Is it more or less enjoyable when the villain has the exact same powers as the hero and is somewhat of a mirror image?

Is it more or less enjoyable when the villain has the exact same powers as the hero and is somewhat of a mirror image?

Depends on the skill of the writer.

You can't really fight the Flash any other way than also being fast.
>but super strength
No, he can punch with infinite mass.
>but freeze gun
No, he moves too fast for you to target and too fast to slide if you freeze the floor.
>but mind control
He moves faster than your neurons can think of what to do to him.

I wish they would limit Flash's speed a bit. They've depicted it well in Rebirth, but sometimes he's just too fucking fast and it's ridiculous

I loved how they nerfed Wally in Young Justice because he manufactured a makeshift version of Barry's accident. He was a speedster with limitations that made him a much more compelling character.

They do limit Flash's speed from time to time, from series to series. But then something happens that can only be solved by "You have to run faster, Barry! You have to run faster!"
I liked that bit in the Justice League cartoon where Flash (Wally) exceeds his limit and phases out and almost "goes into the light", and has to make sure that he never runs that fast again .

Hell, Wally was slower than Barry for a good while in the comics, even after Barry died because he was afraid of replacing him. Him getting over that fear and actually becoming faster than Barry was a great long-term character arc.

I'd totally be okay with some writer heavily being influenced by that story in some way. Speedsters are a fucking pain to write effectively.

What about the Cold Field?

Here is an idea. How about we nerf the Flash? None of this "infinite mass punch" and "think at an attosecond" bull. That way he can still be the fastest man alive, but have other threats besides evil speedsters.

Zoom/Reverse-Flash and Sinestro are easily the best, because Zoom is a complete and utterly ireedemable asshole and Sinestro pulls off "my plans are RATIONAL, HAL!" really well. Sinestro doing yellow as color contrast also distracts you a bit from the fact he has the exact same powers.

With Batman it's too obvious and lame a plot point. Only Bane worked and that's because they made him visually distinct and put a ton of stress on him being physically powerful with a brain than Batman's brain with a perfect fighter bod. Wonder Woman's world and personality shift so much an evil copycat is pointless and never feels right.

Superman's lucky in that Zod is supposed to be his antithesis as an alien and militaristic conquerer, so it works personality-wise despite the exact same power set. Bizarro, meanwhile, tends to have a just-different-enough power set outside of strength/durability that it's not a full mirror (fire breath, merely tall leaps vs flight, etc.), as well as another case of "totally different personality" that actually works.

Ocean Master, they're making more a magician-based guy, yes? So if he started as an evil knockoff he's evolving past it.

I honestly wonder why Batman writers haven't tried to make Owlman a part of Batman's rogues?

The dude always comes in as a group to be faced with his crime syndicate pals. He's never a stand alone villain for Bruce Wayne and I fucking hate it that after all these years, they haven't done that yet.

I mean shit, even Marvel's been getting the ball rolling with having an evil Reed Richards around in the main universe. Why not an evil Batman which is essentially Owlman? That'd be so interesting to see in my honest opinion. I'd love to see Owlman and Batman fighting for control over Gotham city, with both gaining a yellow Lantern ring and going all out.

I know that Batman stories in general are better than Flash stories, but having a Reverse-Flash-like villain would really spice things up, especially when Batman's philosophies are called into question by Owlman who sees him as a failure who's failed to truly protect Gotham.

Because they already have an evil Bruce Wayne in Hush, a former friend of Bruce's who went so far as to surgically alter his face to look exactly like Bruce. He's also an orphan, and a genius.

He's a better "evil-Batman" villain than literal evil-Batman because he has those slight differences to throw the similarities into harsher contrasts.

You tell me

There are like 20 "not-Batmen" already, lets save the intedimensional JL tier villains for the stories they belong in.
>Why not an evil Batman which is essentially Owlman?
Jesus wept! How fucking casual are you? He's not "essentially" an evil Batman, he's quite literally an evil Batman on a cosmic level where alignments are swapped by the force of the multiverse.

Probably a mental thing. Barry is probably slow/late all the time because of what happened to his mom.

This is what happens when you read flash memes instead of flash comics

For the last ten issues of Batman Eternal I was so sure that Owlman was the villain. I'm disappointed in myself.

Yeah, Spider-Man Venom is great.
So is Mega Man Proto Man.
Superman General Zod worked.

I love Batman/Joker but it's so wacky that they are so stylistically mismatched in terms of powers and motif.

When two characters have an even powerset, the fights are usually determined by who can utilize them better
Which is to say, who's actually skilled

So yes, I'd say it's (usually) more enjoyable

The only thing writers do is limit Flash's speed. It's why he jobs all the time.

No he fucking isn't. Barry's slow/lateness was a thing forever when he had a living mom. It's just a personality quirk. Stop trying to staple everything to his stupid dead mom.

The Zoom you're talking about isn't even the best Zoom, though.

Pfft, Reverse Flash is such a rip off of NegaDuck.

Kid Flash in Teen Titans wasn't nerfed in any way, but was still defeated multiple times.

No?

If Professor Zoom didn't have super speed and Black Manta had Aquaman powers they would still be entertaining dicks.

It's cool man, I was certain that it was Hurt ever since the Seeley-written El Gaucho issue... #11 I think?

Powers don't matter, only the story and characters.

I'd think of it in terms of is it fun for the writer?
What types of situations could they bring if they had different abilities? Usually mirrored characters only appear in one episode for any other series

I can't even remember who it ended up being

Owlman is not a great "Mirror Batman", because only "convenient" qualities get mirrored. "A guy with Batman's skills controlling the underworld" is an alright concept by itself, but then they rid him of all subtlety, so that he might as well be the same Wrath, Prometheus or Bane.

Instead asks yourself: other than his skills, what's the most important thing to Batman? His no kill rule. That's how we see whether Batman's in his prime, or has fallen astray from his path. It's a perfect indicator. Making the "Mirror Batman" just another killer cheapens him. Instead, turn the no-kill rule on his head: perhaps he's averse to killing anyone himself with psychological problems, so he pits his enemies against each other via Indian philosophy, reaping rewards after they weaken themselves, or perhaps he made a promise not to kill to somebody, but because he's sadistic as hell ends up torturing people, keeping them just barely alive without technically murdering them. Stuff like that.

Overall, Owlman as he is is just not a very interesting character. IMHO.

I think for Flash it works because he has two main villains (counting the Reverse Flashes as the same) a person with the same powers and a person with opposite powers.

Depends on if the writer is ham-fisted with his metaphors. I mean, Joker and Batman have the same powers.