Captain Cold VS Shocker
“The number one rule of thieves is that nothing is too small to steal.”
-Jimmy Breslin
Captain Cold, the calm collected criminal commander of The Rogues.
The Shocker, the vicious vibrational villain vital to the Sinister Six.
Not all villains want WORLD DOMINATION or THE DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE. Some are just like the rest of us, simple people wanting to get by. However, life can sometimes stick up the middle finger and so desperate times call for desperate measures. These two were just common burglars trying to get any amount of cash they can get. Although they realized in a place of Mutates, Mutants, and Metahumans; the world was changing, it was time they changed with it. With new high-tech weapons, these criminals realized they can steal anything. They can take any amount of money, but who will be the one willing to take a life in a DEATH BATTLE?
Background
Captain Cold
Growing up outside of Central City, Leonard Snart didn’t exactly have a kind childhood, mostly this can be attributed to his father, a drunk cop who beat borderline everyone around him in fits of drunken rage, while his mother was always leaving him and his sister, Lisa Snart to their fathers wrath after being beaten and treated horribly by said father and not wanting to be treated like shit. Of course, there’s one light in the darkness for Leonards childhood, being his grandfather, who made ice cream and tried to make sure Leonard and his sister when he could weren’t in the line of fire of their drunken father, it wasn’t exactly the best childhood, but there were bright things in it.
By the time Leonard Snart turned twelve years old, his grandfather had died, and in his own words, “And all of the good things in our lives died with him”, and not longer after his mother died, leaving him and his sisters only living blood their father… Leonard Snart left home not long after to pursuit a life of crime, after all, when comparing stealing for a living and living day to day with a drunken father who him and his sister had to constantly endure beatings from, the choice is rather obvious.
Enter, the Flash, who busted Leonard and his fellow robbers at the time, and lead Leonard to realizing that he had no real way to combat the Flashs speed after having been taken down so quickly he didn’t even register what was happening. So he ended up studying thermal motion and kinetic energy, stealing some blueprints, and with his own work of getting the parts necessary, he built the Cold Gun, a gun that not only slows, but freezes anything it can shoot, something that allowed him to fight the Flash, and something that made him forge his own supervillain identity, Captain Cold.
From there, Captain Cold actually started making some headway in the criminal world, being capable of battling the Flash on even grounds, reuniting with his sister who had taken up her own supervillain identity as the Golden Glider, and even forging his own supervillain team known as the Rogues. Which as a team had a few simple rules, split the payout of a job evenly, no drugs, never kill a woman or child, and never kill a Flash.
Of course, Captain Colds life never got easier, but he always made sure to try to keep the score even, as he isn’t one to demand world domination or absolute revenge on the Flash, he’s a simple man when it comes down to it, when his sister got killed, he got revenge and killed her murderer. When his drunken father gets kidnapped as an attempt of a bargaining chip, he takes the Rogues, kills the kidnappers, and has his best friend, Heatwave, do the deed of killing his father so he doesn’t have to. Gets set up to kill Bart Allen, the fourth Flash? He takes the rogues on a mission to get revenge for being set up and for Bart Allen. Even when faced with extremely dangerous foes like Gorilla Grodds army or the Crime Syndicate, Captain Cold will do what is needed for the greater good, his heart may be cold, but it isn’t ice, and when the scores back to even, you better believe Captain Cold is leading the Rogues, getting ready for the next score.
Shocker
Herman Schultz was just your average burglar from the Bronx. More notably, a safe cracker. However it’s clear that he wasn’t very good at either of these, as eventually he would end up getting caught and put into prison. During his time at prison all Herman would ponder is how if he were to get out he will make sure he’s never caught again. He swore that he would design something that will make it so it can open any safe quieter and quicker. Luckily for him he was put in the prison workshop due to his knack with tools and there became a self taught engineer.
One night, he finally came up with the idea of a device that can “shake the safe door loose”. Something that could “control the shock of the vibrations”. So there Herman was, after months building said device, he created a prototype. However while it worked, it nearly killed Herman in the process. Prompting him to create a suit that would let him endure his new power, and even transform his device into thumb triggered gauntlets. Herman would soon escape from prison, but the world would not gifted the sub par thief from before. They, along with the wall crawling hero Spider-Man, would soon be faced BY THE SHOCKER!!!
Equipment
Captain Cold
The Cold Gun
In Pre-Crisis, the Cold Gun was created when Captain Cold exposed a regular gun to radiation, which changed what the gun did, in Post-Crisis and more modern versions, he created the gun himself based on blueprints he aquired. Regardless of it’s origin, the Cold Gun remains to be Captain Colds signature weapon.
While the Cold guns inital purpose was to try to slow down the Flash by negating his kinetic energy, it became clear fast that it had a variety of different effects and abilities that Captain Cold added as time went on. Notably it being able to fire at Absolute Zero and generating Ice where it’s fired. With this generating of cold to create ice, Captain Cold has frozen people solid, created ramps, giant fists, walls, spikes, hail, glaciers, pillars, jail cells, snowballs, caused it to snow, and covered the floor in ice. Captain Cold is even capable of animating his constructs to fight his opponents. But this is only the tip of the iceberg with what the Cold gun is capable of doing.
