Great stuff so far. I don’t know anything about the Avengers, but the obvious contrast with the Justice League is interesting. My only criticism is that I really don’t care for all of the real-world references; they completely drag me out of the story.
Some questions: exactly how badly are vibranium and adamantium able to injure Superman? Did Logan merely cut Superman’s hand, or did he punch a hole through it? How quickly does Superman heal from that sort of injury?
Superman has demonstrated extremely rapid regeneration from injury before, especially when no kryptonite is involved to complicate the process - but just as it’s hard to gauge the severity of an injury on a fine scale, it’s hard to gauge healing response on a fine scale.
And personally, I wholeheartedly reject the idea of the special metals of the Marvel Universe being able to harm Supes at “normal” force levels, but nobody asked me. 
For what it’s worth, I agree. The problem is, if there’s no kryptonite, what on Earth-616 has any hope of posing a threat to Superman? Somehow blocking out solar radiation for an extended period of time might do it, but I don’t know how long that would take or what could do it in the first place.
Are there any villains with super-weakness-finding powers? Perhaps someone could synthesize kryptonite and Superman’s adamantium-induced injury can be explained away as temporary weakness from the swap (maybe it drained his reserves of solar energy or something).
It’s not a huge concern for me - as I said previously, my status in this whole thing is uncertain.
But just to run down some notions - there are individuals in the Marvel U who could conceivably pose a raw threat to Big Blue, including the Hulk, Juggernaut, Silver Surfer, etc. There’s always magic or psionics. And there are a number of technically proficient villains like Ultron or Doctor Doom who might plausibly “analyze Superman’s bio-aura” and discover vulnerabilities to specific sorts of radiation - kryptonite, or red sun.
klintypooh. I was kidding when I said you hated it.
CandidGamera: Yeah, nobody asked *you. * Neener, neener, neener.
Catalyst. I’m weird when it comes to superpowers like invulnerability, super-fast healing factors, super-sensitive super-touch, withstanding temperature extremes like burns and subzero and ultra-sharp metals. How do genetic evolutionary survival skills like sensitivity and pain figure in to all this?
Basically my approach to invulnerability is that is has to do with the idea that some superheroes simply possess extraordinarily high thresholds of pain. They can feel fire just fine, it just doesn’t bother them. Their skin may feel ordinary but it’s very damage resistant.
This, coupled with the very real need to have Marvel’s adamantium, uru metal and vibranium play a role against Superman’s superpowers gave me a way to write him, one I think most of the collaborative writers can follow.
So: I postulated that the special proto-adamantium shield thrown at full strength by Captain America at the back of Superman’s head is just enough to cause Superman to mutter “…ow,” and rub it. That’s not very painful, is it? I think that if Wolverine popped a claw and cut Superman’s hand, it’ll leave what might be politely termed a “gash” which, like a paper cut, might be an annoying pain but usually not an incapacitating one. Note that I don’t have Superman’s hand described as a larcerated mess or him whimpering on the ground in pain.
That’s what happens at more or less normal levels. We can expect bigger pain reactions from Superman when adamantium is used with greater strength or at faster velocities.
Sorry, you didn’t care for some of the real-world references to Superman and Hurricane Katrina. It’s part of my wish fulfillment that when stuff like this happens in the real world I wish there were a Superman around.
P.S… regarding Wolverine cutting Superman: this obviously wouldn’t work with just his bone claws. Just sayin’.
Heh.
Just by the way of a footnote for anyone eagerly anticipating stuff from me - don’t get your hopes up. Unless I come up with some new Spidey story idea, I’m nixing that half. As for the Superman - well, my motivation for participation was the Spidey stuff, and the Superman story was a bit of an afterthought - may still do it if I can muster the time and will, but not certain.
I expect to be through with my Spidey story tommorow, should I submit it for straight to the SWAP thread?
Absolutely! Can’t wait!
DON’T NIX IT JUST YET. I just had a thought. Since the screw-up introducing Booster Gold was entirely mine, why not go ahead and submit it anyway, and we can have a mini-contest explaining the apparant contradiction among our audience. We’ll call it a “KNOW” PRIZE – because we all really know who’s at fault here. 
