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Who Would Win In A Fight: Jubilee vs Kitty Pryde

January 21st, 2007 Posted by david brothers

Oh yes, it is that time again! Time for your favorite feature and mine, Who Would Win In A Fight!

If you’re new to the blog, WWWIF is a semi-regular (read: whenever I remember to do it) feature where I put some thought toward non-standard comics fights. No Superman vs Batman, Thing vs Hulk, or Spider-Man vs Blue Beetle here, no sirree. These are the fights that are important. If you want to read the previous entires in this battle, click the “Who Would Win In a Fight” category link over to your right, or click here.

Er, now that I click the link myself, I see that there is only one other fight. Oops! Well, here’s a second. Onward!


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Kitty “Shadowcat” Pryde vs Jubilation “Jubilee” Lee!
“I was the first and the best, Jubilee! You’re going down!”
“Pfft, I’m shoor, old-timer. As if.”

Kitty and Jubes have a lot in common. They’re both teenaged sidekicks. They both had to fight to stay on the X-Men. Kitty Pryde had her “Professor Xavier is a JERK!” and was Jubilee ever an official X-Man? Wolverine has a paternal relationship with both of them, even going so far as to drag them along on trips to Japan, Madripoor, and who knows where else.

It’s kind of interesting in how they differ in their relationships with the other X-Men. Kitty’s “mother,” for lack of a better word, is Ororo “Storm” Munroe. They have a great and nurturing relationship going. Of course, Kitty also dated Peter “Colossus” Rasputin for a good long while, turning Peter into not only a mutant hated and feared by a world he’s sworn to protect, but a probable sex offender.

Jubilee, however, is a bit more rough. She’s been openly jealous of many of the X-Women’s X-Bodies, she used to hate Psylocke’s ninja-kicking, bathing-suit-for-a-uniform-wearing, race-changing guts, and for a little bit she had something of a crush on Gambit, even if she would never admit it. Also, she called Longshot “Blonde Jovi” once and wondered how he got into the X-Men.

Kitty Pryde has enjoyed no small amount of popularity. I mean, and I’m not trying to be mean here, but she’s tailored to be someone’s dream girl. I’m sure you know what I mean. She’s a collection of traits that make people go “Ooh, awesome!” She’s consistently cute, super-smart, has ninja skills, is great with computers, and isn’t so hoity-toity that she won’t date a normal guy like you Doug Ramsey. I mean, that’s not even touching on the Agent of SHIELD stuff, Excalibur, Mekanix, or any of the other awful things she’s done or been through over the years. She’s got baggage. Now, she’s in Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-men, hardcore-ing it up, slapping Emma Frost around, and getting all the good lines. It’s worth noting that Kitty’s current and original costume are classics, but every single costume she had in between these two have actually been worse than every costume the Wasp has had. That is an incredible accomplishment. Even when she’s screwing up, she’s perfect at it.

Jubilee, on the other hand, hasn’t. She was in Generation X for a while, then that got canceled, and then she lost her powers during House of M. She had a good run in X-Men, though, and I hear that her stuff during Wolverine’s solo series was great, but I haven’t read it yet. She was pretty awesome in the X-Men tv show, too. The yellow trenchcoat is bright enough to be blinding. The “Jubilee” earrings are a nice touch, too, but the bright pink shirt and ’90s shorts that go up to her armpits are awful. I’m kind of glad that those got dropped, costume-wise. Shorts don’t belong above your belly button.

Jubilee is another of those characters with “hidden potential.” She could theoretically kill people with her “pafs,” but tends to shy away from doing such a thing. Even better, I read somewhere that she is technically splitting atoms on a subatomic level, which makes her a nuclear threat. When properly unleashed, she is crazy powerful. She blew up the Mandarin’s boat back during the bit when Jubilee, Psylocke, and Wolverine were traipsing around Southeast Asia. She’s an Olympic-level gymnast, too, and a decent fighter. This doesn’t stop the other X-Men from saving her on a daily basis. She’s gone toe-to-toe with The Hand, though, so she can’t be too bad. Then again, it is The Hand. You can get a Hand membership out of a Crackerjacks box. Jubilee is also a walking and talking ’90s pop culture reference, and starred in a really, really bad Generation X TV pilot from the ’90s that I inordinately loved as a kid. It should’ve gone on to be a TV show, I’ll tell you what. It would’ve been bigger than Buffy.