The Cold Gun is capable of creating Mirages that last multiple minutes that vary from a single object, to an entire illusion, they’re also capable of generating sound and disguising Captain Cold.
The Cold Gun is also capable of causing targeted Artic Lightning strikes by shooting the clouds, generating artificial Aurora Borealis in order to suspend people in the air and can generate a ‘white-out’ that makes those affected unable to see more then a foot in front of them. It can also turn the air to water, fire a ‘organic compound’ that reforms on whatever it touches and can’t be scrapped off, or even transmutate people to crystals with absolute zero
Upon being hit by the Cold Gun, depending on what the settings are, it can be so cold that it burns, or leave you numb instead of frozen. He can make it so it shoots a ‘wide beam’ that only freezes the skin, or freeze so specifically it only covers your outer layer and doesn’t even damage your cell walls, he can also fire a “Frigo Blast” that can lower the temperature of your body(which in a human is about 37 degrees celsius), to -1000 degrees in less then a second. He also can trigger it to go off with the phrase “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells”, and can control the ice’s brittleness to either be brittle enough that walking on it shatters it, tough as diamonds, or if he reinforces it, enough to withstand Heatwaves flames.
The Cold gun also has a variety of how much area it affects, as it can vary from creating a barrier over an entire city and creating city wide snow, to specifically only affecting the nose.
But the most noteworthy and impressive ability the Cold Gun is capable of doing is firing a ‘cold field’, it absorbs the kinetic energy of anything within it, making bullets stop in their track, freezing objects that even touch the cold field, slowing the likes of the Flash down to the point where Captain Cold is confident he’d win a quick draw, and leaving people brittle upon contact with it. It also is capable of moving along with Captain Cold, rather then being left where he shoots it. It’s also borderline invisible, making it hard to tell if it’s there, and he can generate it around other people rather then himself. However, it is worth noting that multiple things have been shown to be able to get through the cold field in the past outside of the Flash due to his own massive amount of kinetic energy, things such as Light, The Cold Guns own beam, and sound such as Captain Colds own voice have been able to go through the Cold Field without hindrance.
One of the final things worth noting is that temporarily in the New-52, Captain Cold gained the powers of the Cold Gun within his own DNA, giving him cryokinesis, while it is obviously nonstandard, seeing as he had his DNA fixed, removing his powers, and his physical state was enhanced so physical feats could not be scaled to him, the feats of Cryokinesis he accomplished with the Cold guns powers in his DNA should be logically comparable to the capabilities of the Cold gun, seeing as that’s the origin of his abilities.
It’s also worth noting that Captain Cold carries multiple Cold Guns on his person at a time
Goggles
Captain Colds goggles allow him to listen to the Polices radio channels, and protects his eyes from bright lights such as the flare gunfire causes.
Miniature Refrigerator
Created during his time in prison, Captain Cold developed a small refrigerator unit in order to help cool him down, and despite it’s size, it can still freeze people solid with a single blast
Frigid Aura Belt
By pressing a button on his belt, Captain Cold is capable of generating a field of ‘super-frigid energy’ thats enough to slow down the Flash temporarily.
Cold-Germs
While in the Infirmary, Captain Cold developed these Cold Germs that upon infecting people, puts them in a hypnotic trance, they specifically target the subconscious, and erase the memories of following the commands afterwords, it’s affect on the memory was enough that while under it’s trance, Barry Allen didn’t remember he was the Flash
The Winterizer
A larger weapon Captain Cold developed, it focused more on area of affect then his normal weapons, being considered “instant” by Captain Cold himself, and was capable of covering multiple of the surrounding city blocks.
Vibrating Ice Block
A literal block of ice that Captain Cold has, that upon exposure to sufficient enough vibrations, starts growing rapidly, within a short timeframe even grew to the size of multiple buildings as seen above.
Dry Ice
Captain Cold leaves this ice around for it to do its work. The dry ice leaks a gas from it, which can freeze the space between molecules of whatever is exposed to it.
Ice Bombs
A bomb that Captain Cold can set off to go remotely or be triggered by movement, and explodes into a burst of ice and frigid air that can freeze over an entire room.
Nail-Sized Cold Gun
A Cold-Gun hidden in his nail, notably stated to be weaker then his standard Cold-Gun, but it is still capable of making objects brittle enough to casually shatter and freezing over entire walls.
Cold-Grenade
The Cold Grenade works like a simple grenade in that removing the pin starts to set it off, and once it is set off, it had the power to freeze Iron Heights, an entire prison complex, inside and out solidly in ice.
Cold Suit
During Year of the Villain, Captain Cold was funded by Lex Luthor in order to amplify both his own and the other Rogues' tech, the Cold Suit being Captain Colds own enhanced tech. The suit allows Cold to create giant fists of Ice around his arms, spray out blasts of ice and cold from his hands and even unleash a burst of cold from his body, freezing everyone around him
Shocker
Vibro-Smashers
From Vibro-Shock Units to Vibro-Shock Gauntlets, this iconic part of Shocker has had various names and various upgrades. However one thing stays the same- they pack A MEAN PUNCH. They are also much more versatile and complicated than one might think. So how do they work? They create shockwaves caused by rapidly compressing air in quick succession to the point where they can separate matter.These as a result can shoot out blasts of vibrational energy. These can range from small shocks to large building spanning attacks as Herman can increase its intensity however he likes. At their weakest they can knock out a human in one go and at their peak they can even stun heralds.
