Molecule Man’s Mental State during his Battle with Sentry

In this thread I plan to discuss Owen Reece’s mental state during the Dark Avengers story arc, which culminates in his battle with Sentry.

I plan to show that Reece was heavily mentally and emotionally unstable, full of self-doubt, self-hate, and fear, that this affected his powers at multiple points during the Dark Avengers arc, and that due to this fact, the battle between him and Sentry does not prove which one of them was more powerful, or better at matter manipulation, at that point in time.

Please notice that I am NOT arguing here that Molecule Man was more powerful than Sentry, that’s a whole different subject—that's a completely different subject. I am simply arguing that, due to the effect of Reece’s mental and emotional problems on his powers, the fight itself does not prove which is more powerful, one way or the other.

I am only going to deal with issues leading up to and including the Dark Avengers arc, and won’t discuss the current Incursion/Secret Wars 2015 storyline, in which it is made clear that the background reason for the increase in Reece’s madness and instability over the years is the long-term murdering of Molecule Men from other dimensions.

Please see links for scans.

REECE’S OVERALL MENTAL HISTORY (AND ALSO A HISTORY OF HIS POWERS)

Reece has obviously had a long history of mental and emotional problems. These have included general paranoia, an antisocial tendency, and low self-esteem, all of which led him to become a villain in the first place. However he also created subconscious mental blocks for his powers right from the start.

Original Power Limitations

The most well-known of these is that he used to be limited to only affecting inorganic molecules. However, this limitation was pretty inconsistent in practice. For instance, he was able to affect electricity right from the start (examples 1 and 2), and was also able to affect such things as the Surfer’s Power Cosmic. He created multiple new bodies for himself (examples 1 and 2: in the first example, it says the second guy is his son, but later on we discover he really recreated himself as his own son), which clearly were organic, and also possessed multiple people’s minds—minds that were also obviously organic (a few examples of people he possessed: a girl, a guy, Reed Richards and a snake whose body becomes humanoid after he takes it over). In fact, he even alters the girl's body and turns her mom into a doll. He even turned the Thing into glass, and turned another guy into Mr. Fantastic and stretched him to death. He turned the Thing and the Man-Thing into normal humans. So there were tons of examples of times when he affected organic molecules very directly. Sometimes the writers tried to make up explanations for how he could do this, but they were always pretty lame excuses. And, he also was able to do things that seemingly have nothing to do with matter control, like traveling between dimensions (pages 1 and 2). But regardless of all these examples of him affecting organic matter and energy, the official storyline was that he had subconsciously limited his power to only affect inorganic matter, and this was often repeated in narrative captions, or by Reece himself.

He also, from the start, created a subconscious need for a metal wand, through which he directed his power. This wand wasn’t actually necessary, but he handicapped himself so that he couldn’t use his power without it (and in fact later on, his consciousness became stuck in it for several appearances, as seen in several of the links above).

During this period, there were also multiple occasions where he was unable to affect certain materials. He was unable to affect the Impossible Man directly, which surprised him (although it shouldn’t have, since he supposedly couldn’t affect organic molecules at that time). This was actually a fairly relevant situation to the Sentry fight. When Molecule Man tries to control Impossible Man, he says, "Why doesn't my power affect you?" and Impossible Man replies, "Because I am in total control of my own molecules...see?"--it's a similar exchange to what Reece and Sentry say in their later fight. He was also unable to affect the Invisible Woman’s force field directly. or the FF's uniforms, because they are made of unstable molecules. He wasn't able to possess Man-Thing or Klaw. Most of this is presumably due to the subconscious limits he had put on his powers.

Emotional Healing and Power Increase

After a long time, Tigra persuaded him to see a therapist. This therapist finally got him to tackle his mental and emotional problems, and to give up being a villain.

But, he was sent to Battleworld to be on the villains team by the Beyonder in the first Secret Wars anyway. Eventually, as is well known, Dr. Doom gained the power of the Beyonder, lifted the mental blocks from Reece’s mind, and all his former problems fell like scales from his eyes. He was now the consummate matter manipulator, and since matter can be converted to energy, the consummate energy manipulator as well. However, he clearly had capabilities well beyond that, since he was able to travel interdimensionally, sense the private communications of far-away Abstracts, etc. By Secret Wars II he was really more of a general omnipotent than someone who was just a very powerful matter/energy manipulator. But anyway I digress. The point is, at this point in time he was at his mental best, feeling confident in his relationship with his newfound girlfriend Marsha, and at peace with his role in the universe. It was this mental and emotional state that allowed him to use his powers so effectively.

Problems Begin Again

But then he found out his powers came from to the same energy found in a Cosmic Cube, and he merged with the Beyonder to become a Cosmic Cube for a while. When he came back to Earth, he had lost his powers, and with them he had lost his confidence in his relationship with Marsha. He got his powers back, but Marsha left him, and he has been mentally and emotionally troubled ever since. He had used her as a crutch; once she was gone, his previous confidence and happiness were shattered.

He snapped, and turned straight up evil again (page 1 and 2). He found the Beyonder’s mental remnant in the now-sentient-Cosmic-Cube Kosmos, and battled him/her, this time defeating him/her. Together, their power was able to affect distant times, space, and dimensions—clearly he was still pretty powerful even as a Cube derivative. Kubik, another sentient Cube, even said Reece was the most powerful of the Cube brotherhood because of his human nature, since the others were only abstracts and didn’t have the added potential of human emotions (pages 1 and 2). However, this emotional “strength” of his has never really shown up since then—Reece’s human nature has pretty much entirely been a weakness for him since then (until the current Incursion/Secret Wars story). Anyway his evil side went back into his subconscious, and he was just poor, pathetic, emotionally weak Owen Reece again.

His despondency over Marsha has since led him to be able to be controlled by the Puppet Master (!) and to be defeated by Aron the Watcher, who won simply by putting a barrier of pure vacuum a few feet around him so there were no molecules for him to manipulate (despite Reece being more of a reality warper than a matter manipulator at this point—by power if not habit anyway—and also having always been able to manipulate matter at a distance). Weirdly, Reece says he can only affect inorganic molecules during this fight, which hadn't been true for years. He eventually seeks out Doc Samson for more therapy. He was at a very, very low mental and emotional point during all this time. He would randomly act out as if he was evil, or at least uncaring about the results of his actions. He insanely added Marsha’s face to Mount Rushmore. He was actually worse than when Tigra had originally gotten him to see a therapist.

Some time after this, he was captured by SHIELD. To quote his bio: “The Molecule Man was finally imprisoned at the Raft during a period when his mental state had fluctuated enough to make his power level manageable.” He must have been pretty mentally/emotionally incapacitated for it to negatively affect his power level so much, since otherwise it seems ludicrous for SHIELD to be able to imprison a Cosmic Cube being with any level of functionality whatsoever. (But, it sure makes it reasonable to think that Sentry would be able to defeat him soon afterwards.)

Then during the big Raft breakout, he escaped along with numerous other characters, and returned to the town of Dinosaur, Colorado, where he grew up. This is where the Dark Avengers story begins.

