Chimeroid

As Nightmare himself said, he had also previously underestimated Thor during the whole ordeal. So Thor didn't actually break the dream artifice at its fullest:

Underestimating is irrelevant to this topic. It's not like Nightmare "readjusted" his opinion of Thor and then spanked him. No, he still didn't do anything of substance.

That's not only all. All-Father Thor is also equal to Nightmare's power-wise in Avengers(2023)#10, which obviously played a big part in breaking the dream constructs. So far, I don't see the same case being for Highfather:

Did you make a case anywhere in your post for All-Father Thor to be above Highfather's universal feats? I don't seem to remember them in this debate, or in this post. I mean, we literally had random, young New Gods creating universes as a pastime. That alone shows a power level similar to Odin at least.

In a modern story (John Stewart: The Emerald Knight) Esak (an irrelevant, New Gods without a domain) started pulling branches of hypertime to create his own universes and restart the multiverse. If all it takes is "Thor level of power" then I've got that in spades.

Furthermore, your argument is hampered by the fact that the quote is coming from Wanda saying that she is equal to Nightmare as well.

I like Thor, i am using him in a debate right now, and even with that in mind, current Thor doesn't even come close to the feats we both showed in this debate. I mean, even recent feats for Odin (before he became a hammer) were lackluster.

Overall, if your argument is that "it's not the nature of Godhood, it's the power level of Thor"

you are

A) - Incorrect, as weaker gods have resisted Nightmare's powers before as showcased in my previous post.

B) - Making an argument that HELPS ME. Because I've already shown Highfather to be at least at Thor's level, probably much higher.

And as Nightmare himself said so, even beings like Hercules weren't an issue for him because of some supposed godhood, but due to his tenacious nature

You conveniently ignored my scans though. I had it, on page, confirmed that Nightmare can't work gods. Let me copy and paste that section from my first post:

First of all, the showing itself has one BIG keyword in it - MORTAL minds.

I would like to turn your attention to the fact that neither Thor nor Hercules were affected. Highfather is no mortal. In fact, in the cosmology of DC, he stands at a higher level of divinity than Thor.

It was well-explained by Thor

In essence, Gods are resistant to Nightmare's powers, and, even under his influence, they can break out should they realize what went on. Which takes me back to Hercules.

I mean, Hercules literally did it in his own run (referenced by your scan, otherwise i wouldn't input new scans):

And, even in the issue you quoted in your scan, Nightmare bolted as soon as Herc got his hands on him. Why didn't he just put Herc to sleep, if it's that easy for him? I know this post is a closer, so there won't be any replies, but clearly, he couldn't beat Herc in that situation, so he ran.

"Hercules is resistant to self-reflection" is a silly excuse from a sore loser, especially after we've had many explanations of Nightmare's powers not working on Gods.

That's missing the context. Hypnos used an army of dreamless soldiers, who were immune to Nightmare's power in Avengers No Road Home#3:

What does that have to do with anything? Why didn't Nightmare just instakill Hypnos himself, ignoring the armies? It was just another example of Nightmare being powerless before Gods that were attacking him. I mean, you said Nightmare's powers aren't just dreams. Dreamless opponents should still be deletable by reality warping. Those "dreamless soldiers" were regular people. You could solve them with a volley of arrows, let alone universal reality-warping powers.

We can clearly see that it's in the area of his heart:

I'm not really here to debate the anatomy of metaphysical beings. But, if you're insisting, actually, it's slightly under, and, more importantly, you know that, in comics, if something isn't stated, then it doesn't count as such. We have on panel showing that ripping out NIghtmare's heart is... Let's say "detrimental" to him.

The most importantly, it's what you would call a "win condition"

Even in the scan that you used, Nightmare was out of the fight. He lost. I don't really care if he remains dead, the debate (battle) will already have been won. Him technically surviving means nothing for the purposes of the debate as he was unable to continue the fight.

Besides, Nightmare already survived a reality-breaking punch from America Chavez in Thunderbolts Vol.4#5:

First of all, not every punch of America Chavez is "reality-breaking" it's asinine to claim it as such. It merely destroyed Nightmare's illusions. But more importantly, you don't want to bring up Thunderbolts 5 into this debate as Nightmare was their punching bag in that issue.

