Ok. Last one, best one. Here we go.

I’m Mike “Mike Shanley” Shanley and uh… there isn’t a second guy to base this joke on…

This week, I’m going to see who the ultimate victor out of all the characters I’ve analyzed (plus some extras.)

BEGIN!

BACKGROUND:

As I’m sure you can guess, I don’t actively follow “sports.” That is not to say I don’t know a darn thing about sports, I mean, I enjoy watching football and I frequently visit minor league baseball games. But as a registered geek, it’s not my number one pastime.

So I’m not good at running/catching/throwing (at the same time? Geez…) but what I do like, for some reason, is the bracket. Like the ones for March Madness. Maybe it’s because I’m a nerd and it’s a flowchart or maybe in a past life I was the guy who invented the bracket. Whatever. I really enjoy the bracket when the participants are not the usual college basketball teams. So this week, I made a bracket featuring all of the past combatants from previous weeks plus a couple extras in order to make the bracket work.

FIRST ROUND:

Left Side

• Malcom Reynolds beats Han Solo
• Thing beats Mr. Incredible
• Mr. Fantastic beats Elastigirl
• Violet beats Invisible Woman
• Dash beats Human Torch
• Marty McFly (Back to the Future) beats Bill n’ Ted (Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure): Marty has a car time machine and is just smarter than Bill and/or Ted who go through time with a phone booth.
• Mike “Mike Shanley” Shanley beats Jack-Jack: Ok, how the heck do I beat a super-baby, you ask? In the short, “Jack-Jack Attack,” Kari the babysitter is able to fend off Jack-Jack for like, a week, and survives to tell about it. Kari is, what, 16? Man, I could babysit the diaper off of Jack-Jack
• Stormtrooper beats Red Shirt

Top Right

• Link beats Aragorn
• Na’vi beats Ewok
• Legolas beats Spock
• Aang beats Sora
• Indiana Jones beats Jack Sparrow
• Spiderman beats Ezio the Assassin
• Queen Elsa (Frozen) beats Rapunzel (Tangled): Although Rapunzel is pretty fierce with a frying pan and her hair; Elsa actually can attack/defend with her magic
• Eragon (Eragon) beats Luke Skywalker (Star Wars): The two are practically the same person. I’d go on a long arduous rant about how the plot of A New Hope and Eragon are the exact same but I won’t. Instead, I’ll just say that Eragon’s control over magic is more useful in combat than Luke’s mastery over the force. Plus, Eragon has his backup reserve strength of Saphira and Glaedr.

SECOND ROUND:

• Thing beats Mal: the Thing is a rock monster with super strength. Really, only superheroes can damage him. Sorry, Mal.
• Mr. Fantastic beats Violet: Violet may have been able to defeat his wife, but Mr. Fantastic is a powerful force to be reckoned with and Violet does not have adequate control over her powers yet.
• Marty McFly beats Dash: What? But Dash is a superhero! Yes, but think about it: Dash can run fast enough to run on water. That’s cute. Marty travels through time. That’s much more than the speed of light. Plus, if it came to a fist-fight, Marty’s a teenager and Dash is in 4th grade. Do the math.
• Mike “Mike Shanley” Shanley beats the Stormtrooper: Stormtroopers cannot aim. They cannot hit me. If I get any kind of weapon I win.
• Link beats the Na’vi: Link is simply more equipped to fight. Na’vi have spears and, at best, a dragon. Link has fought much worse opponents.
• Aang beats Legolas: This one was hard. Both are unbelievably fast. Legolas is good with close combat and ranged, but Aang is the avatar after all. It wouldn’t take much to a) burn Legolas to a crisp, b) freeze/drown him, c) crush him with rocks or d) umm…. blow him away. Air bending kinda sucks.
• Spiderman beats Indiana Jones: Funny. I could’ve done this. Both swing around a lot and make annoying quips while fighting. But in the end, Spidey is a superhero, having the proportional strength of a spider and all. Also, as an addendum SPIDERMAN.
• Eragon beats Elsa: Looks like Elsa let this one go. (Get it? Heh. heh. please laugh). As much as I’d love to see a Disney character go to the top and/or anyone beat Eragon (the movie was TERRIBLE), I’m gonna be fair and say that Eragon is more powerful than the Ice Queen.

