Let me know if there's anything else you want to add, or anything that needs changing. Just in case you're not too familiar with Ultimate Tony, he always has mission control support when he's in his armor, but I thought I'd just take note of it.
I've read up to the end of Ultimates 2, so I know at least the basics on Ult Tony.
Ah right, I believe you mentioned it to me once.
And this is all I need to know about Ultimates 3...
@comicstooge: Loeb. Gah. I hate you for bringing that to a respectable thread such as this.
Banner shows Stark his sex tape and KO's Tony from behind while he's distracted watching it.
/thread
Please...considering Tony's own 'extracurricular activities' - he wouldn't even blink at Banner's.
Unless, of course, the Hulk's in the tape....
@indiecomicsftw: did cadence pass away or something? Been away for a while...
Last I heard he took a break from the Vine after some issues with a mod?
Before we get down to the actual argument of Ultimate Iron Man vs. Grey Hulk, I’m going to open my debate with a brief rundown of the Iron Tech armor and its capabilities. En garde!
To start off, let’s take a look at Ultimate Iron Man’s strength level. Now, on-panel at least, IM’s strength has never been outright stated. But we can make an educated guess as to how powerful the armor is, by using the Ultimate Marvel Handbook as a guide:
According to Tony’s entry in the Handbook, Iron Man’s strength ranks at 6, a number shared by other heavyweights such as Colossus and Captain Britain.
And if we look at Ultimate Thor’s handbook entry, we see him listed at 7 – with the entry noting that Thor’s strength is well in excess of 100 tons. With that info, we can approximate that Ultimate Iron Man’s strength lies somewhere in the 80-to-100 ton range.
But that’s all guesswork, so let’s move on to some actual feats to back this up. Here’s a particularly amusing one from an Ultimates Annual issue. In it, we have Ultimate Iron Man flipping and then carrying an entire airplane by one wing:
A quick Google search puts the average commercial airplane at about 80 to 100 tons. Now bear in mind that not only has Tony flipped the entire craft a full 180 degrees – but his armor is also carrying and flying the plane (because commercial planes don’t fly upside-down).
The Iron Tech armor possesses enough strength to keep the entire plane horizontal, in mid-air, by one wing. He’s carrying it in place – and sustaining the plane’s altitude. It shows the amount of weight that the suit can support.
But that just covers Ultimate Iron Man’s raw strength, and in a battle, striking power is equally important. In the scan below, we have Tony punching Ultimate Hulk into the air. The 1200lbs Hulk flies out the roof of Grand Central, soars in midair, and then lands several blocks away:
Despite all those points above, it should be noted that melee combat is not Iron Man’s preference. That being said, the suit is more than capable of it. And it has one special feature to fall back on against stronger targets:
As I’m sure you’ve read in Ultimates 2, the Iron Tech armor also possesses the capability to amplify its own strength. As his Handbook entry puts it, the Iron Man can ‘draw additional power from a network of dedicated satellites’.
An average submerged submarine weighs around 7000 tons. Now, Tony does have the help of the other super-soldiers. But taking into account the feats of these super-soldiers; Tony is supporting at least several thousand tons of weight here via the strength upgrade.
If the battle falls into close-quarters combat, Ultimate Iron Man can certainly pack a punch.
Let’s move on to Iron Man’s durability. First, if we look back to the scans of Tony lifting the submarine, we can infer that the suit can take an enormous amount of pressure. Submarines go deeper than 800ft, where pressures are insane, and yet the armor doesn’t get crushed.
But that isn't quite as notable. So seeing as Tony’s going up against Grey Hulk here, let’s look at the armor’s durability against blunt force. Returning to Ult. Hulk fight, here is one scan where Tony gets hit by the Hulk, and the punch lifts him off his feet. It’s in the last panel of the first page:
But a moment later, we see that there is no discernible damage on the armor’s exterior (second page). Taking into account the vast strength of Ultimate Hulk in this incarnation (tearing apart Cap’s tank, ripping Chitauri ships etc.); I’d say that’s a pretty good resilience showing on the suit’s part.
It’s not the sole instance either. In Ultimate Human (which if memory serves, you've read too), Tony goes up against a stronger version of the Ultimate Hulk in a weaker version of his armor (the Beta suit). The enraged Hulk grips him and slams him onto the ground.
Once again, despite that hit, there appears to be no serious damage along the back of the suit. And this is the weaker armor. The smoke coming out is from the Beta suit overloading because it wasn't designed for combat.