The gauntlets themselves have various uses to really put Herman ahead of the game. Along with as stated previously, the gauntlets also have been able to shoot electricity. Furthermore, if Herman finds himself getting his gauntlets stolen he can also remotely control them from afar. Setting them off in the hands of others or acting as some sort of “vibrational explosive”. Shocker can even use the gauntlets to get out of any restraint like when his hands were frozen by Iceman. And while not as impressive as something that will come up, Herman can even use the gauntlets to lunge himself into the air like a grasshopper. A very powerful and deadly grasshopper.
Of course none of that is what Shocker is known for. So How has he managed to make due with his vibro-blasts alone? Surprisingly, Herman can use them in very creative ways. As already known Herman can not only use the gauntlets to fire powerful blasts that can damage targets without even making direct contact; But he can also use them for precise attacks too. Not so far fetched when it’s original purpose was for safe cracking. So precise in fact he can target people’s internal organs and bones. This doesn’t just work on people, also objects and even the environment. Shocker can send his energy through walls and or the floor to either completely decimate the surrounding area or cause damage to one specific place. Herman can of course also use them in close range for sick powerful punches capable of beating giant monsters.
Herman has also been able to use his gauntlets for some creative cases of mobility. Such as him being able to bury underground if he ever needs to sneak attack. He has even straight used the gauntlets to fly. He can do it seemingly with great control as well, to the point where he still can attack. Herman can’t just make himself fly but other things too. Shocker can use the energy of his gauntlets to lift and propel objects such as cars. Launching them like projectiles.
Shocker Suit
Ahh can’t forget the classic mattress cosplay. Other than looking super comfy, this suit is not to be underestimated. The other half of his deadly arsenal, this suit was originally designed so Herman can withstand his own vibroshocks but ended up being so much more. It greatly enhances his physical capabilities to superhuman level and more notably his durability. The suit has a passively vibrating system that allows him to deflect or soften attacks. Whether it be punches or even bullets. This system is nothing to scoff at, as it effectively gives a barrier at all times. Which can even help if a pesky Spider-Man tries to sneak attack him. Not only does it protect Herman, but it also damages others too who get too close. Which can help when someone is trying to restrain him or if he’s in a tight spot. It’s also important to note this is the same method used for the vibro-shock gauntlets so anything that applies to how the attacks from gauntlets affect others, can also be applied here too. This is shown when Herman loses his gauntlets, He can still use his abilities via the suit. Hmmm… on second thought, maybe it’s not so comfy.
Bio-Feedback Harness
At one point Herman struggled to control his powers and not only would it have eventually killed him but also probably the entire city. This was because with every step he would cause quakes that would span city blocks. In order to stop this he was given the Bio-Feedback Harness, as it effectively allowed for greater control. However this harness was also stated that it could increase his already great power with no drawbacks.
Shocker-Mobile
For the most part it just seems to be an enhanced buggy that’s tough enough to smash through walls. It might not have much but you have to admit, IT IS AWESOME!
Abilities
Captain Cold
High Intelligence
Captain Cold is highly intelligent in a fair few areas, from being capable of creating a new Cold gun from mere appliances and rebuilding his Cold Gun with his eyes closed to creating a refrigerator unit with only scraps over the course of a year, to with only access to an infirmary creating a type of hypnotic germs, to developing an entierly new form of radiation. Despite being barley able to graduate High School, it’s clear that Captain Cold is extremely intelligent.
Sub-Zero Metabolic Trance
A strange technique Captain Cold managed to develop, he’s capable of lowering his temperature by thirty degrees and stopping his heartbeat to simulate death, and is somehow capable of generating ice armor around his body that can create blasts of cold from it’s hands, as seen above.
Shocker
Engineering Genius
When Herman was in prison he made sure to pick up some skills. Most notably he became an engineer. Herman not only made each variation of his suit and gauntlets, but has been able to consistently modify them. He is also just generally quite intelligent in how he uses them, able to come up with new uses for them on the fly. Even while being under fire. Shocker has also been able to construct entire traps and forts out of regular stolen objects.
Close Quarters Combat
When your main foe is the agile Spider-Man, you have to eventually pick up some skills for yourself. While far from your Daredevil’s or your Captain America’s, Herman is quite experienced in close quarters combat even without relying on his gauntlets. He has been able to fight an entire bar of experienced villains, casually evade attacks from superhuman foes, and even has fought on par with Night Thrasher. Night Thrasher is known as a master martial artist capable of fighting someone like the Punisher. Herman is also no stranger to using his surroundings to his advantage like when he beat armed guards with a mop. Although it is important to note that CQC is necessarily his go to. As he prefers to start off fights from a decent range using his blast.
Feats
Captain Cold
Overall
Created the Cold Gun
Formed the Rogues
Survived the Salvation Run, Blackest Night, Final Crisis, and the Suicide Squad
Became the master of Absolute Zero
Defeated Inertia, The Top, Bart Allen, Chillbaine, Johnny Quick, The Fake Rogues and The Black Lantern Rogues
Helped save the world from the Crime Syndicate and Central City from Gorilla Grodds invasion.
Managed to complete multiple Suicide Squad missions as the sole survivor.
