DTL Season 5-Wildcards

[DTL Commish]

The rules:
This is one of four threads containing matches.
Due to the holiday, these threads will be in use for 9 days. Days 1-4 (Mar 12 - Mar 15) are strictly setup time for owners to plead their cases, tell us their team’s strategies, breakdown the match ups, and do whatever else they can/want to do to try and convince you that their team would pull out a victory. Please, let the owners do this on their own with no help.

On Day 5 (Mar 16) I will post and tell everyone that voting may begin. Any votes cast before I open voting will not count. Look over the matchups and read the strategies, and take into consideration how in-character each character is. Afterwards, use your best judgment to decide who you think has the best chance to win the match. (Note: The length of a writeup the discretion of the owner. Do not punish owners just for having a shorter writeup.)

To vote, post the team names you think will prevail in each match. Remember to vote for all matches or your vote will not count! The teams with the highest vote total at the end of the 9th day (Mar 20) will get a W while the other will get an L. (Equal votes will result in a tie.)

The battleground for this week is: Asteroid-M


Timely Conference

Chaos & Order
Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner) (DU) - Wields a ring that creates hard light constructs limited only by imagination and willpower.
Exodus (MU) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_%28comics%29) - Mutant with powerful psionic abilities.
Vision (MM) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_%28Marvel_Comics%29) - Synthezoid with super strength, durability, flight, energy blasts, intangibility.
Ambrose Chase (DR) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Chase) - Localized selective physics distortion field.
Proctor (MR) (http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix2/proctorgatherers.htm) - Super strength, durability, teleportation, energy blasts, Ebony Blade.

VS.

Deadpool's Harem
Thordis (MU) (http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/thordis.htm) - god-like speed, reflexes, strength, and durability. Powers granted by Mjolnir
Wonder Woman (DU) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_woman) - Immortal being with superhuman strength, speed, stamina, agility, and durability
Byakko (DM) - Wraith like being, able to turn herself and others intangible, disrupts electronic devices, controls gravity
Deadpool (MR) (http://www.marvel.com/universe/Deadpool) - enhanced agility, reflexes, healing factor. Paraphenelia: image inducer, teleporter
Jaine Cutter MR (http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/jainec.htm) - second skin, forged from minerals of the River Styx, nigh indestructible save for a powerful enough magic attack

_______________________________

National Conference

The Authorititans
Red King (DU)--Tech genius, various supercountermeasures, flight, energy manip, superstrength, supersenses, immunity to telepathy, electropathy, freeze breath, superarmor, superspeed
Resurrection Man 1-Million (DU)--ability to choose whatever powerset he wants, flight, strength
Engineer (Post-Worldstorm or Armageddon or whichever version; it's not LadyVader's version, and the Post-Worldstorm and Armageddon versions are practically identical, for all intents and purposes) (DM)--nanobots allowing her to change her molecular structure, complete technopathy over almost all forms of tech
Anarky (DR)--martial arts, tech, and tactical supergenius
Midnighter (DR)--enhanced strength, agility, and senses, ability to predict all possible outcomes of a battle.

VS.

B'wana Bet?
Baron Helmut Zemo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Zemo#Baron_Helmut_Zemo) (with Moonstones)(MU)- The gravimetric Moonstones grant Zemo his own version of Cosmic Awareness and powers, including the ability to manipulate time and space and phase himself and others, in addition to his own natural skills and prodigious leadership ability.
Ares (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ares_%28DC_Comics%29#Post-Crisis)(1 (http://herochat.com/forum/index.php/topic,157134.msg2559080.html#msg2559080)) (DU) - The Olympian God of War, Conflict, and Death, and gains power from all three. Possesses vast superhuman strength and durability, magical armor, the Staff of Hades (which devours life), and various mystical, devine and spiritual powers, including energy-projection and interdimensional teleportation.
Lightray (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightray) (DM) - Faster than light, superhuman strength and durability, energy conversion, and light manipulation. Lightray is highly-intelligent and possesses a Mother Box.
Reed Richards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_Richards) (MR) - Elastic supergenius.[/quote]
Batman 1-Million (DR) - Gengeneered, flight, advanced martial-arts (psychic element), technopathy, Datarangs, avatars, tesseract technology.

[wiegeabo]

Prep-Time here...

"Wonder Woman's team again." Kyle says matter-of-factly. But he knew there was nothing was matter-of-fact when it came to fighting her.

Proctor: "So what is your plan."

Kyle: "Haven't a clue," he says as he considers the constructs before them.

Proctor: "You must know the best way to fight her. You are teammates."

Kyle: "That's the problem. We were teammates. She's a born warrior. As many ways as I know how to fight her, she probably knows a hundred times that number to fight me."

Vision: "I have some data on Cutter and Deadpool. But none one the others."

"Who the hell are you people?" Everyone looks at Ambrose, the newest member of the team.

Kyle: "Um, we're your new team, and we're trying to figure out how not to get totally trashed by the other guys."

Chase: "And I'm supposed to trust you?"

Kyle looks around at the others. "Do you have any other choice?"

Chase considers them for a few moments, then shrugs his shoulders. "So do we have any advantages at all?"

Exodus: "Yes, a significant one. I know this place very well. Asteroid-M."

Kyle: "Pretty fancy asteroid."

Exodus: "Lord Magneto spent a great deal of time constructing it to protect all the mutants of the world."

Proctor: "Magneto is no lord."

Exodus just focuses on the constructs. "Your words are meaningless."

Vision: "Your knowledge does give us a significant tactical advantage. If you could help me to tap into the station's computer systems..."

Exodus: "I doubt you need my help. But I will assist where I can."

Proctor: "Unless there are weapons specifically capable of defeating our enemies, then we will need more than just knowledge of this base."

Chase: "It doesn't sound like we do. So I say we start focusing on our opponents."

Kyle: "I guess I'll take Thordis."

Exodus: "So Wonder Woman is mine."

Kyle: "As creepy as that sounds, yeah. I'll tell you everything I can about her."

Chase: "That's all fine and well. But what about the others?"

Kyle: "..."

Exodus: "..."

Vision: "..."

Proctor: "..."

Chase: "...I miss my old team."

[wiegeabo]

Battle Part I

There's no reason for the ubers to hide. Only Kyle can leave the confines of the Asteroid (maybe Exodus if he can keep a tk field up). But what's the point if their opponents can't. So the four run into each other. Hopefully in the strongest part of the asteroid with the power these four are going to be throwing around.

A psionic blast separates Wonder Woman and Thorids. Kyle grabs Thordis in a bubble and drags her away knowing that he can't afford to be in a fight with Diana. This leaves Exodus alone with Wonder Woman until-

"Surprise!!!" Wade shouts as he teleports between them, swords drawn. "Let the fight begin!"

"Wilson! You weren't supposed to help the others before coming here," Diana says.

"I got a little too excited." He turns to look at Diana. "But don't call it premature, or anything. I don't have that problem...usually."

Exodus takes the opportunity to try and shut down Wade's mind, but gets nowhere. "Tryin' to mess with the ol' nogin, right?" He pulls a gun and fires a full clip into Exodus' face as he starts jumping around, striking cool poses, like a ninja on crack. "HA. Take that! And that! Yeah, you like that, don't ya?"

When the gunfire smoke clears, all the bullets are held in place telekenitcally and drop to the floor. "Whoa. Is your name Neo?"

Exodus sighs. "Now please." From the ground comes Vision who phases up through the floor, grabs wade by his uniform, and phases them both out of the room. "Shall we finally get to the fight?" Exodus asks the amazon.

She grabs her lasso and readies herself. "Yes."

***

With a single blow of her hammer, Thordis frees herself from Kyle's bubble. But he does what he set out to do: get her away from Diana. And now their fight can begin.

"I am the goddess of thunder and lightening itself. The daughter of Odin. Surrender now and save yourself pain and humiliation."

"Lady, I carry the most powerful weapon in the universe (so I've been told), and fought people who've called themselves gods. You think you're going to intimid-" Faster than Kyle expects, Thordis slams her fist across his face.

Kyle bounces along the ground a couple of times, plays with his jaw a bit, and smiles. "This is going to be fun."

***

Sticking together, Proctor and Ambrose quickly make their way through the Asteroid's corridors prepared for anything. Vision gave them the position of their opponents when he was tapped into the internal sensors. But after he left, they were essentially blind, not knowing where they'd be now.

Ambrose starts to sweat and drop his arm. "Why is my arm so tired?"

The tip of Proctor's blade hit the ground as he lets his arm sag. "Probably the same reason my sword just became so heavy?"

Proctor disappears and Ambrose falls to his knees. "Nice trick," he struggles to say.

"Manipulating gravity is much more than a trick," a voice says from nowhere.

"Says...you." Ambrose leans against the wall. "Come...out and...face me."

A ghostly presence sticks her head out from a wall. "Happy?"

"Nope. Just...wanted to tell...you some...thing." Byakko looks on curiously. Ambrose smiles. "I can do it too!" He yells as he manipulates the gravity around him in the opposite direction and leaps into the air. He fires his gun, and every round hits home. But that just means they pass through Byakko's body as she exits the wall and gives chase.

"You're weapons will have no effect on me." She closes the gap.

"I don't need them to." Ambrose suddenly stops.

"Your confidence will..be..your...down...fa...l...l......" Byakko can't even think fast enough to realize that Ambrose has slowed down time around her to a crawl. Now comes the hard part, keeping her there. Ambrose finds himself a nice place with cover and gets his guns ready. Just in case...


...more to come...

[LadyVader]

is it to late to turn this into a theme week? We haven't had one of those in a long time

(seems to me we sorta forgot all about theme weeks this season, I can only remember one)

[wiegeabo]

We had two. But doesn't not having them a lot make them all the more special?

[LadyVader]

If I was a mean person I would say: "Don't confuse them with your sex life"

Good thing I'm not a mean person. :)

[wiegeabo]

Um, yeah...good thing...

:(

[Dark Gog]

This space reserved.

[Dark Gog]

Ladies and gentlemen, the aim of this essay is to establish Paste Boy Pete as Tuber. If, along the way, I convince you that my team should win this round, all the better. Let there be no two ways about it though, this is about how awesome gluing stuff to other stuff really is.


Communication Breakdown


The fight starts familiarly enough, with an EMP and/or virus, designed by my team to cripple the opposition's technology as much as possible.

Zemo and Ares can port in anything they need directly, thereby avoiding exposing it to the process in the first place. The Regs spend a moment behind the looking-glass before stepping back in the station.

Several permanent portals now connect parts of the Asteroid, giving B'wanas a bit more maneuverability.

Batman sends an avatar with each member of the team, allowing for quick coordination.


Zemo vs. Resurrection Man


Resurrection Man attempts to use his Quantum Speed to locate and remove Zemo. Unfortunately, he is preemptively phased, and as gravity catches up to Shelley, he finds it nearly impossible to move. The same force crushes any nanotechnology that may be homing-in on Zemo or the Moonstones.

"This room's reserved for the bigwigs", he hears Zemo explain, "regular super-strength won't be enough to let you so much as stand." He feels a light breeze against his brow as he struggles to get up. Air flows into the room directly from the Bavarian Alps.

"Ah yes, and the floor's been laced with a new brand of Adhesive X."

Shelley taps his wrist once, and:
a) Takes the power of telepathy, but even normal Zemo had some psi-protection.
b) Phases
c) Assumes gravitational powers of his own, but I doubt that he could beat Zemo at his own game, and the other options all give Helmut that extra bit of time, which he'll have anyway, holding the advantage of surprise, and with resurrection taking a moment to complete.
d) His resurrector'd been impaired by the EMP, in which case, of-course, he's toast.
e) He tries using his Boom-Suit instead, in which case see below.

Zemo freezes him in place, and moves on.


Ares vs. Red King


Blasts of unimaginable power meet half-way, and the entire station rattles. Profitt is more maneuverable, but he recognizes wanton destruction serves the War God's cause here, and changes tactics.

Ares and the Red King collide, and it is Ares that's pushed back. But when the dust settles, they are still inseparable. Adhesive X was coating the massive figure's chest plate. Profitt utters an explicit, and unleashes his full electric powers on him, but Ares bears through it, and moves them both into Areopagus, where the very elements rebel against the Red King.

Even locked in a death-grip with someone who controls his own shape and equippment, and with his armor partly disabled, he may still have a chance at winning. Unfortunately, he has no way of traversing dimensions. He needed an access key to enter or leave the Materioptikon, and he was using a built-in teleporter to go around, which might have needed the JLA's Watchtower to even work.

He never gets the chance either, as thinking he is done with Shelley, Zemo ports in and helps bring him down.


Lightray vs. The Engineer


Lightray's quick to seek-out Angie. With technology and electronic communication impaired, now would naturally be the time move against her, and of-course her nanites were their main target all along. His body radiates intense heat, to hopefully destroy any contaminating element. Zemo warned him he had seen The Engineer attempt to poison him with Radion from inside his own body.

Unable to fully control her armor, she makes for a relatively easy target. He (eventually?) fries her within it, and – once certain she is out – Boom Tubes her to the Earth below. Power begins to return to the station. He is busy finding and similarly dispatching her doubles, when a device emitting high-frequency sound suddenly returns to life. Imperceptible to the human ear, the effect on someone moving at Lightray's speeds is devastating.

But even retching on his knees and about to lose consciousness, he is the first on the battlefield to register that Resurrection Man had broken out.


"Son, are you retarded? I'm the Goddamn Batman."


"I've met the real Batman. You're not him."

"You think there's only one Batman?" A dozen dark figures circle Anarky. "No, the Batman is a concept. I am justice. I am retribution. And you're out of time." Lonnie Machin reels even before struck, as Batman applies his favourite martial-arts technique.

