User:FanofRPGs/sandbox2015

I will note outdated information in red text, this means technically they might have been correct prior, but this is wrong after 6 years have passed.

Intro

 * 0:24-0:34

"To ensure no questions are left unanswered, we will be acknowledging every official resource for both combatants, though the original writings hold precedence. No mistranslations allowed."

- Wiz

They claim that they will use every official resource, no mistranslations allowed. This would be an obviously good thing on paper, if they actually did this, but they do not. They lack critical information on both sides.


 * 0:34-0:48"Also, as he was retconned and rebuilt in 1986, we will be examining the modern Superman."

- Wiz

"Considering Supe's pre-86 could make up new super powers on the fly and destroy entire solar systems by sneezing, probably a good idea."

- Boomstick

While it is accurate for a nutshell, they just previously established they would cover most material. As such, I find their description of Pre-Crisis Superman relatively vague. General audiences likely aren't aware of the complex history of Superman.. They should have clarified that first off there were two Pre-Crisis Supermen, Earth-2 "Golden Age Superman" who started as the faster-than-speeding-bullet man of steel in the 1930s and 40s (Who eventually would have a few stellar feats near the end of his tenure), but around 1954-1956 to 1971 there was the Earth-1 "Silver Age" Superman who was absolute batshit crazy with feats, throwing around neutron stars and sneezing solar systems. From 1971-1985 there was Bronze Age Superman who was only slightly weaker according to the text, but featwise did even more powerful, albeit more straight forward, feats such as withstanding the force of the big bang and accelerating to infinity. There was no clarity of what Pre-Crisis Superman was which is bad for something that wants to analyze in depth both of these characters. Furthermore, while I could forgive them for the fact that Flashpoint just had started once Ben and Chad were researching for Goku vs Superman, they should have been able to notify that they are or are not including his likeness. Would have things make more sense.

Goku

 * 1:35-1:45

"He narrowly escaped the extinction of his entire race when he was sent to Earth with a single, simple mission…"

- Wiz

"Destroy everything!"

- Boomstick

Outdated information: Goku's purpose for reaching Earth was now to escape Planet Vegeta's destruction by the help of his parents Burdock and Gine, this means he wasn't sent to wipe it out but to just survive, much like Superman's origin.


 * 1:52

Outdated information: but Whis should also be included. Old Kaioshin was seldom an instructor for him, why mention him when they later on don’t even say what he did? Because he didn’t train Goku at all unless I am missing some filler.


 * 2:44-3:20

"But it doesn’t even matter because power levels are absurd. “The entire point of introducing them was to show how unreliable and meaningless they were.” [Kanzenshuu] By relying on power levels, the villains constantly underestimated the heroes. Therefore, using them to judge Goku’s abilities is pointless. Besides, the Daizenshuu says that—"

- Wiz

"Dai-what now?"

- Boomstick

"The Official Dragonball Encyclopedia. It states power levels eventually become immeasurable, not because they are so high they can’t be measured, but because the characters, and hopefully the audience, have realized just how futile these numbers are."

- Wiz

Them talking about how powerlevels are bullshit is wrong. While it is preferable not to be used past face value, their explanation is wrong. The way the Daizenshuus said it (Source please at that? I will need the translation of this) as a means to handwave the fact that once the likes of Cell or Boo come in, power levels skyrocket to the billions and trillions, which at such a point they become bloated and lose the quick-to-see purpose they were created for. Here is Toriyama on it:



Toriyama created it out of convenience, which is why he eventually dropped powerlevels because Toriyama cannot math and was handling numbers in the millions by Freeza. Even earlier than that, he realized knowing one's powerlevel could be abused and lead to conclusions from the reader, so he came with the ability to suppress one's chi signature to thus block their power level. This importantly shows that one's amount of chi is reliant on their power level, ergo the higher the power level the higher the amount of chi, this will be important for the next problematic statement Wiz is about to make. Also I should just note the videoclip they included is missing context. It wasn't talking about the futility of powerlevels, but Goku and Piccolo's belief that their strategy would outdo Raditz's raw power.



Believe it or not, but there was a time where raw power wasn't the only necessity in Dragon Ball.


