• Deathstroke is pre/post-Flashpoint


• Sabretooth is post-adamantium


• In character; standard gear

Challenge a Viner Rules:

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• As always, may the best debater win.

Have the tags from the last thread saved.

have scans?

Interested in seeing what Sabretooth can do beyond the jobbing jokes.

Tag for the first posts, and for voting.

@elijah_c_washington: Looks good, you mind going first?

T4V

@king-ragnar: I can do that.

Tag meh please

T4V

I'd be interested in these proceedings.

T4V

Tag after every post please.

@king-ragnar: So, Victor Creed desires to tangle with the Terminator? Maybe he's confused about what it is Slade Wilson does for a living...

I'mma skip the usual opening mini-respect thread so often seen in CaVs and get right to why and how Deathstroke is winning this. Although Sabretooth's bones are laced with adamantium which Slade has no chance of piercing even with his promethium blade, the fact of the matter is Victor can still be bled out as bone claw Wolverine has demonstrated in the past (Wolverine v2 #145, 1999).

This brings us to Deathstroke's method of winning here: dodging and cutting. Bleeding someone out is a tactic he has already used against Green Arrow and Black Canary in the final issue of Ollie's third-ever solo-series. With that in mind, the only issue then becomes proving Deathstroke has the speed, skill, and any additional means to accomplish this much. In an effort to arrive at such a conclusion, I'll be pulling some feats of his across all four major iterations of the character – pre-Crisis, pre-Flashpoint, New-52/DC-You, and Rebirth – to make this exact point.

SPEED:

What many fail to realize is that Deathstroke was born a metahuman. When he volunteered for Project X – a program intended to create super-soldiers by itself – a dormant meta-gene inside his DNA was activated along with his regular enhancements. The result? Not unlike Sabretooth, someone more powerful than most other metas on the block: an enhanced metahuman, or true superhuman.

The reason I believe Slade is as fast or faster than many of Marvel's streets is somewhat uncomplicated: his standalone feats are superior in both quality and quantity, and he comfortably matches them in scaling. For example, he managed to scale a glacier before killing the majority of Luthor's bodyguards in little over five seconds as Lex himself stated before barely stopping his blade in time. Note that Deathstroke was crazed in this instance, a fact which Lex later cited as ½ the reason he could keep up. Had that not been the case, he may well have succeeded in killing him.

Post-Flashpoint, Slade started getting better and clearer cut bullet-timing feats than ever before, and, most importantly, he applied them in combat. In the second issue of his third solo-series, he ended up taking aim and firing at three separate targets before any of the rounds could travel more than a few inches past his hand; moreover, he was also notably slower than his usual self in this arc.

Finally, we arrive at Rebirth. About a year ago in issue #16 of Priest-Stroke, Deathstroke took on Deadline, a metahuman himself, and a number of his goons. He actually runs up to Kyle and stuns him with the blast stick while blocking a shot of his with his elbow, gets back in the air before he collided with the table Slade sent him into, and skillfully incapacitates five of his men all the while a lunging K-9 unit remains suspended in midair. He then reacts to the Infinity Rifle which Tanya Spears Power Girl failed to accomplish on the subsequent page despite having slapped bullets out of the air in the issue prior. Again, this feat becomes increasingly impressive after taking a look at the full context: not only was he managing a conversation with the Ikon suit's built-in artificial intelligence, but he also previously announced himself, giving all these men fair and decent warning.

The above are all mostly clear-cut standalone showings of combat speed with any amount of scaling only being secondary aspects to their impressiveness. While I could get into raw scaling and show how Deathstroke keeps up in that area too, I think this is enough to put him on the same level as Sabretooth for the time being. Matching his speed half the battle, but it has come time to move on.

SKILL:

Now that I've provided feats to show he has the comparable speed necessary akin to James Howlett, it's time to discuss how he can use his skill to put Victor into positions wherein he becomes easier to cut. The first thing that comes to my mind is his ability to throw around characters stronger than both himself and Sabretooth, which he's been doing since his first appearance—therein he ragdolled the original Wonder Girl into Starfire virtue of Donna's thoughtless and inferior footing. This is definitely applicable to Vic given his explicit reliance on stats.

Similarly, he flipped Freddy Freeman – someone undoubtedly faster and stronger than Sabretooth – over his head after he rushed him from behind long after the Crisis. He also uses his skill and strength to hit outside of his weight class the page beforehand by one-shotting the 10+ tonner Risk with a flying kick. Both were lifting large portions of the collapsed Titans HQ in the same few pages.

Back to throwing, he had another, comparable feat against New-52 Wonder Woman post-Flashpoint wherein he flipped her overhead and several feet away after she had him pinned on the ground. He had also never faced off with Diana in this continuity before; to add to this, he was taken aback by her striking power earlier in the issue, which goes to show how clueless he was of her full capabilities.

Deathstroke isn't skilled in the same way as Wolverine or Black Panther, both of whom have messed Creed up in hand-to-hand. Although he is a master of several unarmed combat disciplines, he doesn't know how to throw every punch in the world; instead, he's simply a master of knowing how the body works and the physics of fighting as the above scans signify. He isn't just a superior martial artist, but he has his own unique fighting style completely different from anyone Sabretooth has fought, let alone defeated.