Elsewhere, Mr. Fantastic has been able to lure The Midnighter into a trap. His systems being offline, he did not recognise Adhesive X for what it is. Both Reed and Batman are packing Zemo's old glue guns. They wonder how they ever did without them.

But as they begin to clear-up after themselves, Resurrection Man finally breaks free. Unable to find his opponents, he again uses speed to inacapitate Reed in an instant, before confronting his old companion.

-"I'm sorry to have to do this, Batman."

-"I'm sorry too, Mitch. Savage was over-elaborate as usual, but I always knew the way to bring any of you down was simple."

Shelley's body glows as his Boom-Suit activates. His ressurector is an ingenius device, nearly flawlessly defended against outside interference. But the Justice Legion always took their teleporters for granted. Specifically designed to accept the right signals, his avatar reprogrammed it even as Zemo engaged the Legionnere. But he held off, hoping Zemo's own plan would be enough.

The sealed chamber he sends him into contains a powerful liquid toxin and an electronic neuro-scrambler. It will work. It has to. Shelley must leave himself open to that route of attack for the alien larvae he uses to resurrect himself to have any effect. But it is a terrible fate to send anyone into, even temporarily.

[Dark Gog]

The Red King isn't a genuine super-genius, he just found a way to make others come-up with ideas for him, and applied it across countless different timelines. Before that, he was just an ordinary man stuck in a job he couldn't even understand. For that matter, I've heard similar things said about Angie. Not that she isn't highly intelligent, just that she happened across the previous Engineer's nanites and arguably couldn't have invented them herself. While she and Anarky, plus anything the Red King knew how to make, are no doubt capable, its probably their productive capacity that should be most worrying here.

Conversly, Batman's from the 853rd century, capable of boosting existing technology, literally doing several different things at once using his digital avatars, and has a 1,045 points IQ. He managed to isolate the Batcomputer from the Solaris Virus, which was itself propogated by beyond state-of-the-art techno-organic nanites. So obviously, when it comes to technological warfare, there are no absolutes, and working with Reed Richards and a Mother Box, along with whatever's on the battlefield and using Zemo's lab, they should be capable of coming-up with something pretty effective.

Finally, Ares can enchant the weapon when they're done.

Even if the Red King and The Engineer can partially protect their systems, Anarky and Midnighter should be pretty screwed. Aditionally, Both Reed and Batman already favor using EMPs or scrambling electronics.

Ressurection Man is also ultimately tech based, so he may be compromised himself, but for the most part I've assumed his powers function properly.


The Ubers


Red King is immensely powerful, but probably a bit to orthodox in his abilities to be a real threat to Zemo. He'll probably prefer to engage Ares, as he represents more of a known quantity, and Profitt was all about hedging his bets. Resurrection Man is a better match for Zemo, and Ares can do some real damage to him, so the above match-ups seem the most likely to me. Zemo's strategy should work just as well against RK, and depending on the power chosen, so should Ares' against Shelley.

The Red King has some precautions against Amazonian magic, although that doesn't really describe Ares. That said, he also incorporated other mystical protections in his armor and killed Doctor Fate, but Ares should still be able to at-least give him a fight.

http://img206.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wonderwoman209page17vz6.jpg
http://img513.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wonderwoman197p19oq1.jpg
http://img514.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wonderwoman218page12ri4.jpg

As you can see, Ares can manipulate his armor's shape and properties extensively at will, so fixing it with an adhesive shouldn't actually prove much of a gamble.

Plastic Man listed speed among Red King's assets, but I'm not sure whether that was much more than travel pace. (he listed intelligence too; first-impressions can be tricky that way). Either way, it wasn't up to par with the Flash or anything, and again, he used teleportation to get around. Of-course, gluing them together should account for that in part. : p


Mitch was very candid with his allies regarding his abilities, and Batman can brief my team in detail about him, up-to and including his fight with Savage. Admittedly, I'm making the assumption Aristotle won't be re-using Quantum Telekinesis, for several reasons: I don't know whether RM can recall powers he had before he gained that ability (albeit he does have some time here to approximate it); it's hardly a guarenteed win, and failed the last time they'd met, which would also give Helmut a fair idea of how to counter it; I'm still not sure what it is. The way it was described the last time might push this version of RM into Tubular territory.


Other odds and ends:

Naturally, my team does sweep the station for weapons, and anything unusual then can turn to their
advantage.

In the awkward event The Authorititans are targeting my tech themselves, and set their plan off first, and manage to render my own device inoperable.. let's just say we made a double waiting to be summoned by Zemo/Ares.

[Aristotle]

Prep Time
“Well, folks, it's time for a rematch,” begins Anarky. “I know two of you remember these guys as well as I do. Angie, you weren't around for this, but the last time we faced these boys, we took a loss. And as much as I'd like to blame it on the refs, at the end of the day, we shouldn't have made it close enough that things like that could impact the outcome. That match should have been in the bag for us, and if I'm honest, I don't think we took them seriously, and we paid for it. We won't make that mistake again.”

“This week's lineup is a little better suited to fighting them, I think, and as much as some of their boys will have a good time with the tech here, I'm pretty sure we've got one up on them with Angie. Midnighter, you and I will need to work a little harder on their regs this time. No wussing out and calling on anyone else for help. Everyone has to pull their ****ing weight during this match. This is the postseason now. This is when it really counts.”

“We'll discuss this straight down the line, folks, starting with the lower end. Once again, they're fielding Reed Richards, and I feel like I've got a much better handle on him this time. Red King, I'm going to need to put some of your tech expertise to work in prep time, but I believe I've got a plan, based on what I've read on you from the JLA's classified files, provided that the computers here on the asteroid can provide me with what I want.”

“Midnighter, you'll be taking on future-Batman. Now he's got a few edges on the version of Batman you've already taken down. This guy has flight, which shouldn't be a major factor in these close quarters, very highly advanced martial arts with some sort of psychic element, technopathy, tesseract technology, and some damn thing called datarangs. Oh, and avatars. Nothing you can't handle, I expect. Just know that he'll put you through a couple paces. Still, as usual, yours should probably be the easiest battle.”

“Engineer, your solution is perhaps the most involved. Basically, we need you plugged in at a moment's notice to take over every scrap of tech in this base. Your tech expertise is lightyears beyond Richards or Batman or any of their guys. You can have control of this base inside a nanosecond, and from there, you'll be able to reach out through comms tech and take over all of their tech and equipment and dispose of it immediately. However, that still leaves you with the problem of Lightray. Fortunately, with the scientific expertise of Red King, you, and me, we should have no trouble whipping up a certain special something to take him out.”

“Alright, Red King. We'll be relying heavily on you in this match. You're basically going to be our offensive line in this situation. We'll play this two-on-two. You move ahead up front, and take the brunt of their attacks. Your countermeasures will basically be able to neutralize a lot of their attacks, and whatever gets past those, your armor should take care of. And if anything gets past you, Mitch will be ready to deal with it on a quantum level—Mitch, that's your starting powerset, quantum awareness, so you will need to do a little defensive work warding off Zemo's reality warps. Now Mitch, you'll be working full-time offense, because Red King should be giving you a lot of time in the pocket. Work on these guys at an atomic level, especially Ares. He's all magic, he ain't got **** on science. Of course, Red King, you'll be contributing whatever you can to the offensive as well. Hopefully, Ares goes down first, leaving both of you against an on-the-ropes Zemo.”

“Alright, boys, let's go to work.”

In the remainder of prep time, Anarky, Red King, and Engineer outfit all the team members with psi-blockers, not only for their heads, but for their various pieces of tech. Everyone is outfitted with a heads-up tac display, enhanced by Red King's metahuman tracking system, all linked together. Anarky and Red King have theirs in their helmet. Engineer's and Midnighter's are mental. Resurrection Man has cosmic awareness, so he really doesn't need one. They also put together a little weapon for Anarky, and put together a countermeasure for Angie.

[Aristotle]

Battle Time
Engineer vs. Lightray
The countermeasure is, of course, a radiation emitter keyed to simulate Radion, the kryptonite of the New Gods (of which Lightray is one.) As soon as the starting bell rings, Angie is into the systems of the asteroid base, taking over every bit of the technology and equipment that is part of the base, or in the hands of the opposing team. She immediately shuts down and sabotages B'Wana Bet's equipment, and then puts the radiation emitter to work. Using various ventilation systems and transmission systems, she turns the entire base into a de facto Radion asteroid, emanating Radion emissions from all directions. This all takes place in a quintillionth of a nanosecond, faster even than Lightray can move. He gets remarkably far, but he cannot withstand the onslaught of radiation. He crumples to the ground, heaving and writhing in pain. Lightray is down.

Midnighter vs. Batman-1M
Batman is not used to having his tech taken away from him and turned into a puppet. Whoever this engineer is, she must be incredibly formidable to overpower the technological savvy of one of the greatest minds of the 853rd century. Still, he can't worry about that now. He's got an opponent to fight. Under normal circumstances, he might have tried to take on Anarky first, trusting in his superior martial arts and technological skill to deliver a victory, but without his tech to back him up, he thinks a pure martial arts battle might make more sense. Let Richards deal with the tech genius. He communicates the change in plans, and moves rapidly through the halls of the asteroid.

Midnighter, meanwhile, is also gunning for Batman, and has a display in his head to tell him where to move. Presently, the two converge in one of the training rooms. For an eternal moment, the two stand motionless, assessing one another. Then they strike with a speed and ferocity almost unmatched in the world of comic-book sports. Rigid yet fluid, rock-solid yet elastic, their highly trained and honed motions whip in and out, back and forth, each seeking the weakness that the other must surely be hiding. Midnighter finds his battle-prediction implants pushed to their very limit. This fighter uses futuristic combat styles, and while his psychic abilities don't help him against Midnighter's shielded mind, he presents a threat of a kind that Midnighter has rarely, if ever, had to face.

But the implants have dealt with futuristic talents before, and with otherworldly, even otherdimensional opponents. Eventually, a fight plan begins to map itself out in Midnighter's head. Can I tell you what it is? Of course not. These are two martial artists who fight on a level far beyond what any real-world combatant could do. The course of a fight like this is unimaginable to our minds, but suffice it to say that Midnighter pulls out the win. His implants have never failed him in martial arts contest, or extremely rarely. There is just no reason to believe that Batman-1M, without his tech, would defeat Midnighter.

Moving with inhuman speed and urgency, Midnighter cuts through Batman's defenses, snapping first one arm and then the other with brutal efficiency, before finally driving home the killing stroke: a punch straight through the throat.

Anarky vs. Reed Richards
Anarky darts through the halls and corridors, constantly watching his heads-up display to see where Richards is. He glances at it, and notices that the Richards blip seems to be massively lengthening. Huh? is all he has time to think before a stretched-out elastic fist clocks him upside the helmet, and he staggers backward. He deflects another blow as Richards swings into the scene. Richards sizes him up. And Anarky just pulls out a gun and shoots the mother****er in the face.

Not with a bullet, mind you. This is an energy projection, put together with input from Red King and Engineer, as well as Magneto, in absentia. Using Magneto's computer files as a reference point, the team figured out that Richards had been granted his powers by a specific type of cosmic radiation. Operating on a similar principle to the one he used to take down the Flash, Red King helped create a replication of the process that had granted Richards his powers, but tweaked it slightly. Just as he'd robbed the Flash of the protective field that saved his skin from the ravages of superspeed, this process robs Richards of the necessary protections from his own powers. Richards is, therefore, apparently unaffected by the first blast, except to elastically fly backwards—and rupture about a dozen organs and snap about a dozen bones in the process. No longer protected from the real-world implications of his superpowers, Richards crumples in a dead heap.

[Aristotle]

Battle Time, Part 2: The Ubers
Oh, it's a hell of a fight. Red King kicks it off at the starting bell. Even as Angie is shutting down B'wana Bet's tech, Red King rockets into the room housing the opposing team and blasts both Ares and Zemo with massive repeated blasts of energy, sending both careeing through the walls. Mitch comes up behind his lineman, and launches quantum blasts at his opponents as well. After the initial shock, the god and his demigod partner deflect a couple of blows and get back on their feet.

Still, it's becoming clear that Red King's superspeed is going to be a major factor in the fight. The only answer to it is Zemo's time and space manipulation. He manages to use his chronopathy to come close to evening the playing field against Red King, but he's constantly frustrated by Resurrection Man's blasts, and is forced to spend some of his energy focusing on them.

Red King is darting about, absorbing everything the two opponents can throw at him. This is a man armed with anti-magic defenses designed for use against Wonder Woman and other potential magical JLA foes. His superarmor has withstood blasts from a Green Lantern ring and Superman's heat vision, so he can basically shrug off a lot of what Ares and Zemo can throw his way. Zemo and Ares can't even try to teleport their opponents away, because the quantum powers of Resurrection Man (who has a very high resistance to reality-warping powers anyway) can nullify the warps, and Red King has specific cancellation methods for teleportation.

Meanwhile, Mitch and Red King are basically having open season on their opponents, blasting away at them and keeping them fully occupied. As the battle becomes more and more one-sided, Red King and Resurrection Man prepare for the endgame.

“Resurrection Man! Are you ready?” shouts Red King. “All over it, partner!” Mitch bellows back. The dynamic uberduo execute their final move. Moving at a blinding speed, Red King slams into Ares, sending the god flailing through the walls of the asteroid base. Before Zemo can react, Red King pours every ounce of power he can summon up into a massive energy blast that knocks Zemo into next week (figuratively; Red King doesn't actually have time manipulation powers). He follows it up instantaneously with a huge blast of electrical energy, further dazing Zemo. Finally, he slams Zemo with a massive blast of freeze breath. For a couple brief, precious moments, Zemo is motionless, stunned, unable to fight back. Resurrection Man seizes upon the opportunity, taking apart the moonstone atom by atom in a microsecond.

