[Invincible] When Omni-Man and similar flying bricks switch from fists to knife hands, they seem to go from uselessly pounding one another to instantly removing limbs and piercing bodies. Why does nobody lead with knife hands?

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[Invincible] When Omni-Man and similar flying bricks switch from fists to knife hands, they seem to go from uselessly pounding one another to instantly removing limbs and piercing bodies. Why does nobody lead with knife hands?

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  2. RoboChrist Avatar

    It hurts their fingers to use knife hands. No sense in hurting your fingers when you can punch with proper form.

    If it doesn’t work, then they escalate. And punching works on 99.9% of things a flying brick type encounters.

  3. BlueSabere Avatar

    There’s also a lot of literally catching blows in flying brick fights. If your opponent grabs your knife hand, they can rip off or break your fingers, while that’s a lot harder to do if their vulnerable fingers are curled up in a fist. You gotta soften the enemy up with punches first so they’re too tired to punish you for knife hands.

  4. JackkoMcStab Avatar

    Tenderization, the lead with fists for more or less the same reason people tenderize meat. It makes it softer and easier to cut. Because while punching doesn’t do much damage against other flying bricks it does do some, leaving bruises and small cuts. Otherwise if they start off with knife-hands they risk breaking their fingers on their opponents skin the same way regular people would against each other.

  5. RemnantArcadia Avatar

    When it comes to Viltrumites, they plain don’t fight to kill one another. Even with the tactical issues of immediate knife mode, you don’t get over the instinct to not kill right away.

  6. WearifulSole Avatar

    Same reason martial artists use fists instead of knife hands in irl fights. I practice kung fu, and a knife hand can be devastating if used effectively. Whether used as a thrust or a chop. But if used poorly, you’re going to inflict little to no damage and just break your fingers instead.

    If you don’t hurt your opponent with your strike, then they’re going to punish you for it.

    So, they use fists because they’re more reliable to inflict damage and harder to punish until they find an opening to deliver a much more serious blow without retaliation.

  7. Educational_Ad_8916 Avatar

    You have to apply a certain amount of hash marks on their drawing before you can cut them.

  8. Chimney-Imp Avatar

    My theory is that knife hands are a high risk, high reward tactic. You see Mark do it right away against multi-paul. But against tougher opponents you gotta punch em enough to tire them out so they don’t catch your hand and break your fingers

  9. eachtoxicwolf Avatar

    Knife hands tend to equal wanting to kill first ask questions later. Using proper form for punching also leads to the point others made that you can weak enemies to the point where you can knife hands. A lot of heroes open up with disabling blows first.

  10. Own_Initiative1893 Avatar

    Probably because you could headbutt their hand and break it. 

    I saw this exact gag play out in the Tokyo ghoul manga.

  11. potatocheezguy Avatar

    I’m not caught up, but i don’t remember them using knife hands on anything as tough as them. My first thought was that it probably only works on things “softer” than they are like humans.

  12. CaptainCold_999 Avatar

    Because invincible is dumb as hell.

  13. SanityPlanet Avatar

    Another question I always wonder about, why don’t these powered fighters ever bother with chokes or submission holds? Clearly most of the force of punching is absorbed by sending the target flying and then crashing through several obstacles and causing tons of collateral damage. But an arm bar would or heel hook would give them the leverage to actually break bones, while a rear naked choke (if they need circulation to function) held by super strength would quickly incapacitate.

  14. TheSuperContributor Avatar

    Because your whole hands are fragile. Trained fighters break their hand while fighting all the time. When you fight another brick, you lose your physical advantage and risk injuring your hands.