The Comic Book Character Consistency Controversy

Hello, everyone! I am back from dead! And by dead I mean college. What's the difference, amirite?

So, if you've been analyzing fictional characters for as long as I have, chances are you've come across something that just doesn't make sense when you consider how strong that character is. For example:

Goku, upon gaining a new Super Saiyan God form, is harmed and rendered helpless from some random mook's laser gun. Now, because of this being so unexpected, depending on who you ask, there are multiple interpretations of what's going on here. Is the laser just really strong or is the new god form weak? Was Goku just caught off guard? Was something special done to the gun off screen? Or do we just write this off as an outlier/PIS/bad writing and disregard this completely due to being so inconsistent?

Well, that's the name of the game here: consistency. There are those in the VS community who see comic books as wildly inconsistent and filled to the brim with bad writing  and characters beating other characters whom they shouldn't at all.

Well, it's understandable why people might think that, but under closer inspection, that's actually not the case at all.

To explain, I'll start with a character who has showings both so insanely high and insanely low to a degree that plenty are unsure where to place him in terms of power, and whom I am very familiar with because he is my favorite Marvel character, Doctor Victor Von Doom.

So for starters, let's look at the high ends. His magic has allowed him to be considered a worthy candidate of Sorcerer Supreme, enough to be in the same league as Doctor Strange, and he battles Mephisto every Summer solstice. He eventually defeated him. In the original Secret Wars event, he subdues Galactus (via technology) and the Beyonder and tanks hits from both (before the power-ups). His armor is also durable enough to endure a deterrent blast from the Infinity Gauntlet. He no-sold attacks from the likes of Thor and he destroys Sentinels with ease. So you get the idea.

"Doctor Doom is just bullshit"

-LSwan62

Now, what if I told you he was once hurt by a bullet?

Now, upon hearing this and seeing the scans for yourself, you might think "He eats Marvel cosmics for breakfast but he gets hurt by a measly bullet? WTF, comics make no sense, man!!"

However, if you simply take into account the full context of what's going on here, it starts making a lot more sense. Just look at Doom's face, for starters. He doesn't even express any pain aside from the very unenthusiastic "ow". You can even see him healing the wound with his magic seconds later. For further proof of how much of a mere minor inconvenience it is at best, he fights the Thing minutes later without any issue.

In fact, the comic even acknowledges his past feats and that this is something that doesn't normally happen...

"If you knew the cosmic entities I have bested, you would find this moment...darkly humorous."

Here, it is also shown that he purposely let his guard down because he trusted Amara. Of course, that isn't to say that he is careless and just anyone with a gun can get the drop on him if they catch him off guard. Here he is reacting to and deflecting a bullet at near point blank range. He can also summon his armor to protect himself at any time. So, in a combat scenario, this wouldn't happen, and the writers of this comic are very careful to establish this.

You see what difference just a bit of context can do? So, we know that this comic acknowledges how powerful Doom is, that a bullet is of little hindrance to him in a fight, he can easily heal from it, and getting shot isn't something that happens to him normally, and that this was a one-time thing, and explains why it happened while still taking past comics into account. You couldn't possibly get more consistent than that.

But if somebody really wants to be a joker, they could post the scan of Doom being "defeated" by squirrels. I shouldn't even have to explain this, but even disregarding that that was a one-time throwaway gag, it's actually a durability feat for Vic if you take this as legit:

And that was just with ONE squirrel. Doomsy survived being swarmed by them.

Anyway, back to the issue of consistency. 

Marvel is actually a real stiffler when it comes to that. Nothing ever happens in Marvel without acknowledging what happened in past comics. Well, there are... exceptions... but let's not get into that just yet. In fact, in Stan's day, he was really picky about continuity and would deliberately reference events in past story-lines to clearly indicate that this was all following the same series of events (when he wasn't obsessing over alliteration, that is). He would even make sure the comic tells the reader where they can read about the event they would reference:

Just to get it out of the way, let's go ahead and take a look at one of the most controversial panels in comics.

Semantics about not technically "lifting" Mjolnir in space aside (that's a whole other can of worms and I don't want to go off on a tangent), Red Hulk is often considered one of the biggest shark jumps in comics, due to how he so easily defeated the likes of Thor and Silver Surfer. However, this isn't necessarily out of the ordinary, especially the former case, considering Red Hulk posed a threat to the normal Hulk, who regularly butted heads with the Son of Oden himself. For the latter case, you have to simply take into account that the Silver Surfer is a herald of Galactus , and his power can vary depending on how much he gives him at the time. In fact, Galactus's own power can often fluctuate depending on how well-fed he is.

"If Hulk is strong enough to throw down with Thor, how did he get his ass beat by Cap that one time" you ask?

