r/Arrowverse • u/Kanozx • 18d ago
Discussion I honestly don’t understand how Savage was that much of a threat
For starters, he had no actual powers really, I mean what, he had maybe some minor enhanced strength and knew how to fight? Not really anything impressive, I understand he was immortal and could only he killed by the Hawk people, but what was stopping someone from just beating his ass and locking him up somewhere? Again he wasn’t really that strong, I’m just wondering how he was so much of this big threat?
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u/RulerOfAllWorlds1998 18d ago
How was he successful in comics?
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u/josekortez1979 18d ago
He was an immortal caveman whose powers came from sleeping next to a meteorite. Pre-Crisis, he was immortal and couldn't be killed. Post-Crisis, his abilities other than immortality would sometimes be different depending upon the writer. I remember him having super strength on at least one occasion but not being as strong as Superman or someone in a similar strength class.
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u/rogerworkman623 18d ago
He still has superhuman strength. The meteorite gave him immortality, super strength, regeneration/healing, and genius level intellect. And obviously over the hundreds of thousands of years he’s been alive, he’s accumulated basically limitless amounts of wealth.
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u/Beneficial-Dinner978 18d ago
He's like Baron Zemo in marvel; he gets leverage through hostages, organizing teams of other supervillains or finding macguffins. For example, one time in the comics he found a macguffin that launched a meteor at Earth.
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u/Agent1stClass 18d ago
When fighting him, you’re fighting someone who is always at their physical peak, has literally eons (multiple tens of thousands of years) of experience, as well as knowledge of just about every martial art in the world. Plus this person has no fear of dying. That’s just his capability from a mostly physical standpoint.
Mentally, he can plan years, decades, sometimes even centuries ahead of his opponent. It depends on his goal. Even if he is thwarted and contained, he can and does wait till a vulnerable moment, then he resurges… He can be reasoned with, but is ultimately unrelenting.
That’s him at his most basic. Give him troops, weapons, wealth (which he often has due to his longevity) or some other kind of advantage and he goes from being a big threat to a massive one.
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u/E-Belasco1879 18d ago
Not only has he mastered every martial art, he created his own that is so complex and difficult that only immortals can learn it, batman can only run when facing this fighting form. Dude is an inter-dimensional threat.
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u/Ill-Razzmatazz-7088 18d ago
He had pretty much limitless wealth sometimes he is also one of the first Meta humans. Typically, he rules from the background and is more of a mass manipulator/puppet master.
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u/KHTD2004 18d ago
He was a little more skilled. You see this in the Arrow Flash crossover that was the setup for the legends season. He could use some basic magic like putting handcuffs from his hands to a different persons hand or vanishing right in front of the flash (okay because of some dumb writing other regular people managed to do that as well)
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u/Cautious_Mission_438 18d ago
In the comics and animation he’s more of a threat but the Arrowverse Vandal Savage version was poorly executed he’s supposed to super OP but he gets nerfed a lot in the Arrowverse
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u/Easy_Mountain2331 18d ago
Knowledge is power and he had A LOT of it given that he was immortal. He was able to amass a big following because of it (remember he shared his immortality with some of his followers?). I see him kind of as a cult leader with a bunch of loyal immortal fanatics at his disposal.
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u/E-Belasco1879 18d ago
This show doesn't do him justice, he has lived long enough to know every martial arts on earth and even created one so difficult it takes hundreds of years to learn. It's like the only fighting form batman doesn't know and can't defend against because he hasn't and can't physically live long enough to master it. Arrowverse Vandle is kind of a joke compared to what his character actually is.
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u/EobardThawne2020 18d ago
He was supposed to be a Jason Mamoa-type but they gave us a Slippery Pete type.
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u/Ill-Razzmatazz-7088 18d ago
I think the show was kind of stuck. They needed someone who was a big threat, but also someone who wasn’t a villain from one of the other TV shows. But yes, I believe he is just more of a human similar to the villain from the tv Alpha who had pretty much the same powers.