Reassembled the Rogues on multiple occasions
Battled the Flash time and time again.
Power
Shattered the Top(as seen above)
Mirror Master can survive attacks from street tiers such as Vixen and Wildcat
Other street tiers that through a long scaling chain they can be comparable to…
With the Cold Gun and other weapons.
Speed
Has dodged gunfire(as seen above)
Said he could take out 200 armed men before Candyman could blink
The Renegades said the Rogues could keep up with Flash at lightspeed
Grabbed the Cold Gun and shot Catwoman before she could react at all
Froze Mirror Master and Pied Piper before they could reach each other
Durability
Survives an explosion created by the Cold Gun and Heatwaves gun colliding(as seen above)
Survives another explosion created by the Cold Gun and Heatwaves gun colliding
Shocker
Overall
Created nearly all versions of his suits and gauntlets
Has defeated Spider-Man several times in the past
Saved the world against demons from the Dark Dimension
Temporarily part of the Thunderbolts
Managed to make him and his own “All New” Sinister Six gain respect in the criminal world
Fought on par with Luke Cage, Electro, and Tiger Shark
Has defeated Ms Marvel, Night Thrasher, Venom, and the entirety of his own crew
Helped Old Man Logan fight an entire bar of bad guys
Helped Spider-Man fight nearly all of his rogues gallery
Despite him being known for a long time as a joke,he still had the determination to keep on going.
Power
Shocker can cause this large blast when punching a monster
Can turn stone pillars into rubble casually (38.17 MegaJoules)
The Vibro shockwaves can threaten to kill Spider-Man, who can withstand Electros power
Speed
Dodged Iron Man’s Unibeam (as seen above)
Dodged bullet fire
Dodges lasers before Star Lord can react
Star Lord can move at trans-light speeds(Lightspeed)
Durability
Survived Big Wheel Crashing into him (as seen above)
Survived being at the epicenter of an explosion caused by 3 times his own power(insert)
Tanked this explosion caused by Jack O’ Lantern’s bombs
Spider-Man has actively overpowered Captain America, who can break a machine stronger then Vibranium
Vibranium, such as Falcons wings, can contain an explosion that would have wiped out Manhattan(500 Megatons)
Fought on par with Luke Cage
Weaknesses
Captain Cold
Captain Cold is highly adaptable, a surprisingly good shot, a genius with engineering, and extremely tolerant to his own cold temperatures that his weapons produce. But he is still human, he has no augmented powers himself so once disarmed, while still strong by human standards, he is borderline defenseless at this point. He’s also not fully immune to his own cold temperatures, which does mean he is vulnerable to possibly having his own weapons turned against him if the opportunity ends up presenting itself.
Shocker
Shocker is quite good at fixing his weaknesses when it comes to his equipment. However there seems to be one thing he can't fix- his sensitive personality. Yeah, Herman is quite the emotional guy who can sometimes be prone to outbursts of rage and can be quite insecure about his own abilities. Smarter foes have been able to use these traits to trick Herman into letting his guard down. He is also known to be somewhat of a coward rather attempting to get away from trouble that isn’t warranted. Oh wait! He DEFINITELY isn’t a coward, those are just bladder spasms. Another thing is that under suit, Herman is still human and if someone can manage to get it off he will be vulnerable.
Before We Begin…
Spider-Man Scaling
What might at first glance seem like a given for Shocker has been put through a narrowed eye as of recent, because while one would assume that anyone who can even survive a few moments against the web-slinger would automatically scale to his absurd levels of power. Of course when you look more in the discussion you see that its not so clear cut on a wider scale, as when ‘serious’ Peter is capable of knocking off one of his own rogues jaw the moment he stopped holding back, blitzed Daredevil when mildly serious, and beat Kingpin to a barley living pulp when actively serious. So not every character can automatically be assumed to be on the same level as Spider-Man, and thus needs more reliable showings to be on the same level as a ‘serious’ Spider-Man.
Before we delve into if Shocker can be compared to the wall-crawler at his best, just remember the vibro shock’s ability to change “intensity”. First and foremost, Shocker has been able to routinely knock out or defeat Spider-Man in battle. An example being in their first battle, in which while Spidey was weakened and soon lost. Both claimed Herman would have won if Spidey was at his full strength. Another example is when Herman nearly killed Spider-Man; Herman was sending a constant amount of force which Spidey stated was going to kill him and furthermore was completely helpless. The only way he got out of said situation was when Herman got distracted by police officers. Keep in mind these are NOT at his full intensity, as far as we know these are casual blasts. Meaning Herman is not at his full power; At his fullest we have seen him able to stun far higher characters than Spider-Man like She-Hulk.So does this mean Shocker is herald or something?! No, But what it does mean is that Shocker at his full power has shown feats of effecting far stronger characters which aligns with him on a casual level being able to contend with the Wall Crawler. This isn’t even an exaggeration as just Spider-Man using the gauntlets himself knocked him out and has even used them to defeat Sandman, which means Shocker himself also has to constantly tank that. Speaking of tanking, and commenting on durability, Shocker has been able to consistently no-sell Spider-Man attacks; like what is shown above. As for speed, not only has Shocker been able to of course fight on par with Spider-Man, but has shown that he can be faster than lower level street tiers. An example being the time he reacted to something before Star Lord could. He has also been able to quickly dodge around other superhumans like Ms Marvel like it’s nothing. It is important to remember that Herman himself is just a normal human, but as we know his suit and gauntlets enhance his physical abilities far beyond the norm. Enhancing them to the point where maybe he can scale to the Flash! Just kidding of course but maybe it’s the case for our other combatant…
Flash Scaling
A much more clear cut case to discuss is the argument of Captain Cold scaling to his nemesis when they’re remotely serious. Unfortunately for the good Captain, this is not the case. While he has managed to tag the Flash on numerous occasions, and even stated to be able to tangle with him when they’re moving at lightspeed. It is remarkably consistent across Captain Colds history that he isn’t capable of keeping up in speed or physicals once Flash gets serious, as even when his cold gun was giving him metahuman powers and when he was getting funded by Lex Luthor to improve his tech to new levels. The moment the Flash has gotten remotely serious, even these amplifications lead to Captain Cold being demolished relatively quickly. While Captain Cold is consistently above normal street tiers in speed, there’s nothing reliably giving him scaling to a remotely serious Flash.
Cold Field vs ShockWaves
This third section is going to be dedicated specifically to discussing one ability, while we could have left this for the individual verdicts, it was agreed that this should be addressed before so in order to not have to try to explain this multiple times over. That being the interaction between Captain Colds cold field, and the Shockers vibro-gauntlets, and if the latter has any way of bypassing the former.
To establish what the cold field does, it specifically creates a wall of negative thermal dynamics, meaning that anything that comes in contact with the barrier has it's kinetic energy sapped away by the field, which can stop bullets mid-air and freeze people who come in contact with it solid due to coming into contact with a barrier of absolute zero.
Now, what specifically is capable of getting through it? Well the obvious answer is a Flash, but that's moreso due to the raw kinetic energy and speed they obtain, as Captain Cold says himself, but considering it's, y'know, the Flash, it's not exactly a method Shocker can recreate to bypass the cold field.
What is more interesting are the other things that have managed to bypass the fold field, and what it implies for what the cold field isn't capable of stopping, that being the cold guns own beam, light, and sound, as Captain Cold is capable of holding conversations with those on the other side of the barrier, without the cold field messing with their communication.
Notably, light doesn't have any mass or kinetic energy to be stopped by the cold field, and while sound obtains a small amount of mass and kinetic energy, it's consistent that sound is capable of bypassing the cold field.
So how does that relate to the shockwaves? Well as a reminder, we know that Herman’s gauntlets cause these shockwaves by rapidly compressing the air similar to how real life shockwaves can be formed. It is important to note that shockwaves are not the air itself but air acts as a medium for it to travel. This is what “waves” are in general. They are “vibrations that transfer energy through matter or space”.
We know sound can travel through Snart’s AZ field, so that should mean the shockwaves should as well. Why is that? Well in real life while there are some differences, shockwaves and soundwaves are very similar. Shockwaves are essentially just more intense soundwaves that occur when a wave breaches the speed of sound, they transfer energy the same way. This has also been the case within Marvel. Due to this, it should be fair to assume that the blasts should not have an issue in passing the field.
However it is important to note that it's specifically the blast themselves. Shocker can send the vibrations through the ground, walls, objects, and even himself. Due to how the AZ field works, these other forms of attack would be halted and or frozen immediately due to the vibrations now being contained to a solid object with much more mass. Meaning if Herman does want to get through the cold field, he’s going to have to stick to basics.
Summary
Captain Cold
Advantages:
Relative speed
Far more versatile
Weaponry is far more powerful then Shocker
Cold field denies Shocker any chance to use his CQC edge
Numbers advantage with animated constructs
Better AOE
Can trap Shocker in a Cold field bubble
Various ways to catch Shocker off guard with more unique applications of his tech
Disadvantages:
Physically significantly inferior
Far less mobile in comparison
Shocker can bypass physical barriers and the Cold Field
Cold Field cannot block Shockers quakes
Would likely be demolished in a CQC situation if it came to it
They were really, really horny in Pre-Crisis
Shocker
Advantages:
Physically superior
Relative speed
Much better mobility
Can bypass the Cold Field and easily demolish physical barriers
More experienced and skilled in CQC
AOE can easily catch Captain Cold in it
Majority of the Cold Guns applications wouldn’t do much more then briefly slow Shocker down
Disadvantages:
Far less versatile
At risk of being one shot by Captain Colds tech
Unable to utilize their CQC advantage
At risk of being trapped by the Cold field or blinded
From the Bronx
Listens to Kelly Clarkson
Verdicts
Ninjamonkey3904
After… six and a half months in development, hopefully it will have been worth the wait
Well, here we are, finally at the blogs finishing point after four months longer than this should have taken.
Most of the people reading this blog probably didn’t even know Captain Cold vs Shocker was happening as a blog and frankly, I don’t blame you! Because this is one of the G1^2 blogs well, bonus blogs! We decided to do this as a fun side blog that we didn’t think would take too long… and then we ended up taking way longer than we wanted to and here we are now, you finally being able to see this beautiful blog in all its glory.
Unfortunately due to IRL complications of the person who worked on this with me, I am going to be the only verdict, I hope Lofty is doing well wherever he is-and buddy, if you see this? I hope this lives up to your expectations buddy, but now time to discuss this matchup and its many, many parts.