I’d seriously hate to miss out on reading a good story you wrote featuring the madcap antics of Booster Gold, Blue Beetle and Spidey or some new Spidey ploy you’re in love with just because of my flub. However, if you’re merely looking for a gracious way out of this project with your fanboy reputation intact because you feel there’s no way your inferior wordsmithing can possibly seem even barely competent next to the efforts of myself and the other members of the SDMBFC – well. You’re shit out of luck. Sorry. WE’RE SUPERHERO GANGSTAS, YO. There is no “out.” Once you’re a Jet – you’re a Jet all the waaaaaaaay. 
In terms of raw power, I’d put old school juggernaut and the hulk on par with Superman. The problem is that Juggsy is a good guy now and has experienced a drop in strength since joining the team. Apparently Cytorrak is tired of the whole villain to hero thing too. The Hulk is also a good guy and has been voted “hero most likely to fight another hero” by his graduating class at his last reunion. That horse died, got better, and died again. Silver Surfer? Why bring the hood ornament into this? Not to mention his dialogue and constant brooding makes him just as clunky a character as Thor.
I like the adamantium/vibranium. It keeps things nice and simple and holds true to the general rules inherent to the marvel universe. I agree that it should take more than normal strength level to cause serious injury, but given adamantiums properties, a properly sharpened blade or claw could give him a shallow cut even at human power.
We’ll see. I like the idea of the know-prize.
Not to hijack the thread terribly, but here’s my issue in a nutshell - Cap’s Shield and Wolverine’s claws are just really durable metal. While that would make them difficult for Superman to damage, durability doesn’t inherently increase something’s damaging properties - just the amount of force with which it can be used without breaking.
Frex, Wolverine tries to gut Superman. He fails. The Hulk grabs Wolverine’s wrist, and hurls him, claws-first, into Superman - Superman gets cut. But since Adamantium and Vibranium don’t feature in my story idea for this at all, I don’t need to take issue with Askia’s editorial decision. 
Granted. But if an adamantium weapon has a razor-sharp cutting edge that doesn’t ever dull or even oxidize, I think we can surmise the Wolverine juuuust might cause minor-to-moderate damage wielding just “ordinary” human strength to even something with Superman’s invulnerablity. This isn’t pre-Crisis Superman here. I mean, I’ve seen Supes bruised and beaten on plenty of occassions.
This isn’t really a hijack because we are discussing the pros and cons of this universe I set up. Glad to hear you liked the “Know-Prize” idea.
Fair enough, then I’ll feel free to continue the not-hijack.
If one accepts Superman’s vulnerability as being based on ultra-dense skin alone, then a very sharp implement might be enough to offset it. However, when have we seen Superman cut without magic, kryptonite, or tremendous strength behind the implement?
I’m of the “density + personal skintight forcefield” school when it comes to Superman’s invulnerability, and a forcefield situation renders sharpness moot.
To cite one previous crossover, Reed Richard’s analysis of Superman’s durability indicated that the Man of Steel was at least as tough as adamantium, himself.
And I must say, the notion of Superman being shivved by the Secret Society of SuperVillains, all wielding Ginsu knives, is a little silly.
All good points Gamera, but most Superman info comes from DC. In marvel town, adamantium is da shiznit…whatever that means. It cuts anything except adamantium. I should also point out that Wolvie cuts through steel on a fairly regular basis using his own wolvie strength and his incredibly sharp claws. They were forged in the knivery division of Apocalypse Labratories. He should be well equipped to do damage of the highly non lethal variety to Superman.
Captain Americas shield is a combination of adamantium and vibranium with a pinch of very sharp wisconsin cheddar for flavor. It also won’t kill him, but I see no reason why a good toss to the back of his head wouldn’t deserve at least an “ow.”
It’s not as if we’re trying to set up every two bit thug in Marvelia with adamantium bullets and vibranium long johns. Both metals are rare (or at least should be) and will remain so for story purposes, unlike…oh I dunno…kryptonite which comes in a variety of colors and flavors available commonly around the planet. I guess Krypton exploded in such a way that all surviving matter strafed the earth like buckshot out of a shotgun.
Mostly it’s being used as plot devices to establish to the reader and to the character that this ain’t Metropolis. It will help keep the story closer to street level and away from cosmic entities, Dormammu, N’astrih, and the like which is more in tune with typical marvel storylines. It’s just gonna make it easier on the poor slobs trying to write a marvel story with Superman.