DARK AVENGERS

Let’s start by just looking at the story. Here are the main scenes with Molecule Man in them. It's not every single page, but it's a good chunk:

First scene

Second scene

Third scene

Fourth scene

Fifth scene

Sixth scene

Now I’ll break it down, with links to excerpts from the scans above:

Reece has some new "friends"

Reece is in Dinosaur, Colorado. He wants the town to be all his, regressing to an emotionally “safe” space, and rejecting any strangers. He is paranoiacally protective of the town and his solitude, believing that everyone is out to get him. He is controlling the townspeople’s minds, and when any strangers come, he disintegrates them. But, and this is important, HE DOESN’T REALIZE HE IS DOING THIS, as we’ll see later. So right from the start we know that he is not only paranoid and clutching to his birth location essentially in a desire to revert to his childhood, but he is DELUDED—that is, what he thinks is reality is not the same as actual reality. Also, like any paranoid, he is full of fear and severely lacking in confidence: if you think everyone is out to get you, that means you must believe yourself to be supremely vulnerable.

These killings are noticed in the outside world, and Norman Osborn sends Sentry to investigate. Sentry notices the town seems depopulated, and then sees Owen, who disintegrates Sentry—not from any specific ill will, he just doesn’t want any strangers around.

The Avengers attack in full force. Reece makes most of them disappear. Then he teleports Osborn to what seems like another dimension (but turns out to actually be in a barn), where Reece is accompanied by his new “friends”—Mephisto, Beyonder, Enchantress, and Zarathos. These are not the real beings, just copies Reece has made out of his imagination. These “friends” are amazing examples of how far down Reece’s mental and emotional state has plunged. First, as we will see in a minute, they are his ONLY friends now. They are, in their own words, the friends he “deserves.” Again, this shines a pretty harsh light on his confidence and self-image, if he thinks the friends he deserves include characters like a demon of deceit, a goddess of seduction and deceit, and a demon of vengeance. He has gone from a situation where he basically had a two-person version of multiple personality disorder (his normal personality and his bald, “evil” personality) to one where he has even more personalities, each intended to embody a different aspect of his thoughts. The current psychological term for multiple personalities, dissociative personality disorder, is actually even more descriptive than the old term in this instance. He is dissociating his negative and dangerous (including the danger of sexuality, in the case of the Enchantress, since his sexual confidence is very low due to his failed relationship with Marsha) thoughts and emotions from himself, because he can’t deal with the fact that they actually exist within himself, forcing them to embody themselves into other physical selves so that he feels less responsible for these feelings. (But still sees them as the “friends” his degraded self deserves.) This is a prime example of how his personality is completely weak and unable to come to grips with itself, let alone exterior reality. He is completely undermining his potential, and setting limits on what “he” can do (as opposed to what his other “friends” might advise) as a person, as completely as he did when he limited himself to inorganic molecules or the need for a wand.

So already we’ve seen that Owen has a unstable grasp of reality, and an unstable sense of who he is himself. Sounds like he’s in great shape for a fight, right?

It is worth pointing out that Reece seemingly-confidently tells Osborn that he controls all the molecules of the world, and gives some seemingly sophisticated examples of how he can do that. Right after this he even puts Osborn through a psychological gauntlet of hallucinations from his past. However, these examples are honestly not that complicated for Reece (as he himself notes later), and he is just acting confident while feeling scared. He is still massively powerful compared to normal people. The questions that we will be getting to, eventually, is how he fares when he goes up against another truly massive power (like the Sentry’s) as opposed to garden-variety humans like Osborn, and whether his powers even work effectively in normal situations right now (as he thinks they do), or if he is only DELUDED into thinking that they are working well. Spoiler: I am going to argue that he is deluded :)

Paranoia

Anyway, after talking with Osborn, he talks with Enchantress about how he just wants to be left alone. Basically he’s caught in the grip of a desire to return to a sort of fetal state, metaphorically speaking. He says that if he just kills Osborn, others would come after him, and he’d have to kill them, and so on, until eventually Reed Richards would get him. I think this is a really telling moment. This whole scenario of continually killing people is NOT really what he would have to do. All he has to do is psychically control everyone in the world and make them simply not notice what’s going on in Dinosaur—make it a mental blind spot in everyone’s mind. For someone with his power, this should be EASY. It is actually not that different from when Sentry made everyone forget him. Cosmic Cube beings are easily capable of this; consider when a very early Kubik was able to alter the entire Earth and its inhabitants and culture into a new form in such a way that everyone forgot about their old lives. Reece could make everyone ignore him, without killing anyone, easily. But instead, he is so far down the rabbit hole mentally, that he doesn’t see this obvious solution. He retreats into blunt force approaches, despite the subtlety of his powers, deluded into simplicity. He is clearly not at his best on a tactical or strategic basis.

So then he goes ahead and mentally tortures Osborn, as I mentioned. Meanwhile, Sentry reforms. Reece goes to him and notes that Sentry is made of different matter than anything he has experienced before, showing that fighting with Sentry will take a higher level of competency than a fight against a random high-powered being. Reece “kills” him again, this time not simply by disintegrating him, but by blowing his body to bits, actually ripping his limbs and body apart in an explosion before fully disintegrating him. Then he says that they could have been friends, presumably because both Bob Reynolds and Reece are both crazy (as is Osborn; the story makes an intentional comparison among the three of them). This method of destroying Sentry really stands out to me. The Molecule Man doesn’t normally kill people like this—he has transmuted people, he has disintegrated people, but he has never eviscerated someone physically like this. To me it is a further example of how far afield he is from his normal self.

Problems with his Powers

Then we see what he did with all the other Dark Avengers. Some of these examples are also very telling and show that his powers are very much NOT working at their best, or as he would expect them to. If he can’t deal with these essentially normal humans, how could he be expected to be at his best when fighting someone of Sentry’s power?

He tries to turn Daken into a tree. Reece comments on how Daken’s healing factor is fighting back against the transformation. By the end, Daken is transformed as Reece wished. But the idea that Daken’s healing factor could in any way be trouble to someone of Reece’s power, the idea that it could slow down his transformation for even a second, is laughable. Reece is still, in terms of his potential, capable of creating planet-wide physical changes at the minimum. And we’re supposed to believe that one guy’s healing factor could fight back against his power at all? There’s no way. The only explanation of this is that Reece is not in full control of his powers, due to his weak mental state and lack of confidence. He has been attempting to project confidence against, say, Osborn, but clearly the rest of the context shows that that’s just bravado; one does not attempt to live in a metaphorically fetal state, under extreme paranoia of fear and doubt, with a bunch of friends that are dissociated embodiments of one’s own feelings, while being truly self-confident.

Reece then talks about Ares, and how to send these guys back so he won’t be noticed. Again, the fact that he doesn’t see that he can just send them back and make it so no one notices, using his powers, is astounding, and a sign of his inability to think straight. His “friends” Enchantress and Zarathos tell him he should run, and that everyone wants to kill him, again showing that he’s not confident in how to deal with other challengers to his power.

Then we see that he turned Bullseye into a barrel of water, but that water is “angry” and can move. Again, this is a stunning push-back against his powers, like Daken’s. Is it a funny scene? Sure, but there’s no way that a normal human like Bullseye could somehow fight back against Reece’s powers in such a way that he can retain a degree of his emotions while being supposedly inanimate matter. Again, this is a crystal clear example that Reece’s powers are not working at their full extent.

Delusions

Then Victoria Hand shows up. She wants to surrender so MM won’t cause any more trouble. She wants the Avengers and “all the others” put back, alive. Reece replies, “what others?” She goes on to mention the 44 civilians he’s killed. He has no idea: “44 people,” he says, stunned. She asks, “are they dead?” He doesn’t answer, again he seems to have no idea what she’s talking about. Let me just point out again how insane and mentally incompetent he must be to kill 44 people without even knowing it, how much his power is out of his conscious control, how much he is separated from normal reality (the fact that he made a fake hell should also be a hint of this!). He no longer fully controls his power with his conscious mind—and it is this conscious mind that will later attempt to fight the Sentry. Much of his power is now being controlled by his subconscious, the part of his mind that is always tripping him up and negating his powers and potential.

Reece Loses

Then Sentry reforms, again. This time he’s angry, and on the verge of the Void. MM brings Hand to Osborn in the weird fake hell dimension, and Reece explains that he altered Osborn’s mind using a few simple molecular changes (note that they’re simple changes; this is the scale of thing he can still do consciously and effectively). But then Sentry bursts in and pulls them out of the fake hell/barn.

Reece once again violently bursts Sentry asunder (again, in a far more violent and bloody way than he’s ever acted outside of this arc). Reece starts to fight back against SHIELD, but Sentry reforms a final time, and starts to control Reece. Sentry says he needs Reece to put everything back, because Reece has more experience with these matters.

Reece famously says, “How are you doing THIS TO ME?!?! I CONTROL THE MOLECULES! I DO!” It should not be surprising at this point, however, to discover that Reece does not in fact control the molecules; or at least not very well with his conscious mind. In other words, he is losing his conscious control over molecules regardless of Sentry’s intervention. What else would one expect from a fractured mind that doesn’t understand reality or itself, that is in fear and doubt of everything?

Reece does put things back, and Sentry tells him to “go away,” and it looks like Reece explodes in the same way Reece exploded Sentry, but presumably he teleports away somewhere, and eventually shows up again in the Incursion storyline. Sentry then explains that he is also a matter manipulator.

Osborn Sums Things Up

On the last pages, Osborn supports this whole notion of Reece’s mental and emotional state: “You don’t want to end up like Owen Reece, do you? Not knowing what’s real and what’s not? Not having friends.” (Of course, this is the pot calling the kettle black, since Osborn has his own paranoid, delusional, dissociative issues.) He confirms that Reece’s grasp on the outside world was his problem. Not knowing what was real and what was not, constantly drowning in illusionary friends he made, and being unaware of whole aspects of reality that he was subconsciously affecting (like dead visitors), he was incapable of dealing with his powers on any large scale, and even on a small scale in some instances. Daken and Bullseye were both able to resist his powers to different degrees and in different ways; sure, Daken was eventually turned into a tree, and Bullseye was turned into water, but no normal humans should have ever been able to resist his powers in that way, even for a second. He killed 44 people without knowing it. He made imaginary friends for himself without being aware of their origin. And when he was forced into combat with a character whose power level is near his own (whether above or below), he was simply unable to deal with the level of that challenge, due to his severe mental delusions, emotional and cognitive instability, and lack of confidence. Before he came to Dinosaur, he had been imprisoned on the Raft, where his power level was so low, due to his low mental state, that even SHIELD was able to capture him. Since then, his mental state seemingly deteriorated even more—at the very least he is worse off here than he was when he met Doc Samson (which was his last appearance before he went to the Raft), since in that story he wasn’t experiencing delusions and hallucinations on the scale seen here.

A Q&A to clear up a few extra points

Q. Why would his mental state make him weak now, when his most powerful post-Cube state came about during another psychological break (the fight with Kosmos-Beyonder)?

A. While he fought the Kosmos-Beyonder, he wasn’t really emotionally troubled or deluded, he had released a whole secondary personality that took over his body. That is to say, his normal self was emotionally troubled, AND THAT FACT allowed his untroubled evil self to come forth (see the scans of this linked to above). That evil self had no emotional weaknesses; it was his “strong” image of himself, macho (as seen in his muscled form) and very capable. That self was thus able to fully utilize his power and take down the Kosmos-Beyonder. (To quote from that issue, Reece calls that side of himself "a side which knows no restraint or control," and Beyonder calls Reece's normal personality "a weak, sniveling creature afraid to fully use the awesome energies at his command", which makes the comparison between the two, and their ability to use his power, pretty clear.)

His Dark Reign self, on the other hand, still had his normal personality in charge (with various evil selves split off as “devils on his shoulder”), and thus was full of weakness. This unconfident, delusional, meandering, unenthusiastic self had far less capacity and initiative to control his powers effectively than the vindictive, ambitious, self-assured evil personality that fought Kosmos-Beyonder.

Q. Sentry, Osborn, and Reece are all insane here. Why would Reece’s insanity cripple him more than the other two?

A. Sentry and Osborn are basically high-functioning in their insanity. Sentry’s mental weaknesses don’t make him any less effective as a fighter; when pushed to extreme his weaknesses push him to becoming the Void, much as Molecule Man's “evil” side that came out in his fight with Kosmos-Beyonder. The Void and the Molecule Man’s evil bald persona are both beings/personalities that are energized to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals, and have no mental blocks that they put in their own way to stop themselves from achieving those goals. They are more dangerous than their normal selves. Whereas Owen’s normal personality’s mental problems are the opposite; he is always retreating, always causing himself problems. Also, as it happened, the Sentry that MM fought was a very confident Sentry, in the end; a Sentry that had just woken up to the full extent of his powers and found peace in a new sense of self-identity, similar to when Doom first unlocked Reece’s full potential. So this battle was, in its last moments, a very self-doubting, deluded Reece against a fully-confident Sentry. Osborn, as later becomes clear in Siege, eventually loses his ability to function and becomes more like Reece’s self-doubting, disassociated personality when Loki pushes his Goblin self to the forefront.

Propositions that I have shown:

• Reece was delusional, with a poor grasp of reality
• Reece was paranoid
• Reece was unstable
• Reece was full of self-doubt, self-hate, and fear (which are the conditions Doom said lead Reece to undermine his powers), lacking confidence in himself and his actions
• Reece was not tactically competent
• Reece was desirous of a return to an imaginary perfect state of being where there is no conflict
• Reece has had a long history of creating mental blocks on his own power based on his lack of self-confidence and instability, and constant self-undermining
• Reece’s recent mental history affected his powers so much that he was able to be imprisoned by SHIELD
• Reece was unable to use his power at its normal full effectiveness even against two essentially human characters, Daken and Bullseye
• Reece was not utilizing one of his confident alter egos, like the one that fought Kosmos-Beyonder, but his own self-doubt-riddled, always-second-guessing main personality, in the fight against Sentry
• Reece was not in the mental shape necessary for him to combat Sentry, who was in contrast fully confident in his own newfound abilities

Therefore, given that Reece was full of his classically power-hobbling self-doubt, self-hate, and fear, and due to the limitations on his powers shown directly in this story arc, he was almost certainly not in full control of his powers. Thus this fight does not tell us which is innately more powerful, Reece or Sentry.

Sorry for the length, and thanks for reading!

Or a reality warper for that matter.