I have more feats to showcase Iron Man’s armor durability, but for now, I think this will suffice. And Iron Man won’t just have his suit’s physical armor for defense…which conveniently enough brings me to my next point…
Iron Man’s force-field. If the armor is Tony’s second line of defense, the force-field is his first (the final is the g-string he wears inside the suit, if you’re wondering). The force-fields can manifest in the form of omni-directional bubbles, or even as a shield if need be:
Now I guess I’ll just go straight to the most noteworthy feat for Iron Man’s force-field. As I’m sure you’re aware of, in Ultimates 1, Tony used the force-field to shield himself, the entire team of the Ultimates, and a group of soldiers, from a megaton bomb:
The bomb wiped out an entire Micronesian island, an entire fleet of Helicarriers, 20,000 soldiers, and anything inside its 100-mile radius. All of those numbers can be verified within the issue itself. I don’t know much about bomb yields, but needless to say, the fact that the force-field could shield from that is remarkable.
What makes it more impressive is that Tony had to enlarge the field to accommodate not just himself, but the Ultimates and the other soldiers. The issue states that his force-field had a 500 meter radius. And it was still able to take the force of the bomb.
Plus, it barely even drained the suit’s power, as Tony was still able to participate in the subsequent battle with the Chitauri!
Beyond the defensive, the Iron Tech armor also comes with a variety of weapons. Tony comes armed with some conventional ordnance – like miniature missiles with massive destructive capabilities. One tiny shoulder missile is able to collapse a castle’s entire tower:
That's something that usually takes artillery to accomplish. Aside from missiles, Ultimate Iron Man also comes packing his trademark repulsors. These are fairly powerful with a long range. In Ultimate War, he bombards an X-Men hideout from the skies, causing severe property damage:
You can see that the repulsors have quite a wide AoE – a single shot pours out lots of energy.
Of course, none of these will put Grey Hulk down for good, but it’ll definitely slow him down. Tony also has a bunch of other toys to work with, but I’ll leave it at that for now.
To surmise, I’ve given a basic summation of Ultimate Iron Man’s capabilities. His strength is around 100 tons and his armor can amp his power as well. The suit itself is quite durable to blunt force – and comes equipped with an extremely resilient force-field and heavy artillery.
I look forward to your reply – I’m just warming up ;)
To start off, let’s take a look at Ultimate Iron Man’s strength level. Now, on-panel at least, IM’s strength has never been outright stated. But we can make an educated guess as to how powerful the armor is, by using the Ultimate Marvel Handbook as a guide:
According to Tony’s entry in the Handbook, Iron Man’s strength ranks at 6, a number shared by other heavyweights such as Colossus and Captain Britain.
And if we look at Ultimate Thor’s handbook entry, we see him listed at 7 – with the entry noting that Thor’s strength is well in excess of 100 tons. With that info, we can approximate that Ultimate Iron Man’s strength lies somewhere in the 80-to-100 ton range.
But that’s all guesswork, so let’s move on to some actual feats to back this up. Here’s a particularly amusing one from an Ultimates Annual issue. In it, we have Ultimate Iron Man flipping and then carrying an entire airplane by one wing:
A quick Google search puts the average commercial airplane at about 80 to 100 tons. Now bear in mind that not only has Tony flipped the entire craft a full 180 degrees – but his armor is also carrying and flying the plane (because commercial planes don’t fly upside-down).
The Iron Tech armor possesses enough strength to keep the entire plane horizontal, in mid-air, by one wing. He’s carrying it in place – and sustaining the plane’s altitude. It shows the amount of weight that the suit can support.
But that just covers Ultimate Iron Man’s raw strength, and in a battle, striking power is equally important. In the scan below, we have Tony punching Ultimate Hulk into the air. The 1200lbs Hulk flies out the roof of Grand Central, soars in midair, and then lands several blocks away:
Despite all those points above, it should be noted that melee combat is not Iron Man’s preference. That being said, the suit is more than capable of it. And it has one special feature to fall back on against stronger targets:
As I’m sure you’ve read in Ultimates 2, the Iron Tech armor also possesses the capability to amplify its own strength. As his Handbook entry puts it, the Iron Man can ‘draw additional power from a network of dedicated satellites’.
An average submerged submarine weighs around 7000 tons. Now, Tony does have the help of the other super-soldiers. But taking into account the feats of these super-soldiers; Tony is supporting at least several thousand tons of weight here via the strength upgrade.