THIRD ROUND:

• Mr. Fantastic beats Thing: Ok, so the Thing is super strong rock thing. Well, Mr. Fantastic is a super-powerful rubber band. Does rock beat rubber band? No. If you try to beat up rubber, nothing happens, because it’s rubber. Blunt attacks (all of the Thing’s attacks) don’t work on rubber.
• Mike “Mike Shanley” Shanley beats Marty McFly: Ok, so here’s how it is. I have watched all of the Back to the Future movies. Multiple times. I know Marty’s weakness (call him chicken. LAAAAAAME). So I do that to incite him to fight, make him angry then lay my mad karate skills. Like seriously, I am a black belt. I could take Marty McFly any day of the week.
• Aang beats Link: Link has fought many demigods (well, actually just Gannondorf, but he’s done it a bunch of times) and super-powerful beings and he has talked with the gods themselves. BUT Aang is an unpredictable, speedy little demigod. If there’s one thing that Link doesn’t seem to handle well is unpredictability. Not to mention any magic attacks Link fires off can just be bent out of the way by Aang’s (insert element) bending.
• Eragon beats Spiderman: Eragon is making me mad. I don’t want him to go this far, but seriously, he could beat Spiderman. Eragon has all of an elf’s skills– that includes being more agile and durable than a human as well as stronger. Just give him the ability to climb walls and he is Spiderman. With a sword. So because they’re equally matched physically, Eragon can also use awesome magic to take down the web-slinger.

 

FOURTH ROUND:

• Mike “Mike Shanley” Shanley beats Mr. Fantastic: “Seriously?” I can hear you say. Lemme explain. Since I know I’m going into battle against Mr. Fantastic, I know my strategy: tie the guy in knots. That’s one thing that rubber can’t fight against: itself. Also, as a Boy Scout, 90% of the time was spent learning how to tie knots. The other 10% was spent alternating between frisbee, playing with fire, and playing with knives.
• Aang beats Eragon: FINALLY! Oh sweet relief. Ok, so why can the Last Airbender beat the Last Dragon Rider? Because avatar state. Aang would have to use it against Eragon. Thus making him nearly all-powerful and Eragon had trouble fighting an older Dragon Rider. This, plus, Aang’s bending attacks are near instantaneous, while Eragon’s magic is slightly delayed because he needs the words of power.

FINAL ROUND:

Alright, let’s look at the facts:

Aang is the avatar, master of all four elements and the bridge between the physical and spirit worlds. He hails from the Southern Air Temple where he was raised as an Air Nomad. At the age of 12, he was informed by the monks of the Air Temple that he was indeed the Avatar. This frightened him, so he ran off with his giant flying bison and accidentally froze the two of them in an iceberg. 100 years passed, during which the Fire Nation attacked and enslaved about half of the world and committed genocide on the Air Nomads. Aang was released from his icy cocoon by Katara, a water-bender, and Sokka, the comedic relief of the series. In about a year, he learned how to bend all four elements (air, water, earth, fire) and defeated the Fire Lord at his most powerful. Aang, despite all this heavy stuff happening to him, faces the world with the blind optimism of a puppy.

As an air nomad, Aang’s fighting style includes a lot of agile moves, quick attacks, and acrobatics. This style has gotten him through many fights with opponents bigger and stronger than he. As an air nomad, Aang’s fighting style includes a lot of agile moves, quick attacks, and acrobatics. This style has gotten him through many fights with opponents bigger and stronger than he. Aang, as avatar, knows the disciplines of all four elemental bending, meaning he can use wind, water, fire, and earth to fight. Aang’s weapon of choice is his air-glider staff. Normally it looks like a simple wooden staff, but when activated, it sprouts wings and allows Aang to hang on and glide on the wind with the help of air bending. The four elements, as mentioned earlier, are air, water, earth, and fire. Air bending is what comes most naturally to Aang and he uses it the most often. Although it isn’t a very offensive form of bending, it has its uses. It aids Aang move faster than a usual person and can blow people off their feet. Fire-bending is definitely the most offensive form of bending. Almost as simple as earth bending, it is essentially throwing fireballs at other people. Aang knows the more traditional Sun-warrior form but seeing as I don’t know any bending forms at all, Aang should be ok.

Water bending requires that water be nearby. Water bending also allows Aang to control ice, one of the most powerful attacks of a water bender. Water bending is mainly used as a cutting tool and is based on the idea of using your opponents’ attack against themselves. Earth bending is perhaps the simplest. It is, essentially, throwing rocks with magic at very high speeds. It is the most powerful form of bending and requires large powerful movements in order to properly bend. What is especially significant about being the avatar is that it allows Aang to activate something known as the “Avatar State,” his powers become much stronger and he can harness the powers of past avatars in this state as well. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that he can access the thoughts, council, and memories of previous avatars? Well he can. Google Help can suck it.

I am real. Aang is not. I win.

So I did it. I won. I beat all these losers and won my own game! Is that anti-climactic? Yes! Kind of lame? Indeed! Did I rig it so that I could win? Most definitely! This isn’t about you, besides who doesn’t want to go toe-to-toe with their favorite characters and win? Probably no one. Oh well, I hope you enjoyed reading these. Here’s the End: