DTL Season 6-Week 3 (Set 2)

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The Authorititans


I would have liked regular Wonder Woman and Superman better though. :D


:supes: :supes: :supes:
 
Shoulda voted for me, Ahura. If you had, Valkyrie's only experience with Midnighter would have been getting an exploding rocket ship flown into her ass. Exploding rocket ships, Ahura. Exploding rocket ships. And instead, you chose the agony of defeat.

I am sorry but I did not vote that week.
 
Closing Arguments

Rather then continue this endless discussion with Franklyn, I am going to sum up what I feel are the issues. However, please note that he hardly argued against my write up but spent his whole time defending his own against my arguments. Therfore it could be said he agreed with my write up.

1. The first issue you have to decide upon is which write up you feel is more believable
2. Can the Silver Sufer attack Green lantern and avoid the Flash while Cable takes care of him (Flash). And is the Silver Surfer then renderred completely helpless...yes the one who has a visciousness that made him attack Galactus himself.
3. Can psi-helmets be whisked out of nothingness because without them Franklin's team are sitting ducks
4. Who is more intelligent: Reed or Brainiac 417?
5. Can Reed create gloves in less then 24 hours (because he has to also set traps per Franklin's writings) to drain an alternate Siver Surfer who was created by a Galactus that creates worlds and does not destroy them?
6. Is Brainiac a complete idiot who rushes in places
7. Can Wolverine's cloaking that comes from celestial technology be renderred useless by an Invisible Woman who cannot even sense where he is
8. Can Midnighter hold out at least an hour

In any case, those are a few issues you could have in mind when reading the write ups and before you vote.
 
Normally I wouldn't vote this early, but I'm almost certainly not going to be around until Monday, so I'm voting. Yancy gets the vote, literally in a tossup. I could not decide, and the coin came up tails. I'm sorry because it's a premature vote and I would have liked to have seen more debate before deciding, but this is as long as I can wait.
 
I know it's super-late and it's also gonna be short and not very pretty, but I didn't want to go two weeks without doing anything. Plus, there's nothing to do at work right now. ;)

Prep

My team's got plenty of information to supplement the descriptions of Ari's characters. Charis and Captain Atom know Midnighter quite well, X-Man knows Quicksilver, and Aquaman knows Sebastian Faust and how Wonder Woman thinks, at least, if not the powers Ari's particular version possesses. Superman-16 is the only true unknown, but they can guess that he at least has Kryptonian powers in addition to whatever "quantum telekinesis" is.

My team is safe from any sort of direct telepathic attacks or manipulation thanks to X-Man and Aquaman, and their psi powers allow the team to keep in constant telepathic contact, as well. Of course, Ari's team would be shielded from direct telepathic attacks and manipulation as well due to Wonder Woman's powers, Faust's sorcery, and probably even Superman-16's super-advanced mind or something.

Unfortunately, Ari's team has the battlefield advantage, since Quicksilver knows Wundagore Mountain extremely well and has the speed to prep the battlefield more thoroughly than my team, although my team still gets its fair share of tech from the High Evolutionary's Citadel, including some lasers and atomic steeds for any Polka-Dotters who can't fly.

Battles

Quicksilver obviously strikes first on Nemesis, but she has her stealth suit's shields up so she's okay. From there it becomes something of a clusterf***, with the ubers and lower classes splitting off into two simultaneous fights.

Ubers
Captain Atom goes for Superman-16 and X-Man goes for Wonder Woman, since their powers seem to match up best. When Atom learns what "quantum telekinesis" really means, though, it becomes abundantly clear that he's got a problem. He can match Superman-16 physically at first, but his energy attacks are either physically tossed aside or absorbed to augment Superman-16.

X-Man, meanwhile, fights Wonder Woman, augmenting his own strength to match hers and using constructs of pure psionic energy to duke it out physically. It doesn't go well, since he's a 17-year-old kid winging it as he goes and she's an Amazon with years of training and experience. So Nate abandons the physical fight and realizes he can match or exceed her powers in every other way. She creates physical psi images, he creates physical psi images to match them. She attempts telepathic blasts and finds them cut off by Nate's shields and vastly greater power. Still, Wonder Woman's scrappy and Nate can't find an obvious opening to go beyond just matching her blow-for-blow and actually take her down.

The ubers regroup and switch partners. Captain Atom holds his own against Wonder Woman, but X-Man runs into the same problems as Captain Atom against Superman-16, since X-Man's powers involve psi energy. Finally, it becomes clear that there is no other recourse but to use the one power Superman-16 can't match: Nate teleports him to another dimension.

Teaming up against Wonder Woman, X-Man and Captain Atom make short work of her.

Others
Nemesis, shielded by her stealth suit's force fields, takes Quicksilver out pretty quickly with her enhanced reflexes and empathic sense to warn her when he approaches. Hardly a big deal, given how often Quicksilver gets knocked out by a clothesline from a person with quick reflexes in the comics.

Aquaman is the obvious choice to fight Faust, but he keeps his distance because his hand can only cancel magic he knows about, leaving him vulnerable to sneak attacks and non-mystical traps the Authorititans may have set up. He uses the laser rifle and atomic steed he obtained to harry Faust from a distance, hoping to break his concentration and keep him from performing anymore spells more than actually hurt him.

Meanwhile, Patriarch is dodging laser fire from the Midnighter using his own atomic steed and his teleportation portals. A blast singes his shoulder and pisses him off, so he teleports the mechanical guts of Midnighter's atomic steed away, leaving Midnighter falling through the air on a chunk of useless metal. Unable to fly and with nothing around for the Midnighter to control his descent with, his computerized brain can't really do much to stop Patriarch from teleporting his arms and legs off, leaving him a helpless paraplegic, bleeding out on the side of Wundagore Mountain. Patriarch still teleports his head away, to put him out of his misery and, you know, just in case.

Aquaman, tired of playing conservatively, shapeshifts his water hand and lets it seep into the earth around Faust, canceling any protection spells he'd set up there. He then rushes Faust, only to find himself knocked back by a purely unmagical mine fashioned from materials in the Citadel. Faust teleports himself to Aquaman to finish him off, but finds himself landing on another teleport portal and winding up in the sky instead, courtesy of Patriarch. While Faust teleports himself again to get back to solid ground, Nemesis and Patriarch regroup at Aquaman's position. Faust puts up a good fight with his magic but ultimately Aquaman's ability to cancel any magic that gets too close, Patriarch's teleportation ability, and Nemesis' fighting skills prove too much for him.

The heroic members of the team--Aquaman and Captain Atom--are upset with Patriarch's actions, X-Man doesn't mind the killing so much as the cruelty of it, and Nemesis doesn't really give a s*** either way. The Polka-Dot Fuchsia Lantern Corps wins nonetheless.
 
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Good choice teleporting Midnighter's head off, ****er can spit his own teeth with enough force to pulverize stone columns. Anyways, going with the Polka Dot Corps, since Ari never proved Faust could do the **** he claims he can with these damn traps. Plus, Superman doesn't have quantum telekinesis.
 
Geez guys, can you make the matches any tougher?


The Polka Dot Fuchsia Lantern Corps

The ubers here are pretty well matched, whichever way they fight it out. One thing I'll point out is that I wasn't convinced by Faust defeating Patriarch. Faust has to cast a spell. Patriarch just has to blink and he's holding Faust's heart in his hand. Patriarch may need to teleport a lot to find Faust, but if Faust is spending all his time scrying and teleporting, how is he casting any other spells?


The Immortals

Again, another good matchup with the ubers. But I think Franklin underestimates the smarts of Ahura's team. 800 centuries of experience (and intergalactic tech) is just too much for Reed. If Doom can occasionally outsmart Reed, than so can Brainiac.
 