 * 3:20-3:3

"We cannot judge Goku by his power level, nor can we through power scaling, the theory that he can achieve the same feats as lesser Dragon Ball characters. Goku’s abilities are tailored to his personal training and experiences, not to mention anatomy."

- Wiz

While there are genetic quirks about Goku that makes him different from other species, that does not mean his pool of chi is any different, at least until he fights with gods (Which itself isn't really consistent). The source of his power is chi, and chi is universal, found across all life, and even flows through the air, through the atmosphere:



All chi power in its purest essence is equal, well if you ignore getting into Godly Chi which is a whole other can of worms, what makes someone more powerful is how much chi you have and how much control over it. This is according to Toriyama himself: Toriyama outright says the key to winning a battle is the amount of chi one has, which goes back to powerlevels where we know if one has a higher power level, one is more powerful. The fatal flaw, however, is the inability to properly modulate and control Chi, which is someone with high amounts of Chi such as Freeza struggled with. He had a large amount of Chi, meaning his powerlevel spanned from 530,000 to 120,000,000. However this meant he had little control over his power and had to intentionally repress it just to keep himself stable. Fundamentally, however, Chi is also the source of Chi Blasts and one's durabiltiy:

"Special Characteristics: A ki manipulation technique thought up by Kame-sennin. It is a technique that condenses ki into one point and then fires it. The technique’s force changes based on the strength of its user’s ki, and if mastered it also becomes possible to control its force. Son Goku soon picked up this technique, perhaps because of his ki training with Son Gohan (grandpa), or perhaps due to his special characteristics as a Saiya-jin. Tenshinhan also easily copied it. From this, it can be said that it is possible to use the Kamehameha merely by being able to control one’s ki."

- Daizenshuu 2, p.202/Daizenshuu 4, p.111



As we see, someone's durability is linked to their powerlevel, which is the amount of chi they have. Ergo, their durability is linked to the amount of chi, and one with higher amounts of chi, and more capable of modulating it too, would be able to win fights and tank heavier blasts. This applies too for their blasts, where those with higher powerlevels could generate more Chi-dense blasts that are more powerful. As such, all in all, not allowing Powerscaling cripples Dragon Ball feats analyses (Cell would only be planet level with feats because "no powerscaling") and really shows in this Death Battle. The good news, however, is it appears Ben learned from his mistake and would fix and allow scaling in later Death Battles such as Android #18 vs Captain Marvel and Master Roshi vs Jirayah. So this could count as outdated(?).


 * 4:20-4:31

"The Spirit Bomb is fueled by positive energy which is only effective against those filled with negative energy, AKA evil."

- Wiz

Genki Dama can do concussive harm to the opponent. We can see that with how it ripped through Namek during the Freeza fight. Plus Goku did intend to use it on Jiren in the Tournament of power, showing in theory it should have concussive power against non-evil beings (Even if it failed on Jiren).


 * 6:36-6:46

"Fortunately for Goku, the life-sapping Super Saiyan 3 would be trumped by his final transformation: Super Saiyan 4. This form alters his body to better endure the 4000x power increase."

- Wiz

There is no known multiplier for SSJ4. I do not know where “4000x” comes from. A multiplier would be nice and all, but as I understand it was a general power unlock. Also I do feel like complaining about the usage of Super Saiya-Jin power multipliers. While ideally it was fine in Dragon Ball Z at times, the multipliers are obtuse in the face of inconsistent scaling across the Boo Saga and scaling.


 * 7:32-7:37"And although he’s more than tough enough to survive in a vacuum, he clearly needs oxygen, so no breathing in space."

- Boomstick

Outdated information, Goku still cannot breathe in space, but as of Super, he is far more tolerant to a lack of oxygen as seen with his fights with Beerus (In the upper atmosphere), Brolli (Underlava), and Moro (They fought in the upper atmosphere)

Superman

 * This is just a general complaint; I get that Superman is mostly a comics phenomenon so we can’t just spam still images, but Death Battle basically conflated multiple universes worth of Superman incarnations including live action when they clearly aren’t Post Crisis but instead Bronze Age or New 52 based. The Superman movies, aside for the godawful 1987 Quest For Peace, all were made before 1986 and thus were Bronze Age. Man of Steel uses a live action New 52 Design and was made within the New 52 era. The only possible live action Supermen that were well known that could or should be used was Smallville and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.


