__________________ Quotes from Hia8:
"I claimed that the science is sometimes faulty."
"You don't understand. This is fiction. That means none of this stuff really happened."
"There is no writer to purposely ignore a character's natural ability just because it suits the story."
"in some cases because the writer knows that Character A will dominate Character B easily and refuses to allow this to happen for the sake of the story."
^ They never combined the IG to my knowledge but Count Abyss did take the Infinity Watch out one by one, including Adam Warlock w/ SG, IIRC. Whereas, Mephisto was soundly defeated by Adam Warlock, w/ SG.
^ I re-read the fight, it was rather definitive. From Mephisto's own mouth even. Mephisto was also forced to let go of Shalla Bal's soul if he lost. And he did. There was no moustache twirling afterwards suggesting that Mephisto had future plans or had anything to gain from throwing the fight willingly.