@realitywarper@mazeraiii

Ouch. Must be painful news to the sentry fans. Well done op

@mysticmedivh said:

@leo-343 said:

He isn't a multi-versal reality warper.

Or a reality warper for that matter.

someone in another thread posted the same writer saying he is....

Very nicely written Owie, I really like your take on this =)

Keep up the good work

@leo-343 said:

@realitywarper

His powers are only limited by his belieds on his own abilities. Thanks.

@realitywarper: waiting for someone to debunk this.

Damn, lot of Anti-Sentry threads today Realitywarper going be working late tonight.

EDIT: It won't be hard, all he does is copy the argument over and over again.

-yify

@killemall

I think this is actually pretty good. I could agree to this.

do you though?

More or less, yes i do. What he is suggesting is Sentry might not be more powerful than Molecule Man at his absolute prime, which to me makes sense because he has essentially never fought an unrestained version of molecule man. That's different from saying Sentry is less powerful than Molecule Man, under normal setting, that is willing to use molecule manipulation on organic matter. That's a different issue. We know Owie would have defeated Aron the rogue watcher had it not been for the said limitation against organic matter. We also know cosmic cube beings, on average, are above skyfathers nevermind Owie in particular who is normally much more powerful.

So yeah I can agree with this.

So what is it so either Sentry is a reality warper or isn't because that twit gave two different answers pretty much contradicting himself. I'm confused.

@realitywarper:

@bossdarksied355: You really have a problem with yourself, kid.

Both.

Jenkins wrote him as a reality warper.

Bendis wrote him as a reality warper (he said in an interview that he just tought he had molecule manipulation)

Remender wrote as a reality warper or a molecule manipulator.

In both cases it doesn't matter, Sentry is stated to have limitless powers and unlimited psionic activity in his bio and to be a reality warper on par with HOM Scarlet Witch.

People can try to search any weakness in the writing of Molecule Man at this point : Sentry was writing to be the most powerful guy around and stripped Molecule Man of his title of "most powerful man in the universe".

I don't get why people can't just accept it and move on.

I suppose it's to do with how those two are normally written as a threat on different scales, specially when you consider Owie at his best. Even now, for example, we have Molecule Man under Hickman, still incomplete and insane after having killed multiple versions of him from the multiverse, is lying conduit single handedly to the power of Beyonders and channeling that to Dr. Doom.

Sentry on the other hand even now isn't written on that scale.

Its just that given their entire history, once you ignore this issue where Sentry and Molecule Man fought, its not that hard to see the difference in scale. Being as powerful as Owie would make it difficult to see why Void even needed anyone to help him against a broken version of Asgard that was devoid of a skyfather? Wouldn't you expect someone like Owie to have very little trouble with it?

There scale of operation as just so vastly different, that it becomes difficult to simply agree Sentry was truly more powerful than Molecule Man.

1) That means that Molecule Man is now as powerful as it's pre-retcon version and therefore got back his title of more powerful man in the Marvel Universe.

2) Sentry was written to be more powerful than everyone and below the Abstracts. His mental flaws is what allowed the writers to integrate him into the Marvel Universe as they could manage his insane powers for the sake of the story. I can details it if you want.

3) Just what I explained in my point 2). I can add that they made a "what if?" version of Siege where Sentry don't have a mental breakdown and, instead of suiciding, one-shot every heroes on Earth and then go rampage the Universe. As I said : Sentry was hyped to be probably more powerful than Molecule Man since the beginning of the New Avengers and that's why Bendis tactically placed Owen in the raft... He planned that fight a loooong time ago to show how powerful Sentry is.

We can argue that Owen wasn't that powerful before Dr Doom unlock his potential during Secret Wars 1 and that Sentry followed the same way by realizing by himself that he could warp the reality / manipulate the molecules and stomps Owen with the same power...

4) We can totally agree that Sentry was more powerful than Molecule Man. There is enough clues about it. People just refuse to see them.

How comes that people try to find so much excuses for Owen to be weakened / depowered even Tom Brevoort confirmed that he wasn't ?????

Isn't that double standards in your opinion ???

I'm calling that double standards.

I am a tad bit confused here friend. Why would you think Molecule Man is now as powerful as his pre-retconed version? I ask because the origins of molecule man and Beyonders as explained in the same series seem to fall in line with him being a cosmic cube.

Remember, the energies of cosmic cube and cosmic cube beings have always been tied to the universe of Beyonders.

Sentry was written to be more powerful than everyone and below the Abstracts. His mental flaws is what allowed the writers to integrate him into the Marvel Universe as they could manage his insane powers for the sake of the story. I can details it if you want.

While I believe you mentioned you could explain further, that appear to be a rather difficult proposition to accept, though friend. Because for you to argue Sentry was written to be more powerful than everyone, only below Abstract, you would need some evidence of Sentry going against most being whose power lie between earthly threats and the abstract. I do not recall Sentry going against anyone like that.

The fights he has been in, say Sentry vs Genis, Sentry vs Anti-Man, Sentry vs Blue Marvel, all seem to point Sentry is normally not much more powerful than them, in fact the first fight he came out looking like the inferior among the two.

Then we have a whole list of other stories where Sentry was never treated any bigger than Earthly threats. For example when Michael, a being with the power of mutants that lost their powers on M-day, came to Earth Sentry was one of the few people to be able to hold his own against it. Not only was Sentry on the losing spectrum on the fight, Iron Man actually mentioned the only reason Sentry has lasted this long is because Michael hadn’t completely adapted to his power. Given the power of a handful of depowered mutant wouldn’t really be anywhere close to as powerful as say Owie in his prime, even that seem on a much lower scale compared to Owie.

Just what I explained in my point 2). I can add that they made a "what if?" version of Siege where Sentry don't have a mental breakdown and, instead of suiciding, one-shot every heroes on Earth and then go rampage the Universe. As I said : Sentry was hyped to be probably more powerful than Molecule Man since the beginning of the New Avengers and that's why Bendis tactically placed Owen in the raft... He planned that fight a loooong time ago to show how powerful Sentry is.

I don't agree, essentially I have never been a big fan of What Ifs because writers essentially get a little to much latitude to write their stories, those comics are only loosely edited because they don't affect continuity.

That being said even the what if doesn't show him at the level we are normally used to seeing Owie placed as, never how powerful he was say against Beyonder. Destroying heroes on marvel earth is a very small affair, in fact a cosmic cube being has warped whole earth just as a small test to see what Fantastic Four could do. That's just the power of a simple cosmic cube being.

Even in that story defeating heroes and turning himself into a being that travel the universe seeking destruction should not even place him at this scale. Furthermore, they mentioned the reason Sentry lost was because he was weakened against his confrontation with Ares, and it was the act of killing Ares that weakened him. Once again, you wouldn't expect someone like Ares to give Molecule Man more problems. In fact we do see Ares completely helpless against Molecule Man in the same series.

Lastly, Sentry being said to be inferior in terms of powers against Michael was also under Bendis, friend. So there are obvious contradiction.

We can argue that Owen wasn't that powerful before Dr Doom unlock his potential during Secret Wars 1 and that Sentry followed the same way by realizing by himself that he could warp the reality / manipulate the molecules and stomps Owen with the same power...