 * 9:10-9:23

"After discovering his true heritage, Clark refused to accept his Kryptonian side. He subconsciously developed mental barriers that blocked him from attaining his full power, which he would work to uncover throughout the rest of his life."

And this is a problem I have with the lack of clarification. As of 2013, Post Crisis Superman had three origins concurrently existing. First there is the original Man of Steel by John Byrne, and there what actually happened wasn’t a mental block in denial of his Kryptonian origin. Quite the opposite; in Man of Steel #6 he embraces the fact that his superpowers are because he is Kryptonian but believes his memories and love for Earth is what makes him human.



There is a second origin called Birthright by Mark Waid, but it wasn't canon at first. It was later semi-canonized in Infinite Crisis after Superboy Prime Retcon-punched it into Superman's history to be canon alongside Man of Steel:



I admittedly didn't read too deep into Birthright. It wasn't the most important of the three origins and I will read it later and add on here. However, the true origin story of Post-Infinite Crisis was that of Secret Origin by Geoff Johns. This was the most current version for Superman at the time so likely the one that would be most important. His reaction to being a Kryptonian was at a much earlier age, and it was moreso shock of his origins and its subsequent consequences regarding his family:



While his reactions are harsh here. He embraces Superboy at a younger age and his mental blocks weren't as exaggerated as above at the time. They existed, but he would use them when absolutely dire, such as with Doomsday. Foremost Superman was a fledgeling Kryptonian who hadn’t fully matured and literally couldn’t comprehend his blocks or challenge them until absolutely necessary. He wouldn’t start truly being a celestial hero until after his absorption of Eradicator in the Reign of Supermen. Even then it was a matter of mental blocks which he won’t lose until training with Mongul II, but the point is that from 1986-1992, it was a matter of his literally have a physical limit which he couldn’t surpass without effectively just dying.


 * 9:41-9:52"Mild-mannered Clark kept his identity a secret with the brilliant disguise of nerdy glasses and wimpy demeanor..."

- Boomstick

According to Birthright, Superman's glasses actually have a special ability to hide his identity by changing his extremely noticeable and alien eye color, which effectively hides one of Superman’s supposedly most defining features:




 * 9:58-10:03

"Since then, his power’s been pretty inconsistent, mostly due to the writers doing whatever the hell they please."

- Boomstick

There is no denial, Superman is bound to be inconsistent at points. However, unlike Pre-Crisis where there was no common collective agenda between writers to one goalpoint, there actually is a concerted trajectory towards an end goal for Superman as a character among others. As such his feats are actually slightly consistent at an angle, it’s just that people look at his feats and issues in a vacuum not noticing the contextual power creep DC had over the years. Sure Superman had his issues where he was dealing with building threats, but Superman isn’t gonna be dealing with tectonic, planetary, or stellar threats every issue or it will be boring. Superman had an “upward trajectory,” in which his established “peak” power actually was shown to be growing from tectonic level to planetary to eventually stellar.


 * 10:03-10:11

"Well, there is a legitimate explanation. Superman’s powers are dependent on the ultra-solar rays of the sun. By absorbing yellow or blue sunlight, his power rises;"

- Wiz

Superman's feats even with the Sun in mind are inconsistent, actually it is even worse than just looking at the upward trajectory. We go from pushing warworld and warming Earth to fucking up the World Forger. It isn’t consistent.


 * 10:12-10:19

"however he cannot absorb sunlight from a red star."

- Wiz

Would have been good time to reference Infinite Crisis where Superman was slammed with kryptonite and then a Red Sun and it caused him to lose his powers for a year:




 * 10:56-10:59

"and hear through the vacuum of space… somehow."

- Boomstick

I know they will use this again in Goku vs Superman 2 but just gonna say, if he can see one’s soul and also detect vibrations on a subatomic level, he probably can just hear that way. I need to check though.


 * 11:18-11:22"He can incinerate entire planets in a staring contest."

