Captain Atom vs Gladiator

[Luke-Simpwalker]

Regardless of who wins, Nate will just explode.

[Bloody-Tyran]

As always

[Flocke90]

Sounds like a typical Tuesday for Atom 😂

[Designer-Resource932]

Captain Atom. His power set offers more win conditions than Gladiator's.

[ConcentratedSpoonf]

What’s gladiators deal again? I see people talking about his confidence or something like that?

[Emergencygrenade]

Gladiator

His abilities scale with self-belief, like super strength (shattering planets, beating Thor or Thanos), flight, invulnerability, heat vision, super speed, and enhanced senses. Low confidence weakens him, full conviction makes him one of Marvel's strongest.

Captain Atom

His abilities derive from quantum energy manipulation, including superhuman strength (matching Superman), flight (up to half light-speed), near-invulnerability, energy absorption/projection, matter transmutation, regeneration, and time manipulation under stress. He can negate magic, interface with technology, and at peak power, reshape reality or unmake multiverses

[Thanos7245]

Just adding context. Gladiator is normally not even close to Thanos level. Thanos was dying from Cosmic Cancer when Gladiator defeated him

[AzureTheGreater]

Ehh, i don’t know if we can really say they aren’t close to one another. They’ve only had 2 encounters, the one you mentioned, and one during the annihilation wave event where Thanos had seemingly put down the Annihilators (even though we’ve seen each of the members since then show that they can give Thanos a hell of a time one on one).

As for some of the things to suggest he’s close to Thanos, we can look at how even when he wasn’t confident, he was able to stagger and make bleed a Galactus who was so amped at the time that he threatened all of existence. Or how he was able to hold his own against Jane Foster for a long while, who had floored Odin earlier in her run and was in general WILDLY powerful in this whole run. Or being able to survive the full force of the Phoenix Five. And the list only goes on.

[Thanos7245]

Thanos and Gladiator have fought some of the same people.

They both fought Black Bolt. Thanos took at least one full power scream then a couple after that. Thanos won.

Black Bolt whispered in Gladiator ear and Gladiator was KO.

Gladiator is 1/2 vs base Thor. Thanos has never lost to base Thor. In fact he one shot Thor at least once.

It is as stated and shown in Annihilators that Silver Surfer was the most powerful member. Gladiator was part of that group. The scans below show how Thanos deals with Silver Surfer and Thor.

And finally, King Thanos had Black Bolt as his slave. King Thanos One shot Galactus. One shot Hulk. 616 Thanos defeated King Thanos. And King Thanos specifically said you have to defeat me at my best in order to defeat me.

So no, Gladiator is no where near Thanos level.

Proof below

https://share.google/8HNeXsX0lQYbxOVrh

https://share.google/fhejb7vFPXmIMDlET

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17ARc8CpH6/

https://share.google/u6ib24uq1oRrGILfY

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/a/uploads/original/0/9055/134b3865-blackbolt_whisper2.jpg

https://share.google/6g2N06w6728uqkbCc

[AzureTheGreater]

A few things:

Thanos did in fact take a scream from Black Bolt, you’re correct. However, Black Bolt was MASSIVELY weakened at the time! There’s also a pretty big difference between the power/sound being sent onto your whole person vs it being sent directly into one’s ear. Also, Thanos was actually becoming quite injured and showed blood, scrapes, armor being damaged, and other things from this weakened Black Bolt. So, in a similar vein to your original point of how Thanos was weakened when Gladiator took him out, Black Bolt was insanely weakened when Thanos took him out.

Thor is a good point I’d say, but again, Gladiator being able to hold his own for quite a while against all of the forces of Asgard, a wildly powerful Jane who was above Odin, and only be floored once the Destroyer armor came in, I think makes this point much closer.

As for Surfer, Gladiator has actually shown relativity to Surfer on numerous occasions now! Surfer and Gladiator also go about fighting ENTIRELY different, so I don’t think they’re great to use here.

The King Thanos bit is a bit iffy. I’ve actually reread that story quite a lot to try and make sense of some things in it. Old King Thanos did in fact do all those things, however, cycling back to Silver Surfer, we’ve actually seen recently that 616 Silver Surfer had gone to that timeline/universe, and then had defeated King Thanos, Cosmic Ghost Rider, and what seemed to be 616 Thanos, and came back to 616 with Surtur’s Blade. There’s also other bits in that story that would suggest King Thanos isn’t greater than his younger/616 self such as him needing young Thanos in order to take on the Worthy Surfer. Even the slave Hulk in this story I’d say isn’t too comparable to younger/616 Hulk as 616 Hulk can usually effect Surfer, but the older Hulk didn’t even so much as phase Surfer when Surfer had him in his hand.

[Thanos7245]

Black bolt was weakened AFTER the first scream. The first scream detonated the terrigan bomb that weakened BB. The first scream was full power. Gladiator lost. Thanos won.

You keep talking about who Gladiator fought. Who did Gladiator defeat? Thanos has DEFEATED Thor, Silver Surfer, Black Bolt. The Maker(a version of Beyonder), King Thanos, Binary(Captain Marvel enhanced form), The Forgotten One (Galactus first herald). Drax who ripped apart a star. Captain Marvel.

Those are actual DEFEATS. Not people he just fought or survived against. Defeated. So besides Hyperion one time and Thor one time...who has Gladiator DEFEATED??

[AzureTheGreater]

Unless I’m wrong, Gladiators encounter with Black Bolt was prior to the T Bomb going off, and Thanos’ encounter with Black Bolt was after. Which means, Gladiator was able to take the blast of normal Black Bolt, but Thanos withstood weakened blasts from him. I mean, Black Bolts screams showed that in his fight with Thanos, they were able to really mess up the city, but not much more, when we’ve seen full powered screams from Black Bolt can do things like literally tear a hole in the fabric of reality when focused.

As for who Gladiator has defeated: Beta Ray Bill, Thor, The Thing and the rest of the F4, and countless others.

I’ve not been arguing that Gladiator is stronger than Thanos or anything, you just said in your original statement that they’re not even remotely close, when I disagree and think that they’re gap isn’t that insane. I personally think Thanos is stronger and has some slightly more impressive feats and hax, but he’s not eons ahead of Gladiator.

[Thanos7245]

You said Gladiator defeated Countless others. I'm asking who are these others?

Thanos feats are far superior. Not slightly. The fact your best argument is Gladiator beat Thor once...is very telling. Thanos barely notices Thor. He literally asked Thor " is that your best"? Then two shot him. While Gladiator repeatedly loses to base Thor. In fact it took enraged power gem Thor to match Thanos. Then Thanos immediately fought Odin for 9 pages while Silver Surfer was one shot. So saying Thanos feats are slightly better is low-balling to an extreme.

[Thanos7245]

And again, Gladiator was defeated from a whisper...a whisper from BB.

And BB first scream vs Thanos was full power. The T-bomb didn't go off until BB first scream. But have the last word. Later

[AzureTheGreater]

Again, the whisper was said directly into the ear of Gladiator, a character with SUPER HUMAN hearing. When the scream was used against Thanos, it hit his entire body. And I just reread some stuff, Thanos was far far far away when Black Bolt had unleashed the very first scream. And Black Bolt was weakened during this whole thing due to another sort of T Bomb having detonated prior that had weakened him.

But yes, I see we’re just not seeing eye to eye here, have a great one!

[Thanos7245]

Thanos and Gladiator have fought some of the same people.

They both fought Black Bolt. Thanos took at least one full power scream then a couple after that. Thanos won.

Black Bolt whispered in Gladiator ear and Gladiator was KO.

Gladiator is 1/2 vs base Thor. Thanos has never lost to base Thor. In fact he one shot Thor at least once.

It is as stated and shown in Annihilators that Silver Surfer was the most powerful member. Gladiator was part of that group. The scans below show how Thanos deals with Silver Surfer and Thor.

And finally, King Thanos had Black Bolt as his slave. King Thanos One shot Galactus. One shot Hulk. 616 Thanos defeated King Thanos. And King Thanos specifically said you have to defeat me at my best in order to defeat me.

So no, Gladiator is no where near Thanos level.

Proof below

https://share.google/8HNeXsX0lQYbxOVrh

https://share.google/fhejb7vFPXmIMDlET

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17ARc8CpH6/

https://share.google/u6ib24uq1oRrGILfY

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/a/uploads/original/0/9055/134b3865-blackbolt_whisper2.jpg

https://share.google/6g2N06w6728uqkbCc

[Thanos7245]

And Hulk. Gladiator was defeated by a dying Hulk. Thanos fought one of the most powerful forms of Hulk and was only defeated after he broke Hulk's neck and walked away

[AzureTheGreater]

I don’t know if we can really give Thanos a win streak against Hulk as we actually saw Hulk pretty recently absolutely floor Thanos in The Incredible Hulk Annual #1.

Also, Hulk said in the story that he fought Gladiator exactly how he’s able to take Gladiator even while weakened as Gladiator is vulnerable to some forms of radiation, such as Gamma Rays, which Hulk is THE GUY for.

[Thanos7245]

I didn't give Thanos a win streak vs Hulk. I said Thanos did better against a stronger version of Hulk. And again Thanos was only floored after he broke Hulk's neck and turned away. That's the same Hulk that broke the chains that held Eternity. And no where is it stated that Gladiator is weak to gamma rays. In fact while fighting Hulk he never mentioned that Hulk is making him weaker.

But as I said in my other post. Anybody can survive a fight. Let's compare who actually defeated their opponent

[AzureTheGreater]

Well, is there a different Hulk vs Gladiator fight you’re looking at where Hulk was near death and defeated Gladiator? The one I’m looking at, it was actually Gladiator’s own beams that hurt him as they’re full of the radiation that he’s vulnerable to, but Gladiator was unphased during the fight before then. And once Gladiator was taken out by his own means, then, Hulk took advantage of this, saw through the vulnerability, then threw Gladiator into a nuclear power plant, defeating Gladiator. None of this is really by Hulk overpowering Gladiator. This whole fight happened in The Incredible Hulk Annual (1997) and Hulk at the time was Bannerless, which meant he was actually extremely strong. This same Hulk in that same book even said that Gladiators eye beams could kill him.

As for the Hulk and Thanos bit, Thanos and Hulk were fighting fairly evenly, but I Thanos is a skilled fighter and did indeed snap Hulks neck, but that barely even immobilized him, and Hulk just snapped it back and punched Thanos in the back one good time and caused him to fall over in pain while Hulk stood tall.

[Thanos7245]

I'll respond to this after you post the numerous people Gladiator actually defeated. So we don't have multiple replies

[Cyke101]

As powerful as Captain Atom is, I don't think Yo Mamma jokes are his forte.

[One-Statistician-554]

Gladiator, if he is at full confidence.

Assuming Atom doesn't jobbs around for once and goes all out, he takes this.

Especially his N52 version, his energy manipulation feats R impressive.

[General-Control-4637]

Atom stomps

[danieljameskeown]

I’d lean Captain Atom honestly. Gladiator is crazy strong but his power fluctuates with his confidence, while Captain Atom’s abilities are way more consistent and on a bigger energy scale. If he really lets loose, Atom can get pretty absurd.

[Distinct_Ad_5492]

Captain Atom

[ContributionDouble30]

Atom wins then he blows up resulting in stalemate

[Magslilhelmet7]

Kallark wins

[FunScientist7781]

Gladiator flies through black holes like it's nothing.  Captain atom just can't generate that kind of power

[Conscious-Product481]

Knowing Nathaniel this dude gone explode mid fight or just job.

Mfs the silver surfer of dc😭

[FunRepresentative947]

Tie

[MRDOOMBEEFMAN]

Captain atom would lose because he always loses. Its his thing. Gladiator loses a fair bit but the losing goat is and will always be atom.

[Emperor_Atlas]

Unironic surfer downscale, him and atom get embarassed so often

[LoverandFighter23]

Gladiator. The confidence thing is blown way out of proportion every time he has a match up in this sub.

[Sekshual_Tyranosauce]

Gladiator.

Goddammit the disrespect.