Fair enough, but wouldn't you run into a problem with this friend? Owen, after the said instance, was then stated to be more powerful than every abstracts in marvel actuality, he had a fight with Beyonder that threatened the whole multiverse, he repaired supposedly thousands of dimension with a twirl of his hand. See, after from the instance with Dr. Doom everything else in Owen's history suggest he got more powerful, it's clearly visible.

That however is not the case with Sentry. In fact, he essentially struggles against Avengers when norn stones are involved. Wouldn't that give you the same problem because it's not really hard to see why one would consider cosmic cubes to be more powerful than norn stone. Once you argue Sentry was more powerful than even Molecule Man, Seige would have been over a lot sooner.

That's not the case though friend, and we don't really see Sentry ever operate on this scale.

How comes that people try to find so much excuses for Owen to be weakened / depowered even Tom Brevoort confirmed that he wasn't ?????

Ah but friend, Brevroot only mentioned he was at his regular level. You will have to define that first though. Molecule Man does not go around affecting multiverses in his regular level, he never has. That was a particular instance with an evil version of molecule man involve. In fact the said version calls himself more powerful than Owen normally.

It would be very hard to somehow effectively argue that evil version, which appeared only for 1 story arc, would somehow be considered a "normal" version for Molecule Man.

But perhaps you had some argument that I am missing.

@claymore1998:

I am a tad bit confused here friend. Why would you think Molecule Man is now as powerful as his pre-retconed version? I ask because the origins of molecule man and Beyonders as explained in the same series seem to fall in line with him being a cosmic cube.

Because he absorbed the power of The Beyonders whom are above all abstracts.

That's basically what him and The Beyonder were before the retcon.

Remember, the energies of cosmic cube and cosmic cube beings have always been tied to the universe of Beyonders.

I know that.

While I believe you mentioned you could explain further, that appear to be a rather difficult proposition to accept, though friend. Because for you to argue Sentry was written to be more powerful than everyone, only below Abstract, you would need some evidence of Sentry going against most being whose power lie between earthly threats and the abstract. I do not recall Sentry going against anyone like that.

Molecule Man ?

The fights he has been in, say Sentry vs Genis, Sentry vs Anti-Man, Sentry vs Blue Marvel, all seem to point Sentry is normally not much more powerful than them, in fact the first fight he came out looking like the inferior among the two.

Sentry Vs Genis : Sentry didn't know that he could warp the reality and even then Genis had no mean to take him down. He couldn't even scratch him. That was a stalemate and the only mean that Genis had to annoy Sentry was to BFR him.

Sentry Vs Anti-Man & Blue Marvel : Anti-Man was a wormhole to the Negative Zone and that screwed with Sentry's powers.

You have to keep in mind the context of every fights.

Then we have a whole list of other stories where Sentry was never treated any bigger than Earthly threats. For example when Michael, a being with the power of mutants that lost their powers on M-day, came to Earth Sentry was one of the few people to be able to hold his own against it. Not only was Sentry on the losing spectrum on the fight, Iron Man actually mentioned the only reason Sentry has lasted this long is because Michael hadn’t completely adapted to his power. Given the power of a handful of depowered mutant wouldn’t really be anywhere close to as powerful as say Owie in his prime, even that seem on a much lower scale compared to Owie.

Sentry had an agoraphobic issue that weakened him at this moment and came to help in his condition even then he did pretty well against The Collective.

Bob is stuck at home in foetal position before Cap' ask him to fight Vs The Collective... He is clearly not in a good day.

I don't agree, essentially I have never been a big fan of What Ifs because writers essentially get a little to much latitude to write their stories, those comics are only loosely edited because they don't affect continuity.

In this one the only difference with the Earth-616 is Sentry's mental condition and it is said at the beginning of the comics.

Gallery

That being said even the what if doesn't show him at the level we are normally used to seeing Owie placed as, never how powerful he was say against Beyonder. Destroying heroes on marvel earth is a very small affair, in fact a cosmic cube being has warped whole earth just as a small test to see what Fantastic Four could do. That's just the power of a simple cosmic cube being.

The "what if" is during Siege and therefore after Dark Avengers. In this reality Sentry seemingly killed Owen too.

Even in that story defeating heroes and turning himself into a being that travel the universe seeking destruction should not even place him at this scale. Furthermore, they mentioned the reason Sentry lost was because he was weakened against his confrontation with Ares, and it was the act of killing Ares that weakened him. Once again, you wouldn't expect someone like Ares to give Molecule Man more problems. In fact we do see Ares completely helpless against Molecule Man in the same series.

Because he experienced a mental breakdown, he was too guilty at this point so he suicided himself...

He had no time to recover from the psychological strain.

Remember that he one-shotted Thor later in one punch before killing the rest of the planet so the strain is definitly psychological... And Sentry in a bad mental state is weakened : he can turn off his durability, powers, etc... just because he don't want to live.

Lastly, Sentry being said to be inferior in terms of powers against Michael was also under Bendis, friend. So there are obvious contradiction.

Less powerful at this moment...

He is weakened by his agoraphobia...

The context matters again.

Sentry had no problem when he was stable against Genis-Vell, whom was on the verge to destroy the Universe, besides the BFR.

Fair enough, but wouldn't you run into a problem with this friend? Owen, after the said instance, was then stated to be more powerful than every abstracts in marvel actuality, he had a fight with Beyonder that threatened the whole multiverse, he repaired supposedly thousands of dimension with a twirl of his hand. See, after from the instance with Dr. Doom everything else in Owen's history suggest he got more powerful, it's clearly visible.

And it's exactly the same with Sentry.

He is stated to be the most powerful being numerous time since his first appearance.

Stan Lee said that he could even destroy the Marvel Universe...

Later Bendis compare him to House Of M Scarlet Witch whom altered the reality of the Multiverse with her powers.

In the Dark Reign Files, just before his fight against Molecule Man, Sentry is said as being the most powerful man in the Universe and Owen isn't even that was his previous title.

And during Dark Avengers, Sentry beat him.

There is enough evidences that Sentry is more powerful than Molecule Man.

That however is not the case with Sentry. In fact, he essentially struggles against Avengers when norn stones are involved. Wouldn't that give you the same problem because it's not really hard to see why one would consider cosmic cubes to be more powerful than norn stone.

You are ignoring his mental conditions again.

In this story Sentry wanted to die and let the Avengers kill him.

Why are you avoiding the context only when that suits you ?

Once you argue Sentry was more powerful than even Molecule Man, Seige would have been over a lot sooner.

Mental condition...

I posted this interview of Bendis at least 30 times in the forum.

That's not the case though friend, and we don't really see Sentry ever operate on this scale.

And it's not necessary.

We know that his power is above Molecule Man's.

Ah but friend, Brevroot only mentioned he was at his regular level. You will have to define that first though. Molecule Man does not go around affecting multiverses in his regular level, he never has. That was a particular instance with an evil version of molecule man involve. In fact the said version calls himself more powerful than Owen normally.

The Regular Molecule Man is far more powerful than the Evil one.

It would be very hard to somehow effectively argue that evil version, which appeared only for 1 story arc, would somehow be considered a "normal" version for Molecule Man.

A version that appears only one time isn't a regular version.

But perhaps you had some argument that I am missing.

And I have more...

Posted numerous time...

People just believe what they want to believe.

@trickyman86: because the last time we saw sentry was in 2013 i think and thats it

That's fun how people whom don't like the character are totally unable to counter any arguments that I made.

