also hold back as much as Superman.
 
I have read Emirp's counterarguments and frankly, I am inclined to agree with him. It's no different than the Marvel Revisions we made, "everyone scales to everyone" isn't even remotely possible once you factor in all the other context regarding the fights, whether the character was holding back or not, whether the character was wounded or not, or whether they were exhausted or not, or whether their "anti-feats" was actually pulling/fighting against some other third party or whether the weaker character fighting the higher-tiered character was amped or not, etc. Scaling to the higher-end of the spectrum isn't exactly as cut-and-dry as we previously thought, in fact, it's going to be a lot harder to try and justify anyone scaling to the Herald Tiers' absolute peaks.
 
DarkDragonMedeus said:
"Even if we can't use Superman, him fighting on par with Wonder Woman or Shazam still exists." But they can also hold back as much as Superman.
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I think there are two types of "holding back". One is "pulling their punches", the one I'm talking about is "Character stats actually varying", Superman's durability can actually go up or down depending on his mental or physical state. Flash's durability and striking strength depends solely on how fast he's moving. Lantern's durability and power rely on the user's emotion and battery level.

Diana afaik, can't really lower her durability like Superman and mostly pulls her punches, but admittedly, I'm not that knowledgeable on Wonder Woman lore so I might be wrong on this one.

My point is that I'm doing this to get rid of possibly 5-A Captain Cold characters need more solid evidence to scale to characters who hold back/a variable character's peak.
 
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Well, that is obviously more reasonable than scaling everybody to everybody, but very hard to figure out how to continuously do properly in practice. We would also likely need an addition to our Marvel and DC scaling rules page to ensure that this standard approach will even be followed by others than yourself.

Also, I still think that mostly scaling characters to their own feats seems considerably safer.
 
Well, I would personally prefer a combination of that approach and largely scaling from measurable individual feats if we want as much safety/reliability as possible.
 
The formatting for those blogs are quite shoddy. I wouldn't use those as a point of reference
 
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