In this feature, I examine comic book fights that were particularly notable in the wrong side winning (or at least that the fight wasn't won the "right" way). This really isn't a big deal, of course, as it doesn't really matter if the "wrong" person won a fight. But it's fun to talk about!

If you want to suggest a fight for future inclusion in this feature, drop me a line at bcronin@comicbookresources.com. Don't suggest a fight in the comments!

For this installment, we're doing something a bit different, as the Abomination got into two back-to-back "wrong" fights with solo members of the West Coast Avengers, Wonder Man and Hawkeye, so I'm featuring them both here.

As always, the first page spotlights their power levels and the second page examines the fight itself.

The Abomination had an interesting introduction, as he was introduced in Tales to Astonish #90 (by Stan Lee and Gil Kane) as a guy who was vastly stronger than the Hulk...







Stan Lee walked that idea back the very next issue, as Bruce Banner comes up with a way to siphon strength from the Abomination, only the Hulk forces him to stop once the Abomination was weakened enough to be as strong as the Hulk, because the Hulk liked the challenge. They fought to a draw that issue (the Stranger kidnapped the Abomination then).

In his subsequent appearances, the Abomination and Hulk fights followed a familiar pattern. The Abomination was as strong as the Hulk in the basic sense, but the Hulk had his “the madder I get, the stronger I get” ability, so it would start as an even fight, the Hulk would get mad, and he'd win. It got pretty repetitive, to be honest.

That said, the basic idea was that the Abomination held up very well against the Hulk. He couldn't defeat the Hulk, but as you see here in Incredible Hulk #195 (by Len Wein and Sal Buscema and Joe Staton), the Hulk couldn't take him out easily, either...











They were close to evenly matched.

To put Abomination's relative invulnerability into context, check out this bit from Amazing Spider-Man Annual #23 (by Gerry Conway, David Michelinie, Rob Liefeld and Tim Dzon)...





Yes, he just shook off a direct TREMENDOUS punch by THE Spider-Man, the guy who this sick kid once collected. So that's saying a lot.

Wonder Man has had surprisingly little history with the Hulk. When the Hulk was mindless, Wonder Man did very poorly against him, (in Incredible Hulk #322 by Al Milgrom) but Mindless Hulk seemed to be particularly powerful...



In a recent story set in the Joe Fixit era of the Hulk in Hulk Smashes the Avengers #4 (by Jim McCann, Aguistin Padilla and Jaime Mendoza), the much weaker Grey Hulk kicked Wonder Man's ass...





If you treat that story as meaning anything, the Abomination (who by this point was housing the mind of the old Hulk foe Tyrannus, so the Abomination now had telepathic powers, as well) kicked the ass of the Grey Hulk in Incredible Hulk Annual #15 (by Danny Fingeroth and Sal Buscema). Although the Grey Hulk won the rematch, using his rarely implemented “madder he gets, stronger he gets” ability (Green Hulk used it all the time but the Grey Hulk only used it once or twice, I think there was something about him not getting angry the same way).

But anyways, I think that gives us a pretty good idea of where the Abomination and Wonder Man stand. As for Hawkeye, you all know Hawkeye. Dude has a lot of badass arrows. He can be feisty.

On to the fights!

The first fight is in West Coast Avengers #25 (by Steve Englehart, Al Milgrom and Mike Machlan). The main concept of the issue (besides Wonder Man re-dedicating himself to the Avengers during a point where he is seeing his greatest success as an actor) is that Wonder Man is down on himself after being defeated by Thor in West Coast Avengers Annual #2 and not doing particularly well against the Hulk in Incredible Hulk #322-323, so he gets a big ego boost in the issue by defeating the Abomination, but it is a pretty weak fight...









And that's it. The fight's over. Wonder Man doesn't even get in a sort of, "Wow, I just defeated the Abomination way easily" reaction, as the story is more about how no one believes it is a real fight since Wonder Man's studio staged a fake fight earlier in the issue to promote Wonder Man's new movie.

Again, the Abomination is a dude who goes toe to toe with the Hulk on a regular basis. A guy who can take a punch from THE Spider-Man without feeling it. No way Wonder Man zaps him with some electricity and then takes him out in three more hits.

It was simply an overly rushed fight (also, not shown here, but the Abomination's motivations for the fight were awful, as well. He just decides to attack Wonder Man because he's good looking. That's it) with Abomination's sole purpose being to make Wonder Man look good, whether deserved or not. She-Hulk and Spider-Man fought the Abomination soon after this and their plan was to blow up a gasoline truck and then knock him off of a bridge and just leave it at that, simply hope that he goes away. Wonder Man, though, knocks him out with some electricity and three hits. I don't buy it.

That, though, is a step up (as at least Wonder Man IS pretty strong) from how Hawkeye defeats the Abomination a few months later in Solo Avengers #12 (by Tom DeFalco, Ralph Macchio, Ron Lim and Jose Marzan). The Abomination frees himself from prison and heads to the West Coast Avengers headquarters to get revenge on Wonder Man. Only Hawkeye is at home.



First off, let me commend DeFalco for the way that he makes sure Hawkeye never gets close to him, which was one of my main problems with last week's Hawkeye/She-Hulk fight, as if Hawkeye is near the Abomination, the Abomination IS going to grab him and likely kill him.

But Hawkeye keeps him far away with range attacks. Okay, that's smart. Then, after hitting him with a variety of arrows and not doing any damage besides keeping him away from him, Hawkeye gets where he wanted to go, a room with an Adamantium arrow in it. I love that. That's a cool hook. I can totally buy an Adamantium arrow defeating Abomination, so if that's where the story ends (with the Abomination backing off because of the threat, fair enough)...





But no, this happens instead...





The point of the story was for DeFalco and Macchio to address the then-subplot in West Coast Avengers about Hawkeye and Mockingbird splitting up over whether it is ever right to kill someone (as Mockingbird let the guy who raped her die and Hawkeye didn't like that) but it doesn't work for the fight right here, as going to a stun setting against the Abomination is basically saying “this is not going to affect you.” Again, his top explosive arrow did nothing against him, but an electricity arrow set to STUN is going to take him out? That doesn't work.

Great Ron Lim artwork, though. And I still really love that Adamantium arrow idea.

Okay, that's it for this week! Feel free send in suggestions for future installments to bcronin@comicbookresources.com!