They should check their own definitions to save time.

Learning context it's the first thing that you should do guys.

I saw no proofs contradicting my claims so far.

@realitywarper: I can't help it. It was just too easy.

@bossdarksied355:

You are pointless

@realitywarper: I love how you will consistently downplay the fight with WWH because it was Bob's worst emotional state (WHICH IS TRUE, although that may or may not have affected Sentry's power levels) but then I ALREADY KNOW without reading this thread that you're going to argue with these perfectly valid points the OP made and try to keep him from doing the same thing for Owen. Sad attitude, friend.

I'm done arguing your opinion with you, no one will ever convince you, I just like pointing out your hypocrisy for everyone else. :)

I already argued with Owie about those month ago.

That's not something new for me.

Which is sad is the attitude of most viner at downplaying a character just because they don't like it.

I'm just poiting out your hypocrisy here. :)

@realitywarper: Are your wittle feewings hurt?

@bossdarksied355:

Nope but yours are as you are constantly tagging me.

Are you butthurt ?

@realitywarper: No, I just enjoy everyone tearing apart your arguments.

@realitywarper said:

Just gotta say that if you put this into context with all the other answers, it's obvious that he means that he was the regular Molecule Man, in other words the Molecule Man who's power is influenced by his own mental state.

You did nothing besides whining at my claims.

Go back at your kindergarten.

@nickras said:

@realitywarper said:

Just gotta say that if you put this into context with all the other answers, it's obvious that he means that he was the regular Molecule Man, in other words the Molecule Man who's power is influenced by his own mental state.

Molecule Man's powers are only influenced by his beliefs on his ability to use them.

The regular Molecule Man is the one in control far far more powerful than Kubik.

Moreover you can notice that he saidthat MM wasn't weakened, nor depowered.

Deal with it.

Actually a pretty good interpretation of what happened. But some of the users in this thread are just salty lmao.

@realitywarper: I gave you solid arguments that you simply chose to ignore. There was plenty of evidence showing that Molecule Man was weaker in Dark Avengers. Most likely being a purposeful retcon by Bendis to make Sentry a much more serious threat. But literally all you have done is repeat time after time the past feats that simply did not apply to the fight, and ignore credible arguments. Because you can't take the fact that just maybe, Sentry isn't an all powerful omniversal reality warper. Your only shred of evidence to prove that Sentry is so all powerful is a battle that was rigged from the start by a writer that for all of the Dark Avengers run was hyping up Sentry to be the ultimate antagonist in Siege. Not to mention that he has never shown anything since to put him at the power levels you describe. At some point you just have to take a step back and say, " hey, I could be wrong", and there is nothing wrong with that. Everyone's had to do it. I've had to do it. But hey, maybe sentry really does surpass Molecule Man and i was wrong the whole time. But at this moment, I have not seen enough evidence to sway my current opinion. Call me a kid all you want, call my arguments whining. I poked a bit of fun at your expense, along with a couple others. Not surprising with your snooty attitude. Either way, I will give you what you want. I will leave you alone. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go to bed. I've got kindergarten class tomorrow.

@bossdarksied355:

I gave you solid arguments that you simply chose to ignore.

1)

#21 Posted by Bossdarksied355 (446 posts) - 2 days, 5 hours ago - Show Bio

@realitywarper:

2)

#32 Posted by Bossdarksied355 (446 posts) - 1 day, 15 hours ago - Show Bio

@realitywarper: I can't help it. It was just too easy.

3)

#36 Edited by Bossdarksied355 (446 posts) - 1 day, 5 hours ago - Show Bio

@realitywarper: Are your wittle feewings hurt?

We can see in the 3 points above that your argumentory is truly solid BDsied355

There was plenty of evidence showing that Molecule Man was weaker in Dark Avengers.

That's the contrary actually.

There is plenty of evidence that he is not.

To begin he has no beliefs on his abilities, you know, the thing that set-up his power-level.

Most likely being a purposeful retcon by Bendis to make Sentry a much more serious threat.

Bendis did no retcon. Thanks for trying to lowball via fan-fiction.

But literally all you have done is repeat time after time the past feats that simply did not apply to the fight, and ignore credible arguments.

All you have done is... Nothing.

Currently I see that you don't have the tools to get what I wrote.

I can assure you that if you spend some time reading what I wrote you will understand it.

Because you can't take the fact that just maybe, Sentry isn't an all powerful omniversal reality warper.

Yep.

House Of M Scarlet Witch was a street-leveler too. I don't understand what happened in House Of M. Was the multiverse "weakened" too ?

Your only shred of evidence to prove that Sentry is so all powerful is a battle that was rigged from the start by a writer that for all of the Dark Avengers run was hyping up Sentry to be the ultimate antagonist in Siege.

And he suicided for the plot.

Bendis said it in an interview that I posted many times.

You can ignore the context all you want it exitst.

Not to mention that he has never shown anything since to put him at the power levels you describe.

He don't need to.

The writer already gave enough information for us to understand that he was at that power-level.

By your logic Molecule Man being able to beat The Beyonder should never have happened because he never demonstrated that power-level before.

At some point you just have to take a step back and say, " hey, I could be wrong", and there is nothing wrong with that.

Why don't you just apply that advice to yourself in the first place ?

I'm knowledge enough in both Sentry & Molecule Man to defend my point of view.

You obviously don't.

Everyone's had to do it. I've had to do it.

You have to do it again.

But hey, maybe sentry really does surpass Molecule Man and i was wrong the whole time.

Agreed.

But at this moment, I have not seen enough evidence to sway my current opinion.

Get the right informations then.

I spend a lot of time to do it to avoid other people to do it.

I literally helped people to avoid hours of researches.

Look at what I shared in multiples threads and think about it twice.

Call me a kid all you want, call my arguments whining.

The points 1, 2 & 3 from your posts showed no arguments at all.

What I'm supposed to think about your attitude ?

I poked a bit of fun at your expense, along with a couple others.

I noticed.

Not surprising with your snooty attitude.

Snooty ?

You are the one complaining without providing any contribution nor to Owie's side, nor to mine.

That's a bit short to criticize my attitude, you should take a look at the mirror.

Either way, I will give you what you want.

Chocolate ? Cool ! I love chocolate !

I will leave you alone.

:'(

Now if you'll excuse me,

No need to be apologetic.

As your good Lord I forgive you.

I need to go to bed.

Night Night.

I've got kindergarten class tomorrow.

Don't put your fingers inside your nose François ! >_<

I love the gifs on this thread.

Anyways I've never thought that fight had MM at his best. And also I like him better as a character but whatever.

What the F#^%&^&*&(*^&^$$#*&^!

I wrote a huge damn reply on here a couple days ago and it's not here!

F)*(*&(*&(*ing F!%%&^*)(":!

Sigh. It's way too late for me to re-write it now.

Anyway, thanks to those who wrote positive comments.

realitywarper, I'll get back to you later.

@realitywarper:

What are the causes of Reece's subconscious limits on his powers?

Your main point here about the topic seems to be based on what mental or emotional issues can actually affect Reece’s powers.

