Halloween Verse Challenge: Michael Myers Comparison

 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN BOYS AND GHOULS!!! It’s My fave Night of the Year, so Today I’m Gonna be doing this Special Blog on the Biggest Horror Franchise to Carry the Holiday’s Namesake, Halloween. The Films started as a simple, low budget slasher chiller by director John Carpenter, But has since grown into a crazy Choose Your Own Adventure story about a Spooky Psychopath Stabbing people on Halloween, containing numerous different timelines, universes and continuities. Which Begs the Question, Which of these Various Michael Myers’ is truly the Real Boogeyman. Let's Break it down.

Thorn Myers:

The First version of Myers’ spawned from the original Film, John Carpenter's Halloween from 1978, and continued on in the Sequels, Halloween II in 1981, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers in 1988, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers in 1989, and Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers in 1995, which actually had two different cuts that drastically changed the story, giving this version the most overall films, although not by much. In these Films, Michael Myers is a pure evil killing machine being affected by The Curse of Thorn, a Celtic Druid Curse that grants him supernatural powers and an uncontrollable drive to murder his entire bloodline and any who stand in his way to fulfill the ritual of Samhain, hence the title, Thorn Myers. Back when I made my Halloween VS Strategy Guide, I said that I thought Thorn Myers was the most powerful, but that was more of an assumption on my part, and I also wasn’t considering the Rob Zombie Reboot, and additional Halloween Material has come out since then, so let's see how that assumption pans out. Overall this Myers’ spread of films is really good, like Halloween II where at the end, Michael gets caught in the epicenter of a fiery gas explosion that obliterated the entire section of the Hospital he was in, which I calced to be Low Building level, and since Dr. Loomis also managed to survive this, and Michael can easily overpower him, his strength also scales. That said by far the Most valuable Film in this spread is Halloween 4. In that Movie Michael Myers manages to move fast enough to catch up to a pickup truck speeding down the highway, climb onto it while it's still moving, and Kill everyone in the bed before anyone inside realized. Michael would likely have had to have been moving over 100 Mph doing this, 4 times faster than the fastest speed any human has ever ran, and more than 1/8th the speed of sound. This film also Features the Best Feats of Michael’s Regeneration and Illusion abilities, allowing him to Regenerate from having dozens and dozens of massive shotgun blasts pumped through is body by a firing squad and still get back up, he's been run over by a car, been shot numerous times in the brain and heart, and stabbed a crazy amount of times. His Illusions can project images of himself to throw people off and misdirect them, or give them horrific nightmares. Myers’ also gets some decent feats in the rest of the films. In Halloween II he was able to storm the Haddonfield Police Station and kill every single officer inside so swiftly no one even called for help. He's also successfully escaped from Smiths Grove insane asylum twice, taught himself how to perfectly drive despite being in there since he was 6, and in Halloween 5, literally misdirected the entire police force away from his target via a phantom army strategy.

Strode Myers:

This brings us to our 2nd Myers, the Strode Myers, named due to the series’ close following of the original film’s main character, Laurie Strode. This Timeline keeps Both the original Halloween and Halloween II, but Nixes 4-6, instead building from 2 with the film Halloween H20: 20 Years Later in 1998, and then its sequel, Halloween: Resurrection in 2002. In these Films Myers is still a supernatural serial killer out to kill his sister, but all of the Cult of Thorn stuff is left out, leaving his powers completely unexplained and left to the imagination. This timeline grants Michael the least amount of total kills, despite having the 2nd most movies, and portrays Michael as being the most vulnerable, being fought evenly with and defeated first by Laurie Strode in H20, and then again in Resurrection by Freddie Harris, played by rapper Busta Rhymes, and the decision to drop Halloween 4 from the canon certainly won’t be helping, but let’s break down what this version does excel at. Firstly, Strode Myers is actually Stronger and more Durable than the Thorn one. This is because Halloween II is still canon, meaning Strode Myers, tanked the same gas explosion, but he also endured it much more casually. Thorn Myers was put into a coma by that blast, getting captured for 10 years before being revived by the power of Samhain, but in H20 Laurie states that in this timeline they never even found Myers’ body, and then he just shows up later in the movie with no dramatic resurrection stuff, meaning he was clearly fine enough after the blast to escape the area. And while Loomis DID die in the blast this time, this Michael still does get strength scaling to this due to having to fight characters that can harm him, like Laurie and Freddie. Speedwise, Michael still maintains the feat of being able to kill the entire Haddonfield police force at a rapid pace in Halloween II, which should be a low superhuman level speed feat. While he doesn’t have as impressive feats of regeneration as Halloween 4, he still manages to have fairly good ones, including being shot numerous times in his face and chest in the first two halloween’s, being repeatable stabbed with knives and hit with an Axe in H20, and being hung from a building, hit with a chainsaw and horribly electrocuted in Resurrection, and being fine. One thing this Myers is also Lacking in is his illusions, with his powers being much more limited and unexplored, and never once fooling someone. But by Far the best thing this Myers has going for him is sheer intelligence. Strode Myers is smart enough to track Laurie down despite her going into witness protection, actually frames other people for his murders to keep the police from knowing he's alive, and literally faked his own death by crushing a paramedics Larynx and swapping clothes with him so he could escape while Laurie chops the wrong guys head off.