Franklin and Ahura's match is really close. Regarding the ubers, I could see it going either way. On paper, I think Silver Surfer and Cable may be a more powerful pair than Green Lantern and Flash. But Franklin's arguments seem pretty good. Hal can make himself invisible, and he can create psi-blocking helmets. He doesn't need to build them -- Franklin's scan showed him creating them instantly with the power of his ring. But even so, constructs can be attacked, so Cable might be able to telekinetically tear through Hal's helmet. (I think even if his telepathy is blocked he could probably find Hal by reaching out telekinetically.) If Cable does get through Hal's telepathic defenses, he's toast. As for Silver Surfer vs. Flash, while Ahura makes the good point that Surfer can fly out of Barry's reach, I don't think he'd start the battle in the air, since his powers were turned off during prep-time. So that leaves an opening for a quick attack by Barry, and the energy-draining thing seems like a decent gambit. Ahura objects that it might not work on the Surfer from another universe, but Ahura/Khell have been routinely assuming that this Surfer has all the same powers as the usual version, and if you're going to assume his powers are identical when it helps you then I think you have to also assume they're identical when it hurts you. Even if they do take Surfer out, Cable is going to be tough to deal with, but Hal and Barry working together might be able to pull it off. (E.g., Barry speed draining him to give Hal more of an advantage.) At the very least, Franklin has convinced me the uber match would be close, despite my initial sense that Ahura's ubers are stronger.

So, I turn to the lower level matches to decide things, and there I think Invisible Woman is probably the biggest factor. I agree that part of her power is to make invisible things visible, and I'm pleased to see Franklin taking advantage of this. I don't really buy that just because Death Wolvy uses Celestial tech that he'd be immune. As Franklin points out, Galactus also has super advanced tech, and he's still needed Sue's help for this purpose before. Also, it's worth mentioning that Sue's forcefields once punch a hole in a Celestial's armor -- apparently they draw their power from hyperspace and that makes Celestial's vulnerable. You might say forcefields and detecting the invisible are two different things, but I'd think Sue's power source is the same for all her powers. In any case, it certainly isn't proven that Celestial tech is immune to Sue's powers.

If Sue can make Wolverine invisible, she should be able to take him and Midnighter both out with relative ease. Hand-to-hand fighters just don't match up well against her. Catching her with traps will also be difficult. She should be able to reveal invisible traps, and make the walls invisible to reveal traps hidden within them. Brainiac-417 will be difficult to beat, but if Sue takes out Midnighter and Wolverine quick enough then it's three on one. Sure, he's an untouchable spirit, but that doesn't mean you can't smash his weapons and such. If you destroy B-417's tech, then he's helpless, and I think eventually Reed could think of a weapon to finish him. The null field Franklin proposes might do the trick.

So, I'm voting for the Yancy Street Gang in a close one.

I would have liked to see some debate in the other match. Especially because some of the characters (most notably Ari's ubers) are ones I don't know well. I'm still not totally sure what "quantum telekinesis" really means or whether Superman has it, but Corp seems to acknowledge Superman could absorb basically all his ubers' attacks except teleporting him off the battlefield. The thing is, I'm not sure Nate could get a fix on Superman to teleport him if he's moving at full speed, and his superspeed might likewise give him enough attacks to pound through Nate's forcefield. I'm not sure how much damage it takes, but he's at least been challenged by guys like Apocalypse and Holocaust, who use mostly physical attacks, and ones that I think probably aren't any stronger than full-force Superman punches. And certainly they don't throw those attacks nearly as quickly.

So, I guess I give Ari's ubers the edge in the uber battle, mostly because of their speed advantage. And that probably makes a bigger difference than the fact that I felt Ari underwrote Corp's lower levels a bit (particularly Patriarch).

Thus, I vote for The Authorititans.
 