In a blinding flash of light, the moonstone becomes no more, and Zemo is powerless. Switching over to telepathic powers, Resurrection Man shuts down his mind, and Zemo is down. Ares, meanwhile, has seized upon this last, frantic opportunity, and rushes Red King, but it's not enough. Red King swats him down with another few massive energy blasts, and Resurrection Man, switching back to quantum powers, scrambles the god's consciousness. Finally, the battle is over and won. The Authorititans take it, 5-0.

[wiegeabo]

Battle Part II

Sparks fly as claws forged in the River Styx clash against the darkest of Blades. Proctor lunges, but Jaine just jumps back out of range. So Proctor blasts her with energy from his free hand. Jaine goes flying and slides on the floor into a wall. Proctor teleports in front of her only to be sent back himself by a bullet from her Breathing Gun. Proctor's slide along the floor mimics Jaine's. btu he leaves a trial of blood behind.

Lighting up a cigarette, Jaine calmly walks up and blows smoke at Proctor's body. "Got to admit, you're one tough sonava*****."

Proctor sits up, swiping his sword at Jaine. But instead of cutting her in half, her second skin protects her, leaving her only with a deep gash. "I was going to say the same thing about you."

"You bastard. You made me drop my smoke!" She leaps at Proctor.

***

The shield on Kyle's arm holds the lightening at bay, but it takes a lot of effort. The continuous bolt fires from Thordis' hammer, fed by a small storm above her head. The ceiling collapses on them, but both are unaffected by it. "Surrender mortal. There is no dishonor yielding to a superior opponent."

"Yeah," Kyle says, "But you're a chick too."

Fury burns in Thordis' eyes. "You dare mock me because I am not a man?!" The bolt explodes against the shield and throws Kyle back.

"No," he says, "just trying to distract you." A green hand grabs Thordis' head from behind and wraps her in a bubble. Kyle takes off with Thordis in tow and phases both of them through the walls, and out into space. "Ok. There's no air out here. God or not, I don't think you'd like the vac-Hey, what are you-!" Thordis swings her hammer faster and faster. "No! Don't" She lets the hammer go, punching through the field, and letting it pull her back into the station, where she breaches the hull.

***

"If you wanted to be alone with me, all you had to do was ask," Wade says as Vision pulls him away from the fight.

"You disgust me."

"Do robots feel disgust. I thought you were all cold and hard inside."

"I am not a robot," Vision replies.

Wade puts his gun to Vision head. "Yeah, but you are all see-through. Just like you medeme. So I'm guessing that means this bullet will work on you just fine."

"It would. If I hadn't reprogrammed your teleporter."

Wade looks down to see Vision's other hand interfacing with the device on his belt. "Aw man. That's not fair." Vision lets go and Deadpool starts teleporting all over the station, one jump "Guys" after the other "Shouldn't" after the other "Grab"

Vision goes to help his friends.

"Other guys"

And the station shakes.

"Junk."

***

"Impressive," Exodus says as he fights against the lasso around his arms. Wonder Woman pulls him closer despite the constant psionic blasts slamming against her. "If only you were a mutant, you would be a great addition to our cause."

"Justice...is...my...only...cause." Suddenly, Diana's instincts take over and she let's the lasso go. Exodus flies into a wall as Diana spins around, whipping her leg around and kicking Vision in the head. The synthoid's blast shoots wide. Exodus takes the opportunity to fly into Diana from behind, grabbing her, and uses his momentum to slam her into a wall. She put her elbow into his face, spins, follows up with an open-handed punch to his chin, then a kick to finally put him down. Exodus' eyes roll back as he slams onto the ground.

Diana keeps moving, blocking Vision's blast with her bracelets. But she can't stop the flying Vision from passing through her body, frying her nerves. She stands for a few seconds, disoriented, her body screaming in pain. She tries to bring her bracelets back up, but Vision's blast finally puts Diana down.

The station shakes and the wall behind Vision explodes. The pieces pass harmlessly through him. As does Thordis and Kyle. "Little help!" Kyle shouts as Thordis blocks his blast and returns with a swing. The station shutters as the air escapes into space. Vision joins the fight. As Kyle is forced to seal the breech to keep Diana and Exodus alive, yet somehow continue to fight.

***

The two fighters have probably lost all the blood in their bodies. And yet, they keep going.

"You know," Jaine says, breathing heavily, "you're pretty cute. In a dark, red-eyed, homicidal, hole in the chest kind of way."

"I killed my wife," Proctor warns as blades crash again.

"Oh, that explains everything."

"Enough of your prattle!" Proctor deflects Jaine's slash, spins behind her, and grabs her with his free arm around the neck. He ignores the pain her spikes cause as they tear into his flesh and teleports both of them into deep space.

Before he can succumb to the vacuum, he lets Jaine go and teleports back inside. If sound traveled in space, he'd hear an imaginative string of swear words cursing him, his mother, and his anatomy.

***

Vision twitches on the ground, a victim of a well placed bolt.

"I can't keep fighting you and keep our teammates alive!" Kyle shouts.

"Although I do not wish them to succumb, they would fall in honor. I would assure them a place in Valhalla." Kyle tries blocking her swings, but Thordis continually knocks away his defenses and attacks.

And that's when it finally hits Kyle. He's been going about this all wrong. He doesn't need to fight. He just needs to win. Slamming Thordis with a giant battering ram, Kyle buys himself a couple of seconds and some distance. He wraps Vision, Exodus, and Diana in bubbles, then drops his seal over the damaged wall. With no barrier, the air continues to escape into space.

"How long can you fight in a vacuum?" He asks. Thordis answers with another attack. But even a goddess has her limits. As the fight finally ends, Kyle replaces the seal and pries another set of doors open, flooding the room with fresh air.

There's a burst of sound behind Kyle. "Finally!" Wade shouts in triumph, holding his gun against the destroyed teleporter. He starts putting his gun away. "You wouldn't believe how hard it is to fire a gun when you keep tele...port..." Wade takes a look around. "...ing?"

"Crap."

"You've got that right," Kyle says.


Chaos & Order continue on.

[DTL Commish]

Voting may now begin.

[Aristotle]

A brief preemptive defense.
1. Zemo's Cosmic Awareness--Last time I played Gog, several voters noted that I seemed to "ignore" Zemo's CA. This time, I don't feel such a criticism would be valid. Resurrection Man also has CA, and probably "better" CA, in the sense that Resurrection Man is literally in touch with everything at an atomic level, while at the end of the day, Zemo's powers are gravometric.
2. Resurrection Man's Resistance to Zemo's Powers--Last time, Gog argued that Res-Man's resistance to reality-warping powers didn't factor into the match, since Zemo's powers are all gravity-based. But whereas that plays a very real role in the "whose CA is better" debate, in this debate it's meaningless sophistry, semantics that don't impact the game one bit. Whatever Zemo uses to manipulate reality, the end result is a warped reality, and Resurrection Man, in this powerset, has a high resistance to such powers.
3. The Red King--I can just see someone calling ******** on something the Red King was involved with in this writeup, because he does have his fingers in a lot of it. But it all has a clear precedent in the comics, and is 100% textually supported.

[LadyVader]

I will do a writeup and it's going to be something really special. :D

Or stupid :) I'll let you decide. Either way. Don't hurry with those votes. I'll do half today and half tomorow. But I'm posting the whole thing tomorow.

[Ahura Mazda]

Is it me or is there a time warp between Ari's post and LVs

[XFanTim]

That's Wieg's strategy. He's having Ambrose slow down time every time LV submits a post, in hopes that it will arrive after voting is over.

[LadyVader]

Sneaky f@#$ing bastard. :D

[Ahura Mazda]

Well it has been fixed since. When I first posted it seemed she had posted at 9:23 am or that is what was written.

[LadyVader]

Write-up. I has it. (sorta)

OTHIQdwGJ70

Wieg... forgive me for this.

http://ihasahotdog.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/cute-puppy-pictures-sorry-eyes.jpg

[XFanTim]

That's awesome. :up:

I look forward to seeing what Wieg can possibly come up with to dispute any of those points. This could be the best debate yet! :woot:

[wiegeabo]

I have no choice but to forfeit. :(






:p
Funniest. Battle. Ever.

[Aristotle]

LV, I'm having a hard time buying your argument that mutants are ghey. That assertion is supported nowhere in the comics and is entirely a product of conjecture and the online fan community.

[wiegeabo]

LV, I'm having a hard time buying your argument that mutants are ghey. That assertion is supported nowhere in the comics and is entirely a product of conjecture and the online fan community.

I think she saw it in a Wiki bio.

[Dark Gog]

Ok, I should finally have my battle up in a few hours. I might add a bit of a story later, but it won't be critical to the fight.

[XFanTim]

I think she saw it in a Wiki bio.
A quick scan of a few randomly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northstar_%28comics%29#Sexuality) selected (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_%28comics%29#Ultimate_Colossus) wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma_%28comics%29) profiles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunfire_%28Exiles%29#Exiles) shows no evidence that mutants are gay. Seriously, I don't know where people got this idea.

For (http://www.superdickery.com/seduction/1.html) the (http://www.superdickery.com/seduction/4.html) record (http://www.superdickery.com/seduction/5.html), neither (http://www.superdickery.com/seduction/38.html) is (http://www.superdickery.com/seduction/65.html) Batman (http://www.superdickery.com/seduction/73.html). Really.

[Aristotle]

I think Superdickery should be admissible as evidence in DTL battles. At the very least, if anyone has Pre-Crisis versions of the characters in question.

[Dark Gog]

Sorry, had to leave earlier, but I do finally have my battle up now.

I'll read the other write-ups when I'm home.

[XFanTim]

Some good stuff on both sides. I'll hold off voting until I see what criticisms Ari and Gog have of each other's writeups. And I'd encourage everyone else to wait, too.

[LadyVader]

Sorry, had to leave earlier, but I do finally have my battle up now.

I'll read the other write-ups when I'm home.

No reading involved in mine. :D Just sit back and grab a beer. Quick beer. :oldrazz:

[Aristotle]

These next two posts of mine are relatively long and involved. If you want the Reader's Digest version, check my third post, which is a much shorter, more condensed form of these arguments. Then, if you want clarification on what I mean, reference back to these longer posts for more information.

The fight starts familiarly enough, with an EMP and/or virus, designed by my team to cripple the opposition's technology as much as possible.Yes, that would be how you'd start it, which is why my team acts first. 1) Your tech people don't have superspeed. My tech person is, for all intents and purposes of this context, a living computer, meaning she has the opportunity to not only shut down/take over any opposing technology, but also to introduce the Radion radiation instantaneously, before Lightray can even get off the ground. Engineer may not move anywhere near as fast as Lightray, but she can think much faster, and that's the key in this matchup. So there's no EMP, because Lightray's down before he can even get started, and there's no virus, because your team has nothing with which to introduce such a virus--besides, Engineer could more than handle whatever Batman-1M or Reed could come up with.

Zemo and Ares can port in anything they need directlyNo, they can't. You don't get to use anything as a resource that isn't on the battleground. We've been over this a lot this season. Batman doesn't get to use the Batcave, for example. You can't bring any outside resources in. Now maybe you could put your tech that you have on you away in another dimension, but as soon as you bring any of it back in, it's mine.

Batman sends an avatar with each member of the team, allowing for quick coordination.Not if he needs tech to do it, he doesn't.

Resurrection Man attempts to use his Quantum Speed to locate and remove Zemo. Unfortunately, he is preemptively phased, and as gravity catches up to Shelley, he finds it nearly impossible to move.That strategy would work if this powerset of Mitch's wasn't well-documented as being highly resistant to other reality-manipulators. Zemo doesn't just get to swat him down like that, particularly because Mitch moves and thinks at a much quicker speed than Zemo does. Mitch is moving at quantum speed, and thinking at quantum speed, allowing him to react far quicker than Zemo can. Zemo is the one who's outmatched here.

The same force crushes any nanotechnology that may be homing-in on Zemo or the Moonstones.Nobody needed nanotech to home in on either of them. Red King can spot anybody with his metahuman tracking system, and Mitch is cosmically aware.

"This room's reserved for the bigwigs", he hears Zemo explain, "regular super-strength won't be enough to let you so much as stand."Of course not. Mitch's superstrength comes from his quantum powers. Nothing ordinary about it.

"Ah yes, and the floor's been laced with a new brand of Adhesive X."1) Mitch isn't on the floor. 2) Mitch can take Adhesive X apart atom by atom, so not a problem.

Shelley taps his wrist once, and:
a) Takes the power of telepathy, but even normal Zemo had some psi-protection.
b) Phases
c) Assumes gravitational powers of his own, but I doubt that he could beat Zemo at his own game, and the other options all give Helmut that extra bit of time, which he'll have anyway, holding the advantage of surprise, and with resurrection taking a moment to complete.
d) His resurrector'd been impaired by the EMP, in which case, of-course, he's toast.
e) He tries using his Boom-Suit instead, in which case see below.

Zemo freezes him in place, and moves on.Option A makes no ****ing sense. Mitch has no reason to believe that would work. Option B actually puts Mitch right back in the position where I've already proven that he is in the first place: in control of the situation. Option C: Why does Zemo have the element of surprise again? He was ambushed by Mitch, who can do that because of his superspeed. Option D: There was no EMP. Option E: You seriously think you get to write my characters as just running off? And by the way, why is the Red King not involved in any of this? You even have advance knowledge of my team's strategy (Red King acts as a lineman, Mitch pours on the offense from behind), and yet you deliberately ignore it! You are willfully ignoring the way that my team works. I can't imagine the voters will reward you for writing this way, but I've certainly been wrong before.