Rob Zombie Myers:

Next, Musician and Grindhouse Horror Director, Rob Zombie, was tasked with Rebooting the Halloween Franchise, making it a darker, grittier, more ‘realistic’ and cynical, and exploring Myers backstory and psychology…...I’m not really a fan, but hey, I’m giving these an objective shake. Being a Reboot, this version doesn’t rely on any previous films, solely using Rob Zombie’s Halloween from 2007 and its sequel, Rob Zombie’s Halloween II in 2009 both of which have notably different Director’s cuts to consider. This Myers was an abused tormented child who lived in a broken redneck home with his stripper mom and her alcoholic abusive boyfriend, causing him to torture animals, become obsessed with masks and other psychopathic tendencies, until he snapped and murdered tons of people, including most of his family, then broke out of an insane asylum later and kept on killing people and trying to find his sister Laurie. Because it's a reboot, it isn’t relying on feats from any previous films, becoming wholly independent, and also due to Zombie’s desire for the films to be more realistic, his supernatural powers take a pretty drastic nerf, to the point he doesn’t even have Illusion powers. Some people may point to his Ghost mom and younger him from Part II as an example of his illusion powers, but no one ever sees these things except Michael and his sister who is also unhinged, heavily implying they are either a separate ghost entity, or merely just a shared delusion between them. Anyway Rob Zombie Myers is a towering 6’9 and constantly portrayed to be incredibly strong, able to bust through wooden doors with ease and break himself out of metal shackles. In Part II he literally flips a car over with his raw brute strength. He's also surprisingly speedy and skilled, being able to take out four policemen armed with shotguns at the same time, despite them having him surrounded and him not having a weapon, already killing 3 of them before someone got a shot off. And while his Regeneration also took a nerf for these movies, he was still able to survive being shot through the forehead by a revolver at the end of part 1, and that's in addition to being shot no less than 3 times by Loomis earlier. That said, This Myers is still relatively mortal, able to be killed by being stabbed or shot about a half dozen times in the upper chest, and that’s in addition to him being relatively unintelligent, mostly being a large child minded psycho who solves every problem with brute force, he’s the only iteration of Myers that cannot drive a car.

Modern Myers:

After the Reboot, they decided to take the franchise back to basics by going back to the original John Carpenter’s Halloween and making a 3rd Timeline from it. This new timeline, which I dub the modern timeline, uses only Halloween (1978) and ignores every single sequel, even including Halloween II, and has built from there with the movie Halloween in 2018, and most recently Halloween: Kills in 2021. Although hilariously, the masks from silver shamrock in Halloween III consistently show up in these movies. In this timeline, Michael is yet again a supernatural serial killer, but is left even more mysterious, as not only is there no explanation for his powers, but the removal of Halloween II also removes the plot point of Laurie being Michael’s sister. This makes it the only timeline where they are completely unrelated, and makes Myers out to have absolutely no motive, just committing random acts of violence. Anyway, without Halloween II, this Michael doesn’t scale to the gas explosion, which is important as the original Halloween doesn’t have nearly as impressive physical feats, like carrying a large tombstone several miles, falling off a 2nd story balcony and punching through a door. This means Modern Myers will fittingly rely on the modern movies pretty heavily. In Halloween 2018, Michael manages to endure being hit head on by a speeding cop car, although it does knock him out for a few minutes. He is also shown in that movie to be capable of crushing parts of the human body like grapes, and smash through hardwood pretty casually. He also gets the intelligence feats of somehow learning to drive a car, escaping from Smith’s Grove Sanitarium twice, and tracking down those documentary filmmakers who had his mask. However this Myers’ most important film is Halloween Kills. In this movie Myers is able to quickly regenerate from being shot and stabbed about a dozen times that night and beaten to a bloody pulp by a neighborhood lynch mob armed with Blades, Clubs and Firearms. He also shows a tremendous amount of fighting skill, being able to defeat the entire Haddonfield fire department, who were armed with Axes and Buzzsaws, in a 20 on 1 fight, and later dispatch that entire lynch mob at once after getting back up. Some say this version actually can Teleport, although that would make a giant plothole with the end of the first film, more likely this is just a speed feat of being able to run across a street into a home within the 3 seconds Lonnie turned away, which would be consistent with him murdering everyone in the gas station in Halloween 2018 in under one minute. This version of Myers also has illusions, though not nearly as impressive, being about as strong as the Strode Myers’. Although he does have one totally unique power, that being his ability to draw power from his victims, becoming stronger and more unstoppable with each person he slays.