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Ari never proved Faust could do the **** he claims he can with these damn traps.
WHAT DO I STILL NEED TO PROVE TO YOU?

Plus, Superman doesn't have quantum telekinesis.
Did I do something with him that isn't fully supported by the comics? Whatever you want to call it, it's well supported by his appearances in the comics.
 
A huge question here has to be matchups. Whose matchups do you buy? I think my team's opening moves provide them with a much more viable path to controlling matchups than Corp's opening strategy, which is just "engage the other team."

Finally, it becomes clear that there is no other recourse but to use the one power Superman-16 can't match: Nate teleports him to another dimension.
Superman apparently forgets how to duck.
 
How do you duck teleportation? Regardless, Nate could freeze Superman-16 long enough to teleport him. He can and has broken through pretty tough psi-shields from the likes of Mr. Sinister and overloaded the mind of Exodus, another uber telepath.
 
"Duck" was probably a poor choice of words, but what I meant is what Tim said: Superman moves real fast. It would be hard to get a lock on him.
 
Franklin and Ahura's match is really close. Regarding the ubers, I could see it going either way. On paper, I think Silver Surfer and Cable may be a more powerful pair than Green Lantern and Flash. But Franklin's arguments seem pretty good. Hal can make himself invisible, and he can create psi-blocking helmets. He doesn't need to build them -- Franklin's scan showed him creating them instantly with the power of his ring. But even so, constructs can be attacked, so Cable might be able to telekinetically tear through Hal's helmet. (I think even if his telepathy is blocked he could probably find Hal by reaching out telekinetically.) If Cable does get through Hal's telepathic defenses, he's toast. As for Silver Surfer vs. Flash, while Ahura makes the good point that Surfer can fly out of Barry's reach, I don't think he'd start the battle in the air, since his powers were turned off during prep-time. So that leaves an opening for a quick attack by Barry, and the energy-draining thing seems like a decent gambit. Ahura objects that it might not work on the Surfer from another universe, but Ahura/Khell have been routinely assuming that this Surfer has all the same powers as the usual version, and if you're going to assume his powers are identical when it helps you then I think you have to also assume they're identical when it hurts you. Even if they do take Surfer out, Cable is going to be tough to deal with, but Hal and Barry working together might be able to pull it off. (E.g., Barry speed draining him to give Hal more of an advantage.) At the very least, Franklin has convinced me the uber match would be close, despite my initial sense that Ahura's ubers are stronger.

So, I turn to the lower level matches to decide things, and there I think Invisible Woman is probably the biggest factor. I agree that part of her power is to make invisible things visible, and I'm pleased to see Franklin taking advantage of this. I don't really buy that just because Death Wolvy uses Celestial tech that he'd be immune. As Franklin points out, Galactus also has super advanced tech, and he's still needed Sue's help for this purpose before. Also, it's worth mentioning that Sue's forcefields once punch a hole in a Celestial's armor -- apparently they draw their power from hyperspace and that makes Celestial's vulnerable. You might say forcefields and detecting the invisible are two different things, but I'd think Sue's power source is the same for all her powers. In any case, it certainly isn't proven that Celestial tech is immune to Sue's powers.

If Sue can make Wolverine invisible, she should be able to take him and Midnighter both out with relative ease. Hand-to-hand fighters just don't match up well against her. Catching her with traps will also be difficult. She should be able to reveal invisible traps, and make the walls invisible to reveal traps hidden within them. Brainiac-417 will be difficult to beat, but if Sue takes out Midnighter and Wolverine quick enough then it's three on one. Sure, he's an untouchable spirit, but that doesn't mean you can't smash his weapons and such. If you destroy B-417's tech, then he's helpless, and I think eventually Reed could think of a weapon to finish him. The null field Franklin proposes might do the trick.

So, I'm voting for the Yancy Street Gang in a close one.