You’re saying that only Reece’s “belief in his abilities” can affect his power level, and produce one handbook entry that says that. First of all, it’s a completely meaningless phrase that the handbook uses simply to try to summarize many on-panel events. What does “belief in his abilities” even mean? Are we talking about whether Reece believes in his abilities like someone believes in Santa Claus? No, that's never been a problem. Or it could mean, “confidence in his ability to use his powers”—that is, his powers wane and wax depending on his confidence in how well he can his abilities. However, this doesn't fit with his actual comics history; while there were a few times he was unable to make something because it was too complex, those haven't been the case for a long time, and he has never been unable to use his powers simply due to his lack of confidence in the power itself. The last possibility is that it means “confidence in himself,” or “self-confidence.” As it happens, I agree with this, and it is in fact one of the options that his on-panel appearances say is in fact one of the factors that affects his powers, although they tend to call it “self-doubt” instead of a lack of confidence. But, it's the same thing. As it also happens, I have shown extensively that he was riddled with self-doubt in the Dark Avengers arc. So if you think that “belief in his abilities” means “confidence in himself,” then I guess we agree that his self-doubt could negatively affect his powers. And that's what happened.

You also showed a couple of other handbook entries, which basically just said that he put subconscious blocks on himself to weaken his powers. Which is uncontroversial, and is what I’m saying. They don't mention the specific mental or emotional reasons he put those blocks in place, but since his on-panel appearances do explain those reasons as being the traits I listed in the OP, so I’m not sure why you posted these handbook entries. They basically just support the fact that he has a history of subconsciously shooting himself in the foot, which is exactly what happened with Sentry.

So let's talk about those traits. The reasons that Molecule Man has put subconscious mental blocks on himself are pretty clear, and are explicitly noted in the comics. Doom says, as I linked to in the OP, that they are due to his self-doubt (as we already noted), self-hate, and fear. Now when Doom says this, as you know, he has the power of both the Beyonder and Galactus, and is essentially omniscient, as he says in the panel. So he ought to know the truth about Reece’s problem. He has also just lifted those exact same mental and emotional blocks from Reece’s mind, and in order to do so he obviously had to know kind of blocks they were in the first place. So there’s every reason to think that Doom is being accurate when he lists self-doubt, self-hate, and fear as the reasons Reece tends to hinder his own powers. Reece later repeats these same traits himself in SWII. The Watcher also says in SWII, “His self-doubts and fears caused him to deny himself his true omnipotence! He subconsciously created artificial limits for his power!” Note that this expressly answers the question from the handbooks of where his subconscious limits came from. And Uatu, like Doom, is of course also a pretty reliable source of information.

Both SWI and SWII were written by Jim Shooter, who also happened to write the Avengers arc where Reece originally decided to see a therapist (which is his appearance immediately preceding SWI). So Shooter is a pretty central figure in the conceptualization of Molecule Man’s mental and emotional state, and their affect on his powers. And he also was, of course, the Editor in Chief at the time. So Shooter’s thoughts on this subject, as voiced through Doom, Reece, and Uatu directly in the comics, ought to be taken as the authoritative facts of the matter.

I’ve shown that Reece had all three of these traits—self-doubt, self-hate, and fear—in spades in Dark Avengers. Just for example, he showed self-doubt in the way he constantly argued with and was berated by the multiple external avatars of his feelings that he created, who represented his own fractured personality; he showed self-hate in the selection of the particular despicable forms of these avatars who represent him; he showed fear in his repeated paranoid worries about Reed Richards coming to get him. These are just examples, he showed them all in various other ways that I described in the OP.

So I don’t think there’s really any doubt about what kinds of traits can affect his power level, or whether he had those traits in the Dark Avengers. And again, if you think his "belief in his abilities" is what limits him, what that means is his level of self-confidence, which is the same as his level of self-doubt.

Which of Reece's personalities is the most powerful?

Moving on to some other points that you brought up but weren’t really related to the OP: you say that Kubik said Reece’s normal personality is the strongest:

This is kind of true but it doesn’t mean what you say it means. Kubik says “you are stronger than the id that dwells within you…He is but a shadow of you. Yours is the true consciousness, the true potential. The Molecule Man is barely more than myself, Kosmos, or the Beyonder, where you are…far, far more.” What he means is that Reece’s pure, good, confident personality—the one from SWII—is the best at wielding his power. You can kind of think of it as him being at complete peace with himself and his place in the world, which then allows him unfettered access to his power. Unfortunately this version of himself has barely been seen since he turned into a Cosmic Cube. Since then he’s pretty much consistently been weak and "sniveling" and self-doubting, which has led to his lesser power level—and also allowed his stronger evil bald personality to come out, which has a much greater ability to use his power than his “sniveling” self, as the same comic also says, due to his ruthlessness and ambition. The bald self doesn’t have as much power as his confident good personality, but it is still more powerful than his self-doubting, weaker self, which is the self we see in Dark Avengers. So in short, Reece’s fully confident and at-peace SWII-style self is the most powerful, followed by his bald aggressive self, followed by his unfortunately standard-in-recent-times self-hating, self-doubting self. And it is this self-doubting self that we see in Dark Avengers.

(There is another interesting quote on that same scan which is worth noting as a sort of slightly different interpretation of how he created his subconscious power limits: that his usually-submerged good self put them on himself to limit the evil his evil self could do. This isn’t the normal interpretation, but even if we applied it to the Dark Avengers arc, it would have the same result, since it means that whenever Reece finds himself doing evil, as he certainly was when he was subconsciously killing everyone who came to Dinosaur, he would limit his powers to limit the amount of evil he could do. So either interpretation makes sense here. The self-doubt, self-hate, and fear version is much more consistent over his history however.)

Brevoort quote

You need to re-read that Brevoort quote. All he says is that the Molecule Man in the fight was the regular Molecule Man. And as others have pointed out, the regular Molecule Man is the Molecule Man whose powers are affected by his mental and emotional state. This has always been the case, and is behind pretty much every loss he has ever had from Fantastic Four #20 onward. Brevoort himself does NOT say that he is not weakened, that is only suggested by the fan asking the question. Brevoort just says he is the regular Molecule Man—meaning, he is not nerfed by some outside force, and is not an alternate reality version of himself or something.

Sentry stripped Molecule Man of his "number one position"

Your idea about how the Molecule Man was the most powerful non-Abstract in Marvel, and then Sentry took his place to become the new most powerful non-Abstract is not accurate. Sure, Molecule Man was temporarily the most powerful character in Marvel—decades ago. That hasn’t been true for a long time. So even if Sentry is the most powerful non-Abstract now—and I don’t think he is, but let’s just say for argument’s sake that that’s true—then it’s not like he’s somehow trading places in some top-of-the-heap list with Owen--that Reece was number one and then they switched him out with Sentry. Reece has been out of number one for a long, long time.

Personally I think your overall argument would be much more effective if you simply tried to argue that he is “one of” the most powerful characters rather than “the” most powerful. There are all kinds of non-Abstracts that could arguably be the most powerful, or at least more powerful than Sentry. Even among humans, you have people like Franklin Richards and Legion, who have both created universes, plus Star Brand, whose power is pretty much infinite, or Mad Jim Jaspers, or the Marquis of Death, who killed the Molecule Man of his own universe; or there are cosmic non-Abstracts like Stranger and Tyrant; and then there are any number of magical or demonic beings like Sise-Neg, Zom, Cytorrak, Null, Mikaboshi, the Vishanti…it’s a reasonably long list, and there’s not a lot of evidence that Sentry tops it. That Stan Lee quote about destroying the universe was just part of a series of pretend, fabricated memories to hype-up and promote the character, as I'm sure you know, it's not real evidence. Typically hyperbolic narrative or handbook entries, or comparisons to HOM Scarlet Witch (who was herself never the most powerful non-Abstract), just aren’t enough to make the claim of being number one.

