It seems that this depends a little bit on who is wielding these vastly powerful artifacts. In most cases I would have to go with the Infinity Gauntlet. Although I will admit that I don't know that much about the feats of the Starbrand. But I do know that the Infinity Gems working in concert are nearly all powerful. I'm interested to see what other members have to say about this.

Actually you're slightly inaccurate on your characterization of the Living Tribunal's interaction with the Starbrand as he didn't seal it off from the rest of the universe he only sealed off the earth that was moved from the New Universe to orbit the Stranger's laboratory world. He considered the residual energies it contained a contamination and since he apparently couldn't remove or destroy the planet (perhaps reaching to the New Universe was even beyond him) he sealed it off so others in the Earth-616 continuity or others would be unable to access the Starbrand energy still saturating it and so many superhumans. The actual Starbrand that Quasar brought back was such a great threat in the hands of Eriskacal (Or however her name is spelled) after she tricked Kayla out of it that the Tribunal feared creation would be destroyed battling her for it. After Quasar threw the contest that he fought Silver Surfer over who got the Starbrand (he deduced he was her agent as neither knew who was fighting for who originally) the Tribunal returned the Starbrand to Kayla. Later events had a surviving mechanoid from the Black Fleet that showed up in Questprobe decades ago end up with the Starbrand but trapped in the New Universe while the Earth of that reality ended up shunted to Earth-616 continuity.

If the Tribunal was unwilling to battle the Wielder of the Starbrand it places it in the Beyond power access level and with the Tribunal shown able to undo anything the Gauntlet does it would seem that the Starbrand exceeds it. True it might only be because the Tribunal has dominion over the Multiverse in service to The One Above All and the Starbrand's energies are outside his control but it still holds a powerful case for the Starbrand being superior, particularly in the hands of someone who can realize its infinite potential (which the IG is often in the same boat, both items are in the Beyond rank range to someone who realizes they have no limits then it's a matter of comparing scale on the Infinite ranks of each).

I am actually quite well aware of all the stories that you reference above. I always felt that the Quasar series was, at least to my taste, one of the few high points of the 90's (I have always been heavily into the stories that delve into the inner workings of the universe which for the most part Mark Grunwald, the writer on both the Quasar and StarBlast series, was great at exploring.......a few concepts I found to be quite lame and unnecessary, such as the introduction of M-Bodies...but overall I love his cosmic level stories). The description of the events that transpired above was basically just the down and dirty basic version of what happened, it was not inaccurate in any way. I simply shortened the story for simplicities sake. Yes, Skeletron did end up absorbing the StarBrand from the Stanger, who had absorbed it from Kayla Ballantine, who it had passed unto after the seeming death of Erishkigal, who had received it from Kayla in the first place, after Kayla accidently received it from Quasar (who actually retained a protion of it at this time), who was given it by New Universe resident Jim Hanrahan in order for Quasar to be able to return from an accidental trip to the New Universe. After absorbing it from the Stranger, Skeletron was then trapped in the New Universe with the greatest SINGLE portion of the StarBrand energy, when the Stranger transported the New Universe's Earth to the Earth 616 universe and then closed the portal between them. But, that New Universe's Earth was still tainted with the energy of the StarBrand (which was responsible for the appearance of ALL the paranormals on the New Universe's Earth, durng the White Event) and thus was sealed off from, or excised from, the Earth 616 universe by the Living Tribunal to prevent it's energy form affecting the Earth 616 universe. It is stil there, but just unable to interact with the universe around it.

As for the confrontation between Erishkigal and the In-Betweener, I believe that much of the reason the battle had such a significant chance of threat to the greater multiverse as a whole was:

1= Because the battle took place within the Nexus of all Realities (the Nexus Interzone to be precise) form which the ramifications of any actions can have extremely dire consequences on a multiversal level. This is why someone such as a rather low level hell-lord such as Thog the Netherspawn has made so many attmpts to gain control of the Nexus, as thru the Nexus reality shaping events become possible even for one who would not normally be able to acheive such a feat.

