Sebastian Shaw (questions)

Hello there...

So I watched X-Men First Class w/ my brother a day or two ago (first time for him; second for me). And even in the 90s X-Men cartoon I liked the Hellfire Club/Shaw.

My question (or questions) is this...

If Shaw fought someone like...The Hulk...who would win?

I would have to go with Shaw since he can 'absorb' punches/etc, how could the Hulk hurt him? I guess the only thing I can think of is that after so long, The Hulk gets so strong from being angry (that he can't hurt Shaw/etc) that he could hurt Shaw.

Either that or Hulk could throw him out into outer space/etc...

Which by reading the wikipedia article on Shaw is how most dealt with Shaw (just removing him from the fight but not actually fighting him)...or by freezing him (since that's not a "direct" attack).


But then I think of the 90's cartoon where the Dark Phoenix beats up everyone and Shaw runs away; granted in this case, I don't quite remember how things panned out; but I think Shaw didn't really ever fight/get hit from the Phoenix, but rather it was too many X-Men vs just him/etc and with the Phoenix going crazy he just wanted to leave.

So a "god"-like being like the Phoenix/etc could defeat Shaw I presume but...could anyone else (like The Hulk)?

Curious

There's other characters like Shaw with absorption powers of some kind, and most of them seem to have limits as to the amount of energy (type varies) that they can absorb.

For instance, Rogue could only absorb so much of Juggernaut's power before losing her sense of self. Also, when Strong Guy (who has energy absorption powers more comparable to Shaw) fought Hulk during World War Hulk, he had to be careful not to get hit too much otherwise he'd max out his powers and his body would crash.

So Shaw could definitely go toe to toe with a lot of heavyweights, but when you get to the cosmic level he's going to be screwed, because not all of them are as mindless as Shaw would hope Hulk is should they ever cross paths.

*EDIT*

As far as I know, Shaw still needs to breathe and a lot of the time these energy absorption metas are defeated in a way that safely allows them to get rid of their stored energy to the point they are no longer a threat, such as keeping them in a force field of some kind or having an extremely durable meta hold them in place while they exert themselves.

Also Shaws been shown to be knocked out before. theres an upper limit to how much eh can absorb in a single shot, he can be overwhelmed if the initial shot is extreme enough.

Hmm, thanks you two

I wasn't sure about the whole "one-shot" thing so that makes sense.

In the comics, as I remember Shaw he was able to absorb *nearly* all the kinetic energy directed at him. This meant trying to defeat him by any means that essentially involved hitting him would tend to be futile.

However, there were three distinct ways to defeat him.

1. His kinetic energy absorption ability was not 100% perfect. What made Shaw difficult to defeat was that he was himself increasingly invulnerable to damage the more you "charged" him up with kinetic energy, and he could continue to absorb that energy. The weak link was that he wasn't absolutely invulnerable so a strong enough hit could hurt him because he couldn't absorb all the energy and he couldn't shake off the remainder. And this varied depending on how invulnerable he was in the first place.

In other words, in a toe to toe punching match with the Hulk, with each punch by the Hulk Shaw might be absorbing 99.9% of the energy in each punch to get stronger, and by getting stronger he could shrug off the 0.1% of the remaining energy of the punch. But if Shaw was in a relatively depowered state and suddenly ran into a raging Hulk, the Hulk could still theoretically take his head off: Shaw would absorb the same 99.9% of that punch, but the remaining 0.1% would then squish him.

It was all a question of how long you allowed him to ramp up his power, which was positively reinforcing.


2. Shaw was vulnerable to psionics, without assistance. So any powerful telepath could just scramble his brain.


3. Shaw was vulnerable to physical attacks that did not involve kinetic force. So Shaw is correct to run like heck from a being like Dark Phoenix, which could simply disassemble Shaw's atoms. He could also be suffocated, poisoned, restrained, drugged, frozen, or incinerated so long as these attacks did not involve actually hitting him, although in a highly powered state he would be at least resistant to things like heat and cold. But not absolutely invulnerable to them.

And the Shaw of the comic books would have been vulnerable to the same two-pronged attack that did him in at the end of First Class: psionically incapacitated, and then killed by an object striking him with virtually no kinetic energy, just slow, irresistible force.


I don't specifically remember, but I suspect Shaw would also be vulnerable to magic and attacks of that nature.


As to Shaw literally getting into a punching match with the Hulk, I suspect as long as the Hulk continues to get increasingly angry, eventually the Hulk would simply overwhelm Shaw's energy absorption power. Its not infinite, and conversely the Hulk was always been depicted as having theoretically unlimited strength, bound only by his ability to access it through rage.


The Hulk is a bit unusual in that he's literally been depicted to have no real limit to his power in theory, he's only limited in his ability to tap it. Practically by definition, the Hulk *can be* stronger than anything else given the right circumstances, no matter what that other thing is in the Marvel Universe.

Okay thanks again

I should have mentioned in my first post that I knew he was vulnerable to telepaths but ah well.


The Hulk is the only one that's lifted the Mjolnir right (other than Thor)?

Also it also depends on the writer. Power levels fluctuate depending on the story. I remember a What IF where he was surrounded by a angry mob armed with clubs and pitchforks that beat him to death.