 Again, the issue is a character's power varying. We all know Hulk's power is dependent on how angry he is, and he seems pretty chill here. At least enough to be able to form full sentences (he tends to be the more "Hulk smash" state of mind when he rages, he let Banner share his mind a bit for a while which made him intelligent but physically weaker).

While remaining on the topic of a character's power that can vary, I've been using a lot of examples from Marvel, so let's take a look at a DC character, the most well known in fact, Superman.

>moves a planet back into orbit with just his breath

>loses in a fight with Muhammed Ali

One of these things is not like the other...

Of course, just because we see a high end and a low end that doesn't mean that they're too nonsensical to consider either of them valid, because, well, EVERY character has high ends and low ends. The low ends are there to either place limitations on the character or give him/her some kind of development in overcoming a challenge or facing defeat, and the high ends are there to show us what the characters are capable of at their best, when pushed to their peak potential. They are there to show us what these characters  can do when everything is at stake, and just the fact that low ends exist doesn't make them magically go away.

 I mean, this can even be applied to real life. Let's say you ace a math test on one day, and get a D on another test. That doesn't invalidate the fact that you did so well on the test before, so it doesn't instantly make you bad at math, and while it does look bad on paper, there are other factors to consider here: Maybe you weren't prepared or forgot to study, maybe something distracted you while you were testing, maybe you had a head cold, maybe there was a technical error with the computer, or if it was written maybe you worked out the problems right but circled the wrong answers, etc.

Just as there are variables to consider that may have interfered with your result, the same goes for Superman. His strength is dependent on two factors: how much solar energy is stored in his body, and how much he holds himself back. Interfere with either or both of these and you get a Superman who is not at his best. For example, if he's on Earth, or in a densely populated area, he holds back tremendously to reduce collateral damage. If it's night time, he's not absorbing as much solar power, red sunlight or kryptonite can bypass his durabilty or weaken him by depleting his solar energy, etc. And remember, this is on top of the mental inhibitors he places on himself. This is why some days a kryptonite rock will bring him to his knees, yet others he can power through a fight with Metallo, who's powered by kryptonite, or Kryptonite Man, literally a man made of Kryptonite.

The case is the same for Hulk and his anger...

Green Lantern and how charged his ring is...

Galactus and his hunger...

Darkseid and his multiple avatars/bodies that all vary in power...

Or even Spawn and his supply of Necroplasm.

So there's really not that much "inconsistency" to begin with, given the numerous explanations given for all these varied showings. They're consistent with these limitations. But how do we know whether or not to scale if comic book characters' power can fluctuate so much? Well, it's the same, simple answer: context.

For example, is the villain trying to kill them? Are they fighting in space or away from a populated area? Is there a lot at stake? Are they bloodlusted? Has the character reached a level they hadn't before?

Any or all of these can be pretty clear indicators that it's OK to use high end feats to scale to the character in question. If not, well, it's not like a character becomes wet tissue paper level just because they're not at their strongest, they're still fighting at a superhuman level (in most cases), so it's still a feat when comes to say, surviving punches from a character, I would just be clear to explain what's going on when analyzing the character or feat in question.

However, there are instances when context cannot properly explain something (see above), but these cases are actually EXTREMELY RARE. Like, way more uncommon than people might think they are. Even for cases like Darkseid falling down stairs or Thanos getting arrested there's a rational explanation.

As you could probably pick up on, knowing the full context of a feat and the source you got it from is critical, and much more accurate than just looking at one scan and going "yep, I know what happened", because for all you know the next page might offer a reasonable explanation for what just happened, like my examples with Doom. It's just common sense that someone who read a full comic is going to know more than somebody who only saw one page or heard from word of mouth.

And I get that this is not easy to keep up with, some comic book characters have over 60 years of comics to go over, which can be overwhelming for somebody who just wants to write a quick blog or a VS match on DeviantArt, especially when you've got to meet a schedule or popular demand.

However, I have a solution. Before jumping the gun and assuming you know these characters  (again, that's silly considering how much there is to go over) I would consult an expert source you know to be proficient on the subject. My recommendation would be Imaginary Axis:

And if you want the full context of entire comic story arcs but don't want to sift through all their media, there's somebody who has you covered for that too, Comicstorian, who goes over entire stories and events and condenses them into 15-20 minute videos:

I always use those sources or just read them directly myself on ReadComicOnline when I want more light shed on a feat, event, or fight I've heard about.

Anyway, I hope that helped clear up your questions, and hopefully comics, at least in regards to their power and scaling, make a lot more sense to you now.

I am Hero's Shade, and I will see you all next time!




Also, you should read Infamous Iron Man. It's really, really good.