2= Being that the Starbrand was alien in origin and not under the Tribunals direct ability to control or regulate his only option would have been to fight (although they chose combat thru the use of their chosen champions, instead of direct confrontation, in order to not cause the masssive levels of destruction that combat in the Nexus could have caused), whereas the Infinity Gauntlet being under his direct jurisdiction, he can simply shut down with a thought. But simply being outside his ability to directly control it does not necessarily quantify it as beyond him or above the Infintiy Gauntlet, merely just beyond his ability to easily stop. (If two people were both aligned against me in war and one had a nuclear weapon ready to launch at me, but I have access to the switch that sends power to the launch site, while the other is holding a handgun to use against me....I can simply shut the power down to the launch site neutralizing the threat of the nuke, but I can't do anything but run and duck from the person holding the handgun. The person with the nuclear weapon obviously wields the greatest potential power, but the person with the handgun is the greatest actual threat).

I definitely don't dispute that the StarBrand was indeed an extremely powerful cosmic class power source and greatly enjoyed the stories involving it, far more than the Infinity Gauntlet, War, and Crusade stories, I just don't feel that it was equal to or greater than the Infinity Gauntlet in overall potential power.

Well the Starbrand would still have to be pretty much Beyond Rank because anything less wouldn't have entailed a battle furious enough to risk such multiversal destruction even in the nexus. Plus if the energies of the Starbrand are outside the Tribunal's control they'd be just as outside the power of the IG to really have much effect upon by the same token. Plus as we've seen even with an almost miniscule fraction of it left Quasar was able to come back from being erased by the Ultimate Nullifier something capable of negating an entire universe, the full power of the Starbrand likely wouldn't even be affected by it. Maelstrom wasn't doing too bad against Thanos in that alternate reality with the power of Anomoly since he could shrug off things thanks to that power of contrariness and if he could do that someone even more powerful could likely hammer someone with the IG (although might not have a very intact universe afterwards).

I not saying that the Living Tribunal would not have any power over the StarBrand as if he were reduced to an ant against an elephant, in fact I specifically think that the Tribunals Power dwarfs the StarBrand, it's just that he would have to deal with it one on one instead of taking the shortcut of simply commanding it not to work as he can with the IG, just as any wielder of the IG would have to contend with it in the same manner. I believe that the StarBrand would possess enough power to actually give pause to either the Tribunal or someone wearing the IG, but ultimately once either of them really pressed the battle it would end in defeat for the wielder of the StarBrand. Similiar to how during the main battle during the Infinty Gauntlet series, when the cosmic dieties confronted Thanos, although he greatly dwarfed the other Entities in power, he still actually had to contend with and defend against their attacks initially, but in the end even they were still overcome. They were still able to confront him on a very powerful level, but just not quite enough.

Indeed Maelstrom, (who as treated by Mark Gruenwald, was one of my favorite villains) was holding his own against Thanos in the alternate Earth scenario (in which he not only would have had the power of Anomaly, but was still receviing the backing of Oblivion), but as described above, I firmly believe the ultimate outcome would have been his defeat. And Quasar is not the only character to have returned from destruction at the hands of the Ultimate Nullifier, so obviously there are unknown limitations and circumstances that are invovled in it's operation.

Lastly, one would not need anywhere near Beyond rank abilities to cause a Multiversal calamity at the Nexus of Realities. During one of his outings Thog (who as I stated above is only a minor Hell-Lord at best, no where near the same level of power as someone like Mephisto) merely damaged the PORTAL to the Nexus that is located in the Man-Things Swamp and it caused a calamity that would have caused all dimensions to collapse into one. If merely damaging the doorway that takes you there would cause this, then it is safe to assume that damage actually caused inside the Nexus would lead to an even greater scale of distruction.

Again, I am not saying that the StarBrand is not a very powerful weapon/power, I just don't see it as being on the scale of the Ininity Gauntlet, and I am saying this as someone who liked the stories relating to the StarBrand far more than the Infinity Gauntlet related stories.

***As I side note (and I know it's off topic) I really miss Gruenwald, I loved his Captain America stories just as much as his Quasar stories. I really liked that he also was someone to whom continuity mattered a great deal, and I loved that he used mostly obscure characters and made them cool, instead of just making new ones left and right like many other writers do.***

Agreed about Mark. His death was quite tragic and unexpected. He was pretty awesome.