If the battle falls into close-quarters combat, Ultimate Iron Man can certainly pack a punch.
Impressive, though Gray Hulk has some good strength feats of his own.
In terms of striking power, Grey Hulk has some very good feats in that area too:
Now onto durability, this is where Grey Hulk surely has an edge.
In terms of blunt force trauma, Ult Iron Man won't have much luck attempting to punch Hulk into submission:
Even against energy attacks, his durability is impressive:
Another important factor is the fact the longer this fight goes, the more it will turn in Grey Hulk's favour:
He'll gradually become stronger, more durable and his healing factor will speed up the longer the fight goes on:
So, while Grey Hulk's stats can only improve the longer the fight goes on, Iron Man's power supply will only go down.
Tony's shields are obviously quite strong and Hulk would be hard pressed to get through them Tony cannot attack and shield himself at the same time, right?
All in all, I think Hulk has advantages in raw strength, striking power, blunt force durability (discounting shields) and his durability towards energy based attacks will hold up against Tony's repulsers.
Despite Tony's flight advantage and obvious edge in versatility, Hulk's raw physicals will grant him victory against Tony more times then not, especially if the fight goes for a while, which it is sure to.
Your turn @veshark.
Well, that what I would be doing if I were able to upload images. O_o
Problems with the site? :O
I think so.
Works fine for me. You could try a different browser, I guess.
Well, that what I would be doing if I were able to upload images. O_o
Problems with the site? :O
I think so.
Works fine for me. You could try a different browser, I guess.
Bloody Internet Expleror. :P
I'll get back to you in a bit.
@comicstooge Nice response, man. Alright, let's get ready for Round 2!
Those are some good strength feats on Grey Hulk’s part, but I feel inclined to note that the pyramid-lifting scan isn’t as impressive as you suggested. Reason being that, in the very next page, Wonder Man himself was able to single-handedly hurl the pyramid into the air:
The Wonder Man BFR punch is cool as well, but according to my research, Simon recovered pretty quickly from that hit – he didn’t get knocked out of the fight. I don’t know if you’ve read this issue (Hulk Smash Avengers #4), but according to people who have:
Now, as I understand it, Grey Hulk’s power begins at the 70-75 ton range. That easily puts Ultimate Iron Man’s base strength at a good initial advantage. But as you pointed out, Grey Hulk’s strength also increases overtime. Unfortunately for him, so can Iron Man’s.
As we’ve already established in the submarine scan before, Tony is able to amplify his strength using his satellites. This boost raises his already impressive 100-tonner-ish strength levels to (theoretically) as high as the 1000-tonner range.
Another thing to factor is that with his mission control support, the boost can happen within moments. In the submarine scan, it’s stated that it took 15 seconds for the download to complete. Basically, Ultimate Iron Man can get a whole lot stronger a whole lot faster than Fixit.
As for Grey Hulk, there have been multiple times where he went up against stronger opponents – and couldn’t get stronger in time. After he got beaten up by Pineapple Thing, Dr. Doom actually told Joe: “In short, you don’t get strong enough, quickly enough.”
Just to put the nail in the coffin, here is another set of scans from Ultimates 2, where Iron Man and the rest of the team disarm a nuclear missile base. Tony’s presumably amped here:
In the 2nd page, we see IM (with the aid of Widow), tearing off a missile silo door. A web search puts a silo door at 740 tons, and a post I found by someone who used to work in a silo confirms they’re hundreds of tons. So that’s Tony already lifting several hundred tons of weight.
In the 3rd page, we see him single-handedly carry one missile by himself. Ballistic missiles vary from 60-100 tons. On a whole, Ultimate Iron Man has shown greater feats of strength (lifting a submarine, commercial airplane, ballistic missiles) than Grey Hulk.
In terms of base durability, I won’t lie; the Grey Hulk definitely has an edge over Ultimate Iron Man (Well, that’s what the force-field’s for!). But let’s have a look through the feats you posted.
She-Thing and Samson are both 70+ tons, the same as Hulk’s base, and significantly lower than Tony’s. And taking hits from Hyde isn’t anything notable – considering this is the same guy who was KOed by Captain America. Hyde’s a 50-tonner at best. The charges are pretty cool though.
Moving on to the scans of Hulk being BFRed to space and shot at an asteroid…I don’t know. I don’t want to discount these feats, but they seem implausible. I can sorta buy the space-punch; but being launched at an asteroid 2x the size of Earth and not taking damage? And destroying it?