They first beat the fuck out of him with physical force, which included being knocked on his ass by Hawkeye of all people. And then he was put to sleep by Kara Kilgrave.

Which should be way above simply destroying his heart. Nightmare can simply regenerate, that's my point. Lokli himself said that in Loki(2019)#4:

And yet, there are numerous showings of Nightmare really not dealing with physical damage all to well. Furthermore, this wound was through the stomach. I never implied or argued Highfather would casually beat on Nightmare.

Also, relying on the word of Loki for your argument is, let's say "flimsy" at best. Everything he said was planned out to get Nightmare powerless and under a car to crush him.

It shows that Nightmare is, for all intents and purposes, an idiot.

So yea, Zeus should be at least in the same ballpark. My point is that wasn't a low showing for Mikaboshi to kill Nightmare by destroying his heart, since it's immensely more powerful than beings who should be close to Highfather's own level.

Zeus probably is in the ballpark, but none of that is a relevant argument. I am not saying it's a low showing, it just goes to show how Nightmare's powers work. He can be killed by having his heart ripped out and destroyed. Throughout all of your posts, you never truly offered anything against that notion.

I mean, I don't understand your logic here. If Higtfather decides to leave the Dreaming, then it would be considered a win by BFR. He wouldn't be defeating Nightmare, but fleeing from him. Also, are you forgetting the rules that were stipulated for this battle?

• Win by any means, minus BFR.

No BFR. Highfather can't either leave, or banish Nightmare away from the Dream Dimension.

The actual rule of the debate is that BFR is not an acceptable Win Condition. Fighting in the waking world is not "BFR" it's just moving the battle elsewhere, and it's a valid option for this fight. And, if you wanted this debate to showcase how powerful Nightmare is, you wouldn't be worried about fighting in the waking world. And, while at it, Nightmare is a known moron that can be manipulated easily and beaten in this way.

But sure, if you want us to stay in the dream, we can do that too. Nothing you've shown really cements a wincon for Nightmare either way.

Escaping and defeating Nightmare are two different things. As Urthona said in Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts#80, Strange has barely even held his ground:

Which is why I've shown Nightmare being beaten down several times in my posts. And I've held back a lot. Nightmare has had a bunch of losses to a bunch of opponents who don't have a place on this tier.

Also, I think we're forgetting that comics aren't always the most consistent sources, but most recent sources like the novel Doctor Strange; Dimensional War, establish that Nightmare even out rules abstract aspects like death while inside his domain:

That is NOT AT ALL what the quote says. It's just flowery language. Not that Nightmare outrules the aspect of death. It's just a sentence from a novelization of his old stories. Not a feat for Nightmare. Come on. Should i go back to the statement that Highfather is OMNIPOTENT?

I mean, Nightmare has already shown to have control over his body. An example of this was when Nightmare transmuted himself into different villains, with their very powerset in Squirrel Girl II#11:

If this is the extent of Nightmare's claim to transmutation resistance, I'm sorry, but it's not nearly enough. Especially since Nightmare's main power is basically illusion casting. Him looking like Venom in a silly Squirrel Girl issue is just not... Good.

I mean, you brought this issue up, so i have to do this to you, I'm really sorry about this:

Your boy was literally beaten by Squirrel Girl in his own domain.

Now, bear in mind, this is PIS. It's a Squirrel Girl gag comic.

But, you brought it up, meaning it's fair play for me to use it. I would like to ask the voters to either accept both of these feats, or disregard both of them.

if they disregard both of them, you have offered nothing to defend from transmutational attacks. If they accept both of them, you have to accept that all it takes to beat him in his realm is bravery.

Wanda and Thor already explained it in Avengers(2023)#10 that it was a real taste of an event that was indeed going to happen in reality, so it's very valid:

But it didn't happen. It's a 'real taste' as much as watching "Avatar" in the theaters was. It's all "Artifice" named as such by multiple characters. It's fake. It's nothing. It's a dream.

And it wasn't their dreams, but his:

Irrelevant. I mean, i get it, Nightmare had a Nightmare. Big whoop. Doesn't make it any more real, only, in fact, showcased that he doesn't have perfect control over dreams as he, himself, had a nightmare.

Dreams can be much as real as reality itself, in fact, it was already explained in Doctor Strange: Into Shamballa that the world we live in could be as well be a dream, an illusion, as well:

Except that they are NOT. The story from Shamballa is taken wildly out of context and presents the idea that the actual deity (Assuming TOAA) is playing a game with the universe, and that, to it, it is all an illusion. It's not a statement of dreams being equal to reality in Marvel. It never was.

Your actual quote was just Stephen being "connected" to all other living beings and barely making out what was going on.

I will go back to an argument I made earlier - Would my dreaming of a universe make me universal?

Because sometimes I do have fun dreams. I once dreamt I was a Power Ranger, can I summon a Mega Zord?

But, here's the kicker, even if we take it at face value, what you're saying. There is no proof Nightmare actually created an entire universe. It's a "movie" for the Avengers. There is no proof the rest of the universe existed.

And, to top it all off it's still not greater than the feat of Highfather spinning a universe of torment as he threatened Orion.

Again, I explained it above. It was a reality created by Nightmare's own vision of the future. It's that different from what I showed in the point above.

Except that it never was. It was just a dream. It was a dream that Nightmare designed from his visions of the future. Sure, but even if it was a 'reality' there is no actual proof there was a multiverse or a universe at play at all. It's, honestly, not that great of a feat. It is not above any of his other dreaming feats, it's just shiny and new and has you dazzled.

The Scope of Feats

Ok, you did a huge write-up, and while it's great, I think answering every bit of it will make the debate unreadable, so I will try to sum up what the point is.

So, for the "universe of madness" stuff. I genuinely don't care if it's actually universal or not. But I would have loved an indication that it left the confines of Earth and, apparently, the Moon.

Using the description of a comic written by some freelancer for the sale summary is not the same as using a feat. But, while at it, you did misread even the summary from the website. It said this:

"His unreal universe of pain spread across the globe"

This is the actual quote that you are using. You chose to interpret it as "universal in scale and power", but the quote itself places it at planetary, not universal.

And those are bad things because...? Voodoo/Daniel are some of Marvel's most powerful necromancers, with Daniel being able to take possession of the entire Avengers in New Avengers Vol.2#34, including gods like Thor himself:

Did you not read what i wrote? His range with RW is great, his focused power is low.

But it was hinted in the very comic that the entire universe was affected. Nightmare was slumbering in the room with the symbol of infinity

My Brother in Christ, are we reaching that far that an "8" on the door suddenly means that the entire universe is affected? According to the page you posted, Nightmare pulled Norrin and the girl into his dream.

And it's going way past his nature. I mean, I'm not sure if you know the cosmological order of those realities. Nightmare would need to affect as many other realities than his own to accomplish such a showing.

This is blatantly untrue. Nightmare has shown the ability to travel straight to Earth, there is no indication he affected Dyzzak, or the Veils of Valor, or the "Otherplace" or the "Splinter Realms".

Those are all "traversable planes" he traveled to Earth and fell asleep. Let's not jump to a weird conclusion that he somehow was doing the same to all of those planes.

The Nightmare vs Xavier, Logan and Venom

I don't know why you're bringing Logan stabbing through his head when:

1. Nightmare isn't well known for his durability, but immortality and regeneration.

2. It's Wolverine, who has instances where stabbed even through beings like Thanos with the IG such as during Infinity Gauntlet#

Because, i AGAIN, was discussing HOW Nightmare works, not how powerful he is. You can't claim Nightmare to be an unbeatable universal reality manipulator when he got his ass handed to him by Xavier, Logan, and Venom. I think it is pretty simple.

It proves

A) - Beatability.

B) - Lack of focused use of power.

As I previously explained, Nightmare's range is apparently impressive, but clearly struggles IN HIS OWN REALM to do things directly to his opponents. Leading to him getting his ass beat by Logan, of all people. You arguing how sharp Logan's claws are is just striking me as funny as it is irrelevant to this debate.

You pretending this was about me discussing durability is kinda funny.