Profitt is more maneuverable, but he recognizes wanton destruction serves the War God's cause here, and changes tactics.Even if Red King did decide, for some retarded reason, not to fight as a unit, in direct contradiction to what the team decided to do in prep time, how is he not just wiping out Ares in superspeed? Ares can't move fast. Red King has Superman-level speed. Why is this even a contest?

Ares and the Red King collide, and it is Ares that's pushed back. But when the dust settles, they are still inseparable. Adhesive X was coating the massive figure's chest plate.Oh hey, there's another reason my guys were FIGHTING AS A TEAM. So Mitch could take things like that apart.

moves them both into Areopagus, where the very elements rebel against the Red King.What happened to Red King's teleportation cancellation?

Lightray's quick to seek-out Angie.No, Lightray is either unconscious or almost-dead from Radion exposure, because Angie thinks faster than Lightray moves.

His body radiates intense heat, to hopefully destroy any contaminating element.Nope. Radion is lethal to all New Gods. Even Lightray.

"You think there's only one Batman?" A dozen dark figures circle Anarky. "No, the Batman is a concept. I am justice. I am retribution. And you're out of time." Lonnie Machin reels even before struck, as Batman applies his favourite martial-arts technique.Of course, Batman doesn't get to do that, because his tech is junked by Angie in the first nanosecond of combat.

Elsewhere, Mr. Fantastic has been able to lure The Midnighter into a trap.My guys have heads-up systems keyed to Red King's metahuman tracking system. Your guys have a bunch of scrapped technology, courtesy of the Engineer. I'm thinking it's my guys who have the benefit of surprise here.

The sealed chamber he sends him into contains a powerful liquid toxin and an electronic neuro-scrambler. It will work. It has to. Shelley must leave himself open to that route of attack for the alien larvae he uses to resurrect himself to have any effect. But it is a terrible fate to send anyone into, even temporarily.This is all a nice plan, but it depends on far too much complex machinery of logic to be executed. The simplest solution is usually the best, and my team uses a far more streamlined, workable, executable plan. Without the benefits of technology or superspeed, your team is done from the starting bell.

[Aristotle]

The Red King isn't a genuine super-genius, he just found a way to make others come-up with ideas for him, and applied it across countless different timelines. Before that, he was just an ordinary man stuck in a job he couldn't even understand.What's your point? Before he was Green Lantern, Hal Jordan was a going-nowhere test pilot. Before he was Resurrection Man, Mitch Shelley was just some ******** grafter. Before he was Spider-Man, Peter Parker was some dumb **** loser. What possible bearing does any of this have on the fight?

For that matter, I've heard similar things said about Angie. Not that she isn't highly intelligent, just that she happened across the previous Engineer's nanites and arguably couldn't have invented them herself.Again: doesn't matter. At this point, she is now a living embodiment of the most highly advanced technology that has maybe ever been depicted in the Marvel, DC, and WildStorm universes.

While she and Anarky, plus anything the Red King knew how to make, are no doubt capable, its probably their productive capacity that should be most worrying here.So basically, you're just dismissing the technological acumen of these three because you're scared of dealing with it. You never once show any reason to doubt that Anarky, who created a boom tube FROM SCRATCH, could not use Red King's designs and Magneto's information to reverse-engineer a weapon capable of doing to Mr. Fantastic what Red King did to Flash. You never once show any reason to doubt that Angie, who has displayed a greater degree of technopathy than anyone else in mainstream superhero comics, could not shut down an opposing team's tech. You're just saying **** out your ass.

Conversly, Batman's from the 853rd century, capable of boosting existing technology, literally doing several different things at once using his digital avatars, and has a 1,045 points IQ.Ain't got **** on a living computer that has the capacity to control The Carrier.

He managed to isolate the Batcomputer from the Solaris Virus, which was itself propogated by beyond state-of-the-art techno-organic nanites. So obviously, when it comes to technological warfare, there are no absolutes, and working with Reed Richards and a Mother Box, along with whatever's on the battlefield and using Zemo's lab, they should be capable of coming-up with something pretty effective.Of course, you can't figure out what they'll do, but certainly they'll do "something." And then Angie will shut it down within a nanosecond of combat.

Even if the Red King and The Engineer can partially protect their systems, Anarky and Midnighter should be pretty screwed. Aditionally, Both Reed and Batman already favor using EMPs or scrambling electronics.Reed and Batman don't have the tech to generate EMPs, because Angie takes it from them and junks it. Lightray, not being an electropath, doesn't have the capacity to create an EMP either, but if the voters do believe in that idea, it still doesn't matter because Angie takes him down instantaneously with extreme Radion exposure. He never has a chance.

Red King is immensely powerful, but probably a bit to orthodox in his abilities to be a real threat to Zemo. He'll probably prefer to engage Ares, as he represents more of a known quantity, and Profitt was all about hedging his bets.You didn't really read that story, did you? Out of those final two Red Kings, one of them realized that he wanted to be a genuine hero, and worked with the Justice League, always trying to maintain his status as just another League member. Red King knows how to work in a team, and that's why he'll follow Anarky's instructions.

Resurrection Man is a better match for Zemo, and Ares can do some real damage to him, so the above match-ups seem the most likely to me. Zemo's strategy should work just as well against RK, and depending on the power chosen, so should Ares' against Shelley.So you still haven't told me why my team won't fight in the way that they decided to during prep time...

The Red King has some precautions against Amazonian magic, although that doesn't really describe Ares.Amazonian magic is magic of the Olympian Gods, and Ares is an Olympian God. Red King can take whatever Ares dishes out and give far more back in return.

Plastic Man listed speed among Red King's assets, but I'm not sure whether that was much more than travel pace. (he listed intelligence too; first-impressions can be tricky that way). Either way, it wasn't up to par with the Flash or anything, and again, he used teleportation to get around.Again, you did not read the story carefully. Red King was able to move at about Superman-level speed.

it's hardly a guarenteed win, and failed the last time they'd met, which would also give Helmut a fair idea of how to counter itIt doesn't matter that you can see the train coming if you're tied to the tracks; you're still getting run over. All of Helmut's preparations and future-sight won't help him win a fight like this, especially since Mitch has arguably better CA than Zemo does. Furthermore, while Mitch's strategy failed last time, this is a new strategy. It shares common elements, but it isn't the same one. In this strategy, Red King presents an offensive line that can take literally just about anything either opposing uber can throw at him, while Mitch and Proffitt are free to sling whatever they want back at their opponents, who are profoundly ill-equipped to defend against the onslaught.

I'm still not sure what it is.And that's the real reason you underwrite Mitch so much, isn't it? You don't get his powers, so instead of doing the work required to figure it out, you just underwrite him, and think that'll get you by.

In the awkward event The Authorititans are targeting my tech themselves, and set their plan off first, and manage to render my own device inoperable.. let's just say we made a double waiting to be summoned by Zemo/Ares."A double"?

[Aristotle]

Here's the main points for the voters to consider:
1) Gog is willfully writing my team as stupid, uncoordinated, and scattered. Not to mention, he writes them as if they were less a team of superheroes than just a random collection of people for him to take potshots at.
2) Gog ignores the powers of my characters. Where is Red King's superspeed? Nowhere in Gog's writeup. Where is Mitch's ability to take things apart at an atomic level? Nowhere in Gog's writeup. Several other times, he commits egregious omissions of important powers, simply to serve his own ends. He decided it wasn't worth the effort to try to come up with a way to beat my team, so he unilaterally got rid of my team's superpowers. It's not a surprise, really, coming from a guy who unilaterally INVENTS superpowers for his own characters, but still, it renders his writeup worthless.
3) Some of the elements of Gog's writeup are brilliant, but they rely on massive amounts of logical leaping (not least the apparent absence of half of the powers of Red King and Resurrection Man.) My team executes simple but fully effective strategies: 1) Take out the other team's tech. 2) Take out the other team's fast guy. 3) Take the fight to the other team's ubers, two-on-two, relying on superspeed and a basic combination of offense and defense. 4) Work over the regs one-on-one, as our superior orientation and technology allow us to do. It's simple, it's quick, it's elegant, and it's effective. Gog's strategy, on the other hand, is bloated, implausible, and over-reliant on happenstance and stupidity of my team.

[XFanTim]

I haven't read the whole thing yet, Ari, but regarding point (1), Gog isn't expected to use your prep-time in his writeup. He writes his version, you write yours. If anything, I think we've typically discouraged people from reading what their opponent has written before they finish their own writeup, because it would kind of be an unfair advantage.

Of course, now that both are posted you can argue that the strategies you outlined in prep time would let your team thwart his strategies. As I'm sure you have done at length above...

[Aristotle]

Fair enough, but he's still writing my team retarded and uncoordinated. Say what you want about the way I write my team, but they've never been as scatterbrained and uncoordinated as the way he writes my team.

[Aristotle]

I'm voting for Wiegs.

[Dark Gog]

I'll split this into two parts:

-If I have underwritten The Authorititans, then it's worth noting their tactics nonetheless still largely played nicely into mine. Red King did end-up rushing Zemo, for which he is prepared, and he does eventually decide to tackle Ares, which again was part of my initial plans. The curious thing is that he does so so relatively late, when blasting indiscriminately as he does nourishes Ares.

Of-course, my Ubers are themselves highly maneuverable, so turning this into a two-on-two, and especially if Mitch's focusing on Zemo, means there's no reason Ares couldn't capitalize. How useful is he to the war effort, when Ares's trying to rip his soul out-of his body, or uses the Staff - an area-effect attack - to devour his very life-force? Let's recall that being wounded by Ares isn't like incurring injuries most other ways. Shelley won't be recovering the damage easily, if at all.

Now, you say that forming a distinction between reality-warping and manipulating gravity is nothing more than sophistry, but I wonder: I'm sure you've come across the mention of a "unified-field theory" reading comics. Have you every wondered what it meant? Gravity is the only fundamental force not adequately accounted for by standard quantum mechanics. It's not propogated by any sub-atomic particle - or qunatified energy discharge - at-least, none that we know of. But even if there were, that would just mean Zemo trades in 'quantics' himself, by means of effecting fields rather than direct telekinsis. (And now think of the way Magneto can bypass ordinary durability or even force-fields, where common TK would fail.)

Of-course, we could try it your way as-well -- Zemo's a reality-warper, Genis-Vell's a reality-warper, Ressurection Man most certainly is a reality-warper. And so's The Grandmaster of the Universe. What we're left with, is the knowledge that Zemo had through skill and foresight you had cavalierly dismissed, gotten the better of two superior reality-warpers (or if we allow our brains to function, energy-manipulators) in direct confrontation. Then there's the issue of power. Zemo's one of the top characters in this thing, what makes you think Mich could match him for power even if he could match his abilities?

You know what power is essentially reality-warping, though? Magic. I have scans in his Respect Thread showing him ignoring wards preventing Circe from teleporting, so what's you're rationale in thinking he would fail to do the same against Resurrection Man, or to use a reflective surface? It should be noted also that the Olympians are extra-dimensional in nature. Both Ares' and Zemo's powers run at a level at-least as fundamental to the reality as the quantum.

Of-course, it would look good for the record if you were to let us know what was the reality-distorting power Mitch overcame.

[Dark Gog]

Concerning the Proper Characterization of Characters:


I'd very much like to know where you've gotten the idea Profitt was anywhere near as quick as Superman. He certainly didn't show it much. As I've said, he used teleportation to get around. Superman would not have been punched two-thousand times by the Flash in a single second. In fact that's not even a feat that's necessarily outside of Clark's ability to duplicate.

I did not dismiss the possibility that he does have a measure of true super-speed, but as far as I've seen, the most there really is to support it is Plastic Man saying he's fast. And you have him going against Zemo. He'll be up against heightened gravity, force-fields, super-glue, and the very real danger of going partly through a portal if he isn't carefully watching his steps.

There's another element here, as well. Zemo and Ares are not Superman and GL. There's only so much you can really build-up his pace while hammering-on about overwhelming power and his other abilities without slowly pushing him beyond acceptable levels.

Two things I'm less sure of: Where's the metahuman tracking system coming from, and where did he actually disrupt anyone's teleportation efforts? The first I could have easily overlooked and isn't something I'd consider very important, but all the same is something I'm curious to learn. The second.. well he knew how to use the JLA's teleporters against them, but you're suggesting far more than that.

As for Quantum powers, I gave my reasons for not assuming you'd use them: That he cannot actually access powers he had eighty-thousand years before developing the ability to redraw past powers is a very real possibility. That it's not necessarily the most prudent option's likewise true. And no, I certainly cannot say I have a full understanding of how to write it. The way you used him last time to countract anything a very powerful Uber would try to do implied giving him super-strength and the ability to switch powers at will may be giving him too mcuh power.

The truly ridiculous thing here, of-course, is the suggestion I deliberately underwrite your characters rather than doing my research, when as you'll recall, I went and looked into every issue that might have had Mitch use Cosmic Awareness, only to find out you referenced the wrong power. Since you haven't actually given me any issue numbers for his time using Quantum Telekinesis, I obviously couldn't do the same there. Although that said, I found a list detailing all of Mr. Skism's abilities, and I managed to procure every single issue of RM's series, so I'm certain I'll be able to find it now.

Likewise with The Engineer. I asked you for enough info on her powers to write her properly. You declined to answer. Not that I'm at all sure I've handled either very badly, but you don't get to turn-around and accuse others of mishandling your characters, when you haven't been forthcoming with information.

So let's take a look at how I've actually written your team: I assumed they will be going for my team's technology. I had them stick with their original plans in the face of a major breakdown in communication rather than lose all cohesiveness and initiative. I gave them a means of taking-down Lightray they've never actually used before. I had RM use extreme super-speed at the out-set, and spotted him an out against an attack he shouldn't really have been able to overcome without switching powers first, and possibly praying hard.

Conversly, and I can't stress this enough, You had five of the most brilliant minds in mainstream comics stare into a crystal-ball and literally come-up with nothing.

