For the record, I'm okay. I don't think I've got the virus. So far, so good. I had a bout of bronchitis in February,right before everything went to hell. Maybe that scared it off. I had to get home WiFi because all my sources of free WiFi disappeared literally overnight, and I need to download and send files if I want to keep getting paid. Other than that, for me it's been business as usual. I was working at home and anti-social to begin with. All the virus did was governmentally sanction my normal behavior.
And now I find people are looking at this. So here’s some brand-new content, for you, my devoted fans.
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If you’re a fan of superheroes, and tend to hang out with other fans, sooner or later the question arises: who’d win in a fight between Hero X and Hero Y? The pairings generally end up being either Thor vs. the Hulk or Superman vs. Thor or the Hulk. This is because heroes are usually judged by their powers or physical strength, and Thor, Hulk and Superman (in whatever order you choose) are the top tier, physically. (For the record, if it’s Batman vs. anyone else, the winner is always Batman. Just so you know in advance.)
Being of a different gender than the majority of comic book fans, I’ve been hankering to see a throwdown between Thor and Wonder Woman, because I’m pretty sure Diana would win. They may be evenly matched in physical strength—granted, Thor’s probably stronger—but when it comes to combat skills, armed or unarmed, Diana’s got the edge. She’s been trained in both by professional warriors. Thor’s reliance on his hammer has probably made him complacent. That, and his self-assurance that he can deck anyone with a punch, would leave him wide open to a skilled, experienced pro.
I can even picture it: Thor makes some chauvinistic remark about Diana’s outfit and she promptly knocks him on his ass. Thor gets up and—assuming he has more than two brain cells—reassesses the situation, wisely decides being an a-hole is going to get him pummeled, and rejoins the battle, which Wonder Woman wins anyway because, again, trained vs. untrained fighter. This is why you need to stay in school, kids.
Sidebar: back in the ‘70s DC put out a special one-shot tabloid-sized comic of Superman vs. Muhammed Ali. Google it if you don’t believe me. I just did to skim the plot, since I never read it. It turned out just the way I figured: they nullified Superman’s powers for the duration of the fight, making the two even in physical strength. Whereupon Ali mopped up the ring with Supes because Ali was a trained, experienced boxer. Superman just throws punches. Take away the advantage of super-strength, or pit him against someone of equal strength but better skill, and he’s liable to get flattened. Same for Thor. Maybe not the Hulk because the Hulk is too stupid to stop fighting. This isn’t about strength anyway. I’m about to get to my point.
Back to Thor and Wonder Woman. The above used to be my guestimated scenario, until Thor: Ragnarok came out. In that movie the God of Thunder underwent a serious power upgrade, emphasis on “god.” I’m not sure what Diana is: Amazon, demigoddess, mutant, who knows, but she’s no longer in Thor’s class. After the events of Ragnarok, we might have to leave the battle of the sexes to Thor vs. the Scarlet Witch. In spite of her strength and formidable skills, I don’t think Diana is capable of going toe-to-toe with Thor any more.
Unless…
There’s one trick Thor wouldn’t know but Diana would, if not from her Amazon instructors then from her female friends from outside Paradise Island. It’s the first self-defense skill girls are taught and every man’s afraid of. That secret weapon is The Knee. Delicately put, it involves the impact of a woman’s solid kneecap against not-so-solid parts of the male anatomy. It’s considered a dirty move, but when you’re in a bar and some a-hole’s hitting on you and he’s a foot taller than you are, outweighs you by a hundred pounds, won’t take no for an answer and starts getting belligerent, a dirty move is not only acceptable, it’s downright necessary. It’s that or pepper spray, guys. You get to carry guns, so don’t whine.
So here we have Thor and Wonder Woman on the battlefield. She’s got him beat in weapons and hand-to-hand. Then Thor decides to teach the uppity hussy a lesson and starts flinging lightning bolts at her. Now she’s in trouble. Until she remembers the first move taught to her by her mother the Queen of the Amazons, about the quickest way to put a stop to grabby demigods. And she realizes Thor, arrogant alpha-hole that he is, isn’t wearing a cup.
She gets in close and takes aim. Game, set and match.
Afterwards, hanging out in Valhalla with the guys, Thor will tell his buddies she was a worthy opponent and he let her win because he’s a gentleman. Loki figures out the truth and never lets him forget it. Diana never even bothers to tell the Justice League. She fought a god and won. No big. It’s all part of the job.
Which leads to the ultimate question: would The Knee work on Superman?
If he’s at the height of his powers, and if kryptonite isn’t involved, then probably not. Not even from Wonder Woman. She might cause him a little discomfort, but I doubt if she could bring him down. I don’t think it would work on the Hulk, either. Yeah, it would hurt, but he’d just get angrier and keep fighting. Not much stops the Hulk. Although The Knee from Superman might do the trick. Except he’s a dude, so he’d never even think of it.
His cousin Kara, on the other hand…
There’s the member of the El family who could take out the Hulk. Supergirl’s female, and she's spent half her life on Earth, among human males. You better believe she knows about The Knee, and if the Hulk came charging at her, she wouldn’t hesitate to use it. She might even use it on cousin Kal if he pissed her off. I don’t know if Kryptonians have to deal with PMS, but it’s probably wisest to stay on Kara’s good side.
So, in the case of superhero smackdowns, the winner would be … drum roll… Batman. Because he’s the goddamn Batman. Or Dr. Strange. I don’t care how strong you are, when your opponent waves his hand and flings you through a portal into another dimension, you’re pretty much up the creek. (Ask Loki, again from Thor: Ragnarok.) I just find it a shame guys don’t adopt The Knee as part of their skill set, if only as a last resort. Imagine if Iron Man had used it on Thanos. Infinity War would have been a whole different movie.
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