Strange VS Nightmare

Nightmare was simply using the dream energy to accomplish such showing, as shown and said below:

Confirmed again in Marvel(2020)#5:

Except neither of your scans actually claim what you say they claim. I mean "At first i thought Nighmtare simply wanted to conquer the waking realm" is the exact phrase you outlined as proof that Nightmare wasn't amped. While my scan literally says the following:

"Has somehow become more powerful than ever"

Then you said this:

And last, Nightmare already explained that it was a dream, yes, but it's what allowed him to defeat those cosmic entities. It was a dream made real:

That's where you lose me. The actual story indication was that NONE OF IT WAS MADE REAL. It's all you trying to upsell a feat. Which is a big thread throughout your posts. Which is, also, the reason you ignored the part of my post where i said the following:

In fact, it is not an unpopular interpretation of this feat that none of the above ever happened given that all of the cosmic abstracts NIghtmare allegedly beat are alive and well and that Stephen just turned the dream against Nightmare.

The instant Strange was no longer afraid, he easily beat Nightmare and went out of the bad dream he was in. Nothing from that story actually happened. Nightmare didn't kill any celestials, Nightmare didn't kill Ego. Strange didn't even use some powerful spell to beat him, he just spanked him and threw him out.

The Spider-Man / Venom showing

To Voters - You can skip the discussion of the minute details and scroll to the bottom of this subsection. It's nitpicky and unnecessary to go through all of this. The main point is in a couple of sentences at the bottom. It hasn't been contested by Andy in her post.

Strange explicitly said for Spidey to tap into the dreams of humanity and become one with it, which is why Spiderman was able to do what he did:

In the same comic, Nightmare explains that "God" himself is imagination at its purest:

Now I know you didn't just make the connection and claim that Nightmare is above the Christian God (TOAA) in Marvel. That goes beyond stupid, I won't even entertain the discussion.

What Nightmare said was that RELIGION is imagination in its purest form.

While at it IMAGINATION =/= Nightmare. So yeah, if you just swap out the words that were used like, swap "religion" for "God" and swap "Imagination" for "Dreams" then you get the statement that God = Dreams. But, if i swap the word "Imagination with "Chimeroid" and Religion with "The God of ComicVine" the statement becomes Chimeroid = God of ComicVine.

Do you see how we shouldn't play the game of "let's just swap some words around and hope nobody notices"?

Note that Nightmare never explained God except through the fact that "each religion only sees a small part of God"

So, let's break down your scans further. Firstly, your overcropped claim of Strange telling Spider-Man to meditate and connect to the dreams of all Humanity was done because he was IN THE REALM OF DREAMS. The meditation was to merge the souls of Spidey with the rest of humanity.

So context matters, secondly, it's a small part of what was going on.

And thirdly, are we skipping over the part where Nightmare explains that "Strange is an idiot"?

Anyway, the entire point of my writeup last time around was that Nightmare was unable to do it himself, which was why he tried to manipulate Spidey into doing it. As simple as that. This hasn't been contested as a matter of fact.

While that is impressive, I still think Nightmare operates at a substantially high level, while at his best. Nightmare defeated several Beyonders, toying with them until their energies dissipated(Doctor Strange: Nexus of Nightmares):

I fully agree with that opinion. I never argued against Nightmare being "substantially high". IN fact, i immediately agreed with all universal claims. However, and i must repeat myself. It's the mechanics of his powers that are the issue here. HOW EXACTLY those powers work is more important than how powerful he is in this particular fight.

I'm not even saying his powers wouldn't work on Highfather, i am saying that Nightmare, consistently, has a huge issue with divine beings. They are all "platonic ideas" as my first post showed.

1. Given Thor's showings as shown in Ewing and Cates' runs, it's not a bad feat for Nightmare per se. I'd argue that Thor could be argued as more powerful than Highfather these days.

Then I'd say you maybe should have done that and tried to argue Thor as more powerful than Izaya. I don't see it at all, but even if he was, even his best feats aren't at Nightmare's level. So Thor didn't resist based on his powers, but solely on his divine nature.

That's a unique instance that has never been replicated again, especially since we already saw Nightmare take on a living embodiment of abstract concepts, like gods or Eternity.

Actually, it happened many times. He was only once beaten by Cap, but throughout the debate, I brought up over a dozen times Nightmare was beaten by sub-planetary beings. Eternity isn't a "platonic concept" or a "dream" in the way Thor and Izaya are, he is the embodiment of the universe and in no way related to ideas and beliefs of mortals.

And "Gods"? he never successfully took on any real gods.

Got curbed by Herc, and Hypnos, multiple times unable to work his "magic" on Thor, and then we have Cap, Wolverine, and Venom beating him like a redheaded stepchild.