Let's Talk About Metacurrency

[Artamo]

No. All of them have been measured, multiple times, by multiple parties. This is demonstrably false.

Sorry, but yes. The measurements change based on the needs of the writer alone. It’s like a pro wrestler saying they’re 6’10” because a bigger number sounds cooler. Even in the fictional “reality” of a comic book, that reality changes oftentimes without explanation, hence the existence of the phrase “retcon.”

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sorry, but yes. The measurements change based on the needs of the writer alone. It’s like a pro wrestler saying they’re 6’10” because a bigger number sounds cooler. Even in the fictional “reality” of a comic book, that reality changes oftentimes without explanation, hence the existence of the phrase “retcon.”

What does any of that have to with whether or not superpowers are measurable, or dispute the existence of the many, many examples of them being measured?

 

[Artamo]

What does any of that have to with whether or not superpowers are measurable, or dispute the existence of the many, many examples of them being measured?

Look, your fantasy or sci-fi setting may be internally consistent and I applaud that, but you’re attempting to justify your perspective with a poor example.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Look, your fantasy or sci-fi setting may be internally consistent and I applaud that, but you’re attempting to justify your perspective with a poor example.

Your objection makes no sense to me, but you do you.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The Hulk, Superman, and Professor X have measurable super powers. Batman just having whatever is needed is a narrative conceits. Do you not see the difference?

It depends on how important consistency of expression of the former is to you. Truth is, most longtime supers tend to not be quite the same from writer to writer, and with the higher powered ones like you name, not even within one writer. There's a lot of "we're not going to use this power right now because it'd be inconvenient for the story" (or in some cases, ever again when they figure out some of the character's earlier actions with some powers look dodgy, like the period when Xavier stopped using his mind control capabilities).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Who's "they"? I just bought a huge book full of gear, weapons, armor, and vehicles for modern-futuristic games using the 5e rules, and it is a joy! Seriously, hundreds of entries with actual rules, in a newly published book mind you. So tell me, who's the target audience for that, if you're right? Just me?

That doesn't mean they'll keep redoing the gear constantly.

 

[VHawkwinter]

Your objection makes no sense to me, but you do you.

I think the point being made, is that when the authors are frequently retconning the cababilities of the characters, there is little internal consistency to be had, and without that internal consistency upon which you can compare the capabilities of those characters, all of them feel the same as "Batman just having whatever is needed [as] a narrative conceit". A franchise with sloppy continuity makes everything feel like deus-ex-machina, and thus no superhero comic books are a good standard to benchmark against for what feels consistent; Batman isn't that big of an outlier if the measured capabilities of Spider-Man will be retconned on-demand anyway.

While I think that's the argument being put forward, at least on the Marvel side, I think most superheroes had pretty consistent and well-defined capabilities at least when I was reading them from ~2000 - 2014, and when they changed it was mostly organic throughout a story that justified the changes rationally, with big retcons being inconsistent for most characters for much of that period. They could certainly have been more consistent, and IMO that would have been better, and big timeline "resets" like "One More Day" were mostly crap. But I think by and large, most superhero comics did give them better defined abilities than Batman's unlimited offscreen preptime and nigh-infinite foresight.