L_M Classic (UTW Tournament) Grand Finale. Feverish V Puck

Thanks to Puck for his stimulating response, it's a real pleasure to finally have this final underway. Just as a quick note, my final picture source in round 1 was supposed to be this one: http://www.debate.org... These pictures are of course intended to be humorous 'artistic' interpretations of the situations my arguments describe and the degree of realism varies. == A1. Sentry. Puck states that the common description of Sentry as having "the power of one million exploding suns" is merely a linguistic device, comparing it to the standard description of Superman as the "man of steel". The problem with such an assertion is that these are both pretty accurate descriptions of the characters, the only hyperbole in either description being the use of the word "of". Superman is not actually made of steel, but his body does have many of the properties of steel and if you punch him, it will be like punching solid steel. Similarly, Sentry does not have the power "of" the exploding suns, but he does have power equivalent to them. I am intrigued by the fact that Puck's link to supposed proof of how "Marvel themselves" rate Sentry's power level, is in fact a link to a jpeg hosted on imageshack. I don't understand why Puck hasn't provided a link to an actual site where the legitimacy of the stats could possibly be verified. I'm not suggesting that my opponent has doctored the image himself, but as presented, we have no way of discerning it's origin or reliability. I know that on some sites such stats are voted on by ordinary users, and in any case, Marvel is not one distinct entity. Many different writers have written the different storylines and may portray characters somewhat differently. We must consider all the information available rather than appealing to the authority of one opinion. Consult any online description of Sentry and one will find that he is unanimously confirmed as one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel universe. The million exploding suns reference is so widely agreed upon that it is presented as clear fact in an uncontested wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org... http://www.comicvine.com... http://marvel.wikia.com... We know that Sentry "possesses powers of tremendous energy projection, from both his hands and eyes, capable of harming even the Hulk (in his Green Scar incarnation), who has withstood the equivalent of solar flares unharmed" and that "Most of Sentry's mental abilities are used to maintain his physical form." We also know that "He generally greatly restrains his full power" which could explain any under-rating of his energy projection abilities. It is true that Sentry has never executed the type of kamikaze attack that I have him performing here, but it is clearly well within his power range to do so. In this instance, he relinquishes the effort of holding together his molecules and unleashes them in a huge burst of energy. Sentry's power has been shown to overload the Absorbing Man, he has battled gods such as Thor and gained the upper hand and even torn gods to pieces in the case of Ares. According to Spiderman, he once battled Galactus to a standstill and Norman Osborn describes him as a "human H bomb". Marvel wikia goes on to say that it is "conceivable that Sentry's powers are practically limitless, and may even rival those of the Thor's, Silver Surfer's and Phoenix's". Puck knows as well as I do that Sentry is capable of pulling off this attack, and he should attempt to outline a plausible survival strategy for his team. ___ A2. Puck's suggestion that his team will be able to evade Sentry's attack by teleporting fails on several levels. Puck's assertion that Spiral can activate her teleportation power in an "instant", is contradicted by his own sources. http://img707.imageshack.us... shows Beast (looks like Beast) being able to complete his sentence, a full six syllables, in between him grabbing Spiral and her teleporting away. This would provide ample time for Sentry's attack. Similarly the second image http://img231.imageshack.us... describes a "blur of motion" when Spiral teleports, which to be visible must take up some amount of time. In the third image, Spiral is forced to engage her opponent before she has time to teleport. There is also no evidence of Spiral being able to teleport a group of people as quickly as she can teleport just herself. Even if team Con was able to teleport faster than Sentry could attack (bear in mind that Sentry can fly to the sun and back in minutes, thereby surpassing the speed of light) it would be to no avail. Sentry's molecules move ahead of the timeline and he would be reacting to the teleport before it even happened. His hyper-consciousness, enhanced vision and reaction times would allow him to easily adjust his attack if required to by the imminent teleportation. With no characters with enhanced speed or reactions, team Puck is totally vulnerable to the lightning kamikaze attack of Sentry and will be wiped out. __ B1. It's a shame, but Puck's exciting battle plan won't have a chance to be put in motion here. If he can establish Spiral being able to teleport his team quickly enough to evade Sentry, then I may consider his strategies here. __ B2. Puck's link to supposedly reference his claims about Monkey's clones, is a link to a book review rather than the actual text and the source contains no information to back up his unfounded allegations. Here is a link to the actual text of Journey To The West in PDF format: http://www.chine-informations.com... Unless Puck can direct us to an extract confirming his claims, then there is no reason to accept these assertions, which aren't mentioned in the encyclopedic material. What the text does tell us (chapter 3, p.37) is that Monkey can create "hundreds and thousands" of his clones from one body hair. I would love to see evidence of Engineer cloning at anything approaching this volume or frequency. The clone wars can only lead to a simian victory. The suggestion that Engineer could do so much in so little time is ludicrous and, oh yeah, she will already be toast from Sentry's attack. __ B3. Sinister is certainly capable of mind wiping Spawn but how will he have the chance? In all Puck's sources, Sinister is shown wiping the minds of people only when they are already in his power and he has ample amounts of time to monologue about his evil intentions. Unfortunately for him, should they engage (Sinister having already been nuked by Sentry) then Spawn will not exactly be pausing to exchange pleasantries, he will be tearing Sinister to pieces. Unless Puck can provide evidence of Sinister wiping the mind of a super fast character who is attempting to speed blitz him, then this strategy is doomed to failure. __ B4. So as well as coating her team mates with nanite skin, as well as producing numerous clones and nanites, as well as constructing a mutant detector (seems kind of pointless as the only Marvel style mutant on my team is Sentry and he has made his location pretty obvious) and as well as battling Monkey, Puck also thinks Engineer can interfere with Slave 1 and strip it down, all within the first few moments of the battle? I would dispute this for obvious reasons of time and practicality. == I think that as things stand now, team Puck consists of little more than a few piles of solar ashes. Spirally, sagey and sinister piles of ash maybe, but still piles of ash. Thank you.