I mean God-damn, I haven't read every match, but has there been a single week you haven't complained about opposition writing your characters badly? Did anyone at any point ever say you handled the other side well?

And how do you get to the point where you can start a post arguing none of my tech guys have any super-speed? More importantly, how does Angie take over the entire ship in nano-seconds? Do her nanites actually replicate and travel at those speeds, or did you mean to have her swarm the entire base during prep?

Because I would have expected the latter to be of dubious legality at best. Lightray and Zemo are set-up to be destroying the things the very moment the battle opens. They would have done so far earlier if they were in proximity to the them. It's premature engagement.

And, the thing about a virus, is that it doesn't have to be introduced extraneously. It could just as easily be lying dormant inside the very systems she'd be trying to overtake, either the Asteroid's or my team's.

Nor is there any shortage of measures that would ensure my team's electronic sweep will function, if not actually go first. I was thinking mostly of either having Lightray set it off or have it timed in advance, but lightray could fly it to to space right before the match starts and fire it from there; Zemo could have it function constantly in a remote location and open a portal that would allow it to cover the station; hell, it could be tucked on the inside of Ares' armor and again, triggered at the bell. If nothing else, the 853rd century had quantum computers. Those could most certainly keep pace with Angie's imppecable timing.

Here's something you've been ignoring - the EMP will have a mystical element to it, and a rather potent one at that.

And here's the biggest bubble you've been blowing -- what the Hell is it about taking control of the Authority's Carrier that puts Angie lightyears beyond being challenged by the combination of 853rd century, Fourth World, and Richards technology? You've noted Anarky building a Boom Tube as a feat. Reed's built a better Prime Mover than Doom's alien model with absolutely nothing to go by and in around a day working in the lab. (Not Doom's old chess computer; the reality-warping engine from FF 1234. Circa FF 354, he irreparably impaired the TVA's computer system. An infinitely branching network monitoring and capable of wiping-out entire time-lines. I forget whether he had any prep to do that, but if he did it was absolutely negligible. Nano-warfare was not uncommon during Batman's time, either, and in less than twenty-four hours, he was instrumental in constructing Solaris' body.

I mean, you didn't even of have any of all that slow-down your efforts by even a fraction. Whereas I had your top three threats overcome the EMP to some degree.

[Dark Gog]

Of course, you can't figure out what they'll do, but certainly they'll do "something." And then Angie will shut it down within a nanosecond of combat.

I already made it rather quite clear what it will be; a variation of either an Electro-Magnetic
Pulse, a virus, or a combination of the two. No, obviously I'm not Reed Richards. I can't rule-out he'd rather go with just the one.

Amazonian magic is magic of the Olympian Gods, and Ares is an Olympian God. Red King can take whatever Ares dishes out and give far more back in return.

That is very simply factually incorrect. Amazons have their own magic, and no God has ever bothered fighting on their behalf, much less their greatest enemy.

Somehow you have managed to neglect the fact Lightray will be wearing an anti-contamination suit again. It's treated with unstable molecules, found on the cloths Reed Richards will be wearing, so we know it could resist high temperatures, as evidenced by the Human Torch not working naked. And regardless of the rate at which Angie's processing, radiation doesn't seep through air-vents at supra-luminal velocities.

[Dark Gog]

Wait, my strategy is "bloated"? I attempted to turn a disadvantage into an edge, introduced a chemical agent against a team probably expecting high-tech electronics, and made several plans to take-out the most dangerous opposition. I even had Zemo make a nearly critical error, and had two of my team-members taken-out.

And of-course characters can summon equipment from their own bases of operation, when summoning their personal equipment happens to be one of their actual powers. Nor is the Batcave an interdimensional nexus equally accessible from any point.

I don't even want to touch the Reed/Anarky thing with my nearly ten-foot pole. How did working-out the agency of cosmic radiation in the process, (which I'll spot him mostly through hacking Earh-systems - what does Magneto need dossiers on the Fantastic Four for?) turn into figuring-out the exact details and radiation type involved? I don't know why Anarky wants to go killing Reed off-the-bat for either. He may not shy from taking life, but Reed's hardly a heavy-hitter. My own ubers can bring back the dead with fairly trivial effort, and I still shied away from killing heroes.

Oh yes, and Profitt wouldn't actually have three-thousand leading scientists to give time, money, and a heart-felt speech to.

[Aristotle]

-If I have underwritten The Authorititans, then it's worth noting their tactics nonetheless still largely played nicely into mine. Red King did end-up rushing Zemo, for which he is prepared, and he does eventually decide to tackle Ares, which again was part of my initial plans.Red Kind doesn't just rush Zemo blindly. It's a considered final move. And there's plenty of time for Mitch to take apart whatever adhesive is present.

The curious thing is that he does so so relatively late, when blasting indiscriminately as he does nourishes Ares.He does not blast indiscriminately. To the contrary, he has the benefit of superspeed, which means that he can attack with both great frequency and great precision. And if you're suggesting that any attack on your character only strengthens him, your character is way tuber.

Of-course, my Ubers are themselves highly maneuverable, so turning this into a two-on-two, and especially if Mitch's focusing on Zemo, means there's no reason Ares couldn't capitalize.Your ubers do not have superspeed. Red King does. Furthermore, when did I ever say Mitch was focusing only on Zemo? Both of my ubers are attacking both of yours, and both of my ubers are faster than your ubers.

How useful is he to the war effort, when Ares's trying to rip his soul out-of his body, or uses the Staff - an area-effect attack - to devour his very life-force? Let's recall that being wounded by Ares isn't like incurring injuries most other ways. Shelley won't be recovering the damage easily, if at all.Which is why Red King is blocking his attacks. Red King has anti-magic defenses, which are particularly attuned to Olympian magic.

Now, you say that forming a distinction between reality-warping and manipulating gravity is nothing more than sophistry, but I wonder: I'm sure you've come across the mention of a "unified-field theory" reading comics. Have you every wondered what it meant? Gravity is the only fundamental force not adequately accounted for by standard quantum mechanics. It's not propogated by any sub-atomic particle - or qunatified energy discharge - at-least, none that we know of. But even if there were, that would just mean Zemo trades in 'quantics' himself, by means of effecting fields rather than direct telekinsis. (And now think of the way Magneto can bypass ordinary durability or even force-fields, where common TK would fail.)All you're basically doing is arguing over whether Marvel is better than DC. At the core of this debate is a fundamentally more mystical view of quantum science, in the DCU, vs. a fundamentally more concrete and realistic view of it in the MU. But the fact of the matter is, the way this version of Mitch is set up, he does have protections against other reality-warping powers, and that is what Zemo has. It doesn't matter what route he uses to get there, it's the end result that Mitch is resistant to.

Of-course, we could try it your way as-well -- Zemo's a reality-warper, Genis-Vell's a reality-warper, Ressurection Man most certainly is a reality-warper. And so's The Grandmaster of the Universe. What we're left with, is the knowledge that Zemo had through skill and foresight you had cavalierly dismissed, gotten the better of two superior reality-warpers (or if we allow our brains to function, energy-manipulators) in direct confrontation.That's very nice. This time, he lost.

Then there's the issue of power. Zemo's one of the top characters in this thing, what makes you think Mich could match him for power even if he could match his abilities?Because Mitch, in this incarnation, is also one of the top characters in this thing. Mitch has a MASSIVE defensive bulwark in front of him, which allows him to focus ENTIRELY on offense, while everyone else in the fight has to play offense and defense (although, again, Red King's superspeed more than makes up for this, for his part.)

You know what power is essentially reality-warping, though? Magic. I have scans in his Respect Thread showing him ignoring wards preventing Circe from teleporting, so what's you're rationale in thinking he would fail to do the same against Resurrection Man, or to use a reflective surface? It should be noted also that the Olympians are extra-dimensional in nature. Both Ares' and Zemo's powers run at a level at-least as fundamental to the reality as the quantum.All you're proving is that Ares and Zemo have solid defensive capacities against my characters, not that they'll get in a single blow offensively.

[Aristotle]

I'd very much like to know where you've gotten the idea Profitt was anywhere near as quick as Superman. He certainly didn't show it much.He was capable of fighting off Superman and Martian Manhunter in full-on battle. He had fast enough reflexes to blast Wally West with his superpower-messup-beam before West got up to full speed.

He'll be up against heightened gravity, force-fields, super-glue, and the very real danger of going partly through a portal if he isn't carefully watching his steps.He moves faster than Zemo can think. Of course he'll be able to react to such elements, especially when Mitch is countering them the whole time. At best Zemo will have to be fighting Mitch every time he tries to open a portal or warp reality in other ways, which creates a lot of windows for Red King to avoid such measures, all the way maintaining a full offensive onslaught and defensive protections.

There's another element here, as well. Zemo and Ares are not Superman and GL. There's only so much you can really build-up his pace while hammering-on about overwhelming power and his other abilities without slowly pushing him beyond acceptable levels.Green Lantern power is treated with as much caution and respect in this league as Flash-level speed or uber-level magic. I'm not downplaying Ares by comparing him to GL, and I'm not even comparing Zemo to GL. I used Superman and GL as a reference for how incredibly strong the Red King's armor is.

Two things I'm less sure of: Where's the metahuman tracking system coming from, and where did he actually disrupt anyone's teleportation efforts? The first I could have easily overlooked and isn't something I'd consider very important, but all the same is something I'm curious to learn. The second.. well he knew how to use the JLA's teleporters against them, but you're suggesting far more than that.In the scene where he first lays out his plans for what he wants the scientists of the various universes to do, he calls for both efforts, and later reports success of them.

As for Quantum powers, I gave my reasons for not assuming you'd use them: That he cannot actually access powers he had eighty-thousand years before developing the ability to redraw past powers is a very real possibility.But one entirely unsupported by anything remotely approaching evidence.

That it's not necessarily the most prudent option's likewise true. And no, I certainly cannot say I have a full understanding of how to write it. The way you used him last time to countract anything a very powerful Uber would try to do implied giving him super-strength and the ability to switch powers at will may be giving him too mcuh power.Bring that up somewhere else, don't just underwrite my character deliberately because you personally might feel that he has too much power.

Likewise with The Engineer. I asked you for enough info on her powers to write her properly. You declined to answer. Not that I'm at all sure I've handled either very badly, but you don't get to turn-around and accuse others of mishandling your characters, when you haven't been forthcoming with information.The only question I didn't answer is, "How do I beat your character?"

Conversly, and I can't stress this enough, You had five of the most brilliant minds in mainstream comics stare into a crystal-ball and literally come-up with nothing. While I'm sure everyone's happy to see that you can generate random ad hominem attacks, would you care to explain that at all?

I mean God-damn, I haven't read every match, but has there been a single week you haven't complained about opposition writing your characters badly? Did anyone at any point ever say you handled the other side well?1) A lot of people complain about their characters being mishandled. 2) I may have written opposing characters grossly unfairly, but I never set out to do that. I always try to explain why an opposing team breaks down the way I write it doing so, or why they make certain decisions, I even try to give them a plan that seems as good as my own team's plan, although I certainly write it as failing in the end. You did not give my team a plan to speak of, except to have them completely scatter themselves and lose all coordination.

And how do you get to the point where you can start a post arguing none of my tech guys have any super-speed? More importantly, how does Angie take over the entire ship in nano-seconds? Do her nanites actually replicate and travel at those speeds, or did you mean to have her swarm the entire base during prep?The only character on your team with any appreciable superspeed is Lightray, which is why he goes down first in my team's strategy. As for Angie's method, she's plugged right into the base, so as soon as it's legal for her to own it, she does. As a computer, she can live and think and act, within computers, faster than anyone else on the base can move, because of how advanced her technology is.

Because I would have expected the latter to be of dubious legality at best. Lightray and Zemo are set-up to be destroying the things the very moment the battle opens. They would have done so far earlier if they were in proximity to the them. It's premature engagement.I didn't destroy anything before battle started.

And, the thing about a virus, is that it doesn't have to be introduced extraneously. It could just as easily be lying dormant inside the very systems she'd be trying to overtake, either the Asteroid's or my team's.And she could deal with it! I have yet to see any reason to believe that two reg-level tech guys can come up with a computer virus that possibly the foremost tech character in the game, excluding ubers like Brainiac, cannot deal with.

Here's something you've been ignoring - the EMP will have a mystical element to it, and a rather potent one at that.Again, vagueness, no substance. What the hell is the difference between a magical mystery EMP and a regular ol' boring EMP?

And here's the biggest bubble you've been blowing -- what the Hell is it about taking control of the Authority's Carrier that puts Angie lightyears beyond being challenged by the combination of 853rd century, Fourth World, and Richards technology?You don't have Fourth World tech expertise. You have a guy with Fourth World tech. Lightray didn't invent the Mother Box, he just has one. That doesn't count for nearly as much. As for Richards and Batman-1M, sure, they're formidable, but if their tech abilities, which aren't even all that they have, aren't enough to bump them up to med, they can't possibly be better than a med character for whom tech is her only power.

[Aristotle]

That is very simply factually incorrect. Amazons have their own magic, and no God has ever bothered fighting on their behalf, much less their greatest enemy.Amazons and Amazonian magic were literally created by the Olympian Gods. It's the SAME ****.

Somehow you have managed to neglect the fact Lightray will be wearing an anti-contamination suit again.And you neglected to say it again. Neither your character descriptions nor your writeup indicated it. You gotta write it for it to happen, man. It's not implied. You're just making a subtler version of the AnnoyingSilence mistake.

As for the speed of the Radion, at the point where Engineer basically becomes the base, and incorporates the Radion emitter technology into her, she can place it anywhere she wants. She can essentially transform the entire base into New God-kryptonite.

