Marvel's best hand-to-hand combatant

[Slappy]

Drax seems a good choice. I'm not sure if that's the writer's preference or legitimate prowess...or even if the two can be separated.

Slappy, you are absolutely right. But then, could Aunt May be just as tough based on that criteria?

Who ever wants to take on a benign person whom they know WILL seriously kick their ass?  Flatman is up there with Galactus, the only difference being that Galactus sticks his nose into too much crap which is why he gets into the occasional scrap.
Aunt May on the other hand has been injured by little things like falling buildings and such.  Everyone knows she is a weakling.

[Navarre]

In theory Wolverine has decades more training under his belt so he should be the superior fighter of all of them even without his healing factor.

If pushed though, I'd still put my money of Steve Rogers or Iron Fist.

I do give credit to Logan for his length of experience. I would be hard-pressed to justify how a character with so much constant fighting experience could be less than "the best there is at what he does".

I still think Steve could beat him in a fight but any given fight between them could go either way.

I really like both Iron Fist and Shang-Chi. But, despite their natural talents and focused training, could they match the experience Logan and Steve bring to the table?

[Gaumer]

The correct answer is: Taskmaster

Three moves and he knows the fighting style of his opponent better than they do.

[Navarre]

Yes, but is that not a supernatural ability, albeit a mental one? That is clearly a superhuman power.

Therefore, if we removed all superhuman qualities from these characters, Taskmaster would not be the best combatant. We don't even know if he would mentally retain the stored information.

[Gaumer]

If we are taking away the powers how does a 100 pound wimp of a Steve Rogers do anything past entering the octagon?

[Navarre]

Because I don't think that makes a bit of sense. The super-soldier serum gave Steve that perfect physique strait away. That's fine.

But, since that day, Steve has exercised, practiced, fought, and trained every single day. Every. Single. Day.

His body would be the equivalent of any athlete that has ever lived on the planet simply because of his regimen.

The idea that we suddenly remove the serum and he's only 100 pounds and frail again is asinine. It's a cheap plot device used by the writers to create peril for Steve. It makes no sense whatsoever.

[Blackthunder01]

Would Wolverine be considered a hand to hand combatant in most cases or a melee fighter with a bladed weapon that can't be removed.  He's more of a knife fighter/swordsman than a martial artist.

[Gaumer]

In the context of a story? Sure.

In the context of our silly, fanboy versus-battle, I think it has to be relevant.

Taskmaster was given his photographic reflexes power by an offshoot of the super-soldier serum created by the same Nazi doctor who did it for some of the knock-offs like Master Man.

So, although Taskmaster is able to read his enemies on a subconscious level and then react to it the same way, the things he learns as a result of that would not go away if we take his power away right now. Steve would have never even got any training if he hadn't gotten the serum. Just saying.

But, if we are going with a "no-powered" fight here, Nick Fury whoops everyone's ass IMHO. Real-world experience and knowledge that pales EVERYONE else in the Marvel U. If Taskmaster can't win because he can't get that readied knowledge, Fury already has that knowledge.

Would Wolverine be considered a hand to hand combatant in most cases or a melee fighter with a bladed weapon that can't be removed.  He's more of a knife fighter/swordsman than a martial artist.

Agreed. Leave him with the claws and he beats anyone else with claws, daggers, and such.

He may even win in the "Marvel character with a sword" battle royal, although Silver Samurai and Deadpool would give him a run for his money, and Illyana woul surely come up in that thread, but only because Nav posts here so often

[Navarre]

Oh, I'd love to give Illyana a lot of credit (and all my lovin') but I am talking about hand-to-hand combat (as the title states).

The super-soldier serum didn't make Steve a great fighter. It simply gave him better tools to work with.

I've taken down plenty of people who are much larger, younger, and stronger than myself through superior technique and greater experience. Steve has that even without the serum. And I agree, so does Fury.

Wolverine would too, I think. He has trained a great deal with ninjas and all sorts of things. Add in the years he's done that and, even without the adamantium or the claws, he's a great fighter.

Whether we call him a brawler or a martial artist or whatever, he is a superb fighter. I'm not even much of a Wolverine fan but I always try to give people their due.

My only question on Taskmaster was whether he would retain the stored information if he lost his powers. I don't know the answer to that. One would think he would (just like Neo will always know kung-fu now) but I don't know.