- Boomstick

Superman's heat vision there did NOT incinerate planets. For one thing, in the context of the issue Adventures of Superman #620, Superman was sundipped, and that was Earth and the Moon. Due to some fuckery with this thing called the Cannibal Planet the sun was unavailable and the Earth was freezing, so Superman warmed it back up. He did this while sundipped and didn’t destroy Earth, let alone incinerate a random planet as Death Battle is implying. I will calculate this later.


 * 11:33-11:45

"And with precision, heat vision can reach microscopic levels invisible to the human eye."

- Boomstick

I could be wrong, but I think this is only ever done in animated sources. In the original Superman: What’s Wrong with Truth, Justice, and the American Way?, he actually tricked Manchester into thinking he was lobotomized, and I don’t remember him actually using heat vision like that in comics though he did use it in the animated series on Doomsday I guess.


 * 11:51-12:02". By vibrating to just under light speed, Superman can use the infinite mass punch. This speed causes the relative mass of his fist to increase immensely and hit with the force of a supernova."

- Wiz

It is more appropriate to call the "Infinite Mass Punch" the "Relativistic Mass Punch," because it is confirmed something with Infinite Mass (through light speed) would cause a singularity which rips open the universe:



The Relativistic Mass Punch was never stated to be Supernova level, but rather it can hit with the force of a white dwarf according to Wally West. Even then, the Relativistic Mass Punch isn’t one single number, it is a wide range. Wally going at 50% the speed of light hits like a small moon in Post-Flashpoint. We don’t know how fast Superman is going here, but there is no reason to assume he went as fast as Wally did given he wouldn't want collateral damage and he doesn't have the justification of "I can hit Zoom with as much force as I want because I know he will live" like with Wally West.


 * 12:02-12:06"Which explodes at a force of 10 octillion megatons! Thanks fact-of-the-day calendar."

- Boomstick

Supernovae aren't 10 octillion megatons of tnt. They are roughly around 23.9 octillion megatons of tnt, twice the number they claimed. The scan they used to show the "supernova" was a "shadow moon,” which again goes back to my point earlier that Superman wouldn’t have needed to go as fast to destroy a Moon, which requires about 30 trillion megatons of tnt to destroy. The Relativistic Mass Punch has a variable yield given how close to the speed of light they are going and so there’s no reason Superman didn’t go slower than Flash.


 * 12:07-12:12"In comparison, this is the Tsar, the most powerful bomb mankind has ever tested: 50 megatons."

- Wiz

It's "Tsar Bomba," not the "Tsar"


 * 12:51-13:13

"He also studied two Kryptonian martial arts: Torquasm-Rao and Torquasm-Vo."

- Wiz

"Orgasm-what now?"

- Boomstick

"Torquasm-Rao is a hard martial art in which Superman enters the theta state, a real-life phenomenon in which a person becomes extremely receptive to information and instinct. Torquasm-Vo is a mental martial art with which Superman can fight off mind domination and illusions or even counterattack."

- Wiz

They described Torquasm-Rao and Torquasm-Vo relatively shallowly, especially because Torquasm-Vo is one of his most important abilities. Also they mixed up T-Vo with T-Rao. T-Vo was using the theta state to fight unconsciously, mostly used against the mind-based reality warper Dominus. I admit I haven’t gotten deep into reading about T-Rao, but T-Vo was major important in the Dominus arc and is basically Superman’s “Ultra Instinct,” so to speak


 * 13:14-13:28

"In order to master all his powers, Superman needed to break through his own self-created mental blocks, like how when he was younger, he believed he needed to eat food and breathe oxygen like humans, when he can really just survive on solar energy alone like some weird plant man."

- Boomstick

While there were mental blocks, as I noted prior, Superman had a hard physical limit before being revived and absorbing Eradicator. Afterwards he learned some of these weaknesses were just mental blocks, like breathing space, but otherwise he was plain weaker back before the Reign of Supermen. From 1993-1994, he became unstable with his newfound powers and had to limit them by having them siphoned off by Parasite and again, but at this point from 1994-2000 it is correct to state he had mental blocks


 * 13:28-13:37"And thanks to some intense training from Mongol II, he managed to tear these barriers down and become the true Superman, capable of amazing feats."