I think you're imposing too much limitation on the Starbrand since it has been described as the most powerful weapon in the Universe, it just wasn't in the position in the New Universe to really get a demonstration of how powerful it was given the lack of cosmic level opponents to battle against. When it entered the main continuity it easily took down all comers and if Kayla had better willpower no one could have taken it from her, plus it easily opened a planet-sized rift between the two universes even though they weren't even in the same multiversal continuity and were otherwise lacking in connection. Just something we'll have to agree to disagree on I guess, since it like many of the New Universe characters didn't get full exploration so we never got to see it shake things on a universal scale.

I think we're all missing the writers to whom continuity mattered and didn't behave like a character's existence started once they were hired on to write with the comic (some writers have even explicitly stated that they do exactly that, ignore anything prior and treat it like a clean slate). So many characters and comics have suffered horribly from writers and editors treating continuity as something to discard and the events with spider-man have been the worst with the worst retcon of all time, far beyond turning Superman into energy or splitting him in two. At the rate they're going Marvel's going to devolve to the days when stories had no continuity from one issue to the next and powers appeared and disappeared whenever a writer wanted a lazy way out of things. About the only good Marvel titles left are The Exiles/New Exiles and Thor and I hope that they at least keep the good writing teams.

Odin vs Zeus battle of the most popular skyfathers
assuming Odin is refreshed and not in need of the Odinsleep, i think he takes it because while the Olympain Gods have had their fair share f war, they do not seem to be involved in as many wars as the Asgardians So i think Odin wins based on combat experience.

While on the subject of gods i just thought of an interesting match up, what about a fight between Odin and Zeus big rivals

Surtur vs Cronus this could be a fight that shakes the heavens not realy sure who would take this

Most likely Odin would take it even though his character wanes back an forth from being overly weak (whenever the writer wants to tell a story of how Thor comes in to save Asgard from it's enemies, and it's not always from him needing the Odinsleep), to very powerful and regal when the stories call for Odin to be the focus. I've just always felt his character was portrayed with great inconsistancy. I myself tend to prefer the Olympian pantheon and Zeus, but given the depictions at Marvel, I thik Odin would take it over my favorite.

Surtur versus Cronus would be a hard one to call as the Greek Titan and father of Zeus, as opposed to the Eternal Kronos who is the father of Zuras, to the best of my knowledge has yet to have made an actual appearance in the Marvel Universe.

Cronus has apeared in flash backs and most recently this month in Hulk vs Hercules although he seemed to get beat pretty easily by Herc.
i believe he appeared in an adventure for the roleplaying game with physical stats simular to surturs but i could be wrong about this

The Eternal Kronos has made several short appearances in the Marvel Universe. While his body was effectively destroyed by scattering its molecules it only elevated him to quasi-entity status (that and being ground zero of his failed cosmic energy experiments), which he used to create Drax and recreate him on several occasions. We also saw a cameo of him in the Quasar series during the trouble with Maelstrom (seems he's got the hots for Infinity and doing his best to expand as rapidly as possible to someday 'catch up with' her) and when he punished Moondragon for annoying him by draining off some of her power to restore her father Drax's mind. So he does show up occasionally, mostly cameos to probably maintain copyright.

I was refering to the Titan even though he went down pretty easy agaisnt Herc this month i would imagiane the King of the Titans would be at a power level on par with Surtur

Nightmask, I had made the distinction between the two in my response (I thought it read pretty clearly, but maybe I'm wrong) and was referring to the Titan when I stated that he had not really appeared before.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2008 11:02AM by Herbert Wyndham.

Since they have been mentioned in the What If? thread, I thought I would pose the question here. Who would stand victorious in an all out battle?

Spider-man. One of Nightcrawler's main power stunts for his teleportation is randomly porting and attacking someone which is useless against someone with a Danger Sense like Spider-man who'd detect where he was porting to and strike as he appeared. In a straight melee fight Spider-man has superior strength and stamina and has fought teleporters in the past and Pre-Quesada with is death and rebirth was even faster and more powerful than he was before. Unless he wanted to become a murderer the only hope he'd have of winning a fight is if he could get a hold long enough to teleport only part of Spider-man and leaving part behind to kill him and if it were a kill or be killed fight Spider-man wouldn't be pulling his punches either and Nightcrawler would be unlikely to keep his head on with a few Incredible-strength punches at full power.