If it was Savage, I might just buy it, but this looks a little like Silver-Age silliness. That being said, I’ll keep them in mind for now. But I do want to point out that they seem like high-end showings, because Joe has been KOed by far less blunt force before:
Classic Abomination – which the OHOTMU puts at about 100-200 tons (estimated same as Ultimate Iron Man) – was able to knock Grey Hulk straight out. Once again, as with Pineapple Thing, Joe Fixit wasn’t able to get stronger in time to make a difference.
Now Grey Hulk did later beat Abomination, but only because he was bloodlusted when Betty’s life was in danger. Then there was their third fight where Joe only won because of conveniently-placed acid containers…even then, he was getting pummeled before he found the acid.
The point being that Grey Hulk has been affected and been beaten by physically-superior enemies before. Hulk’s durability against blunt force is high, but it can be overcome. And given Iron Man’s strength, it’s quite feasible for IM’s hits to deliver some serious damage.
While we’re on the subject, I might as well drop a scan of Iron Man ramming through a Chitauri ship. It’s not as impressive as the earlier deep-sea pressures or blows from the Hulk, but it does illustrate the Iron Tech armor’s kinetic and explosive resistance:
To cap off the Durability section, let’s look at your feats of Grey Hulk’s resilience against energy weapons. The High Evolutionary’s laser one is alright, though I’m uncertain of its capabilities. But as for Fixit being hit with the Silver Centurion’s repulsors…
I have to point out that repulsors are more in line with concussive force than they are with laser beams. Invincible Iron Man: Extremis defines repulsors as being ‘reactionless force projection’ – and while they do produce mild heat – they’re more like blunt force.
This conveniently brings us to Ultimate Iron Man’s repulsors. Now there is some evidence to suggest that Tony’s repulsors are more energy-based, and here’s a particularly visceral example:
In this scan, Magneto has taken control of Iron Man’s armor as well as Cyclops’ visor – and blasted Wolverine into oblivion. Ultimate Wolverine dies as a smoking skeleton, and we can see that the repulsor blast vaporized all of his upper torso’s skin and muscle.
Side note: If you’re wondering why Cyclops’ beam was able to vaporize Logan’s lower half, it’s because Ultimate Cyclops’ blasts do release heat (As evidenced when he lit candles with his eyes, or burned off Ultimate Proteus’ skin).
Now if a relatively minor blast can completely vaporize a human body (Logan’s skeleton only survived because it was adamantium), imagine what these repulsors would do if they were fired at the volume of the earlier scan I posted.
I’m not suggesting that Tony’s repulsors would permanently put down Grey Hulk, but if you compare their destructive capacity in small blasts to a larger barrage? It all depends on how well Grey Hulk’s skin can tank energy/heat attacks, but it should definitely hurt.
Coupled with the aforementioned tower-busting missiles, and let’s not forget those handy thought-scramblers either. Iron Man could stay well out of Hulk’s range while being able to retaliate.
As for the force-field, I would argue that IM is more than capable of using it while attacking. In the scan I posted above, the force-field clearly has a shield mode. I don’t see what’s stopping Tony from attacking while shielding himself, and even then, he’d only need it in melee range.
Also, to address your point about Iron Man’s power supply going down – I don’t even consider that a factor in this fight. I know that in the first Ultimates arc, during the Hulk fight, the suit does drop to 25% power. But remember - Tony had just recently built the suit in that first arc, and he must have fixed its energy problems after that.
Because in the following arc, the armor is able to extend its force-field to a 500-meter radius to protect the team from a 100-mile bomb…and still fight in the following battle! It’s only when IM uses full power to push the giant Chitauri ship that the armor actually runs out.
In the rest of his appearances, we’ve never seen him have any more power problems either. Plus, even if his suit were actually low on power, Tony could just as easily recharge it from the satellites.
To summarize my argument: Ultimate Iron Man possesses a greater degree of base-level strength than Grey Hulk (80-100 tons > 70 tons), and the capability to boost that power to higher level at a faster rate. That strength will certainly be useful, as Grey Hulk can still be defeated by higher-level blunt force (Abomination, Pineapple Thing).
In addition to that, Tony’s armor is also relatively durable to superhuman blows. His force-field is also extremely powerful, and something Grey Hulk won't be able to penetrate. And Iron Man also has a wide variety of weapons that give him both the versatility and range advantages.