Kitty Pryde’s abilities are pretty well-defined. All of them. Putting aside the ridiculous idea of “phasing between worlds” or whatever that was in X-Treme X-Men, she can phase herself and things she is in contact with through nearly any object. It’s been suggested that she can phase through anything but adamantium, too. She’s super smart and an expert computer user. She can hack and program and blah blah blah. She was an agent of SHIELD for a little bit, so she may even be government trained. She was possessed by Ogun, Wolverine’s former sensei, and had crazy ninja skills for a short while. Later on, according to Thomas Wilde, Warren Ellis realizes that “Kitty’s spent years and years being taught how to fight hand-to-hand by one of the scariest bastards on Earth.” So, sup crazy fighting skills! Also, she can phase just enough that she can walk on air.

Yes, she can fly. She also has a pet dragon. Cripes. She probably isn’t a long-lost princess, though.

Taken head to head, this would be an interesting and pretty short battle. Kitty could just grab Jubilee and half-phase her into a rock or something. Jubilee probably couldn’t open up full bore on Kitty the way she needs to do in order to win the fight, so it’d devolve to hand-to-hand… against a ninja master who can turn intangible. Jubilee is agile, so she could probably dodge a few hits, but Kitty is super smart, can walk on air, and has crazy fight training. Jubilee could use her fireworks to blind Kitty and get in some good hits, but all Kitty has to do is turn intangible and nothing Jubilee throws would land. It is worth noting that Kitty can still see when she’s phased, which means a couple things. One, light can still strike her eyes (and the rest of her, since she doesn’t turn invisible). That means she still has some form of solid matter. Two, if light can strike her eyes, Jubilee’s pafs might have the impact of actual matter. Gavok thinks that Jubes may even be able to induce seizures in Kitty. Even if she can’t, having fireworks going off in your brain can’t be a good thing.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is that, six times out of ten, Kitty Pryde would probably beat the bone marrow out of Jubilee and then invent a cure for cancer, AIDS, and the common cold out of that bone marrow, all the while singing the Star-Spangled Banner.

Final Verdict: Jubilee wins by authorial fiat.

Thanks for reading!

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Deadshot’s Tophat and Other Beginnings: Bl to Bu

January 12th, 2007 Posted by Gavok

BLADE

Tomb of Dracula #10 (1973)

“They call me… Blade! Blade the Black Agent X!”

Times change, don’t they? The story that introduces Blade doesn’t so much go into his background, other than his hobby of offing vampires. He takes care of some of Dracula’s henchmen early on and then fights the big bad on a cruise ship. When Dracula has things won, one of his mind-controlled lady victims comes to jump his bones. This distracts Dracula enough that Blade can get back up. Dracula makes the decision to leave, though the boat will explode in moments. Blade tosses everyone off the boat and makes it to safety himself, knowing that he and Dracula will fight again one day.

BLINK

Uncanny X-Men #317 (1994)

Before Blink was well-known for her role in Age of Apocalypse and Exiles, she showed up in regular 616 continuity as part of the Phalanx Covenant. Along with members of Generation X, she finds herself captured by the Phalanx.

When attacked by a being named Harvest, Blink uses her power to teleport him away while tearing him apart. Other than that, she follows the others as they attempt to escape, knowing that the Phalanx was unable to find a way to dampen their powers.

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The What If Countdown: Honorable Mention Awards

November 20th, 2006 Posted by Gavok

As I said in the last article, most What Ifs are interesting in their own way. Whether it’s because they tell a really good story, an abomination of a story or if the changes in reality are completely off the wall, almost every issue has something worth talking about.

I just talked about 100 of these stories and a couple extra ones I thought were crappy. So rather than have me write a bunch of exhaustive issue profiles, how’s about we just look at the bits and pieces that got my attention? It’s time to hand out the What If Honorable Mention Awards!

If I wasn’t so lazy, I would probably Photoshop a bunch of golden Uatu statues.

Edit: It looks like I didn’t have to. Thanks to Kyle Hayes for the award trophy.


Strangest What If Couple: Quicksilver and Gwen Stacy

This comes from What If the Age of Apocalypse Hadn’t Ended (volume 2, #81). Tony Stark, head of the human resistance, joins up with Magneto to figure out a way to save Earth from the coming of Galactus. Among Tony’s fellow human freedom fighters are the Hulk, Sue Storm and, strangely enough, Donald Blake’s bodyguard Gwen Stacy. Er… yeah. I guess with her dad being a cop and all… No, it still sounds goofy.

Pietro is without a sister and Gwen needs a boyfriend who can kill her with whiplash. It’s only natural that these two would find each other.

