The Trio (Buffyverse) Vs Doctor Strange and Tony Stark (MCU)

[KJS]

I never liked The Trio (Warren Mears, Andrew Wells and Jonathan Levinson) all that much, but they're often underestimated in terms of what they were collectively capable of with prep. They had a little bit of everything, really.

So, with a week's prep on both sides, how do they do in these scenarios:

1) Versus MCU Doctor Strange
2) Versus MCU Tony Stark
3) Versus Strange and Stark, if they succeed in beating them both individually.

[Steel Inquisitor]

They lose, badly.

[KJS]

They lose, badly.

[Sarcasm]Great answer.[/Sarcasm]

On what basis?

Collectively they can:

- Literally warp reality.
- Manipulate time.
- Control minds.
- Turn invisible.
- Hide from various forms of detection.
- Cause hallucinations.
- Summon demons to fight for them.
- Build robots to fight for them.
- Freeze targets in place.
- Obtain the means to possess superhuman physical attributes.
- Fly.

So, for example, how would Tony Stark deal with a situation in which the Trio were literally invisible, hidden from other forms of detection, had altered reality to make everyone worship them, made robot replacements that gave off their very life essence, then sent the robot replacements with an army of demons to the confrontation, while they hid, away from view and detection, and manipulated time around him to confuse him further?

Just wondering.

[Nik Hasta]

It's quite ironic that the first post in your thread that discusses how underestimates the Trio, drastically underestimates them.

That said, Tony with tech is definitely scary. What era tech is he playing with in this thread?

Does Strange have the Time Stone or not?

[Steel Inquisitor]

[Sarcasm]Great answer.[/Sarcasm]

On what basis?

Collectively they can:

- Literally warp reality.
- Manipulate time.
- Control minds.
- Turn invisible.
- Hide from various forms of detection.
- Cause hallucinations.
- Summon demons to fight for them.
- Build robots to fight for them.
- Freeze targets in place.
- Obtain the means to possess superhuman physical attributes.
- Fly.

The demons, flight and robots are useless. How are the hallucinations?

Their super human device is inferior to Stark on a bad day, and is remarkably easy to shut down once the power source is discovered. Which Stark will figure out quickly.

Stark has access to multiple suits and AI's, as well. Which will distract them and their attacks are limited to one target, not whole areas.

The mind control are small devices that require the person to wear it. But they're not genius spies to make this work, and rarely employ proxies - they do the work themselves. They didn't make an entire army of soldiers or slaves when they had the chance, instead they stuck to small scale in a universe with less organised and super powered people to monitor and come down on them like the hammer of god when they make their presence known. The Initiative are a bunch of toddlers to SHIELD and the Avengers, and they would have nailed the Trio in a short period with their capabilities.

It's been too long since I saw their episodes, how effective were the reality warping, freezing and time manipulation? I remember the time device/spell being Groundhog Day for Buffy, and she broke it once she figured it out and she's not the genius MCU Tony is. I remember them freezing Willow, I don't think that would have stopped Tony long and it had to be thrown a short range by Warren. Unlike the Trio Dr. Stange and Stark don't need to get close to end them.

So, for example, how would Tony Stark deal with a situation in which the Trio were literally invisible, hidden from other forms of detection, had altered reality to make everyone worship them, made robot replacements that gave off their very life essence, then sent the robot replacements with an army of demons to the confrontation, while they hid, away from view and detection, and manipulated time around him to confuse him further?

Just wondering.

The Trio aren't that collectively dangerous. Adam is the biggest threat and his intelligence and his pragmatism and cut throat initiative but Stark is on a whole other level - even MCU Stark. If they were truly as dangerous as you thought they wouldn't have had so much trouble with Buffy or Dark! Willow. Every attack on Willow would be futile against Stark.


Whatever slight chances they have with Stark, which is minimal, is dropped to zero with Dr. Strange. All he has to do is shunt them to the Mirror Dimension and the fight is over. They have nothing to hurt Dr. Strange with.

[KJS]

It's quite ironic that the first post in your thread that discusses how underestimates the Trio, drastically underestimates them.

I know, right? Ridiculously dismissive.

That said, Tony with tech is definitely scary. What era tech is he playing with in this thread?

Does Strange have the Time Stone or not?

Depends on the forum rules. It's as they are "as standard" - so if that's "most current", Tony has his most recent tech and Strange doesn't have the stone. But, as I say, I'm not sure on that.

[KJS]

The demons, flight and robots are useless. How are the hallucinations?