Beginning with stats since it’s the least complicated attribute of this fight, it should be no surprise that Shocker is physically superior to Cold, at least physically.
Captain Colds physical strength is only really shown to be relative to other street tiers, which is by no means unimpressive. As the likes of Mr. Freeze surviving his gun exploding thanks to the feats it can accomplish, gets into the single digit kilotons.
Ths is unfortunately heavily outclassed by Shockers own scaling, as being able to actively threaten to kill Spider-Man would put him far, far above Captain Colds physical strength. Such as Luke Cage surviving multiple Ultron bots detonating in order to try to kill him which gets about 618 kilotons, Miles surviving a Harlem destroying blast coming out of him getting about 23 megatons and Electro draining all of New York cities electricity, which would yield 756 megatons of TNT.
Even scaling Captain Cold to more iffy feats such as Failsafe withstanding 3 quadrillion watts of energy(which would get around 717 Kilotons) would be simply too weak to withstand a single attack from the Shocker. And this is ignoring the scrutiny that can be applied to the feats ability to be scaled to all, as while it may be stronger than Luke Cage surviving the Ultron-bots detonation, it still drastically falls short compared to things like Electro draining all of New Yorks power into himself a thousand fold.
That being said, the good Captain isn’t out of the running in the slightest in the power department, thanks to the potency of his own weaponry, notably the fact that the Cold Gun’s beams are capable of clashing evenly with Heatwaves flamethrower with neither taking a distinct edge over the other. Heatwaves flamethrower being capable of causing volcanic eruptions visible from orbit, which would get over a hundred Gigatons of TNT, over a thousand times stronger than Shockers own level of power.
Which leaves us in an interesting situation, both Shocker and Captain Cold are capable of one shotting each other with a single attack. which would obviously put us in a situation where speed becomes the most important factor by a landslide, right?
Starting with Captain Cold, having fought and even outreacted the likes of Batman puts him solidly comparable to most of his fellow Street tiers in speed, such as Alanna strange dodging a near-lightspeed laser getting a bit over lightspeed in how fast she needed to react to dodge it and Black Canary moving in a nanosecond getting over three times the speed of light, impressive.
Shocker, unshockingly, matches this blow for blow however, seeing as he has fought on par with Star-Lord, who can move at trans-light speed, a fancy way of saying lightspeed, and Daredevil who can also, move in a nanosecond getting over three times the speed of light, huh.
There’s starting to become a prominent issue, in that neither is realistically faster than each other, and if one is then it’s by a minuscule amount that wouldn’t successfully allow the other to more reliably win a quickdraw.
Upscaling doesn’t help eithers case in this case, as both compare to characters who have seen characters who scale to those nanosecond values in slow motion and blitzing time, being Mirror Master and Spider-Man respectively. Both having their own instances of heavily outreacting other street tiers just supports this level of speed for both.
So speed turned out to be a bust for discerning a reliable winner, as both scale to practically the exact same values and upscale them similarly. meaning that as mentioned earlier we have a case where both can kill the other in a single attack, and speed being relative means that arguing who wins a quickdraw is far from a reliable answer to who’d win more times than not, as it becomes subjective who’d win a quickdraw and shoot the other first in this case. So let’s look at a wider array of variables to see whose more likely to get the opening they need in order to win.
It’s almost kinda difficult to figure out where to begin with just how much there is to discuss and how their abilities bounce off the other, because seeing as I’m the only person writing this it’s just a difficulty of where to start.
Well for starters we can list what absolutely doesn’t matter, for Cold, things like the nail-sized cold gun or miniature refrigerator end up just being inferior versions of the Cold Gun in every meaningful attribute, the Cold Germs are far too situation to ever come up in a random encounter, the Ice Bomb is just a more situational and less potent version of the Ice Grenade, and the Dry Ice, for as lethal as it could be against Shocker, would require Cold to set it up in advance which he wouldn’t have the time to in this situation. For Shocker, the Bio-Feedback Harness doesn’t offer any meaningful attributes to be brought up more then a power increase which wouldn’t likely close the gap between himself and Colds firepower, and the Shockermobile, for as awesome as it is just makes Shocker a bigger target against Colds own firepower.
Now onto the stuff that actually matters and influences whose more likely to land the one hit they need in order to win.
A lot cancels out, for starters, as for example both are skilled at using the environment to their advantage, both have been in the game for a long time and have fought a variety of foes with different powers, though not one very similar to each other, and both engineering genius’s who could likely repair their tools on the fly if they ever got damaged, and this isn’t even where the factors that cancel out end.
In a fight where both are capable of one-shotting the other with a single attack, it would make sense to compare how big their AOE is. At a glance it’s easier to argue Colds AOE would be able to catch Shocker in it, seeing as the Winterizer can cover city blocks, the Cold-Grenade can cover an entire prison, and the Cold Gun itself can effect clouds over an entire city. However Shockers own AOE is similarly impressive, as the quakes his gauntlets can cause can cover entire city blocks and his own blasts can cover entire buildings worth of area.
While Captain Colds instances seem more impressive, the fact is that due to the fact his mobility is far from impressive, it wouldn’t be hard for Shocker to catch Captain Cold in an attack with his AOE either, meaning that while Colds AOE is better, it as a factor cancels out similarly to speed.