As mentioned, he isn't absorbing 100% of the kinetic force,
for example, if the Hulk hits him with the force equal to being hit with 20,000 lbs( 10 tons), he's still feeling 200lbs worth of that force, which will still hurt.

He had no special protection against non-kinetic damage, the Human Torch could make him into toast, Phoenix could fry his brain, etc. He chemical or gas attacks would hurt him.

There are of course two special trumps,
Rogue can absorb his powers, and depowering him
Being around Leach will automatically turn off his powers like any other mutant

While his exact power levels does vary with writter, one thing is consistant, he's been portrayed more as a general type than an actual fighter type. Meaning it generally isn't his style to go toe to toe with the X-men, he generally has his people actually do it.
In CoX terms, the closest thing he would be, a SS/Merc/Willpower Brute Mastermind

Ah okay thanks all for the explanations

I didn't know about Cap. and Beta being able to pick up the Mjolnir (side note, isn't Beta just Thor but in the "ultimate" universe or something? Just remember Beta being in the X-Men/Marvel 2 game on the Wii years ago).

Thors hammer has been picked up by both Hulk, Cap and Beta Ray Bill..

Hulk had the sheer strength to lift Thors hammer. Theoretically someone in Marvel COULD lift Thors Hammer if strong enough. As someone else pointed out in the Marvel game, Thors strength was listed as Unearthly. Hulk is also Unearthly ( meaning able to lift 100 tons with relative ease ).. However Hulk when made enough could go into Shift X. Y and Z.. Z was considered by Marvel terms to have the ability to lift over 500 tons.. A very angry Hulk as we all know get massive strength boosts.. Hulk basically through sheer strength overrode the protection spell placed on the hammer

Captain America as someone else pointed out is an exceptionally honorable individual. The Hammers spell sees the really honorable as being worthy to wield it.. and therefore allows it..

In the case of Beta Ray Bill.. he actually didnt pick up Thors Hammer.. He picked up the cane.. he was looking for Thor's Hammer and being distressed that he couldnt find it.. and smacked the cane against a wall.. and that gave him the power of Thor.. This is what makes Bills case unique.. he didnt just lift the hammer.. he was imbued with all the powers of Thor.. so much so that when Odin summoned him.. he thought Bill was Thor

Mention of the TSR ruleset brought back a flood of memories....one stands out

I decided to run a no holds barred uber one off session where it was a classic Hulk has gone totally nutz and there have been massive (100K+) civies dead situation using that ruleset.

Gave the 5 players choice of any 2 each from all the supplements/dragon article statlines for any hero they choose to take for the encounter....no UBER, cheese or godlike's subject to approval, naturally...I wanted a good mix of toons, but it was for fun and as an experiment to see what would happen. I gave the players the foreknowledge that this raged out Hulk had no max limit...and would be very high when they encounter him....though not maxxed...gave them my slightly modified ruleset for Hulk and stats so they would not whine as much if they all got team wiped.

Of course SOMEONE wanted to play a bad guy...Juggie....really bad...he brought comics where Jugs did good...pleaded...lobbied other players...I gave in-one condition, he only got 1 char then. He said thats ALL I NEED.

We had a good mix, though some generic:

Juggs, Iron Man, Wolvie, Havoc, Dazzler, Cloak, couple others I dont remember...Ms Marvel might have been one...LLOONNGG time ago.

Setup backstory simple. Mysterio and buddies ID Bruce hidding out incognito in a suburban track of Dallas-Fort Worth...he works next to a bank they want to rob. Mysterio does an a Illusion of a group of good guys abducting the love of his life who struggles and is accidently killed...all illusion...Bruce freaks-rampage ensues-but this time Bruce is a little more in charge-and wants to die-The ONLY way he can die-is become a threat enough that the powers of the world will be force to unite to slay him.

Flashfwd to the battle- They pull Hulk to the airport...Juggie (stoopid) charges hulk...hulk jumps a bit and cracks the slab of concrete which flings juggie up then down...hulk then jumps up and down a couple times on juggie...who becomes red paste...Iron Man does the big couple alphas then does the uber fastball special w/ wolvie....hits hulk really hard...hulk mad---hulk pull wolvie out of his body and pulls one arm out of socket and tosses it about a mile and the tosses wolvie about 1/2 mile....players look worried...after a lengthy break they begin to get smart...they pull hulk around for a bit and try to lower his lvls...(duH!!) not enuff...they get hurt again....and another break....they finally come up with the plan to dig a hole like a ant lion trap...and pin hulk and let cloak drain hulk to death...and it worked....took a while...but clever solution.

Never ran Shaw under the rules...think the only hellfire member I ran w/ my group was Emma....but that was just non combat...was into other things with that group.

Back to original question Shaw can absorb kinetic force thats directed toward him, but if he is simply tossed straight up or away he's effectively removed from the fight. It's happened a couple times where Xmen would remove him from the fight before he absorbed enough power to do anything. He only weights like 200 some lbs so super strong people have no issue just lifting him up.

Since when does Hulk punch... last time i heard...he smashes and smashing is not kinetic force...