Their super human device is inferior to Stark on a bad day, and is remarkably easy to shut down once the power source is discovered. Which Stark will figure out quickly.

Stark has access to multiple suits and AI's, as well. Which will distract them and their attacks are limited to one target, not whole areas.

The mind control are small devices that require the person to wear it. But they're not genius spies to make this work, and rarely employ proxies - they do the work themselves. They didn't make an entire army of soldiers or slaves when they had the chance, instead they stuck to small scale in a universe with less organised and super powered people to monitor and come down on them like the hammer of god when they make their presence known. The Initiative are a bunch of toddlers to SHIELD and the Avengers, and they would have nailed the Trio in a short period with their capabilities.

It's been too long since I saw their episodes, how effective were the reality warping, freezing and time manipulation? I remember the time device/spell being Groundhog Day for Buffy, and she broke it once she figured it out and she's not the genius MCU Tony is. I remember them freezing Willow, I don't think that would have stopped Tony long and it had to be thrown a short range by Warren. Unlike the Trio Dr. Stange and Stark don't need to get close to end them.

The Trio aren't that collectively dangerous. Adam is the biggest threat and his intelligence and his pragmatism and cut throat initiative but Stark is on a whole other level - even MCU Stark. If they were truly as dangerous as you thought they wouldn't have had so much trouble with Buffy or Dark! Willow. Every attack on Willow would be futile against Stark.

Whatever slight chances they have with Stark, which is minimal, is dropped to zero with Dr. Strange. All he has to do is shunt them to the Mirror Dimension and the fight is over. They have nothing to hurt Dr. Strange with.

I'm a little concerned that you don't know enough about the trio to be answering this so dismissively.

There isn't a member called "Adam" and Jonathan's reality-warping, which you've forgotten about, is their most potent weapon. It literally made everyone adore him - and I'm struggling to see how even Strange, let alone Stark, would get around that if he cast the spell in question during prep.

The mind-control device didn't require anybody to wear it. It just let out a flash that put the target under their control.

The flight, demons and robots are hardly useless if they're in the sky, invisible and undetectable, while the robots that look exactly like them are on the ground, along with the demons, causing a distraction (if a distraction is even required, given the whole reality-warping issue).

The time device and spell were two different things. The device needed to be planted, so that's a no-go here. The spell didn't. It just needed to be cast.

They had trouble with Buffy etc through PIS. They aren't Rhino, whereby they're just "stupid". Warren was literally a genius. There's no PIS in Rumbles.

So I'll ask again. How does Tony Stark win this, if:

a) He's part of an environment in which a spell has been cast to make everyone worship the people he's meant to be fighting.
b) He's trapped in a time loop spell that would need to be figured out.
c) His opponents are in the sky and invisible/undetectable, boasting physical attributes above those of Buffy (which, while not overly impressive, would at least mean they'd be less susceptible to collateral type damage).
d) From the sky, whilst invisible, they dropped several mind-control devices onto the battle field, all of which flashed and got Tony under further control.
e) The opponents he actually sees are robot duplicates of his real opponents and an army of demons.

[The Arbiter]

Out of curiosity, how do you feel Stark would manage against the Trio KJS?

Invisible, undetectable, flying reality warpers with time manipulation abilities being pretty potent threats and all that.

[Nik Hasta]

Out of curiosity, how do you feel Stark would manage against the Trio KJS?

Invisible, undetectable, flying reality warpers with time manipulation abilities being pretty potent threats and all that.

He's got a week of prep and his resources are pretty massive. If we're allowing him Endgame feats then he can play the time game as well.

Depends on what era of Stark KJS is bringing to play.

[The Arbiter]

He's got a week of prep and his resources are pretty massive. If we're allowing him Endgame feats then he can play the time game as well.

Depends on what era of Stark KJS is bringing to play.

Unless Scott or Pym are also in this thread, he cannot play the time game.

He understood the mathematics of the thing but was incapable of using it without the particle catalyst. It was a pretty important factor for the whole Time Heist deal iirc. I say "iirc" because I've only seen Endgame once - can you believe that? My friends tease me lol.