Accuracy also similarly cancels out on a similar note, Cold can tag the likes of Flashes and target on a small enough scale to only freeze the barrel of a gun, while Shocker can tag foes with precognition such as Spider-Man and target specifically the organs of someone. So both have impressive feats of minute targeting and fighting people who have an inherent edge when it comes to dodging their attacks, meaning like I said, it cancels out.
But it’s time to go over what doesn’t cancel out, which there is a lot of.
For starters, it’s not hard to figure out that Shockers skill advantage up close is meaningless, seeing as the Cold Field would kill Shocker if he were to try to go into fisticuffs with Captain Cold. Meaning that despite Shocker being able to dominate in a fistfight even with equal stats, he wouldn’t get the chance to even get up close in the first place to try.
On the topic of the Cold Gun, it’s fairly clear that Captain Cold dominates in terms of raw versatility, from animating his constructs, to turning the air into water, to striking Shocker with Lightning from the clouds to blinding him with a ‘white out’. It’s fairly clear that the amount of ways Captain Cold can apply to himself in this fight outnumber the ways Shocker can, meaning that Cold has more tools to bring to the fight.
Similarly, while Captain Cold is capable of creating ramps to slide across and can propel himself into higher elevations by creating pillars beneath him, it’s clear that Shockers ability to drill himself through the ground and flat out fly fast enough to constantly be catching Spider-Man off guard means he’s taking the mobility advantage in spades.
Both of these advantages are very important in how they impact the fight, but there’s a lot more to digest when digging deeper into those two main advantages. So we’ll need to keep digging into this fight and seeing how both compare in their other advantages and diving deeper into these two main ones, and where an edge starts to be seen in who likely takes this more times than not.
For starters, while Captain Cold is capable of animating his constructs to aid him on the battlefield, none of them would be physically able of touching Shocker due to the barrier his suit gives him meaning they’d be harmed by just trying to approach Shocker, meaning Colds numbers advantage at best just gives Shocker a brief moment of having to choose who to target which Cold couldn’t reasonably exploit.
Similarly, the barrier Shockers suit provides prevents Cold from creating glaciers to try to capture Shocker in it, as it has broken him out of ice restraints from other characters in the past, so there’s no reason for why the vibrations Shockers suit gives off wouldn’t allow him to escape the glaciers Cold tries to trap him in.
Though on that funny note about ice and vibrations, the vibrating ice-block actively growing in size in response to Flashs vibrations is an interesting way to try to counteract Shockers own powers of vibrations to try to trap him in a gigantic piece of ice that would actively absorb Shockers own vibrations, which is a potent idea for a counter.
However, the Vibrating Ice Block as much as it would be able to absorb Shockers attacks based on their vibrations, for while it did absorb Flashs vibrations to grow, unlike Flash, Shockers shockwaves are potent enough to separate matter. Meaning that he could destroy the vibrating ice block, or just use his larger shockwaves to try to destroy all of it in one go like how Flash destroyed all of it using his speed to literally break it all apart to destroy it.
On a greater note, a lot of Colds methods of using the Cold Gun to attack Shocker wouldn’t actually kill him and moreso only minorly inconvenience him, or are just lesser ways to attack Shocker when a normal blast to kill him would be a better idea. Let’s go over some of these to cross out what doesn’t work to take down the Shocker.
For example, things like the Wide Field, making his shots so cold they burn, freezing only their skin cells or making his targets numb would be active detriments for Cold to try to land. As if he does land them-while it could lead to him getting the kill, it would just be him firing a shot that he could’ve used to kill Shocker and instead wasted valuable time and possibly left himself open.
Turning the air into water would trip up Shocker and possibly cause him to electrocute himself if he was generating electricity, but for the most part it wouldn’t really phase Shocker as much as it would just confuse him if anything.
Striking Shocker with Artic Lightning by shooting the clouds is an interesting possibility that would catch Shocker off guard, but there’s no real reason to assume the lightning generated would scale to the full power of the Cold Gun, but Shocker is still capable of dodging it seeing as it wouldn’t be significantly faster then him and Shockers mobility is going to mean he’ll generally always be on the move.
An artificial Aurora Borealis, similarly to turning the air into water, would not phase Shocker for more than a second at best. As Shockers ability to fly around means that trying to suspend him mid-air would just lead him to… flying away.
Transmutation would be an instant win if it made contact, but the same could be said for any normal shot, not to dissuade the potency of turning Shocker into crystals via absolute zero, but it doesn’t have any inherent edge over a normal shot towards him.
The organic compounds ability to reform after being shattered on whatever it’s touching seems potent in theory but goes back to Shockers vibrating barrier, even if it could reform it would almost be instantly shattered again and not be able to likely make any tangible difference in the fight if Shocker were to break something that is made by that organic compound.
So a lot of Colds options, despite having a far wider array of them, wouldn’t really change the tide of battle, but he does have a fair few options that would have a tangible effect on the Shocker, so let’s go over them.
The Cold Gun due to simply how cold it is is capable of causing mirages-basically illusions in a similar manner to if you were seeing things while having heatstroke. Creating things from a bear to disguising himself to creating full fledged illusions out of them, and even generating sound, and it doesn’t even need to make direct contact with Shocker to create the mirages.