You cool with it as long as it doesn’t get beaten to death?
Oh, assuming I write my story, it won’t even come up.
Willfully ignoring it, you might say.
CandidGamera, Harborwolf. Sorry for not responding to this earlier.
CG made a few of his usual salient observations (DAMN HIM!) and brought up the Dan Jurgens Fantastic Four/ Superman comic I never got around to reading and Reed Richard’s assessment of Superman’s invulnerability respective to adamantium. He also brought up the troubling prospect of Superman’s bio-aura and how is it Superman can be injured by anything at “normal strength.”
An aluminum knife can puncture an unopened aluminum can of soda without much strength at all with a flick of the wrist at the right angle, spilling its contents rather easily.
Of course, that can of soda isn’t sheathed in a force-field, but you get my general gist.
Now, I have much less faith in invisible force fields’ impregnability than most, particularly Superman’s somewhat ill-defined solar powered bio-aura, since I think that any barrier that allows light, sound, heat, perspiration*, blood** and shed skin cells*** to pass through it isn’t much of a barrier at all. It clearly fluctuates in strength and intensity depending on Superman’s level of exertion and possibly his conscious/subconscious desires: he’d have it on fighting Doomsday but most likely would have it off making love to his wife.
I’ve seen Superman cut at normal strength once by nonmagical, nonkryptonite means: a Masaai warrior whose body and spear was irridiated by Lex Luthor with red sun radiation in the original Superman Versus Spider-Man memorably cut Superman’s indestructible hair. Of course this was non-canon and dead hair, but again, it gives us something to consider for our story.
I obviously have a patented Askia-style solution to all this, which involves logically reassessing Wolverine’s strength when he possesses an adamantium skeleton attached to his bones and muscle tissue; riffing shamelessly from Alan Moore’s “The Anatomy Lesson”; getting Reed Richards to admit he was wrong about an earlier assessment (!); delving into the secrets of adamantium’s properties and not too insignificant revelations on a whole slew of early Marvel scientists – Phineas Horton, Henry Pym – including Dr. Myron MacLain, the creator of adamantium and his background and how exactly he created the stuff adamantium – and most likely a treastie by a properly respectable DC scientist: Dr. Will Magus of the Metal Men, and another Marvel villain-- either Apocolypse or Doctor Doom.
Ready?
(I predict CandidGamera’s gonna hate this…)
[spoiler]True adamantium is created using techniques common to alchemy.
Marvel universe alchemy, I’ll posit, is a discipline between science and magic.
Dr. MacLain accidentally rediscovered certain alchemical principles in his creation of true adamantium. Thus, true adamantium is partly magical. This goes for vibranium as well, since it’s otherworldly origin fits well with magic’s need for rare substances as a focal point for mystic conconctions.
This explains in part why adamantium’s so hard and expensive to re-create scientifically and why the more common result is the substance called secondary adamantium. [/spoiler]
Not a perfect solution but an interesting one I hope.
** Superman has been beaten/injured so severely blood dripped to the ground from his wounds, eyes and ears.
*** Superman memorably had a story in which his dead Kryptonian skin cells, which he sheds like any other human by the millions, somehow became sentient and tried to run amok – or something. This is early in the John Byrne run and I traded a bunch of those comics for copies of Boris the Bear.
I have gotten my share of emails over the years. Here’s another.
***I am a long time lurker on the SDMB. (I have an account. But, I wasn’t
reading the boards much when it went to pay. And, now I read a lot, but
never feel a need to post.) Anyway. After giving you my qualifications.
I have to tell you. Your Spider-man/Superman write up in CS this week was
marvelous. I think you did a great job of setting up a fun story.
Getting the characters to know one another in a typical comic book way. And, I think, you found a way to write an old kind of story and make it seem
fresh.
I really look forward to what happens to the story in the hands of the
others. Great job!
pat***
C’MON, SDMBFC!! Time’s a-wasting! Plenty of people have asked to see more… so let’s see some more!
– Affable Askia
I don’t have any time to write until at least Monday.
Regarding the solution - Meh. I don’t know why you went to the trouble - as I said, makes no difference to my section.