Agreed. I'm with Spider Man on this one as well. Although has it been clarified that Peter can detect danger crossing over from an other dimensional region. Which is how Nightcrawler teleports, by crossing through another dimension. That could tip the scales a little. I'd be interested to hear if there was any cases of Mr. Parker being sensitive to those kinds of dangers in 616 continuity. Or in the context of any book actually. At any rate it is a long shot.

Spider Man for the win!

Well Spider-man managed to outwit the Spot doing similar things, striking from another dimension through his 'spots', so I'd assume his Danger Sense would give him the opportunity to react to Nightcrawler as he's porting in.

I'd say that qualifies. Even though I have no idea who that is. Peter's reactions seem superb enough to handle those types of attacks however.

Spot's a very C if not D list villain tried to replicate Cloak's powers and instead ended up bonded to a dimension of featureless white with an endless range of black 'spots' floating at all sorts of orientations and each spot went to another location on the Earth plane and perhaps others. He covered NYC with them so he could fight Spider-man and earn big ratings with Kingpin. But he was still pretty much human-normal physical abilities so once Spider-man outwitted that Gimmick he was an easy beat down target (ran off really quick once he learned what it felt like getting punched and gathered up all his spots).

The question was in regards to how Spider-Mans spider sense would respond to teleportation thru another dimension and whether it would tip the tables in an enemy's favor. In that regard I would have to refer back to the Spot and say that it COULD possibly overcome his spider sense. The way the Spots power worked was that his body was covered in (wait for it) spots and these spots each served as the entrance to an extra dimensional realm (all the spots went to the same realm). While his body was covered it was very difficult to land a solid blow against his person as attacks tended to land inside of the spots, which caused the attackers arm to simply vanish into the other dimension until it was pulled back out. But as an offensive strategy the spot actually could remove these portal spots from his body and leave them someplace, or toss several of them around an opponent, either way they would stay where he placed them (even suspended in the air) until he retreived them and placed them back on his body. He could then enter any spot and instantaneously exit another, or he could enter one and stay in the other dimension. He could attack by simply throwing punches or kicks thru various placed spots and each individual appendage would reappear thru any other spot that he chose allowing him to attack an opponent surrounded by the spots from many different directions simultaneously. The way that Spider-man was able to defeat him was that the number of portal spots that covered his body was finite and every time he removed one, the area on his body where it had originally sat would then be left as his solid form. The Spot had dispensed so many of his spots that the majority of his body was solid mass and Spider-man made it close enough to him that he was able to land a solid blow. But while Spider-man was working his way in to attack he was tacking a great number of blows thru the Spots portals, as Spots limbs would disappear thru one and reappear thru another and Spider-man's spider sense was not forewarning him of the incoming blows. Unfortunately for the Spot he was of less than average build and physical condition, so the blows that were landing were not of any great impact to Spider-Man as he was receiving them. But the point is that his blows coming out of the other dimension were able to overcome Spider-Mans spider sense, so a physically superior, combat trained opponent who had the same or similar form of dimensional teleportation could possibly be a very worthy oppnent for Spidey.

Thought I would provide this wonderful image of the Spectacular Spot. Fear him.

[www.spiderfan.org][/img]

Unfortunately the link isn't working, might be you can't directly link to images and can only get to them from the preceding page.

I just tried it and it worked for me. Click on the www.spider-fan and not the img holder.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2008 06:46PM by Herbert Wyndham.

I did and the response is '403-Forbidden' error when it follows up on the link.

Yes, I am getting that now also after leaving the forums for a second. Below is the URL for a direct copy and paste.


(http://www.spiderfan.org/comics/images/spiderman_spectacular/099.jpg)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2008 06:54PM by Herbert Wyndham.

Same deal, 403-Forbidden error. Doesn't like that direct link.

Huh...oh well i tried. Serves me right for trying to make fun of the almighty Spot.

Well he is pretty amusing although for some reason he was one of Spider-man's more forgettable opponents to get shown off in the Ultimates line, with a bit more apparent toughness than the scientist version from Earth-616. I suppose I should repost the write-up I did on him for the new forums.

I'm pretty sure the Jedi would win but I think this fight would be cool to watch.

i think it would depend on who the jedi was. but in general i think a jedi would have the advantage,it would be hard for an alien to sneak up on a jedi, and i think a light saber wound would burn itself closed before it had a chance to spill acis every where.