Though, this comes with its own flaw, as the Cold Guns ability to create mirages requires its target to be close enough to cause Shocker to be cold enough to see these mirages. And even still, his vests constant barrier, high mobility and quick shots would likely tell him that the things he’s seeing simply aren’t real. Shockers not a dumbass after all, he knows illusions exist and has even fought alongside Mysterio, so it wouldn’t likely phase him that much after the first time, so Cold would only get a brief opening at most which he’d have to take full advantage of.
There’s also the white-out, which can affect an entire prison worth of people at once by making them blind except for about a foot in front of them. Which while we don’t know the exact manner of how he applies it, would likely mess up Shocker something fierce and make him not even know where Colds attacks are coming from, leaving him wide open.
One of Colds most potent abilities is the fact he can create a cold field around his targets, like he did to the Flash. This would trap Shocker in a bubble he can’t see, and would kill him if he tried to exit it. It would require Cold to hit Shocker but it would have a higher chance of landing due to the fact that, as mentioned earlier, it’s invisible and thus would appear around Shocker without any way of him knowing it's even there.
So, of Captain Colds options, he has two nigh instant win amount all his abilities, which he has a lot of. This leads to a troubling scenario known as probability of usage, meaning to question just how likely he is to select the right tools he needs in order to solidly take down the Shocker, this is where a problem starts to arise.
With all the main ways he can use his abilities and weapons(normal shot, frigid aura, winterizer, vibrating ice block, cold grenade, so cold it burns shot, numb shot, wide shot, cell layer shot, transmutation, mirages, artic lightning, aurora borealis, white-out, turning air into water, organic compound, animating his summons, creating a cold field around shocker) is a 2/18, otherwise known as an 11.1% chance to select the ability that would grant him a nigh instant victory.
Shocker meanwhile isn’t as versatile, and while his quakes, barrier, ability to throw objects with shockwaves and electricity generation are all potent. The fact that the main power he uses can bypass the Cold Field and hit Snart directly means that its far, far higher for him to choose the ability he needs to instantly take down the Captain.
However this is where things start taking a turn for the worse for the good Captains ability to even land these shots that he needs to win, as thanks to his fight against Flash where he showed the ability to trap his opponent in a Cold Field bubble, the Flash was able to stagger Cold by punching the ground enough to make him lose his footing, meaning that the Cold Field doesn’t actively cover the ground beneath Cold.
Why does this matter? Because Shockers earthquakes would actively start to make Cold stumble, likely not making him fall flat on his ass but possibly impeding his shoots. If he’s being messed with for his ability to keep track of Shocker and keep his hand steadily aimed on him, he’s going to start being put on the backfoot pretty fast.
Of course, Cold has his own way to keep control of the battlefield with his ice constructs, such as creating walls to well, wall off Shocker, towers of ice to impede his flying, and so on in order to cover the battlefield in ice and shape it to what he desires. Especially since he can reinforce these ice constructs to be on the level of his firepower, seeing as he could reinforce them to wall off Heatwaves flamethrowers.
But again Shocker has a nigh-perfect way to mess with Colds own ability to wall off Shockers attack. That being the vibrogauntlets power to separate matter and his quakes. The former being able to destroy any cover Cold would try to hide behind due to not being based on durability but rather just separating the matter outright, the latter meaning that unless Colds actively reinforcing a construct, the quakes Shocker creates are liable to simply destroy anything Cold builds up, leaving him without his area control as much as he’d like.
The opposite can’t be said however for Cold taking out cover Shocker decides to use, as the Cold Gun as potent as its power is, is not that destructive other than the constructs it can make, as there is a difference between attack potency and destructive potency, it means that if Shocker needs to hide behind cover in order to avoid a shot from Cold or uses it to actively get out of Captain Colds sight to confuse him, Cold isn’t in as good of a situation as Shocker to get his opponent back in line of sight.
This in general is starting to paint a clearer picture, Cold has a lot of tools at his disposal but not many would actively allow him to keep Shocker on the backfoot, whereas Shockers natural attacks would constantly put Captain Cold at risk due to them bypassing all of his defenses. And Shockers natural mobility means he has a far easier time avoiding Colds attacks then vice versa when Colds mobility is nowhere near as good as Shockers.
There’s a lot to take into account either way, but it becomes easier to look at when you think about the fight in the sense of whose more likely to get their one hit in first. Captain Cold might have a few options that allow him a near instant win but he’d have to actively choose to go for the right tools at the start, meanwhile Shocker has a far easier time avoiding Captain Colds attacks thanks to his mobility, and the nature of Shockers attacks means Captain Colds own defenses are countered and leave Captain Cold wide open. Meaning that when it comes down to it, Shocker is just more likely to get the hit he needs first more times then not.
I went into this expecting a clear Captain Cold victory, but the research done for this blog has shown me that it is far, far from a clear cut bout in the slightest. As this fight is close to a degree most other comic fights aren’t, as what matchup comes down to things like utilization of cover, probability of ability usage, and mobility? But when it comes down to it, Shocker has the power, the right tools and counters, and the mobility to steal himself a victory and shockingly, put Captain Cold on ice.
My glorious king Shocker would never lose to Captain Fraud
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