When last we saw the Tourney, Green Lantern showed the Red Tornado he was full of hot air. (Gads, I'm clever --- or at least as clever as Rob Liefield!).
Kyle Rayner's opponent today is everyone's favorite mutant Avenger: Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch! Now, I'm talking about the fully assembled Scarlet Witch, the noble daughter of Magneto who uses her mystically-enhanced mutant ability for the forces of good. Not the Bendis-written "Witch Crazy!" who got all her friends blowed up for... uh, some reason. Oh yeah! To sell comics.
In case you're not familiar with the fairest Maximoff (although Quicksilver is, to be honest, a pretty attractive fellow), her power is to create probability disruption fields --- "hexes," as they're called. Within a certain area, the Scarlet Witch can use her power to, well, make things go wrong.
With that in mind, follow along with me as we see what transpires in the field of battle.
Kyle floats down toward Wanda. He's just taken out an array of colorful trash, from the Rainbow Raider to the Red Tornado, and he's in a pretty cocky mood. He gets in close.
Hex! Oh, snap! It's a major one! Kyle's ring sputters and blinks out. He falls ingloriously to the ground in a heap. "What the---?"
It is at this point that another, wiser, more battle-honed Green Lantern such as Alan Scott, Hal Jordan, Kilowogg --- hell, even Guy Garder --- pretty much everyone shy of G'Nort --- would help demonstrate that maturity and experience can turn the tide. Callow Kyle is a young man; he's a bit more than just a pretty face behind an oddly thick mask, but only a bit. He's a work in progress, let's say. He relies very heavily on the ring; when it malfuctions, he's more immediately at a loss than a more experienced GL, who's handled this sort of situation more than a few times, would be.
The Scarlet Witch is not formidable physically. She must continually get the drop on her opponent in order for her to maintain the upper hand. A practiced and mentally focused opponent, even one of only human-level ability, has a chance to withstand Wanda's probability disruption long enough to wade through the distractions and take her out.
Indeed, Kyle's ring (which is not truly "shut off," as it can't be; the power field was merely shorted for a split second in the Witch's hex zone) is now telling Kyle this very thing: "Kyle Rayner," the ring says in his mind, "You must focus all your willpower into this moment and harness the power again!"
"The ring's right," Kyle thinks, "gotta focus all the willpower... Man, this chick is smokin'! There's something about a red-head in a skin-tight bodysuit... And those elbow-length gloves! Sheee, that's--- Oh, wait, yeah, gotta re-harness the---"
CRASH! A nearby building falls on Rayner. The Scarlet Witch is unharmed.
The Champ.
Next: Think Wanda's got what it takes?
[And that, folks, was the end. There was no "next," at least not in the usual form, as I found myself literally unable to write wry, tongue-in-cheek geekery about comics anymore. Real Life came riding down into Blogville, and Real Life took a big dump in the middle of the town square and burned down city hall.
Several months later, I came up with this lame finale, unable to muster up the levity for anything else:]
Well, it's been over a month since I meta-posted saying I was feeling ready to come back, and no more posts have materialized. It's thus become clearer to me that, despite what I said, I probably will not be doing this blog in its present form any more. It's the kind of thing that you really have to be in a certain mood to do, and these days I just don't find myself in that mood at all anymore. Yeah, I know, people everywhere have problems. I'm not sitting in a dark corner drinking and playing a tiny violin, but I don't think I'm going to be writing humorous superhero battles any time soon, either. You never know, though. I might (even if I do, certainly not as often as I was posting before, which wasn't very often), or... Maybe I'll do something else in this space. In any case, thanks to all for the kind words.
As for the Iridescent Tourney, I'd like to wrap that up now. Well, I had visualized that the Xavier School's resident
There's just no doubt.
He can't be stopped.
He's big. He's bad. He's Black.
He's positively inhuman!
He has an electrical prong on his helmet for some goddam reason!
Ladies and gentlemen... Mister Black Bolt.
[Holy crap! I just found out his real name is "Blackagar Boltagon!" That's hilarious! That's awesome! That's (as Hovy is fond of saying) totally porno! That would make an excellent band name!]
Ol' Blackagar faces his opponent and says: "Let's get it on!"
[Opponent disintegrates. Planetquakes. General levelling of all salient features of landscape.]
"Oops!"
See you around, kids.
The Champ.
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