[big_adventure]

Stark's biggest edge here is that it's a Rumble. He ought to be able to prep for total area obliteration - Jericho missile tech, shielded using stealth so good that even SHIELD and Stark's own Avengers toys, plus a crazy dancing halo of "cuts anything" lasers would do the trick. Some of their stuff might be tough for him to stop at the same time, and both sides should be just fine with making this stuff happen right at the bell. He's amazingly good with "Imma creata whole new field of science" prep on stupidly short notice (creating a new element in his basement in hours, figuring out time travel in an evening, crazy high end nanotech madness, etc.), so it would depend on how much of what the Trio can do fall remotely under the advance knowledge clauses of the Rumble. If he knows a lot of their stuff is coming or might be coming (maybe he uses some prep to watch some VHS copies of the episodes), he can probably counter it.

Strange can probably just use a handwave mirror dimension thing, I don't know that they can stop that, given their lack of feats for such.

Edit: Again, though, they can do some things to him as well. Prep should let him have shields up, mirror dimension ready, illusions flying about taunting, tentacles from other dimensions doing... tentacle things. It will let them do the same, but given his showing against partial gauntlet Thanos (who, you know, uses moons as melee weapons), he can probably counter anything they can dish.

[big_adventure]

Unless Scott or Pym are also in this thread, he cannot play the time game.

He understood the mathematics of the thing but was incapable of using it without the particle catalyst. It was a pretty important factor for the whole Time Heist deal iirc. I say "iirc" because I've only seen Endgame once - can you believe that? My friends tease me lol.

I'd be hard-pressed to believe that Tony can't/didn't reverse engineer Pym particles once he had them in his hands. He never knew they existed before - and never needed to make more before dying.

[The Arbiter]

I'd be hard-pressed to believe that Tony can't/didn't reverse engineer Pym particles once he had them in his hands. He never knew they existed before - and never needed to make more before dying.

It was a major plot point that they had limited Particles that only Pym could create. If Tony knew how to make more then it wouldn't have had any stakes - they could just repeatedly try again and again.

Also, he had effectively unlimited time to attempt to create more but never once did that seem to be an option. Perhaps the science was just to niche for him?

Either way, he DIDNT know how to make Particles in his last showing and he doesnt have access to them here, so... arguing if maybe he could figure it out with a sample is moot.

[The Arbiter]

Stark's biggest edge here is that it's a Rumble. He ought to be able to prep for total area obliteration - Jericho missile tech, shielded using stealth so good that even SHIELD and Stark's own Avengers toys, plus a crazy dancing halo of "cuts anything" lasers would do the trick. Some of their stuff might be tough for him to stop at the same time, and both sides should be just fine with making this stuff happen right at the bell. He's amazingly good with "Imma creata whole new field of science" prep on stupidly short notice (creating a new element in his basement in hours, figuring out time travel in an evening, crazy high end nanotech madness, etc.), so it would depend on how much of what the Trio can do fall remotely under the advance knowledge clauses of the Rumble. If he knows a lot of their stuff is coming or might be coming (maybe he uses some prep to watch some VHS copies of the episodes), he can probably counter it.

Strange can probably just use a handwave mirror dimension thing, I don't know that they can stop that, given their lack of feats for such.

Edit: Again, though, they can do some things to him as well. Prep should let him have shields up, mirror dimension ready, illusions flying about taunting, tentacles from other dimensions doing... tentacle things. It will let them do the same, but given his showing against partial gauntlet Thanos (who, you know, uses moons as melee weapons), he can probably counter anything they can dish.

Didnt Tony have massive struggles making that new element? As in, might not have succeeded in time if his Father hadn't inspired him and done a chunk of the legwork? Also, new elements are created all the time in real life. Its keeping them stable that is the tricky part, so Stark clearly has an edge there.

Also, his nanobots are REMARKABLY tame by fictional nanite standards. They can repair and alter some properties.

You do make a good point that at the bell, he can kinda just explode the entire arena and probably survive. So maybe that gets them unless I'm unaware of some defensive option. Thing is, without their stuff being common knowledge, I'd be hesitant to suggest that is his go-to strategy at fight start. According to KJS, he will be staring at what he thinks are the real them at fight start, unaware of where they are. And if he DOESNT just nuke everything right away, he is getting stuck in a time loop or mind controlled. Apparently near instantly.

Dr. Strange doesnt have the time stone anymore and is sorely lacking in prep feats without it. His only "prep" feat involved a strand of Thors hair and some of his books for a location spell.

He starts out with a wall of Mirror ready and some copies of himself and then gets flashed into mind controlled state or time looped.

[Steel Inquisitor]

I know, right? Ridiculously dismissive.

I've got replies like that myself to threads in Rumbles, many people aren't inserted in going into detail about fights. It happened so often I got used to it being the defect reaction. It's not personal.