Ultimate Joker

Let's start with simple factors here, and those would be each character's basic abilities and traits.


{Strength}: I recall someone in here stating that the T-1000 was as strong or close to Alex Mercer's strength. Hell no. If that were the case, would the T-1000 not have just lifted up the cop car John Connor, Sarah, and the T-800 were in and spiked it into the pavement? Would the T-1000 not have crushed the T-800 like a pancake? The T-800s do not weigh more than or even close to equal a car, because if they did then they'd crush the very vehicles (motorcycles/cars/trucks) they sit in/on. Because the fact the T-1000 and T-800 had close to equal strength, but neither weighed /that/ much, it was a fairly even hand-to-hand encounter each time. The T-1000 was only ever able to slam the lesser machine into walls and stuff, and only by a combination of a spike, heavy crane, and moving gears does it inflict any true damage to it. 

The T-1000 was just as equally tossed around the place by the early series of Terminator, getting punched and slammed into -- and /through/ -- walls. The T-800, while impossibly strong by human standards, is also not strong enough to lift up a car, let alone run with it in it's arms and scale buildings, but the two machines struggled with one another regardless. There is a _HUGE_ strength gap in this battle here. A much better comparison in strength for Mercer would be the Grey Hulk or perhaps Carnage (a Spider-Man villain). Mercer was able to pound buildings into the ground, punch holes in Abrams tanks, and much more. The T-1000 never managed a feat even REMOTELY close to this, and had it been on such a level, John Connor would have been dead in minutes even with the T-800 protecting him.



{Speed}: This one isn't /quite/ as mismatched as strength, but again, Mercer takes the win in this department hands down. The T-1000 (or rather Robert Patrick) always had a wonderful sprint in T2, and I loved watching that killing machine chase after it's target because even when I knew the outcome, it still looked like it WOULD catch up. The problem here is when we compare not only the vehicles and circumstances each character was in, but the agility that was entered into the mix as well. I am no expert on vehicles by any stretch of the imagination, but when a cop car going backwards can keep the T-1000 just out of reach, while cars of various kinds driving /forwards/ can't outpace Mercer, then I think I can easily assume who is faster just from that example. Granted, the T-1000 was also being impeded by gunfire from both Sarah and the T-800 (Uncle Bob if you want to be silly). This, however, is a weak excuse for making the argument that the T-1000 under more normal circumstances would have caught up to, say, Mercer if it were a situation like that.

The fact is Mercer is far more agile and has the unique ability of being very hard to stop from moving, even when entire BUILDINGS are in his way. The 'man' can scale the building in a matter of seconds, running up the side like he was running on the ground. He can also stay in the air for ridiculous amounts of time, allowing even more options for travelling while the T-1000 never displayed such abilities. If it had such capabilities, it would have continued chasing after our heroes in T2 regardless. Instead, it slows down to a walk, recovers the chunk of itself that was blown off by the 10 gauge shotgun, then turns in the opposite direction to gather any intel and transportation it can manage so that it can reacquire it's target at a later time. If it had been Mercer that was chasing after them, they would have all been terminated back inside the mental institute in the hallway. Even granting that they still somehow manage to escape to outside in the cop car, Mercer would have gotten ahold of their vehicle one way or the other and smashed it into the ground.


{Endurance}: This is where things actually get interesting. For starters, Mercer cannot harm or absorb the T-1000. At best, he can rip it to shreds and try to keep the pieces away from each other, else it will merely reform and resume it's attack. Going from what we've seen thus far, it takes a helluva lot of stuff to hurt Mercer, and only a few very specific things to truly damage or stop the T-1000. Molten steel and liquid nitrogen were the only two things that did ANYTHING of any note against the mimetic polyalloy Terminator. Even then, at most the freezing only caused it to glitch to a degree, which at most made it slower, weaker at disguising itself, and cause minor glitches of no real note in other departments. (It's top half was the police officer outfit from the start, while the lower half was the biker cop look. Fun little factoid there for anyone that didn't notice.) Aside from these things, everything else did not actually damage it.

However, we must look at it from a diffent angle. It is true that only a small number of things can damage/kill the T-1000, while a greater number of things can damage/kill Mercer. The problem is that the things that don't kill/hurt the T-1000 still slow it down or even stun it. It's multiple encounters with the T-800 are evidence of this. Sufficiently sustained gunfire can even KO it for a few moments. Not counting the final battle when it was glitched, the T-1000 was KO'ed at least twice by the lesser Terminator. Once during their first encounter (via the 1887 Winchester) and a second time during the tanker chase (via a full magazine from a CAR-15 assault rifle straight to the chest and face). These instances were extremely rare and I'd even be willing to accept the argument that it was for plot reasons, but I'd have to hear a good explanation to truly buy it. Everything else made it flinch or stagger for a brief moment.

Mercer, on the other hand, has tanked shells from Abrams, missiles fired from combat choppers, grenades, rockets, heavy machine gun fire, and continued to run at nearly top speed. At most, he's been tossed around a bit and injured, but any of these things would splatter the T-1000 and force it to reform. Case in point, one grenade round blew it to pieces, and one shotgun blast straight to the head split it in two and caused it to fall down for a moment. Alex does not suffer from these weaknesses. He's pretty stout.

The best way to temporarily win this battle is to simply grab the T-1000 -- just like the T-800 did numerous times in the movie -- and throw the liquid metal assassin far away with all his strength. Thus we have a BFR (Battlefield removal) and a temporary victory, though the T-1000 will sooner or later return. The T-1000 has a better chance of inflicting actual damage on Mercer, however. Stabbing him, hitting him with plenty force. It _can_ hurt Mercer, but Mercer is rarely a sitting duck and has access to numerous different methods of attack, as well as various mutations. Mercer can naturally heal to a point, and he can play keep-away far better than the liquid death machine. Thus we MUST assume that the T-1000 would have gained access to some forms of weapons. If this is purely a melee battle, then we're going to be waiting for someone to win for a long, looong time.

Short of Mercer (magically) whipping out liquid nitrogen or lava (LOL) he has no real means of terminating or even HURTING the T-1000. Despite all of the advantages he has over the machine, he just can't kill it unless he somehow gets his hands on a very few specific weapons - *sigh* or pushes him into the volcano. *rolls eyes* He could try experimenting against it, but then again so would the T-1000. I avoided talking about the two characters' stealth/infiltration capabilities because the two of them wouldn't need them in straight-up combat with no other bystanders around, but I think a better scenario would be a cat and mouse chase. Have Mercer hiding from it in a limited location, and arm the T-1000 with some weaponry that can be effective against his target. Give him some electrical weapons (I read the Alex vs. Cole battle and saw the outcome of that one; very interesting debate) and access to plenty of vehicles/weapons. Force Mercer to have to use his other abilities and give the T-1000 an advantage in weapons and equipment. Handicap Alex so this can become a much more even battle. Now THAT would be an epic battle rather than this melee fight in a volcano nonsense.