[Dark Gog]

Red Kind doesn't just rush Zemo blindly. It's a considered final move.

But I was referring to his first.

All you're proving is that Ares and Zemo have solid defensive capacities against my characters, not that they'll get in a single blow offensively.

You argued my characters couldn't even teleport your guys away. I gave you examples of Ares ignoring wards against teleportaion, in one instance while transporting both himself and his daughter.

He was capable of fighting off Superman and Martian Manhunter in full-on battle.

Since when did superhero-battles really work that way? Ares's trashed Wonder Woman with the fate of the world hanging in the balance, but I'm not using that to argue he has super-speed.

He had fast enough reflexes to blast Wally West with his superpower-messup-beam before West got up to full speed.

Now that may be a speed-feat, although the Flash specifically took several seconds coming back from Australia.

In the scene where he first lays out his plans for what he wants the scientists of the various universes to do, he calls for both efforts, and later reports success of them.

Alright, but the first calls for "a new Star-Wars system" (tracking meta-human criminals) with satelites showing on the panel, and the second asks for "protocols for jamming teleporters, in case The Watchtower is compromised", while depicting the self-same construct.

While I'm sure everyone's happy to see that you can generate random ad hominem attacks, would you care to explain that at all?

That's not an ad-hominem. It's a description of how you utilized my line-up. The only thing wrong with it is that I made an over-sight typing five instead of four.

Again, vagueness, no substance. What the hell is the difference between a magical mystery EMP and a regular ol' boring EMP?

Other than potency, it's that you put all your eggs into one basket having Angie take immediate control of every weapon system available, but gave no reason to believe she can take control of a mystically-powered one as readily.

You don't have Fourth World tech expertise. You have a guy with Fourth World tech. Lightray didn't invent the Mother Box, he just has one. That doesn't count for nearly as much.

Even if you don't hold Lightray to have any tech-skills whatsoever - and while nowhere near the other two's, or possibly even Zemo's, that is far from accurate - there's still the presence of the actual Mother Box on the field.

As for Richards and Batman-1M, sure, they're formidable, but if their tech abilities, which aren't even all that they have, aren't enough to bump them up to med, they can't possibly be better than a med character for whom tech is her only power.

That doesn't make any sense at-all. This isn't an RPG. At-least, not a pen-and-paper one. Character ratings are a consideration of their power and formidability taken as a whole, and mostly on the battle-field it at that. It's not a guarantee that they will trump any lower-seeded player in any contest.

Zemo's a tech-guy himself, and Ares is conversant in the language, but I certainly didn't use their presence to suggest Angie didn't stand a chance. And that's just with pure skills and intellignece. I've had Hank Henshaw on my roster for a minute, but if you honestly felt Angie surpassed him as a technopath, you'd have been perfectly free to argue that point.

Speaking of which, Zemo uses some tech, so The Engineer targetting all systems categorically would leave her open to retribution.

I can well imagine Ares saying something like: "Hmm.. my wrist-watch seems to have stopped. This perfidy must not go unpunished!" ...

Obviously my own course of action may yield similar results, but it doesn't require anyone to actively maintain.

[wiegeabo]

Holy hell, this is some kind of match. :up:

[Dark Gog]

Ari, when was the last time you took a look at that Resurrection Man story? Because I read issues #19-22 today, and unless there was anything like a flash-back to that time period later-on, it would appear that this version of the character never had cosmic awareness. In-fact, he's ultimately brought-low by Dewitt's security-system, in a facility he'd been working at.

And he never even got the chance to test his powers against Skism, who did not resemble Helmut at-all. If we're persisting with equating them, however, then Zemo never demonstrated any difficulty annexing entire areas to his Castle, and even accessing photonic matter directly from the birth of time.

But Mitch never seems to put his powers in contest with any others, save when he and J'onn discuss taking advantage of sharing similarties with Major Force's power to take him apart. (Which in fairness, is something he could easily have done to most people even without holding such a link.)

I've been wondering in any case; how would Zemo opening portals and Mitch closing them really help Profitt, if several of those happen to be opening on or about his person, however briefly?

[Aristotle]

But I was referring to his first.He doesn't rush Ares AT ALL until the final move.

You argued my characters couldn't even teleport your guys away. I gave you examples of Ares ignoring wards against teleportaion, in one instance while transporting both himself and his daughter.OK, science vs. magic. Red King has anti-magic countermeasures. And he's always way too fast for Ares to nail him anyway.

Since when did superhero-battles really work that way?Right, OK, so now we're assuming that no superpower is being used in the comics unless someone verbally says, "HELLO I AM BEING SUPERFAST"?

Other than potency, it's that you put all your eggs into one basket having Angie take immediate control of every weapon system available, but gave no reason to believe she can take control of a mystically-powered one as readily.I didn't say Angie stopped Lightray by taking him over. She stopped him by making his surroundings radiate Radion.

Your argument on tech is just...I don't even know how you could believe that. A reg tech guy, who is ranked as a reg more because of his tech abilities than for anything else, is better with tech than a med whose only power is technopathy? Sorry, no, your regs don't beat my med. Angie is possibly the most advanced technopath ever depicted in comics, but it's her only power, making her of limited use on the battlefield when compared to someone like Henshaw.

Ari, when was the last time you took a look at that Resurrection Man story? Because I read issues #19-22 today, and unless there was anything like a flash-back to that time period later-on, it would appear that this version of the character never had cosmic awareness. In-fact, he's ultimately brought-low by Dewitt's security-system, in a facility he'd been working at.He mentions, during the time he has that powerset, that he is aware of all things on an atomic level. That's how he can manipulate atoms. As for a character with CA ultimately losing anyway--big **** deal. Lots of characters with CA have been beaten.

I've been wondering in any case; how would Zemo opening portals and Mitch closing them really help Profitt, if several of those happen to be opening on or about his person, however briefly?You're completely ignoring, probably deliberately, that Red King moves too fast. This question of Mitch closing portals is moot! Red King and Resurrection Man are moving massively faster than anyone else on the field.

[Dark Gog]

You're completely ignoring, probably deliberately, that Red King moves too fast.

So fast that he ignores tears opening-up in the space he's moving through? You're right Ari, I am discounting that possibilty.

I didn't say Angie stopped Lightray by taking him over. She stopped him by making his surroundings radiate Radion.

..I'm talking about the weapon (EMP) my team created. Ares blesses it during prep.

[Aristotle]

Red King isn't fast enough to ignore tears in space, but he is fast enough to avoid the opposing team to be able to throw them in front of him. And fast enough that Zemo can't cosmic-aware his location, because he doesn't think fast enough.

As for a blessed EMP. The damn thing still runs like any other ****ing machine. And that means Angie can take it just fine.

[XFanTim]

Some tough matches here. I've read through the full writeups and debate, but taking it as a whole it's all a little overwhelming. So I'm going to distill things down to a summary of how each character was beaten, and use that as a guide in deciding who won the match.

First, Wieg vs. LV

In LV's writeup:
- Wonder Woman won because Exodus is ghey
I can't really dispute that. +1

- Thordis won by showing Kyle flowers
They were yellow flowers, so it probably would have worked against Hal Jordan. But Kyle's lack of yellow-weakness and experience dealing with the dangers of still-life painting may make him resistant to this form of attack.

- Byakko won because Vision has a dumb name
Personally, I like Vision's name, and anyway Byakko's name makes her sound like an anime character. And if Dragonball Z has taught me anything about anime characters, it's a safe bet Byakko would still be busy charging up her power to level 1,000,000 while Vision was kicking her butt.

-Jaine Cutter won because Proctor means anus
An excellent point, but this might actually enhance the teamwork between Proctor and Exodus, since Exodus is teh ghey. +1/2

-Deadpool wins because he's been in more than 6 issues.
Can't really dispute that. +1

Total plausibility score: 2.5/5.0

In wiegeabo's writeup:
-Ambrose beats Byakko by slowing down time
Yeah, that'd probably work. Especially since it would already take her a few episodes to charge up her powers even before he slows time +1

-Vision beats Deadpool (or at least delays him until they can gang up on him) by grabbing his junk
I've got to like how Wieg is turning his team's teh gheyness into an advantage +1

-Proctor teleports Jaine into space
Yeah, it'd probably work, but he's still an anus. +1/2

-Vision takes down Wonder Woman while Exodus keeps her occupied.
It might work. Normally I'd think Wonder Woman was fast enough to avoid Vision's attacks, but maybe not while dealing with Exodus. +1/2

-Kyle beats Thordis by turning the station into a vacuum
I'm not sure about this. Hasn't Thor fought in space before? If Thor can do it, why not Thordis?

Total plausibility score: 3.0/5.0

Wieg gets my vote in a close one.

**************

Rather than doing the other match one writeup at a time, I'm going to discuss them both together but split it up by weightclass (regs, meds, ubers)

The Mediums -- Lightray vs. Engineer:
- In Gog's, the team first fries everything (including Engineer) with an EMP, then Lightray beats her up and then Boom tubes her away. He protects himself from her radion attack by using heat. Gog mentioned in debate he could also wear a protective suit.

- In Ari's, Engineer first takes over all the tech on the battlefield with her technopathic abilities. Then she uses her control of the ventillation system to flood the place with radion, taking Lightray out.

Comments: I'm not really convinced Lightray could neutralize radion with excessive heat. With some sort of spacesuit, sure, although then all Engineer needs to do to beat him is rupture his suit. However, Gog raises a good point that even if Engineer takes control of the ventillation system instantly, that doesn't mean it wouldn't still take some time to use that system to flood the station with radion. I mean, even with radion pouring out of every vent, that still might be enough time for someone who moves at lightspeed to attack. That said, a fully functional Engineer might well be able to hold him off until the place was flooded with radion even if it takes a few seconds.

But the real question is "Would Gog's team be able to use their EMP?" If they do, it both majorly screws up Engineer and fries the systems she was going to use to flood the station with radion. Personally, I thought Ari was a little quick to assume Engineer could shut down all opposing tech. Batman 1-million's tech from over 800 centuries in the future, so it may well be more advanced than anything Engineer has controlled before. On the other hand, she has Resurrection Man 1-million to tell her all about that tech during prep-time.

Still, even if she is capapable of controlling the EMP device, who's to say she'd get the chance? I mean, even if she can take control the EMP in the first nanosecond of the fight, who's to say Gog's team couldn't build an EMP that would automatically detonate in the first half a nanosecond, or whatever. Especially since they could use computer chips that are hundreds of centuries more advanced than Engineer's computer brain. Surely there's been some increase in processing speed over that time. Plus, they'd know they needed to make it work faster than Engineer could control it, because Zemo's precog would anticipate that she'd try to do exactly that.

That said, Ari's team would probably anticipate an EMP (given how much tech they have, it seems an obvious approach), and Red King probably has some countermeasure to EMP's that he could share with Engineer. (I don't know much about Red King, but the way Ari writes him he seems to have a countermeasure to damn near everything, and since he uses high-tech armor you'd think getting a counter to EMPs would be a high priority.) Still, even if Engineer blocks the EMP against herself, Gog's team could probably take down the stations ventillation system that she was using against him.

On the whole, I think I give a slight edge in this fight to Gog, since I think his team could find some way to execute the EMP, and that could at least thwart Engineer's initial attack. Still, if she manages to shield herself from the brunt of the EMP, she could make some weapons on the fly that could give him trouble (radion mines, etc.) It could go either way.

The Regulars -- Batman 1 Million and Mr. Fantastic vs. Anarky and Midnighter

- Ari equips Midnighter with psi-blockers to stop Batman's telepathic attacks, and has Engineer hack Batman's tech, forcing him to rely on hand-to-hand combat, where Midnighter's implants give him the edge.

- In Gog's writeup, Midnighter's tech is fried by the EMP, and then Mr. Fantastic traps him with Adhesive-X from Zemo's glue guns

Again, I'm not totally convinced Engineer could control tech from so far in the future, and I'm not totally convinced Ari's team could stop the EMP, which would screw up Midnighter's implants. I'm also not totally sure Midnighter could combat moves from hundreds of centuries in the future. And if any of those things don't go Midnighter's way, I think he has trouble beating Batman 1-Million.

On the other hand, even if Gog's team executes the EMP, I'm not so sure Red King couldn't shield his teammates from it. And if Midnighter's implants survive it, he might be able to anticipate and evade Mr. Fantastic's glue-gun attack. That said, I'm not really sure what attack Midnighter has that could hurt Reed's ultra-stretchy body.

One thing working in Gog's team's favor is that Zemo's pre-cog would let them know how likely it was that their EMP wouldn't work, so at least they'd know in advance if they'd be facing a full-powered Midnighter or Midnighter with his implants impared.

So maybe a slight advantage to Gog at this point, but there's two more reg battles:

- Gog has Batman beat Anarky using his telepathic martial arts attack.

- Ari has Anarky shoot Reed with a gun, causing him to stretch. Then he uses a modified version of the tech Red King used to steal Flash's protective aura to essentially make it so that Reed's internal organs don't stretch with the rest of his body. As a result, Reed's organs are torn apart by his stretching.

Ari gave his team psi-blockers, so that could stop Batman's telepathic attack, assuming Ari's team either stops the EMP or shields Anarky from it. Still, Batman has a lot of other ways he could attack Anarky, especially if Engineer is unsuccessful in controlling his super-futuristic tech. If she succeeds, then he's limited to martial arts, and Anarky probably has a tech-based solution to that.

At this point, I'd say the reg battle is pretty even, but there's still Ari's takedown of Reed to consider. Of the four reg battles, I think I have the biggest problems with this one. To me, neutralizing Flash's protective forcefield and neutralizing Reed's internal organs ability to stretch with the rest of him are two very different things. I'm not convinced Red King's tech could be modified to take out Reed in this way. Effectively, it amounts to "curing" Reed's power, except the "cure" is applied only to his internal organs. Reed, in addition to being a supergenius, knows far more about his and the other FF's powers than anyone on the opposing team is likely to learn from reading Magneto's computer files. And he spent years struggling to figure out a way to cure the Thing's powers. I don't really see Ari's team doing the equivalent in a single day. Plus, this tactic somewhat relies on Reed being taken by surprise, and Zemo's precog makes that unlikely.