Why bother looking at Reece's limitations?

Finally, you ask why bother making these arguments about Molecule Man’s mental and emotional conditions when “it’s obvious that Sentry is more powerful." The reason is that Sentry’s win over Molecule Man is one of the fairly few arguments that Sentry is near or above Molecule Man’s level. Sentry fans regularly use his defeat of Molecule Man to show how powerful Sentry is. So in order to correctly gauge Sentry’s power level, it is important to view that win in context--that is, he defeated a Molecule Man whose mental and emotional state clearly had an influence on his power level. Sentry’s win is no more or less impressive than Aron the Watcher’s, says nothing more or less about Sentry’s power level than it does about Aron’s power level, and is equally due to Reece’s subconscious blocks, which again are the key to pretty much every loss he’s had in his entire history.

Very impressive write up you've got here Owie. You've combined both thoughts and arguments that are generally well known and accepted on the battle forums about this instance with some specific knowledge I wasn't even aware of, including your in depth explanation of Owen Reece's emotional state in relation to his powers in the past.

The reasoning is tight and flows well, the evidence is validly presented and the arguments support your points succinctly. This piece makes for an especially enlightening revelation on what Molecule Man can really do at his full potential and totally strips away at the already flawed, ridiculed and foolish notion that Molecule Man was close to his full power level when Sentry voided out and scored a Mary Sue plot device win over Owen.That wouldn't have happened with a full powered Molecule Man to be sure.

Thanks, I appreciate it!

@owie: One question though, why was Owen Reece emotionally compromised in the first place during Dark Avengers?

@owie:

Reece limits

I understand the way that you see it.

Your reasoning could be valid if self-doubt, self-hate and fear always implied Reece to limit his power and we know that's not the case because one doesn't imply the other.

Reece can be in the three cases that you cited and retain the full spectre & power of his abilities.

I know that quote from the New Avengers Most Wanted Files is used a lot but there is two points in the context that matter here.

Before and during his incarceration (New Avengers) :

This had been redacted by an Agent of Shield (1) previous Owen's incarceration into the Raft (2) :

And we both knows that this takes place after Reece got rid of his Bald Evil Self, as he got the help of Doc Samson, and failed to conquer his beloved Marsha again so that depressed him even more and probably felt useless and let the SHIELD capture him (he changed several historical monuments via molecule manipulation) and refused to use his abilities again...

We know that Reece is the one whom set-up his abilities according to his beliefs on them :

Limited only by his beliefs on his abilities.

We have a confirmation that Owen had beliefs on his abilities previous to the Raft :

A) Incompetent.

B) Unimaginative.

C) Early belief that he was incapable of manipulating genetic material.

The bio recall to us that his "Molecular control over matter [is], limited only by his own mental inhibitions"...

That's already two proofs that Molecule Man mental state limitates his powers only if it directly involves his beliefs on his abilities.

He can be in self-doubt, self-hate or fear about something that will not touch his abilities.

How Molecule Man managed his abilities besides his mental state :

A) Incompetent ??

Owen had no problems doing what he wants with the molecules of each Avengers.

B) Unimaginative ??

Owen chosen one new way to change every avengers and even messed up with Osborn's mind. He thing that he do very easily and that he never tried before.

Let's look at the scans below that answer the questions about Owen being uncompetent or unimaginative :

Gallery

1) Disintegrate Sentry.

2) Teleport the DA in different locations and Osborn out of his armor.

2 & 3) Plays with Osborn's Molecules inside in brains to change his memories... That's really a proof of imagination & skill in my opinion.

4) Make Sentry explode and disintegrate him again.

5) Extract Venom's symbiote and makes him splash on Mac Gargan both reduced into a liquid state .

You should remember that Symbiotes have control of their molecular structure as they can change their shape and color and Owen turn him down easily.

6) Go to Moonstone that he already had changed into a statue and morph her into an energy form.

Important point here :

Owen said to Moonstone that he separated the Avengers to deal with them as individuals and that he wants to have a conversation with her, that he just want to talk.

7) The famous Daken scan where he state that he had problems with his father...

I recall to you the point 6) again : Molecule Man is going easy on the Avengers because he wants to talk. That another proof that he isn't worried by them at all.

Here MM is changing Daken into a tree but Daken's body create new cells when MM change the ancient ones into the cells of a tree...

MM simply speed-up a bit the transformation and change Daken into a tree effortlessly.

8) Change Ares into a statue. Here is figuring out if he will have problems... I recall to you that Owen isn't smart. Owen is as smart as any casual people...

Like the New Avengers Most Wanted Files showed, the self-preservation is one of his modus operandis and he just firgured out that his current plan to hide inside his beloved town will finally attract him more problem as he don't want to attract the attention of people outside of it...

9) Kill Sentry again...

10) The famous Bullseye scan : Bullseye is changed into water and the water moves when Owen comes close...

That's not a big deal at all. I recall to you that there always was some indesirable effect when Owen fought people. Remember the fight against the Beyonder, the scale is different but do you think that Owen really meant to change the meals of some people into living stuff... Come on...There was always some anomalies.

C) Incapable to deal with genetic material :

The scan is a proof in itself. Owen is totally confident in his abilities and state that he could do whatever he wants with Osborn genetic material.

Other elements about Owen's mental state :

A) General ability at using his powers :

Owen had no problems with his abilities during Dark Reign.

He escaped the Raft and after this he simply didn't know what to do so he take the first idea that came into his mind : going back at home and avoiding to attract the attention of people and that worked until the niece of a politics disappeard...

B) MM's background and Modus Operandis :

As I said Owen's modus operandis includes his self-preservation...

The background points out that Owen learnt to have a greater control and was unable to win back Volcana's affection after their break-up...

Molecule Man was utterly depressed before the Raft and lonely and heart-broken after...

We have to take in account that even Osborn's Avengers faced this heartbroken Molecule Man, he wasn't a peaceful guy and fiecely fought when he thinked it was necessary :

More powerful and as ruthless as his shadow-self...

About the Number One position :

I'm, of course, not the one whom made it up...

Molecule Man is the most powerful being in the Earth's multiverse according to Uatu The Watcher and...

"Sentry may be the most powerful man in existence"... Do he really need to find excuses like Owen being depowered / weakened with his power stated as "extreme" ????

Owen's power is stated as "extreme" too before his fight against Sentry... Do we have to find excuses for Owen like making a therory that he shouldn't be at his best when the writer clearly shows here his intent to have both characters at their best ??

To summarize the fight between Sentry & Owen

• Owen was worried about his future because he attracted the attention of the outside.
• Owen was heartbroken previous & during his incarceration into the Raft but took his abilities back at their fullest as he had no beliefs on them when he came to his town.
• Owen was at the best of his power against Sentry and more ruthless than ever.

In short Sentry beat Owen via reality warping because he is more powerful than Owen.