I haven’t even got to Iron Man’s maneuverability and a bunch of other counterarguments, but I think I’ll leave it at that for now. Your turn, CS.
P.S. Happy birthday, man. Have a good one!
@comicstooge Nice response, man. Alright, let's get ready for Round 2!
Those are some good strength feats on Grey Hulk’s part, but I feel inclined to note that the pyramid-lifting scan isn’t as impressive as you suggested. Reason being that, in the very next page, Wonder Man himself was able to single-handedly hurl the pyramid into the air:
The Wonder Man BFR punch is cool as well, but according to my research, Simon recovered pretty quickly from that hit – he didn’t get knocked out of the fight. I don’t know if you’ve read this issue (Hulk Smash Avengers #4), but according to people who have:
Now, as I understand it, Grey Hulk’s power begins at the 70-75 ton range. That easily puts Ultimate Iron Man’s base strength at a good initial advantage. But as you pointed out, Grey Hulk’s strength also increases overtime. Unfortunately for him, so can Iron Man’s.
As we’ve already established in the submarine scan before, Tony is able to amplify his strength using his satellites. This boost raises his already impressive 100-tonner-ish strength levels to (theoretically) as high as the 1000-tonner range.
Another thing to factor is that with his mission control support, the boost can happen within moments. In the submarine scan, it’s stated that it took 15 seconds for the download to complete. Basically, Ultimate Iron Man can get a whole lot stronger a whole lot faster than Fixit.
As for Grey Hulk, there have been multiple times where he went up against stronger opponents – and couldn’t get stronger in time. After he got beaten up by Pineapple Thing, Dr. Doom actually told Joe: “In short, you don’t get strong enough, quickly enough.”
Just to put the nail in the coffin, here is another set of scans from Ultimates 2, where Iron Man and the rest of the team disarm a nuclear missile base. Tony’s presumably amped here:
In the 2nd page, we see IM (with the aid of Widow), tearing off a missile silo door. A web search puts a silo door at 740 tons, and a post I found by someone who used to work in a silo confirms they’re hundreds of tons. So that’s Tony already lifting several hundred tons of weight.
In the 3rd page, we see him single-handedly carry one missile by himself. Ballistic missiles vary from 60-100 tons. On a whole, Ultimate Iron Man has shown greater feats of strength (lifting a submarine, commercial airplane, ballistic missiles) than Grey Hulk.
In terms of base durability, I won’t lie; the Grey Hulk definitely has an edge over Ultimate Iron Man (Well, that’s what the force-field’s for!). But let’s have a look through the feats you posted.
She-Thing and Samson are both 70+ tons, the same as Hulk’s base, and significantly lower than Tony’s. And taking hits from Hyde isn’t anything notable – considering this is the same guy who was KOed by Captain America. Hyde’s a 50-tonner at best. The charges are pretty cool though.
Moving on to the scans of Hulk being BFRed to space and shot at an asteroid…I don’t know. I don’t want to discount these feats, but they seem implausible. I can sorta buy the space-punch; but being launched at an asteroid 2x the size of Earth and not taking damage? And destroying it?
If it was Savage, I might just buy it, but this looks a little like Silver-Age silliness. That being said, I’ll keep them in mind for now. But I do want to point out that they seem like high-end showings, because Joe has been KOed by far less blunt force before:
Classic Abomination – which the OHOTMU puts at about 100-200 tons (estimated same as Ultimate Iron Man) – was able to knock Grey Hulk straight out. Once again, as with Pineapple Thing, Joe Fixit wasn’t able to get stronger in time to make a difference.
Now Grey Hulk did later beat Abomination, but only because he was bloodlusted when Betty’s life was in danger. Then there was their third fight where Joe only won because of conveniently-placed acid containers…even then, he was getting pummeled before he found the acid.
The point being that Grey Hulk has been affected and been beaten by physically-superior enemies before. Hulk’s durability against blunt force is high, but it can be overcome. And given Iron Man’s strength, it’s quite feasible for IM’s hits to deliver some serious damage.
While we’re on the subject, I might as well drop a scan of Iron Man ramming through a Chitauri ship. It’s not as impressive as the earlier deep-sea pressures or blows from the Hulk, but it does illustrate the Iron Tech armor’s kinetic and explosive resistance:
To cap off the Durability section, let’s look at your feats of Grey Hulk’s resilience against energy weapons. The High Evolutionary’s laser one is alright, though I’m uncertain of its capabilities. But as for Fixit being hit with the Silver Centurion’s repulsors…
I have to point out that repulsors are more in line with concussive force than they are with laser beams. Invincible Iron Man: Extremis defines repulsors as being ‘reactionless force projection’ – and while they do produce mild heat – they’re more like blunt force.
