9tails' VERSUS:092010

The contestants: Batman (Bruce Wayne) vs James Bond vs Iron Man (Tony Stark)

The situation: The above 3 are at a posh party in a skyscraper in London, England. Per the terms of the invitation, they are all accompanied by beautiful women who also happen to be aggressive and successful investigative reporters.

Simultaneously, the 3 men are secretly informed by trusted contacts (Alfred, M, Jarvis) via secure phone that there is a nuclear device hidden somewhere in the building and rigged to explode in one-half hour.

The device can be deactivated if they can find out the password in time, by entering it on a certain website. The password happens to be tattooed 'somewhere' on the body of the parties' hostess, a lovely married noblewoman with a vigilant set of bodyguards (her infamously jealous husband seems to be out of town for some reason). She is unaware of the meaning of the tattoo, and may not be able to accuately describe it if it is somewhere she can't easily see.

If it becomes known that the password is being sought, the bomb will likely be detonated early remotely by its' owner, so discretion is advised. Also, if the bomb is deactivated, its' location will also become known, so the 3 men may or may not want to cooperate...it's up to how trusting they are.

All 3 men know that the others are present, but not secret info about them (in this scenario, it is a secret that Tony Stark is Iron Man).

All 3 men have an array of useful gadgets handy, but none have access to 'super suits' per se.

Bruce did not have time to plan specifically for this scenario, he only has access to his usual paranoid preparedness.

Who would see to it that the nuke was deactivated in time, and how?

James Bond will notice the tatoo (its kinda inate for him to do so despite destractions of a pretty face, bod, etc.).
Batman may notice the tatoo (but more likely he'll find the info he needs through other avenues first).
Tony will only notice the girl's chest, rear, and legs.

James Bond would secretly take out the guards, stash them in some closet, and then get intimate with the woman to find out what her tattoo is. (Alcohol will likely be involved.)

Batman would look to other sources, however. He would find out who her tattoo artist was, and then get one of his contacts to interrogate him.

Tony Stark would try to find the bomb, and then quickly disarm it. Because Tony Stark is a genious.

Things I apparently did not make clear:

Only one guy gets to deactivate the bomb; once it is off, it's off.

One cannot see the tattoo from a casual glance at the lady; it's covered by her tasteful and stylish evening gown.

Tony Stark since he could develop or already has a Bomb detector.

They only have 30 minutes?

Hmm...

Tony could probably seduce/charm their hostess sufficiently to secure the tattoo, and Bruce could take out her bodyguards without much fuss, but honestly, I think either of them would more likely find some other way to discover the code and defuse the bomb without bothering with the tattoo business.

Bond could and likely would do all 3 (remove the bodyguards, seduce the knickers off the hostess, and disarm the bomb), but probably not in time to beat his superheroic counterparts to the punch.

Tony Stark takes out his little personal computer thingy. Wires it into a digital camera he buys from a photographer at the event. He wires the two together and uses the resulting scanner to see through the hostesses dress zooming in on and scanning the tattoo then enhancing the image till it is perfect. He then uses the same device to contact the website and enter the password while simultaneously analyzing the radio frequency of the bombs trigger. He backtracks the carrier wave from the bomb and pinpoints the location of the terrorist and passes the coordinates on to war machine. Then he completely disables the bomb remotely.

Now that the 60 seconds since he found out about the problem have passed he goes over and hits on the hostess just so he can see the tattoo live since he was intrigued by what else he saw when scanning it.

James Bond seduces the lady...gets a photo of the tat on his iphone.
Sends the pic to Tony who puts the password on the website on his iphone.
Bruce Wayne is still drinking and partying with the ladies because he had planned ahead of time that Bond and Stark would accomplish this for him.

Well, at their best, they're all supposed to be the handsome rogues that the ladies love. They all have their own ways of going about things as well as respective shortcomings.

Tony and Bruce have the edge over Bond because they're famous and rich.
Bruce and Bond have the edge over Tony because they're less likely to furk up due to being intoxicated.
Bond and Tony have the edge over Bruce because they have more experience with following through on their seductions.

Bruce has the advantage of not necessarily needing to seduce the woman to resolve the scenario, as he's the world's greatest detective.
Tony has the advantage of being able to obtain information instantaneously and wirelessly if he's the Extremis version.
Bond has the advantage of most successfully executing plans that are created on the fly.

In the end, I think Bond probably wins at this scenario because he's got near Bruce's level of stealth and Tony's level of seductive capabilities, yet he's probably unknown to the woman so there's less chance of her getting suspicious of a well-known billionaire who may very well have financial or political ties to her family or organization making a move.

Some real good scenarios here, guys. Feel free to keep them coming.

I think that Bond must lose this contest, simply because he's under contract to be captured, escape with the help of an attractive lady, and not disarm the device until the last second. Bruce or Tony would simply beat him to it.

I'd give the edge to Batman due to his detective skills, although I'd think he'd actually send Tony to defuse the bomb while he goes after the bad guys. (And while sending an attractive lady to help James out of the death trap.)

Assuming all three know about the tattoo, here's what I expect, based on their personalities and prior exploits as portrayed:

Stark pays the woman several million dollars to strip in front of him. Unfortunately, he's probably too plastered by this point to make use of the tattoo once he's seen it. He wakes up after the time limit has already passed.

Bond just happens to have a gadget that can "see" the tattoo right through the dress, but he decides to seduce the woman anyway. He does so, tossing off a few puns, then gets mobbed by a bunch of hench-villains. He ultimately escapes, shoots the hench-villains, and defuses the bomb a couple of seconds before it goes off.

Bruce Wayne makes a speech to whatever character is standing next to him about how horrible and callous Bond and Stark are. (Preachy ***.) Then he goes and seduces, then cruelly abandons, the woman anyway, not because he has any interest in her, but "because my dark quest sometimes requires the sacrifice of others' feelings." (Jerk.) Meanwhile, he simply knows the code to enter because "Batman is a genius, so of course he knows it." (Writer's darling.) He goes to enter the code, stepping over the comatose Stark, whom he criticizes in passing as "insensitive." (Hypocrite.) Wayne finds Bond surrounded by the bodies of the hench-villains, just finishing entering the code.

Wayne makes a speech about the evils of death and violence (see "preachy ***"), then beats up Bond, ending by throwing him off a ledge (a fall that would be fatal if it were any other character making the throw), breaking his arms and legs (see "hypocrite"). Then, Wayne suddenly realizes that the tattoo was just a diversion all the time! There's actually a second bomb attached to the first one, even more deadly than the last! Dun-dun-dun! With only seconds to spare (again), he makes a speech about how incompetent everyone else is (see "jerk" and "preachy ***" again), then manages to defuse the bomb for real this time (see "writer's darling"). On Wayne's way out, the writer makes Bond's and Stark's dates fall in love with him, but he decides to vanish dramatically into the night and just leave them hanging (see all those things).

All the Batman fans out there gush about how this story epitomizes his heroism, intelligence, and the brilliance of his writers. (Inexplicably beloved by geekdom.)

Man, I loathe the friggin' Batman.