I must say that is a very elaborate reason for your vote but it seems to me that your whole basuis is the gloves will work on SS immediately wheras it has been mentionned he would be surrounded by a force field as prepared by Brainiac. Something Franklyn even agreed with albeit he mentionned it would not be as powerful. Therefore how would the gloves even touch him.

Anyways it is of no importance and it is your choice at the end of the day.

My vote goes to Corp's team.
 
The Corpulent asking the big questions. How do you duck teleportation? :)
 
"Duck" was probably a poor choice of words, but what I meant is what Tim said: Superman moves real fast. It would be hard to get a lock on him.
He could freeze Superman-16. Maybe not for long with Superman-16's super-advanced mind, but long enough to teleport him. I know Superman-16's psi-shielded, but Nate has proven capable of breaking through psi-shields before, even as a child, or, if you prefer, he's also proven capable of physically freezing people by telekinetically interrupting the flow of electricity in their brains.
 
I just don't see X-Man being fast enough to do that. He's got to get a lock on Superman to do it.
 
I doubt he had a lock on every single person in that room when he froze their brains, or if he did, I doubt it was a conscious lock. Obviously, it's speculation either way but I'd say it's reasonable to say that Nate could put out a telekinetic field that tells brain activity within a certain area around himself to stop, which means Superman-16--whose primary method of fighting is still physically battering opponents--would be susceptible to it. It's not like Superman-16 was constantly in motion in the one fight we've seen him participate in, either. Even super-speed characters have to slow down to actually fight, unless they're fighting an equally fast opponent.
 
They don't have to slow down, and they won't if it makes them more vulnerable.
 
Yeah, we see that all the time in comics, just like that one fight Superman-16 was in where... he stood in the middle of the battlefield most of the time. Unless they're completely built around speed, superheroes tend to not fight at super-speed 100% of the time in their comic battles, which is still the basis of our representations of the characters.

Regardless, like I said before, psychics don't necessarily need to lock onto anybody. The nature of their powers allows them to be omnidirectional, unless they're so limited that they need to focus all their power into one blast, which Nate certainly is not. If Superman-16 needs to get near Nate--which he does--Nate would be able to either freeze him outright or slow him down with other psychic attacks enough to teleport him.
 
I must say that is a very elaborate reason for your vote but it seems to me that your whole basuis is the gloves will work on SS immediately wheras it has been mentionned he would be surrounded by a force field as prepared by Brainiac. Something Franklyn even agreed with albeit he mentionned it would not be as powerful. Therefore how would the gloves even touch him.
Well I was kind of thinking Barry could vibrate through his forcefield. Of course that would only work if he can vibrate the gloves through with him. To be honest, I'm not sure if he can do that or not -- are Flashes usually able to phase objects they're holding?

Regarding the other fight, I've already voted but for future reference I'd like to know more about how good Superman-16's energy absorption is. In his writeup, Corp seemed to be conceding that he could absorb the energy of Nate's psychic attacks, but now he's saying Nate could freeze Superman in place with a telepathic attack. I don't know enough about Superman-16 to know if he absorbs all energy based attacks (including psychic energy) or not. Did he ever absorb anything besides heat vision (and the solar energy that the regular Superman absorbs)? Was it ever stated that he absorbs all energy?
 
Regardless of whether he can or not, it's not an "always on" sort of power. He doesn't just automatically absorb any energy that comes near him. If he did, he wouldn't have had to grab the other Superman's heat vision in Countdown: Arena. Other characters have shown the ability to absorb psychic energy while still remaining vulnerable to it if they're not prepared for it, including my very own Thor. Nate's capable of multi-tasking on a pretty high level with his powers, so it's feasible to me that he could occupy Superman-16's attention by deflecting attacks with his TK force fields and throwing psi-blasts around while sneaking the TK or TP freeze in.

As for what sorts of energy Superman-16 specifically absorbed, I'd have to check Countdown: Arena again. I've been assuming he could absorb any energy, but I suppose he may have been more limited than that.
 
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