This conveniently brings us to Ultimate Iron Man’s repulsors. Now there is some evidence to suggest that Tony’s repulsors are more energy-based, and here’s a particularly visceral example:
In this scan, Magneto has taken control of Iron Man’s armor as well as Cyclops’ visor – and blasted Wolverine into oblivion. Ultimate Wolverine dies as a smoking skeleton, and we can see that the repulsor blast vaporized all of his upper torso’s skin and muscle.
Side note: If you’re wondering why Cyclops’ beam was able to vaporize Logan’s lower half, it’s because Ultimate Cyclops’ blasts do release heat (As evidenced when he lit candles with his eyes, or burned off Ultimate Proteus’ skin).
Now if a relatively minor blast can completely vaporize a human body (Logan’s skeleton only survived because it was adamantium), imagine what these repulsors would do if they were fired at the volume of the earlier scan I posted.
I’m not suggesting that Tony’s repulsors would permanently put down Grey Hulk, but if you compare their destructive capacity in small blasts to a larger barrage? It all depends on how well Grey Hulk’s skin can tank energy/heat attacks, but it should definitely hurt.
Coupled with the aforementioned tower-busting missiles, and let’s not forget those handy thought-scramblers either. Iron Man could stay well out of Hulk’s range while being able to retaliate.
As for the force-field, I would argue that IM is more than capable of using it while attacking. In the scan I posted above, the force-field clearly has a shield mode. I don’t see what’s stopping Tony from attacking while shielding himself, and even then, he’d only need it in melee range.
Also, to address your point about Iron Man’s power supply going down – I don’t even consider that a factor in this fight. I know that in the first Ultimates arc, during the Hulk fight, the suit does drop to 25% power. But remember - Tony had just recently built the suit in that first arc, and he must have fixed its energy problems after that.
Because in the following arc, the armor is able to extend its force-field to a 500-meter radius to protect the team from a 100-mile bomb…and still fight in the following battle! It’s only when IM uses full power to push the giant Chitauri ship that the armor actually runs out.
In the rest of his appearances, we’ve never seen him have any more power problems either. Plus, even if his suit were actually low on power, Tony could just as easily recharge it from the satellites.
To summarize my argument: Ultimate Iron Man possesses a greater degree of base-level strength than Grey Hulk (80-100 tons > 70 tons), and the capability to boost that power to higher level at a faster rate. That strength will certainly be useful, as Grey Hulk can still be defeated by higher-level blunt force (Abomination, Pineapple Thing).
In addition to that, Tony’s armor is also relatively durable to superhuman blows. His force-field is also extremely powerful, and something Grey Hulk won't be able to penetrate. And Iron Man also has a wide variety of weapons that give him both the versatility and range advantages.
I haven’t even got to Iron Man’s maneuverability and a bunch of other counterarguments, but I think I’ll leave it at that for now. Your turn, CS.
P.S. Happy birthday, man. Have a good one!
In regards to strength, the fact that Wonder Man struggled at all still makes the feat impressive. Wonder man has held up 50'000 tons for a time:
Granted, he was struggling, he's still obviously in the tens of thousands on tons strength range.
Based on the pyramid feat, Grey Hulk is clearly somewhere on that level too.
And true, while Wonder Man was not KO'd by Grey Hulk's strike, he was obviously still rocked by it.
Considering Wonder Man wasn't able to rejoin the fight in time to help Iron Man (in his Silver Centurion armor) fail miserably when he tried to charge at Banner and Grey Hulk basically kidnapped Tony and had an entire conversation with him:
So, while you did do an awesome job with the counterargument, those feats are still pretty impressive however you look at them.
You mentioned Tony's lasers release heat?
I'll respond to the rest of your points later, but feel free to make counter arguments to these now.
(Tomorrow's Friday here, so I'll be fully able to respond to you without distraction. :) )
You mentioned Tony has thought scramblers?
I believe it was mentioned by Wasp in the first Volume of the Ultimates that Ult Hulk's brain is pretty much the same as a regular human's and yet Tony's thought scrambers only stunned him for a moment.
