Hand of Vecna said:
Yes, and in all my above cases, if you remove what I'd mentioned (the Super-Soldier Serum from Cap or Slade, the irradiatd spider venom, the cosmic rays, etc.), you don't just remove their powers, you remove a fundamental part of them, since their powers are an intrinsic part of their makeup.
The Super Soldier Serum isnt an intrinsic part of Cap, it didnt make him super human it made him a perfect human physical specimen.. but without his training, experience and Shield to back that up (the true source of his powers).. then it wouldnt mean much..
Same with Wolverine his adamantium is tough and makes his bones unbreakable..but then what does that really mean to someone who has his Mutant DNA granted Regenerative abilities? he already has bone claws and breaking bones doesnt mean much to someone who can regenerate them in minutes anyway... The only real benefit his adamantium gave him was the ability to cut through materials he could not normally... so his adamantium is FAR from intrinsic to his powers.
Not if it took several hours worth of intensive surgery to implant those grafts, and not it the only way to remove the grafts is potentially lethal to the subject & requires either several more hours of intensive surgery and/or Mutant superpowers. Wolvie's Adamantium skeleton is as intrinsic to him as his Mutant nature. Same goes for Cyborgs, too -- yes, if you pluck out a Cyborg's cybernetic eyes, you'd remove their Darkvision & Telescopic Vision and whatnot, but if you pluck out Cyclops's eyes, you remove his Optic Blasts, and if you remove a normal human's eyes, you blind them. Remove a cyborg's leg-pistons and they lose their Leaping power, but if you cut out Toad's leg tendons, he won't be making his super-leaps, either.
You need to know a little bit more about his background to see that the surgery is moot, the whole reason the Weapon X program chose the subjects it did is because they all had uncharted regenerative abilities.. Maverick, Sabretooth, Wolverine, Deadpool etc.. so no his skeleton is not intrinisc to his powersin any way shape or form... its just that his regeneration was the only thing that could ensure hed survive the procedure...
You see the old definition was "A device is anything that if destroyed would cause the associated powers to be destroyed" with the obvious emphasis on something artificial and constructed.
So a cybernetic eye that has Infrared and Telescopic vision was at that time IMO a device.. you destroyed that "Artificial" eye it destroyed the powers associated with that eye..nothing else.
Wolverines Skeleton was artificial, man made "Artificial" and only took away his unbreakability... didnt affect any of his other abilities.
Super Soldier Serum was artificial, man made "Artificial" checmical compound and could with the apropriate chemicals be negated.
So why isnt the Mutant Gene a Device.. well because its naturally occuring, its part of thier build from the ground up.. yes if the gene is removed is causes the losss of thier powers, but it isn't man made it isn't applied to them after the fact and therefore is not "Artificial".
Fantastic Four, cosmic Rays.. now although this was applied after the fact, it was naturally occuring radiation AND DID alter them genetically, which is not undoable in the same way as blowing the laser firing hand (DEVICE) off the end of a Sentinels Arm.
How has the "new defintion" (which I admit I am wholly unfamiliar with and would greatly appreciate it if you could provide me a link to where I might see this new definition) make it any clearer?
I can't provide a link I'm afraid the new definition is in a book you'll have to wait to be released to read, but it very clearly states what is and isnt applicable as a device.
As for being harsh, don't worry about it...
How I defined a device then is different from what i know the definition "IS" now. But whether you agree or not doesnt really matter, as I am merely explaining "Why" I applied the device flaw to thsoe things back then.. questions about other mutants and so forth are moot as the original question was why did i apply device flaw to the super soldier serum and adamantium skeleton... and i've explained the reasons why at the time I made them devices.
However the prime reason above all for both is because when I made the Super Soldier Serum and Adamantium Skeleton they were both constructed as automonously and not applied to thier associated Marvel Heroes.. as the point of them both was for something that could be applied to any hero from requests made of me on the M&M forums..along with other efects like the Techno Organic virus and so on.
I said there is a huge scale of difference between a man with metal grafts under his skin than someones DNA being entirely re-written either from birth or by accident. 