So all in all I give the edge in the reg battles to Gog, based mostly on my skepticism of how Ari took down Reed.

The Ubers -- Ares and Zemo vs. Red King and Resurrection Man 1-million
- Gog has Res Man stuck to the ground with Adhesive-X. He presents various options, but argues that none of them would work. Most notably, he has Batman hack into Zemo's boom tube suit and teleport him into a room filled with a toxin similar to the one Res Man uses to kill himself. Since Res Man is known to be vulnerable to such a toxin, it can keep killing him over and over.

- Gog uses Adhesive-X to stick Ares and Red King together, then has Ares port them to the Aeropagus. He argues that once Red King is there, he can't get back, while Zemo can port in and help Ares finish him off.

-Ari has the ubers fight a two-on-two battle, arguing that his characters have superior speed and counter-measures for many specific attacks Gog's guys could use. He has Red King stun Zemo with an energy blast while Res Man destroys the Moonstones with quantum TK and finishes off Zemo with telepathy. Then he combines Red King's energy blasts and Res Man's quantum TK to take down Ares.

Comments: First, regarding Gog's contention that Res Man would be toast if his ressurector device is taken out by the EMP... I'm not so sure. It seemed to me that the device he wore was just a convenient way of killing himself, whereas the resurrecting was an innate power, and the choosing what power to get when resurrecting was just something he'd learned to do over the course of the millenium. With that interpretation, destroying the device he wears on his arm would just mean he couldn't kill himself as easily. Maybe I'm misinterpreting, though.

Gog is skeptical as to whether Res Man is still able to use quantum TK in the far future, but I don't see why he wouldn't be. And if he does use it, he should be able to disassemble Adhesive-X pretty easily. I'm not sure I understand exactly what quantum TK is, but it seems to at least encompass some sort of transmutation power, which is all he needs to neutralize Zemo's superglue.

On the other hand, the approach of porting Res Man into a room full of neurotoxin seems like it could work, assuming whatever tech they needed to do it could be shielded from Engineer's attack. Again, Zemo's precognition might help them anticipate Engineer's attack and find a way around it.

This is as good a time as any to mention a point about cosmic awareness: Ari argues that Res Man's cosmic awareness (which consists of perceiving things on the atomic level) is better than Zemo's. But Zemo can look at various future scenarios and determine which are most likely to occur. Really, his is pre-cognition, whereas Res Man's seems to be more like atomic-level senses. Personally, I think pre-cog is going to be more useful for this fight.

Ari argues that Zemo and Red King would fight together, so Zemo can also use his quantum TK to stop Adhesive-X from being used against Red King. But to me, the more important question is whether Red King could be teleported. I've not read anything with Red King, so I'm just going by what the participants have said. Ari argues Red King has anti-teleportation counter measures, but Gog seems to view these as mostly ways to shut down the JLA teleporters. But Red King also seems to have magic resistance, so that might let him stop Ares from teleporting him.

Ari's takedown of Gog's ubers seems pretty reasonable if his characters are indeed drastically faster than Gog's, as Ari considers to be the case. Gog doesn't seem to think Red King is that fast. Like I said, I haven't read anything with Red King, so I just have to go on what the participants say. I'm willing to grant that Red King has superspeed based on him going toe-to-toe with Superman et al., but I suppose the same reasoning would suggest Ares has some superspeed based on his being able to fight Wonder Woman. But if I had to guess, I'd say Ari is right that Red King is faster. He's clearly meant to be a threat to the whole Justice League, and I don't see how he could be without substantial super speed.

All in all, I guess I'm favoring Ari a bit on the uber battles, particularly if Red King can resist Ares' magic-based teleportation or overwhelm him with speed.

Decision: So who am I voting for? Honestly, I'm not sure. I think I'll sleep on it and edit in my vote in the morning. In the mean time, if either participant cares to comment on any of the above commentary, feel free to do so.

[wiegeabo]

-Vision beats Deadpool (or at least delays him until they can gang up on him) by grabbing his junk
I've got to like how Wieg is turning his team's teh gheyness into an advantage +1


One must use whatever advantage presents itself.

[LadyVader]

I'm gonna go with Aristotle although I think he's kinda smitten with Angie. No way is she as powerful as he's depicting, otherwise she'd be an uber.

[Dark Gog]

I'd just like to stress again I'm not ignoring his Red King's speed at all. But the only difference between Shelley (using Quantum Speed) rushing Zemo and Profitt doing so, is that the latter's slower and would not be touching the ground.

I have no idea why RM's supposed to be faster than Helmut. Both are none-speedsters who can fly at high velocities, but Zemo can at-least manipulate time and space, and Shelley won't be moving at those speeds at-all, since he and RK entered Zemo's neck of the woods, and gravity's been altered to give even Superman (and therefor Mitchell) pause. Now maybe Shelley can amp his strength enough to move more freely, but since Red King's there and Quantum Speed isn't being used, I'd expect Zemo to just crank gravity up to eleven.

Ares and Red King are both stronger than your average bear (in-fact, probably Ares' biggest stunt involved actually increasing his size exponentially and still carrying a conversation while standing on a planet four-million times the Earth's mass, but that feat's a bit more involved), but no-one will be zooming-around under those conditions. That was the strategy all-along, of-course; draw them (as things turned-out. In my scenario it was either one) in, allow for them getting a free shot, then strike when they've been brought-down to a more manageable pace. If he still can't get a bead on them, then once anyone's in the field, his first action can be seeding it with force-barriers and small portals instead. The only person whose location he'd need to know to implement any of these tactics would be Ares.

Aristotle seems to have initially relied on Shelley to combat such attacks, but the more I learn about him, the less sure I am just where many of his abilities are derived from. Did anyone think something like taking energy-blasts apart on a quantum-level and rerouting them might have been something mentioned in a comic-book? How about stopping incoming teleportation? At the very least, he's certainly done nothing to suggest countering gravity-manipulation with more than just extra force.

Now one thing Authorititans have been falling back on is mental speed, so let's bear in mind Ares' mental processes are enhanced (he even hints at it talking to Wonder Woman early in the Rucka run: .."machines that can process information faster than a God can think."), and that Zemo was a skilled street-leveler and a mild super-genius before he got the Moonstones. Let's also remember that while Profitt could normally avoid physical contact with Ares easily enough, he has no reason to be particularly weary of it, and his team isn't the only one that can cooperate. Zemo could port Ares near RK, increase his pace, and probably keep him from the brunt of the gravitational pull, and they've been working side-by-side for weeks, while the other two Ubers have only just met their teammates.

Obviously RM can take Adhesive X apart at a moment's notice. What's more questionable is that he'll have one, and a moment while his opponent's rooted to one spot is all the opening Ares would need, whether he's locked into physical contact with him or just looking at him funny.

Of-course, Zemo can move entire areas, so if things get desperate enough, he doesn't really have to pin him down exactly, and the notion put-forth originally that my team could never even teleport them as option is dubious at best.

[Dark Gog]

Rather than doing the other match one writeup at a time, I'm going to discuss them both together but split it up by weightclass (regs, meds, ubers)

The Mediums -- Lightray vs. Engineer:
- In Gog's, the team first fries everything (including Engineer) with an EMP, then Lightray beats her up and then Boom tubes her away. He protects himself from her radion attack by using heat.

Actually, what he's doing is using heat to destroy any invading nanites that may be infiltrating his body in order to produce it from the inside. My defenses vs. Radion are otherwise the same they've been throughout the tournament; energy-conversion and a containment suit. I guess Ari's right in that I didn't mention those in my prep, but the strange thing is that he neglects these measures in his write-up, even though I'd used both options when we fought the first time.

Personally, I thought Ari was a little quick to assume Engineer could shut down all opposing tech. Batman 1-million's tech from over 800 centuries in the future, so it may well be more advanced than anything Engineer has controlled before.The way Aristotle's been using the Engineer's certainly raised red flags, but I have very little knowledge of the character. I will say though, I would have expected her to have at-least had difficulty with the aliens during Coup d'Etat or there never would have been a threat, and that, at-least going by the event book, nano-technological warfare was pretty damn common during the 853rd century. It's there explicitly with the Solaris Virus, which effeceted every electronic and biological system on the planet - including all JLA 1,000,000 members - with only J'onn J'onnz able to hold it off using his shape-shifting DNA, and Vandal Savage's battle with Resurrection Man, used miscellaneously for other purposes, and maybe Solaris controls Aresnal 1M. I thought Batman's own custom was probably made from the stuff, given the way it receded along his body when he showed Zauriel his face. Then again, both Red King and Moonstone used to put their cloths on the same way. Either way, he must have shielded his own equipment somewhat, since he sweeped electronics himself, and he was a technopath in his own right, from a future some eight-hundred centuries past even Abra-Kadabra or the Legion's times.

Still, even if she is capapable of controlling the EMP device, who's to say she'd get the chance? I mean, even if she can take control the EMP in the first nanosecond of the fight, who's to say Gog's team couldn't build an EMP that would automatically detonate in the first half a nanosecond, or whatever. Especially since they could use computer chips that are hundreds of centuries more advanced than Engineer's computer brain. Surely there's been some increase in processing speed over that time.I did mention quantum computers specifically during debate.

I don't know whether Profitt'd have a defense for EMPs he could readily share, but Authorititans seem clearly to be banking on sweeping all my tech away during the first moment of the fight. Electronic defenses are the last thing on their minds.

Even assuming an EMP utterly fails to affect Ari's team individually, it or my team can still do a lot to minimize communication between The Engineer and her more remote nanites.

And even if she somehow prevails completely, we're still using much cruder weapons her team could not have anticipated. Come to that, Ari says he always gives rival teams a strategy, but I'm still struggling to see what mine may have been.

- Gog has Res Man stuck to the ground with Adhesive-X. He presents various options, but argues that none of them would work. Most notably, he has Batman hack into Zemo's boom tube suit and teleport him into a room filled with a toxin similar to the one Res Man uses to kill himself. Since Res Man is known to be vulnerable to such a toxin, it can keep killing him over and over.I was actually thinking of a somewhat weaker toxin, just to keep him from developing new powers. Although he may still drown. That would actually be preferable, because the new power he'd be getting may be geared towards avoiding drowning.

Comments: First, regarding Gog's contention that Res Man would be toast if his ressurector device is taken out by the EMP... I'm not so sure. It seemed to me that the device he wore was just a convenient way of killing himself, whereas the resurrecting was an innate power, and the choosing what power to get when resurrecting was just something he'd learned to do over the course of the millenium. With that interpretation, destroying the device he wears on his arm would just mean he couldn't kill himself as easily. Maybe I'm misinterpreting, though.Well firstly, my scenario already had him stuck (figuratively and literally) with a now useless power. But even if what you say is true, not being able to switch powers would be a major set-back.

I don't doubt he can call back on his 20th-century powers anymore. It might have been a little different, but Quantum Speed was the power he used to pacify Superman in the future, and the first ability he manifested in RM #19. Quantum Telekinesis would still be a power my team's familar with from the last first round, and presumabely one Batman has some knowledge of from his time working with Mitch.

Ari argues that Zemo and Red King would fight together, so Zemo can also use his quantum TK to stop Adhesive-X from being used against Red King. But to me, the more important question is whether Red King could be teleported. I've not read anything with Red King, so I'm just going by what the participants have said. Ari argues Red King has anti-teleportation counter measures, but Gog seems to view these as mostly ways to shut down the JLA teleporters. But Red King also seems to have magic resistance, so that might let him stop Ares from teleporting him.
I don't think there can be doubt that's what the scene involved suggested. Red King might have some other protections availabe, but if so, it can't possibly be all-inclusive, since he's teleported himself.

As for magical defenses, disregarding the likelyhood of it for the moment, he has never faced anyone with nearly as much raw magical power. Not even Fate. And I've counted at-least four different effects Ares used for teleporting, disincluding portals and reflections. Zemo wouldn't even target him directly unless he's bisecting him, only the area immediately surrounding him.

Anyway, when Profitt said he asked for protocols for a Themysciran invasion, what he clearly wanted and received were firstly countermeasures against Wonder Woman. A lot of his steps were extremely specific, and usually geared against Justice League members, who were something of an obssession. So he had a shield around him that made Diana's lasso give her visions of the different ways he'd seen the League die when she wanted the truth. Just like he had a Bizzaro virus and a chemical to use against the Flash. That's Good for him, but it hardly helps him any here.

I'm willing to grant that Red King has superspeed based on him going toe-to-toe with Superman et al., but I suppose the same reasoning would suggest Ares has some superspeed based on his being able to fight Wonder Woman. I don't think that logic really works, or John Stewart, who'd also fought the Red King, would have needed super-speed himself to keep-up. I'm also pretty sure he's meant to be is something well beyond the limits we've established - someone with just about every power you can think of, as is actually stated clearly in his first appearance, a Secret Files issue. In practice, what we've seen him do was a lot more manageable, and I'm holding him to that, or at-least those things we know concretely he'd been looking into.

One last thing about the Red King. Ari states he was a decent team-player, and I never really questioned that. However, he was also very keen on preserving his own life. He was coming apart when he thought he couldn't leave the moon in time to survive, and there's precious little he holds sacred enough to fight for. This is a man who systematically eliminated six-and-a-half billion possible realities, after-all, and, near the end, stopped caring even for the fate of his own alternates.

If things ever took a truly dire turn, there's little that would hold him by his teammates' side.

