Silver Surfer vs. Sentry

[The Arbiter]

I know this match has been done a bunch of times, but hear me out. My buddy and I were discussing this match irl and I was going over how I thought Sentry had a decent counter to everything Norrin could toss out and would slowly overtake the guy with AoE blasts and so on. We were arguing with each other from a Rumbles perspective - meaning same rules, Arena etc.

He actually changed my mind. In the past, I have argued on here that Sentry wins, but now I feel like Surfer has the advantage, at least in standard Rumbles matches.

His argument (and now mine I suppose) is that despite Sentry's ability to return from having his molecules scattered, he's not flat immune to it and Surfer has plenty of transmutation stuff. The second time Sentry returns from Molecule Man scattering seems to take more then 10 seconds (going off of memory). Even if you feel he can come back in just under 10 seconds, say 7 or 8, Norrin will then have flooded the Arena in a black hole singularity. Not that either thing can kill Sentry off alone or even combined, but it should be able to slow down his molecules from reassembling before the 10 count.

What do you guys think? Sound workable? Or am I forgetting some instance where Sentry doesn't even need a body to act?

Bonus: New Merged Sentry vs Surfer with Quantum Bands

[Pendaran]

The problem of transmuting the Sentry, at least for the Silver Surfer, is that ultimately he's basically a mass of energy. We've seen him explode into such, we've seen him bleed out the Void, etc.

I don't really see the Surfer transmuting a mass of energy is my thing with arguing the transmutation win.

[The Arbiter]

The problem of transmuting the Sentry, at least for the Silver Surfer, is that ultimately he's basically a mass of energy. We've seen him explode into such, we've seen him bleed out the Void, etc.

I don't really see the Surfer transmuting a mass of energy is my thing with arguing the transmutation win.

Agreed. I more so meant, if Norrin can transmute him into something NOT Bob, would he then have to pull himself back into Bob before being able to retaliate?

I don't think it will stick. Wondering about a 10 count. Because if he just turns him into jello and scatters that jello (or gas whatever) with a black hole, it might get the 10 count.

Unless I'm mistaking your point? Are you suggesting he's flat out immune to transmutation because of being energy? If so, what did Owen do to him? Scattered his molecules? Seems transmutation-ish to me.

[Cronus]

Trying to recall, IIRC didnt Owen just try to disperse Bob into nothingness?

Sorry, into his component atoms?

[Wildling]

Trying to recall, IIRC didnt Owen just try to disperse Bob into nothingness?

Sorry, into his component atoms?

He tried to kill him off completely (whatever way one could say he was capable of) because he correctly decided Sentry was too much of an unknown variable to let go into the wild (unlike the other Dark Avengers, those were the guys Molecule Man felt safe just transmutating all kinds of ways, he threatened DNA reconfiguration to Osborn just as a way to inflict torture).

am I forgetting some instance where Sentry doesn't even need a body to act?

When he 100% bodily restored himself from Morgana's time magic attack on him, he was completely unaware of what had just happened to him. Now it took an eternity by Rumbles standards for that to happen, but that run had him on a learning curve taking dramatically less and less time every time someone did something that extreme on him. And he was just a half-body, bubbling mass of Void energy and still mentally capable of figuring out Loki's presence and immediately targetting and terminating him.

That's the first problem I see with this argument. Sentry's body reset was shown as part of his power set that kicks in by itself right after the ridiculous One Hit Kill threshold is passed, even if it could be consciously put on hold (when he played possum just to hear out his wife's crack theories about his powers) or diminished (by a pre-existing, storyline specific and long gestating personal desire to die). I don't see Surfer fundamentally overcoming Sentry's power set, just chip at it.

Second problem is I didn't have the impression Molecule Man was around Surfer in between retcons and walked back retcons at least regarding manipulation. Just in the Dark Avengers story in question he wasn't just able to transmutate people, but take them over completely in his wide vicinity regardless of wildly variable origins and power levels (from Bullseye to Sentry) to the point of casually musti-tasking them (he trapped Sentry and the rest separately and had the rest of the city's civilians in some kind of molecular cornfield he brought them out of when coaxed). He seemed more like the kind of multi super team wrecking maxi threat as Sentry was, just with a different angle. As unhinged as he was at times, his big concern at the time was rather rational: that if he became a public threat killing the Avengers, he'd be forced to counter and kill wave after wave of superhero teams until Mister Fantastic himself figured a way to trick/contain him.

[big_adventure]

I don't see Norrin putting out as much transformation oomph as Owen. And, while Sentry took longer than 10-count to come back from Owen's first wipe, he just no-sold Owen after and then did the same in reverse, to which Owen couldn't resist. So it would seem that he's learned to deal with transmutation.