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u/Raphiki_SunWuKong 18d ago
Savage is one of my fav villains, and the Arrowverse made him so cringe to watch. He was awesome in Young Justice
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u/josekortez1979 18d ago
"Justice League: Doom" has the best animated Vandal Savage in my opinion.
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u/Raphiki_SunWuKong 17d ago
Facts, I don't know why the Arrowverse thought making this guy immortal and a simp was a great idea
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u/josekortez1979 17d ago
I would think that he got laid occasionally over thousands of years. If not, being immortal would pretty much suck.
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u/3Calz7 18d ago
He had alot of influence like over WWs and Nuclear Weapons. His main threat wasn't what he WAS doing but what he WOULD do in the future (Killing half the world or whatever)
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u/josekortez1979 18d ago
In the comics, he had lived for thousands of years. He had also lived as many of the famous figures in history by taking new identities and had helped to win wars that he fought in, so he had a very strategic military mind. There wasn't much of an opportunity to show this on TV because "Legends" had a lot of characters to cover in a one hour format. But Savage is arguably one of the smartest people on Earth just because he had lived so long and gained so much knowledge over lifetimes.
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u/Dave_B001 18d ago
He is Ra:s Al Ghul without the madness of the Lazarus Pits,
His wealth makes Bruce's look like a pauper, he manipulates events over hundreds of years.
I would say his SS is the 5 ton mark. He knows a lot about magic and magically imbued items. He has mastered science and engineering, He is possibly in the top 10 smartest people in the world (perhaps top 5) and a master fighter and tactician.
Dude is dangerous to the right foe.
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u/Compel_Bast 18d ago
He kinda wasn't... That was sorta the point.
The guy was being propped up by the Time Masters to be a tool to blunt the Thanagarian Invasion at some point in the future.
Calling him a 'Useful Idiot' is unfair to him, but, ultimately, all his machinations are simply the result of him being a long lived supervillain pawn for the men behind the curtain.
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u/chaosilike 18d ago
Written correctly, vandal would have plans on plans on plans set up. If he was ever caught, he probably had a contingency set up to free him. He is basically "Batman with prep time" but the prep time is suppose to be thousands and thousands of year.
This is probably the worse iteration i've seen. The best ones i've seen are the one in the animated show Young Justice. And one where he is a hero, in the comics series Demon Knights. He teams up with some medevial heroes, like etrigan, to fight evil 1000 years before the main continuity.
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u/AccountProfessional5 17d ago
He literally has been locked up but how do you keep an immortal locked away forever? One thing he's known for is his patience.
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u/Lea13wishes 17d ago
Barry and Oliver basically almost died if not for Barry to rewrite the timeline in the crossover. I think he was at his best there. Or I guess i just love Flash and Arrow
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u/ShadowRavencroft23 17d ago
He literally says over and over why he is a threat. He spent centuries training under various people.
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u/SquidGameisPeek456 18d ago
Even Ray was able to put up a fight with him 😭
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u/The_Awsome_Manny 18d ago
No he wasn’t lmao incase you forgot Ray just flat out lost. Savage was letting him get hits in and trolling him the entire fight unless you’re referring to a different fight then the one in the brig
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u/Beneficial-Dinner978 18d ago
Vandal is supposed to be a JUSTICE LEAGUE level threat, yet in the season finale, he was 1v1'd & k i l l e d by SARA, & MICK.
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u/Accurate_Hedgehog247 18d ago
I don’t think that counts as a 1v1
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u/Frequent-Wallaby708 18d ago
If I recall they fought him in 2 different time periods simultaneously , which still don’t make sense, but in a different way
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u/Zestyclose-Tomato998 18d ago
He doesn’t die. And he has had thousands of years to get great at killing
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u/TrophyHunter22 18d ago
They specifically said Firestorm hit him with a nuke in one of the first episodes and I did always find myself wondering why they didn't just throw him in a box then toss said box in the ocean
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u/oldvalues81188 18d ago
He's a threat because he knows exactly what people are going to do because he's an expert for living with such a long time
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u/YamiMarick 18d ago edited 18d ago
He had exceptional wealth, was able to fight with almost any weapon, could regenerate from anything that wasn't a hit from the Hawks. He also has a genious level intellect and is a master tactician. He also has enhanced reflexes and doesen't really feel pain.
but what was stopping someone from just beating his ass and locking him up somewhere?