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The Top 100 What If Countdown: Part 20

November 12th, 2006 Posted by Gavok

Well, it’s been four months of lead-up. When the first part of the countdown came out, Lynxara asked about why I’d do a top 100 list for a series of books that only have 175 issues. Especially when I count two-parters as one entry. Truth be told, this isn’t like ranking the best issues of Nightwing or Mighty Thor. Most comic series have cohesion and you usually have an idea of what to expect in each issue. Writers, artists and story remain the same for months and sometimes years at a time.

What If, on the other hand, is different. What If is the ultimate comic book box of chocolates. Writers, artists, stories, ideas and tones change from issue to issue. Many stories are good. Many are bad. But almost every one of them is interesting in its own way. I could have easily have done a top 20 or top 50 list and be done long ago, but there’s too much fun we’d be missing out on. No jive-talking Incredible Hulk, or Matt Murdock crying over Wilson Fisk’s death bed, or Kraven the Hunter eating Peter Parker’s face.

Now let’s get in our Quinjet and take us down to #1.

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The Top 100 What If Countdown: Part 15

October 5th, 2006 Posted by Gavok

This article is dedicated to all the Human Torch and Sub-Mariner fans out there. Why? Because anyone else is probably going to be bored out of their skulls.

30) WHAT IF…? STARRING SECRET WARS: 25 YEARS LATER

Issue: Volume 2, #114
Writer: Jay Faerber
Artist: Gregg Schigiel
Spider-Man death: Yes
Background: The all-powerful Beyonder brought a group of heroes and a group of villains onto a planet he created to battle for his amusement. The storyline is known for introducing the Venom symbiote, putting She-Hulk in the Fantastic Four and for one of the funniest movies on YouTube. Dr. Doom, using his own genius, found a way to steal the power of Galactus and challenge the Beyonder. He then stole the Beyonder’s power too, but things went to Hell and he ended up back to his usual ugly self. So if Galactus is powerful enough to challenge the Beyonder, why didn’t he? And what if the fight between the two ended with both of them dying? Toss in Reed Richards’ death for flavor.

The story begins on the 18 birthday of Balder Blake, otherwise known as Bravado (son of Thor and the Enchantress). As he does every year, he tries to lift Mjolnir, his father’s hammer. He still can’t lift it, despite the support of his friends Crusader (daughter of Captain America and Rogue) and Mustang (son of Hawkeye and She-Hulk). They return to his house to find a surprise party waiting for him. It’s there that we meet his other friends Torrent (daughter of Wolverine and Storm) and Firefly (son of Human Torch and Wasp). As the story goes, the Secret Wars lasted for about five more years with many casualties until the two sides decided to call a truce. Now, for the most part, they and their children live in harmony.

There’s also Symbiote Spider-Man. He acts a bit creepy, talking in “we speak” that Venom was so famous for. Plus he’s a bit anti-social. Curious…

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The Top 100 What If Countdown: Part 14

September 26th, 2006 Posted by Gavok

The new Marvel solicitations have been released, detailing the new What Ifs. One is based on Deadly Genesis, which doesn’t interest me since I haven’t read that yet. The other, which looks to be awesome, is Age of Apocalypse. This time, Legion did kill Magneto… but he also killed Xavier. Judging from the cover, this could be very interesting.

35) WHAT IF THE AVENGERS FOUGHT THE KREE-SKRULL WAR WITHOUT RICK JONES?

Issue: Volume 1, #20
Writer: Tom DeFalco
Artist: Alan Kupperberg
Spider-Man death: No
Background: I myself haven’t read the Kree-Skrull War arc, but I get the gist of it from Wikipedia and the Watcher’s introduction. It doesn’t sound very good, all in all. The important parts to note are that the Super-Skrull had captured Captain Marvel, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver with Captain America, Goliath (Pym), Iron Man, Thor and Vision off to save them. Rick Jones somehow got captured by some Kree guys as the Kree’s fleet prepared to invade Earth. In the end, Rick met with the Supreme Intelligence, who betrayed the Kree. He stimulated Rick’s mind so that he mentally projected memories of his childhood heroes (ie. the Invaders and the like) to beat up the Kree fleet. Sounds retarded, but it was the 70’s. This version of the story is far better. There’s a part of the original story where Rick Jones was brought before Ronan the Accuser. Rick stole a guard’s staff and attacked Ronan, only to do no damage. Ronan noted Rick’s courage and figured he’d make a good slave. In the Tom DeFalco version, Ronan is more pissed than amused and kills the boy with his cosmic hammer dealy. He calls for the fleet to make way to Earth and decimate it.

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The Top 100 What If Countdown: Part 13

September 22nd, 2006 Posted by Gavok

I mourn this image, not for the loss of Timothy Leary, but for the loss of Vaudeville Silver Surfer. You’d think that with Keith Giffen writing Annihilation, we’d see him make a comeback.

40) WHAT IF… STARRING SABRETOOTH: SCREAMS IN THE NIGHT!

Issue: Volume 2, #87
Writer: Dan Abnett
Artist: Frank Teran
Spider-Man death: No
Background: Sabretooth was, for a time, a captive in the X-Mansion with Xavier hoping he could mentally fix what’s wrong with him. One time, when most of the team was out on a mission, a power failure in the mansion allowed Sabretooth to escape. He didn’t get too far, though. When he went after Jubilee, Bishop went up against him and knocked him out with a powerful blast. Our story here begins with Jubilee crying over the shredded-up body of Bishop. Uh oh.

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The Top 100 What If Countdown: Part 12

September 18th, 2006 Posted by Gavok

This is a longer one than usual. I just had to rank two two-parters so closely together, didn’t I.

45) WHAT IF THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN HAD NOT MARRIED MARY JANE?/WHAT IF THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN HAD MARRIED THE BLACK CAT?

Issue: Volume 2, #20-21
Writer: Danny Fingeroth
Artist: Jim Valentino
Spider-Man death: No
Background: Peter Parker had proposed to Mary Jane. It was a battle with a Spider Slayer involving them both that convinced Mary Jane to say yes. That’s all well and good for her, but how would things have turned out if that adventure didn’t go so smoothly? In this reality, the Spider Slayer strangles Mary Jane a bit longer than normal and although she’s rescued, she is still injured. Peter keeps having flashbacks to Gwen’s death and can’t bear to see the same thing happen to someone like Mary Jane. For her own protection, he leaves her at the alter.

Look at that last panel. Man. I will never, ever forgive John Byrne for turning Sandman evil again. But enough of that.

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The Top 100 What If Countdown: Part 10

September 11th, 2006 Posted by Gavok

Before we hit the halfway point, things are about to get pretty freaking dark. Insert your own Luke Cage/Falcon/War Machine joke here.

55) WHAT IF THE SILVER SURFER HAD NOT ESCAPED EARTH?

Issue: Volume 2, #22
Writer: Ron Marz
Artist: Ron Lim
Spider-Man death: No
Background: After turning on Galactus, Silver Surfer was punished by being forced to stay within Earth’s atmosphere. Whenever he tried to fly off, an invisible barrier would bounce him back in. Eventually, a powerful being named the Champion came to Earth and helped destroy the barrier, permitting the Surfer to travel the universe and experience more adventures. In this reality, the Champion never does come to Earth.

Surfer rams into the force field again and again, still annoyed. The Fantastic Four show up, explaining that they haven’t figured out an answer to what’s holding him back, scientifically. They ask the Surfer to join their team, since it’ll give him a home, something to do and having him around would help Reed’s research into how he could break through the barrier. The Surfer thinks about it and takes them up on the offer.

I don’t have to tell you that they dominated. We get a two-page spread that shows the Surfer aiding the other four in punking out Annihilus, Dr. Doom, the Frightful Four, and others. It’s like God Mode in comic book form. Plus we get this amusing image:

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The Top 100 What If Countdown: Part 9

September 9th, 2006 Posted by Gavok

Today I bought the Essential Luke Cage, which has his first 27 issues. Sadly, Mr. Fish shows up in issue #29. DAMN IT!

Anyway, the article.

60) WHAT IF THE KINGPIN OWNED DAREDEVIL?

Issue: Volume 2, #73
Writer: D.G. Chichester
Artist: Tom Grindberg
Spider-Man death: No
Background: The Fixer had Jack Murdock killed for refusing to take a dive during his big fight. Matt Murdock was already training under the martial arts master Stick, and with his drive for justice, one day became Daredevil. Years later, he would become the mortal enemy of Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin. Here, Kingpin hears about the Fixer/Murdock incident and how young Matt has been seen with Stick. This interests him and he decides that this boy might be worth looking at.

We see young Matt Murdock on the day after his father’s death, unaware but suspicious of why he hasn’t seen him yet. It’s a day in the life as we see him deal with bullies and briefly talk to Stick. Policemen show up and bring him to the morgue to identify his father. As Matt is leaving, Kingpin’s assistant arrives and gives him a card (then realizing his obvious mistake, since the words are in print) telling him to meet Wilson Fisk at spice warehouse near a pier. Matt recognizes the name and goes even colder.

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