The durability of 616's organs increase with the rest of his body, so he should be able to shrug off Tony's thought scramblers.
Especially given Grey Hulk's healing factor:
He's shrugged off transmutation from Grey Gargoyle, despite the fact his transmutation has effected Thor!
In regards to Tony's flight advantage, that is considerable. Still, Grey Hulk has a considerable leap which could allow him to close the gap:
Alternately, he could simply hurl a projectile (such as a tree or a chunk of the ground) at Ult Tony.
True, while Tony could easily avoid him, Banner could throw an object, forcing Tony to dodge a certain way then leap at him.
After all, Grey Hulk isn't the dumb brute Tony is accustomed to fighting, as shown here.
Considering the durability feats I've shown for Grey Hulk, he should be able to hold out long enough for his anger to ramp up, so he could break through Tony's shields and smash him.
@comicstooge Good response, man. Batter up for Round 3!
I’m going to be frank here – that’s a pretty questionable scan to use for Simon.
There are some classic feats that are still relevant today, but this one comes across like a product of its time. Classic Wonder Man was a 90-tonner at best, so Simon even temporarily supporting 50,000 tons is ludicrous. It just seems like a mistake on the writer’s part.
And it’s been long-established that Grey Hulk’s strength starts at 70 tons (OHOTMU Vol. 3 #8). I find it a stretch to suggest that his base strength even hits the 1000s. It’s a bit of a gaping logic hole to say that Joe’s strength is on the same level as Simon’s based on one (dubious) scan alone.
On that note, it didn’t really seem that Simon was having as hard a time with the pyramid as you implied. In the first panel where he catches it – you can see that he’s clearly holding it up by himself. His grunting just seems to be a result of gravity + the weight of the falling pyramid.
In the second panel, one could argue that Silver Centurion Iron Man is only helping to lift the load out of convenience, not necessity. And once more, in the next page, Wonder Man’s able to toss the entire pyramid aside with ease.
As for Wonder Man getting BFRed, I don’t know if he was so much ‘rocked’ by it, as being unable to rejoin the fight geographically. Remember that in those days, Simon had to get around with the cumbersome jet-belt, and didn’t have his current subsonic flight.
For all we know, he simply didn’t rejoin the battle in time because he could only travel so fast (as he appears to have been BFRed a good distance away). Whatever the case, I was just clarifying that Wonder Man wasn’t KOed by Grey Hulk’s hit.
Returning back to Ultimate Iron Man’s strength level, I want to reiterate that Tony begins with a higher base strength level than Grey Hulk, and is able to boost that to even higher levels at an even faster rate. He’s also shown a good deal more impressive strength feats than Joe Fixit.
As far as I’ve established, Ultimate Iron Man holds an undeniable strength advantage over Grey Hulk.
The difference between fire and Ultimate Iron Man’s repulsor blasts is that fire’s heat only burns so hot…while IM’s blasts can vaporize flesh entirely. It’s not really a comparable point to make simply because fire doesn’t have the same destructive potential as a repulsor.
A single low-level blast was able to completely reduce a human body to ash in a second. Pyro or Super-Skrull’s flames would take much longer to accomplish the same feat. And again, that was a relatively minor blast…imagine it fired as a mass aerial bombardment.
Until it’s proven that Grey Hulk has some resistance to energy attacks, I still think it’s a fair statement to make that IM’s repulsors could harm him. As for the thought scramblers, I agree that they’d only stun Joe, but that could give an opening for Tony to use repulsors/blunt force.
And as for the matter of Grey Hulk’s healing factor, I think given Ultimate Iron Man’s flight and ranged advantage – he could keep Joe Fixit off his toes long enough for him to deliver some powerful punches to KO him, before the factor becomes an issue.
Once again, Grey Hulk’s durability has been surpassed by concussive force on multiple occasions; and the consistency lends credence to my argument. Case in point: In the following scan, Joe Fixit is defeated by the collective efforts of X-Factor and Doc Samson…
Jean uses her TK to close Hulk’s eyes, before Cyclops and Samson simultaneously KO him. Samson is a 70-tonner, and Scott in his X-Factor days isn’t even as powerful as he is now. It’s showings like these that make me question the asteroid feat.
If Grey Hulk’s been knocked out by Abomination, Samson, Cyclops, and beaten by Spiky Thing, how well do you think he’d take a hit from Ultimate IM – whose strength lies in the 100-1000 ton region? Like all those encounters listed above, I don’t see him getting stronger in time.