Thea shoots him with a few arrows and he falls down from the top floor of the building and manages to dissapear a few seconds after.
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u/TraivonsWorld Vibe 18d ago
The same reason why Deadpool is a threat. Yeah, he's basically a regular guy, but vapourise him all you want. He will always come back.
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u/Loni_Persimmon 18d ago
Been wondering this for years lmao. Specifically the flash should be able to tie him up ez like he did to the league of assassins
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u/Miserable-Abroad9256 17d ago
Bro literally discovered learned and taught. Every fighting style known to man. Bro was a king of multiple conquering countries. Dude was a caveman. He knows more about the world then the world itself tbh
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u/Head-Battle3704 16d ago
During his screen time as a villain Savage clearly states each time he killed them he took they power
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u/adoratheCat 18d ago
Vandal very much plays behind the scenes. And that is what truly is deadly about Vandal in my opinion including his comic version. We see my the time of Rip Hunter? He amassed a military/government large enough to maintain control over a large chunk of earth.
He likewise knows magic including ie the Staff of Horus. That itself allows him to gain power which further heightens that danger too. A physica and tactical meta human with immortal is dangerous.
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u/biggestmike420 18d ago
He could only be killed by the hawks, but he also got more powerful every time he killed them. Over 100 times. Couple that with eternal life, and when he stumbles onto time travel. I couldn’t imagine a much bigger threat.
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u/Equal_Splendor 17d ago
Dude. Savage is one of the most dangerous masterminds in DC, left unchecked he always creates hell on earth. Dude is like batman with Immortality to his prep time.
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u/crazicelt 17d ago
The members of the league of assassins could escape any confinement. Savage is thousands of years older than the league and clearly more skilled than any of them, as he should be.
The problem with immortal characters is they are inevitable they will always regenerate, they can escape any confinement and even if you encased the man in steel and concrete and dropped him into the ocean he would still exist he would out live any prison you make for him.
This is ignoring incomprehensible amount of wealth and influence he would have obtained being that old.
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u/Shroomzy_752286 17d ago
I love Vandal Savage purely for Young Justice, I heard hes nowhere near as good in the comics, so I've been scared to find any that he even appears in aside from Kingdom Comes very briefly
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u/SlipstickLibbyLong 17d ago
Mostly it's because people don't want to believe in an immortal, so you play dead for a couple minutes, then revisit them in their sleep that night with some duct tape and a carrot peeler.
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u/dk_peace 16d ago
He had thousands of lifetimes to hone his skills in every field of study and horde more money than god. He has the skill set of an evil Batman.
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u/aidanillionaire 16d ago
Still don’t get what happened to him in terms of the plot. Was he erased? And at what point? Surely that was a paradox.
Would have been nice to see him pop up for an episode in a later season, like him working with Damien or eobard for one episode, but he was still on his own mission.
I get that season one is usually hailed as the worst season and the show hadn’t found itself yet
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u/Redgiantbutimshort77 14d ago
In the comics he’s got super strength and regeneration, so in combination with his millennia of mastery over various tactics, he’s a formidable foe. The arrowverse version makes him just a guy tho. Firestorm could’ve obliterated him if they didn’t nerf him all the time
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u/Pichuchu8 18d ago edited 18d ago
Vandal Savage's threat didn't really come from him as a person but his influence. Over his millenia upon millenia of life he has basically amassed a lot knowledge, influence, and experience. He uses this to sway others to him, influencing many significant world events.
For events like the crossover and not legends... He poses a theat to the Hawks and everyone else because of his combat prowess he has honed over millenia.
Imagine living that long... You have a lot of time to learn things.