[Gaumer]

Fred van Lente did a Taskmaster mini that was very, very good and went into some detail about how his memory works and all that, and how some memories, like learning a language, are very different from the memories of sitting in a language class. Very good stuff for a character that needs and deserves more attention. His retcon? I won't go there, but it was classic Marvel (IDK if that's good or bad).

But let's say that Taskmaster's power gives him the ability to learn new stuff very quickly and if it was taken away he wouldn't be able to learn knew things with such skill but would not forget anything he learned up to that point. Tony (that's Taskmaster's first name) would retain everything he ever learned from everyone he ever saw fight. That includes all of those Avengers fights; all of the Hydra training he taught; all of the Captain America newsreels he watched; every Youtube video of every fight he could ever see. Unless his adversary picks up new tricks between the time he loses his powers and the actual fight, Taskmaster pwns.

[Navarre]

Yes, if he retains the memory of whatever he saw from before then I agree. I wasn't sure how that worked for him.

There is such a thing as muscle memory too. I encounter it all the time when I find myself reacting to some random, sudden occurrence in my environment with a technique (or movement derived from it) even if I have not performed that technique in a very long time.

Even things like weight placement for optimal balance, moving in the most efficient manner to achieve economy of motion, or the way I might move to avoid getting hit with a swinging door now come from all that experience.

My timing, reflexes, strength, and speed will be dulled proportional to the time I fail to practice. But the ingrained and now innate memory my body has to react a certain way remains. I suspect the same would be true for Taskmaster.

I was going to make an argument that Taskmaster could never have done all of those things in the first place if it wasn't for his abilities and so that should be discounted. But, by that premise, Steve would be discounted as well because he'd still likely be too frail to have ever developed his current level of skill.

Of course, the same is true for Fury if he didn't have an artificially extended lifespan and for Logan if he hadn't been able to be so resistant to harm while he learned. By that premise, only someone like Shang-Chi would have ever counted in the first place.

So I guess we have to throw that out the window. Even if we are talking only about non-powered characters in the current fight, we cannot discount what it was that brought them to their current level.

[Gaumer]

Yup.

Ben Grimm is certainly a hell of a fighter, but The Thing would kick so much more ass and is the better brawler.

Same for Colossus.

One could say that X-23, as an engineered fighting machine, could be the best hand-to-hand fighter sans powers, simply because the level of discipline forced upon her would make that so. And I think anyone could go under that sort of training, not just a clone of Wolverine.

[Navarre]

Yes, as I'd said early on, the Marvel Universe is full of great hand-to-hand combatants. Not even counting all of the characters who use hand-to-hand as their primary means of combat, most any of the heroes and villains have training.

All of the Avengers and X-Men have trained many times as we've seen. I bet we could take, say, Jean Grey and she'd clean my clock and yours too simply because she has to be in such prime shape and defend herself in a physical manner.

The ones who lose out the most are the ones who rely on something other than their own bodies for action. For example, Tony Stark has some combat training but I bet he's weak compared to Hawkeye because Tony lets his suit do too much of the work.

Someone like Kitty Pryde though, with the training given her by Wolverine, is far superior to us or even an above-average athlete. Of course, I suggest that I test this by an extended period of grappling.  *wink-wink*

But, even among these people, there are the elite. Steve Roger, Wolverine, Taskmaster, Shang-Chi, etc are on a whole different plane than Cyclops or Storm because they have to be.

And it was among these people that my question was raised.

I said Steve. You think Taskmaster (and I might have to agree). Alisha thinks Shang-Chi. Slappy says Flatman. heh-heh

[@lantis]

Taskmaster's ability to win if depowered would depend on how precisely the serum affected his memory.  He could still have all of the memories of what he learned, but the serum could be the reason why he is able to recall them so readily.  It is possible that without his super-photographic memory powers the brain can't maintain the level of recall power necessary for him to access everything he remembers at once.  He would be prone to limitations on what memory cues would trigger his fighting knowledge.

What Nav said about muscle memory could apply, but it would mean that he's practicing everything he knows nearly constantly to have the level of muscle memory required for all his fighting techniques, which I don't think he's been doing.

[Gaumer]

Did you read the van Lente's mini, @lantis?