So in Comparison, I Actually think that the Rob Zombie Myers VS The Modern Myers would be a pretty interesting fight. The two have similar speed and fighting skill levels, with RZ Myers being stronger and more physically powerful, but the Modern Myers covering it with better regeneration and the ability to become stronger by killing surrounding people. Would make for an interesting fight of who could wear the other down first, though I think I would side with the Modern Myers due to him displaying better intelligence and skill, and could well become stronger than him by dealing enough carnage. The Strode Myers is clearly beyond both these two, having pretty notably better Strength and Durability than either of them, better overall regeneration, and significantly better intelligence, while still being comparable in all other categories. With this in Mind, Strode Myers could create a more complex strategy to ensure he successfully attacks them while they fail to do the same, and his better ability to dish out, stop, and recover from damage, make that all the more easy to pull off. But then you have to compare the Thorn Myers, who would also be above these two most recent versions for similar reasons, while also having the clear cut fastest speed, better regeneration and illusions, and the best skill feat, as Killing an entire police force is more impressive than doing the same thing with a group of firemen and rioters who are mostly armed with melee weapons. Now yes Thorn and Strode Myers do not have access to that whole drawing power from his victims schtick that the Modern one does, this could potentially allow him to surpass them overtime like I argued he could with the RZ Myers (considering he'd only have to go from Wall Level/Low Superhuman to Small Building Level/Subsonic I think it's reasonable to assume he can get there without NLF), but consider than in Halloween Kills alone, the Modern Myers kills like 3 dozen people and still doesn’t get any higher end feats surpassing himself in Halloween 2018, very heavily implying that the boost he gains is rather small and he’d have to kill probably hundreds of people before he could compete which is just not happening during a fight. Now the Big question, Strode Myers VS Thorn Myers. So as stated previously, I think Strode Myers has the edge in actual strength and durability, due to him enduring the Explosion from Halloween II, better than the Thorn one did. But, as the Thorn one also did endure the Halloween II explosion as well, the gap here is pretty marginal so they could very well compete. Since the Thorn Timeline has Halloween 4, he also has Mid regeneration, which is superior to the Strode Myers having only Low-Mid, meaning that despite Strode Myers being slightly stronger, Thorn Myers can definitely endure his hits a lot better than Strode Myers can endure hits from him. We know that Strode Myers could die if decapitated, which is why he made an elaborate escape attempt to avoid it, yet as far as we know, The Thorn one may be able to survive that. Thorn Myers also has Bar none the best feats in Speed, Illusions and Skill, as yes while Strode Myers’ technically has that same cop massacring skill feat, he also has a lot more moments of vulnerability with being defeated in fights by Laurie and Freddie, which just doesn’t really happen in the Thorn Timeline. Yes the Strode Myers is smarter, but Thorn Myers is certainly no slouch either, and his ability to run relative circles around him, or throw him off with illusions, mean it's not that big of a hurdle to cross. I believe a fight between them would basically just be Thorn timeline Michael outmaneuvering him and stabbing him until he eventually wears Strode Myers down. Because of this it should be pretty clear that I was right in my assumption that Thorn Myers is the best, being the fastest, having the best supernatural properties and the best skill bar none, while also having a close second place in DC/Dura and Intelligence. This is largely due to the fact that most of Thorn timeline Myers’ movies were made in the 80’s where movies weren’t afraid to get wild and crazy and over the top with what's going on, and for this reason I feel pretty confident saying that not only could Thorn Myers defeat any of these other version, but he would almost certainly defeat all 3 versions at once, even if they were actively working together against him. Thus is the Curse of Thorn…...Happy Halloween.