I suppose I’ll just conclude this section with Ultimate Iron Man’s best durability feat – which I’ve been saving up to now. In Ultimate War, Tony flies towards the X-Men to arrest them, and is unaware that Colossus has armored up. This is the result:
Colossus literally stops Tony dead in mid-flight, killing all momentum, and the force here must be incredible. Now let’s just keep in mind that this is the same Ultimate Colossus who derailed a freight train with his own two hands…
…and the powerhouse who, with great effort, lifted an entire submarine out of the water…
…and someone whose Handbook entry confirms that he can lift up to 1000s of tons:
This is the same Colossus who was beating the crap out of Thor (Who, remember, is a 100+ tonner himself) for fifteen minutes, and survived a nuclear arrow from Hawkeye. In short someone who far outclasses Grey Hulk.
So bearing all that in mind, a charging Iron Man taking a hit like that is nothing short of impressive. In fact, we see zero damage on the suit after. Tony probably can’t survive a second hit like that, but the fact that the armor could once says a lot about its blunt-force durability.
For the sake of argument, even if (and this is extremely unlikely) Joe Fixit was somehow able to circumvent the force-fields, the Iron Tech armor can still tank a fair bit of damage.
Given all the strength feats you’ve shown, Grey Hulk at his base would have zilch chance of penetrating Iron Man’s force-fields. Even if he got angry enough for a strength increase, I seriously doubt Joe Fixit’s striking power is equivalent to a megaton bomb.
While we’re talking force-fields, I might as well throw in this one scan where Tony throws a bubble around Ultimate Rhino to subdue him. That’s right, folks – Ultimate Iron Man has Green Lantern powers:
Grey Hulk tries throwing a tree or a chunk and rock, and Iron Man could just as easily put a force-bubble around it and fire it right back at Fixit. Thus, easily nullifying your suggested tactic of Hulk forcing Tony to dodge an object before tackling him.
This is just another instance of the vast variety of weapons at Iron Man’s disposal, as well as a solid example of the ranged advantage Tony has. Of course Grey Hulk could throw a chunk of earth or whatever, but I don’t think it’s enough to sidestep IM’s air superiority.
Ultimate Iron Man can stay far out of Grey Hulk’s range and just continuously bombard him with powerful repulsors. He can throw back anything Fixit tries to throw at him, and fly circles around the Hulk, firing at him from every direction. Basically, it's a lot easier for IM to harm Grey Hulk than it is vice versa.
I don’t see how Grey Hulk’s leaping will help him close the gap at all. It’s not so much the altitude that Joe Fixit can reach, but more about his maneuverability. A giant grey humanoid in midair doesn’t exactly require bullet-timing reflexes to avoid.
From the first scan you posted, it looks like the X-Men’s Blackbird (a huge aircraft) was able to dodge a jumping Grey Hulk, and then Hulk went on to crash into an airliner. So, again, I don’t see a jumping Joe Fixit as being maneuverable or too difficult to dodge.
To add, the nanites in Tony’s blood connect him to the Iron Tech armor, and enhances his reflex time. Ultimate Iron Man has reacted to bullets in time by flaring up his force-field:
And he’s been fast enough to intercept a beam of light from Dr. Spectrum with his own blasters. So I don’t see avoiding the Hulk’s leaps or attacks as being a major issue in terms of Tony's reaction speed:
Also, let’s not forget that IM has powerful thrusters that will easily help him to not only avoid Grey Hulk’s leaps, but also to fly around Joe Fixit, and blast at him from various angles, at a faster rate than Hulk can react.
Iron Man’s thrusters are extremely potent – capable of hitting escape velocity (25000 miles per hour) and breaking the Earth’s atmosphere. Tony’s boosters – at full-power – were able to push aside a massive Chitauri craft in Ultimates 1:
And yes, while Grey Hulk does occasionally resort to tactics, I really don’t think he’s going to outwit one of the smartest (if not the smartest) men in the Ultimate Universe. We’re talking about someone who strategically outmaneuvered Reed Richards:
It would take way too much time to explain the context, but long-story short: Reed went evil and got the Infinity Gems, he killed Tony, but Tony managed to recover his mind digitally, and came up with a plan to beat Reed.
So, I don’t see Grey Hulk’s intelligence being a major threat here. Let’s also not forget that Ultimate Iron Man is always morals-off, and won’t hesitate to go straight for the kill.
To summarize:
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