GEAR:

Lastly, we can briefly mention equipment and how it will also help Slade land the cuts needed to bleed Creed out as skill isn't the only thing he has going for him. The blast stick in particular gives him a couple ways of doing this beyond simply being fired through his stomach. First of all, he has shown he can cause invulnerable opponents such as Tanya Spears to lose balance by targeting their ear canals. With his adamantium skeleton, this tactic will likely have the same effect against Sabretooth when utilized correctly.

This is obviously going to be a lot harder to land on someone as fast, agile, and plain fierce as Sabretooth, but as mentioned previously, Tanya Spears isn't exactly slow, plus she was enraged and ready to kill Deathstroke at the time. If Vic does manage to counter by, say, halving his titanium energy lance, Slade can then disrupt his focus with ultrasonics as he did Kong Keenan, the New Super-Man.

Needless to say, Deathstroke can also stun him with grenades, shots to the stomach and so on, but they'll all be less effective than the above methods albeit easier to employ. His explosives go from detonating cars to halving multistory buildings and temporarily incapacitating Freddy Freeman, and all his guns are especially powerful to boot. They can be chained together to throw Vic off his game.

SUMMARY:

That's about it for my opener. The gist of it is Deathstroke's foremost method of winning is bleeding Creed out, and he has multiple ways of doing so. For Sabretooth to win this, he'll have to overwhelm Slade with his strength and speed, but the latter has a history of successfully dealing with both these things. Matching stats alone are an issue for Victor, least of all when in addition to his skill and gear.

@creolecuddy: @pipxeroth: Can't remember who else from the last thread wanted to be tagged after every post.

@elijah_c_washington: Nice post. Currently busy IRL so it'll be a while (Not too long hopefully) till i can get a post up.

What changes were made?

@payneintheass: It was originally pre-52/Rebirth Deathstroke versus pre-adamantium Sabretooth—it was determined and agreed upon that Victor had no chance.

@king-ragnar: No problem.

Victor Creed, A.k.a Sabretooth

Introduction and Bio :

Here it is the from the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe 2004 :

Now onto the good stuff

Strength

Whilst Deathstroke is considered to be a physical powerhouse among street levelers, Creed is no slouch himself.

Lifting Strength :

Ripping off a large metal door

Holds up a door with one hand

Breaks out of a containment field designed to hold an Elephant

Striking Power :

Shatters a brick wall with one punch

Using a ninja as human baseball bat, sends Wolverine flying with a swing.

Punches through armor.

=================================================

Speed

Is stated to be faster than Wolverine, pretty sure i don't need to touch on how fast Wolverine is as he's pretty much a speedster for street levelers.

Takes down multiple guards before they even can get a shot off

Moves so fast Wolverine can't even see him. Pretty impressive given that Wolverine is FTE when it comes to speed.

=================================================

Durability

A grenade launcher doesn't slow him down.

Takes a beating from a pissed off Cho Hulk and still manages to get up and walk.

Gets shot with a barrage of bullets by Deadpool and still manages to stay up.

=============================================

Healing Factor

Now unlike Wolverine, who's healing factor got a bit weaker when he got his Adamantium, Sabretooths got better.

Gets impaled by multiple blades and falls down a sizable distance and heals within seconds

Is pretty much reduced to a skeleton and regenerates back to his full body in seconds.

Despite getting burned by the human torch, it doesn't even slow him down

And for whats it worth, his healing factor has been stated to be better than that of Wolverines

==============================================

Notable fights

Nightcrawler

Psylocke

Wolverine

Wolverine (2)

============================================

Countering your first point

Although i generally tend to avoid countering in my openers, this is an exception.

I'mma skip the usual opening mini-respect thread so often seen in CaVs and get right to why and how Deathstroke is winning this. Although Sabretooth's bones are laced with adamantium which Slade has no chance of piercing even with his promethium blade, the fact of the matter is Victor can still be bled out as bone claw Wolverine has demonstrated in the past (Wolverine v2 #145, 1999).

Based on my extensive knowledge around Sabretooth, i can tell you that the occasion you've presented is inconsistent with other showings creeds has.

First Example

In his encounter with Nightcrawler, he was stabbed in the back of the head and had a multiple blades in his back and it was not able to put him down (He actually won the fight)

Second Example

In this occasion, a stab to the heart did not have much effect on him.

==============================================

Initial Thoughts

Whilst Creed is most definitely not as smart or tactical as Slade is, he has the methods to win. His healing factor can enable him to withstand the vast majority of Deathstrokes attacks whether they be explosives, gunfire or swords. Whilst strength maybe debatable between the two, Creed has the speed to match Deathstroke and has the power to cut through his armor. This isn't going to be an easy fight by any means for Creed, however he'll come out on top eventually due to his superior durability and endurance.

@elijah_c_washington: Apologies for the delay, was busy working on other posts and IRL issues.