[Aristotle]

The Mediums -- Lightray vs. Engineer

However, Gog raises a good point that even if Engineer takes control of the ventillation system instantly, that doesn't mean it wouldn't still take some time to use that system to flood the station with radion. I mean, even with radion pouring out of every vent, that still might be enough time for someone who moves at lightspeed to attack.It's starting to appear to me that, as usual, I was unclear about something. I'm trying to make my writeups more clear, and I think I'm doing better at it, but what I apparently failed to make apparent was that Engineer is rigging up the entire asteroid with these emitters. She is very literally doing everything she can to make the entire asteroid an uninhabitable place for Lightray. Could he wear a containment suit? Sure, but like you say, it'd also be pretty damn easy to rupture it.

Personally, I thought Ari was a little quick to assume Engineer could shut down all opposing tech. Batman 1-million's tech from over 800 centuries in the future, so it may well be more advanced than anything Engineer has controlled before. On the other hand, she has Resurrection Man 1-million to tell her all about that tech during prep-time.You're exactly right about Mitch being able to fill her in. In fact, Mitch will have some of that tech on hand. But honestly, I don't think it matters. The reason I think Angie can do all the things I claim she can do while remaining med is that this is really her only power. She is a technopath, and that's it. That technopathy manifests itself in myriad ways, but at her core, she is only a technopath. Put her in the Sahara Desert circa 567 AD or whatever, and she's ****ed. Put her here, on the other hand, and she's in her element. There has never been tech that she couldn't assimilate and use.

Surely there's been some increase in processing speed over that time.I don't think we can assume that. These aren't the same universes. The level of development that the WSU has seen is vastly greater than that of the DCU at the same point in history.

That said, I'm not really sure what attack Midnighter has that could hurt Reed's ultra-stretchy body.Punching him in the head, really hard. Reed's been knocked out that way plenty of times.

At this point, I'd say the reg battle is pretty even, but there's still Ari's takedown of Reed to consider. Of the four reg battles, I think I have the biggest problems with this one. To me, neutralizing Flash's protective forcefield and neutralizing Reed's internal organs ability to stretch with the rest of him are two very different things. I'm not convinced Red King's tech could be modified to take out Reed in this way. Effectively, it amounts to "curing" Reed's power, except the "cure" is applied only to his internal organs.It's not a cure, it's a modification. Red King's tech was basically able to remove a key component of Flash's powers by studying the chemical process which had created them. Red King seems to have the pseudo-science of superpower manipulation down pat.

[Aristotle]

I'd just like to stress again I'm not ignoring his Red King's speed at all.How is completely discounting it as a factor in the battle, which you literally said, not ignoring it?

Zemo can at-least manipulate time and spaceSo can Mitch. That's what this powerset is all about. And my guy's had hundreds of centuries to perfect his technique. What's your guy had, a couple years?

Now one thing Authorititans have been falling back on is mental speed, so let's bear in mind Ares' mental processes are enhanced (he even hints at it talking to Wonder Woman early in the Rucka run: .."machines that can process information faster than a God can think."), and that Zemo was a skilled street-leveler and a mild super-genius before he got the Moonstones.Yeah, neither of those guys think at superspeed. Sorry, your ******** doesn't fly.

Let's also remember that while Profitt could normally avoid physical contact with Ares easily enough, he has no reason to be particularly weary of it, and his team isn't the only one that can cooperate. Zemo could port Ares near RK, increase his pace, and probably keep him from the brunt of the gravitational pull, and they've been working side-by-side for weeks, while the other two Ubers have only just met their teammates.Of course, since Red King can always just duck at superspeed, none of that matters. Not to mention that the adhesive can be neutralized immediately by Mitch.

[Dark Gog]

Yeah, neither of those guys think at superspeed. Sorry, your ******** doesn't fly.

Really? How do you think Ares keeps track of so many events around the world at the same time?

Zemo doesn't think at actual super-speed, no, (although if I did want to make that argument, there's a fair bit of evidence to use of Marvel super-geniuses making complex calculations and decisions instantly) but he still thinks at-least as quickly as Resurrection Man.

[Dark Gog]

Yeah, neither of those guys think at superspeed. Sorry, your ******** doesn't fly.

Really? How do you think Ares keeps track of so many events around the world at the same time?

Zemo doesn't think at actual super-speed, no, (although if I did want to make that argument, there's a fair bit of evidence to use of Marvel super-geniuses making complex calculations and decisions instantly) but he still thinks at-least as quickly as Resurrection Man.

[Dark Gog]

I'm voting for Wiegeabo. Vision taking-down Deadpool was a highlight.

[XFanTim]

This is a really hard choice, in part because both Gog and Ari have made a number of good arguments, but also in part because I don't know some of the characters very well, and Gog and Ari have very different takes on them. But I've got to make a decision eventually, and eventually might as well be now.

Meds
Even if I assume Engineer can control 853rd century tech, I think Gog's team could build an EMP device with an automatic timer fast enough to go off before Engineer could stop it. Gog did suggest in his debate that advances in computing between now and the 853rd century would make this possible. Ari argues that you can't assume the future of the DCU has better computers than the present of the Wildstorm universe, since Wildstorm is more advanced now (in his view, at least -- I haven't read enough Wildstorm to confirm or deny that point.) But even if Wildstorm tech is more advanced than DC tech, I have to imagine 800+ centuries is more than enough time to make up the difference.

Even if I assume Engineer anticipates the EMP and finds some way to shield herself from it (both of which are non-trivial assumptions), I'd think it would at least take out the radion emitters she's using against Lightray. Then she's stuck facing a guy who moves at lightspeed and who has the benefit of Zemo's pre-cog to know what she's likely to do against him. I think the odds are against her in that match.

Regs
In terms of the reg battles, I could see most of the fights going either way, but I still don't really buy how Ari took down Mr. Fantastic. I don't think canceling Flash's protective aura is much like making Reed's internal organs not stretch. In general, I think Gog has a good point that while Red King may have been intended to have just about every power you could imagine, he was presumably only allowed in the DTL on the assumption that he'd be limited to those powers explicitly shown in the comics. If we start assuming that he can neutralize any metahuman's powers after a day of prep just because he has a general idea of their origin, then I think that's pushing him a bit to far.

As far as Ari's claim that if all else fails his team could just beat Reed by punching him, has he really been KOed by guys with reg-level strength? My impression has always been that blunt-force impacts basically bounce off Reed's body unless he's stretched to his limit. I looked at some profiles, and apparently he's been knocked out at times by getting hit in the head, but it's not clear to me if this is a consistent weakness or how much strength it takes to do it.

Ubers
The big question here for me is how much Ari's guys can do. Was Res Man's quantum TK ever shown manipulating gravity? If Ari and Gog disagree on whether it could be used in this way, I think the burden is on Ari to give an example of it being used to affect gravity (because if he has done it, an example should be readily available, whereas if he hasn't done it then the only way to prove it is by reading every issue he's ever been in.) If RM can't counter gravity manipulation, then I think Gog's idea of an ultra-high gravity zone around Zemo is a reasonable way to slow down physical attacks like Red King charging him. And if he is slowed down, Zemo and Ares have many options for trying to teleport Red King to another dimension and thus beat him by battlefield removal. It's not clear to me from what's been said so far that Red King is immune to all forms of teleportation. Magic resistance might shield him from Ares, but Zemo's moonstones seem more like cosmic artifacts than Dr. Fate-style magic.

Anyway, none of this does much if RM can basically just disintegrate Zemo (or his Moonstones, like he does in Ari's writeup) before Zemo can do anything. Increasing gravity might slow a physical attack by making someone too heavy, but it's not going to do much against mental attacks, unless we're talking about Zemo actually slowing down time. Of course, Zemo can muck with time, and maybe he could use his precog to anticipate where Mitch is going to be and create a pocket of slowed down time there. Ari argues that RM can also manipulate time, but again I'd kind of like to see an example of when he's actually done this.

Anyway, a bigger question is how fast RM is. Obviously, he can kill himself and give himself superspeed instead of quantum telekinesis. But what we're talking about is having him using his quantum telekinesis while acting at superspeed. I assume Ari is saying superspeed (in terms of thinking/reflexes, not just flight speed) is part of RM 1 Million's basic powerset, and so when he uses quantum TK to attack Zemo he does so at superspeed, faster than Zemo can defend. Gog on the other hand is very explicit in claiming that RM doesn't think at superspeed. They can't both be right, and I don't really know the character well enough to know for sure.

But I have read the JLA One Million trade, which includes the issue where RM fights Vandal Savage. In that issue, RM states that his "default" powers are flight and enhanced strength. He makes no mention of superspeed, nor does he seem to use it in the fight against Vandal. So what little I've read of the character seems more in line with the claim that he doesn't have superspeed reflexes (unless he gives up whatever other powers he's using to get them). Anyway, if Zemo is able to keep pace with RM, then I think Gog's idea of teleporting him and using a neurotoxin against him could work.

--

Anyway, it's possible I'm selling both of Ari's ubers short, but right now I'm leaning a bit towards Gog and I figure I've put off voting long enough. Gog gets my vote.

[XFanTim]

Has anyone voted in the Ari/Gog match besides me and LV?

Maybe wieg should PM the other owners reminding them to vote. If we'd like to get more votes, I bet we could even talk a few of the former DTLers (Corp, JB, etc.) into voting, just for the few weeks of playoffs.

(If wieg or anyone else does solicit votes from former participants, make sure to let them know of changes in the voting policy: e.g., explict guidelines to base your vote on who had the better and more plausible strategy, not who's writeup was most entertaining or dramatic. Also, the explicit guideline not to favor one writeup over another based on length.)

[wiegeabo]

If you want to hit the former voters, I'll hit the current ones.


With a stick.

[wiegeabo]

Ok, this is a tough match. I took so long because I was trying to figure out what to say. But every time I tried, I really came down to a few points that I had problems with on both sides that I don't remember either side addressing to my satisfaction/memory. (The good points tend to cancel each other out, which makes this a good match.)

And reading what Tim posted, I think he hit some of what I would have said anyway. I too am a bit of confused about the characters (which makes me glad I wasn't facing them this week. ;))


For Gog:
I don't know about using Adhesive X. Where did it come from? Did Zemo and Reed make it with stuff in the base? Is that possible? Or does Zemo, or whoever, carry the stuff on them? I was confused about that, as well as where the chamber of toxin came from. Where does the EMP come from? Can Lightray generate one or did they build some kind of tech version? And couldn't Engineer counter the effects of an EMP?


For Ari:
My first question is, how the heck does Anarky make Radion? I know he made a Boom Tube from scratch and could likely make a Radion emitter. But, how does Lonnie know what Radion is? How does he know it is the weakness of New Gods? I even went back to the previous match and saw no explanation of this. You complained about Gog giving Ares Radion in the last fight, but I have to wonder why Lonnie is allowed to use it.

And even if Radion is accessible, couldn't Lightray just float out in space, safe from the Radion, and hit the station with an EMP? Then he wouldn't have to worry about it.
And I'm not convinced Engineer could instantly take over 853rd century tech. With R-Man's help, she probably could, except that Gog has Batman who's also very familiar with the same tech. If Engineer can do it, I doubt it would be instantaneous. And would taking over the station's tech be useful if Gog's team uses an EMP, or even sets up their 853rd century counter measures to slow her down?


I know I haven't put everything, but I think I got my point across. So my vote goes to...

B'wana Bet?

[Dark Gog]

For Gog:
I don't know about using Adhesive X. Where did it come from? Did Zemo and Reed make it with stuff in the base? Is that possible? Or does Zemo, or whoever, carry the stuff on them? I was confused about that, as well as where the chamber of toxin came from. Where does the EMP come from? Can Lightray generate one or did they build some kind of tech version? And couldn't Engineer counter the effects of an EMP?

Zemo's Castle contains his father's old trophy room. The EMP is manufactured on the spot. I believe Reed's rigged them on the field before during actual engagement, with a few moments to spare. I don't know what protections The Engineer might have against one, but it was part of a two-pronged attaxk on her systems, and in all likelihood a fair bit more powerful than her own energy sources.

I'm not sure where Anarky got Radion from the last time, but as he was at-least paired-up with a New God at that time I let it go.

[Aristotle]

Dude, you don't get to use **** from outside the battlefield!

I've always had Anarky use the JLA files, which he hacked in one of his miniseries. JLA files, kept by Batman, would almost certainly include mention of Radion.

[Dark Gog]

We've had this debate regarding BFR and prep since the beginning of the season. The consensus seemed to be dimensional real-state was fine, much like Magik can use Limbo. The Folding Castle isn't an ordinary base, the entire thing is a construct of Zemo's powers, and made expressly to be accessible from any spot.

[Nightwing.]

Chaos & Order vs. Deadpool's Harem
Authorititans vs. B'wana Bet?

[Aristotle]

So the only active voter left is Khel/Ahura, am I right?

[Ahura Mazda]

Sorry I have not voted but I have been away.

Chaos & Order

B'Wana Bet - by a hair's breadth

[Aristotle]

Damn. Oh well.

[DTL Commish]

Voting is now over.
Final results:

Chaos & Order 5
Deadpool's Harem 0

The Authorititans 2
B'wana Bet? 3

[Aristotle]

Thanks for a damn good match this time, Gog. I'm much happier to go out like that.

[Dark Gog]

Yeah, I was just coming-in to say it was a good debate. I do wish we could have been more in-synch regarding some of our characters' abilities.

[Aristotle]

Yeah, you had me on a weak spot with Ares, for sure. Wonder Woman, oddly enough, is my weakest link on DCU knowledge. I could just never really bring myself to care about her solo title, except about a year leading up to Infinite Crisis. I felt like I knew Zemo better than Ares, and I don't know much about Zemo from a technical standpoint.