- Wiz

I wish they elaborated why he trained with Mongul II; it was to prepare for Imperiex.


 * 13:41-13:43

"Or when he was the filling for a planet sandwich"

- Boomstick

Superman surviving the collision of Apokolips and New Genesis occurred in Death of the New Gods whose final motions are considered “apocryphal” noncanon events by Grant Morrison as it totally contradicts the continuity of the far superior and more important canon Final Crisis storyline.

"NRAMA: And so you were left with a handful of continuity issues as result - – why didn’t the Guardians call a 1011 when all the other New Gods died? Why didn’t Superman recount his experiences in Death of the New Gods when he was talking about the New Gods to the JLA? How did the villains capture J’onn? Obviously, if you dealt in all the minutia of every storyline since Identity Crisis or earlier, you’d go nuts – so what was your personal line in the sand that you used in writing Final Crisis in regards to what “mattered” and what didn’t?

GM: What mattered to me was what had already been written, drawn or plotted in Final Crisis. The Guardians didn’t call 1011 when Lightray and the other gods died in Countdown because, again, Final Crisis was already underway before Countdown came out.

Why didn’t Superman recount his experiences from DOTNG ? Because those experiences hadn’t been thought up or written when I completed Final Crisis #1. If there was only me involved, Orion would have been the first dead New God we saw in a DC comic, starting off the chain of events that we see in Final Crisis. As it is, the best I can do is suggest that the somewhat contradictory depictions of Orion and Darkseid’s last-last-last battle that we witnessed in Countdown and DOTNG recently were apocryphal attempts to describe an indescribable cosmic event.

To reiterate, hopefully for the last time, when we started work on Final Crisis, J.G. and I had no idea what was going to happen in Countdown or Death Of The New Gods because neither of those books existed at that point. The Countdown writers were later asked to ‘seed’ material from Final Crisis and in some cases, probably due to the pressure of filling the pages of a weekly book, that seeding amounted to entire plotlines veering off in directions I had never envisaged, anticipated or planned for in Final Crisis."

- Interview

Death of the New Gods is chock-full of inconsistencies with Final Crisis (which is the definitive canon to the fate of Darkseid in post crisis, DotNG is just a spinoff tie-in), and can only be explained by Grant Morrison's own statement that it is an plain apocryphal storyline, or maybe an alternate universe not involving New-Earth Superman. Superman was just interjected there to be an audience surrogate and the real events never happened with Supes even there, explaining why Superman has no memory of these events.


 * 14:44-14:46"or held a mini black hole in his hand..."

- Boomstick This feat isn't as impressive as it sounds. The black hole was stated to be the size of a speck of dust: Which goes from 1 to 100 microns, or 673317654820452886390 to 67331765482045288639033 kilograms (Comparable in mass to either a small moon or slightly lighter than the Moon itself). He was holding it from the bottom of his knees to his feet or proportionally 47.7 centimeters. IDK the gravity in their watchtower, assuming it's like Earth's that is between 752.778803 gigatons of tnt and 75.2778802 teratons of tnt, which is about island to country level. Most importantly I guess out of this is lifting strength would be around the size of a small moon.


 * 13:55-14:02

"Like when Koldgast hit him with 15 supernovas to the face."

Coldcast's 15 supernova statement is only from the animated adaptation of the story, in the original comic Coldcast said nothing such, and the adaptation has no feats to back up such a statement. So as Wiz suspected, yes exaggeration. Also, note that Coldcast said Suns, not going to be too naggy as this quote is a dead horse but the Sun can’t go supernova, it goes nova which is around the order of 1e37 joules instead of 1e44 joules


 * 14:03-14:06

"But he has survived other supernovas before."

- Wiz

That exploding sun feat shown in the video, while legit in that it is something Superman took in the face, knocked Superman out and led to him being hospitalized by Braniac:



Also, this is an anally retentive nitpick here, it is claimed it causes stars like the Sun to go Supernova:



I don't think it should literally mean supernova level. That is because: #A star like the Sun cannot even go Supernova #Even if it could, launching missiles on it won't cause it to Supernova Rather what destroying the Sun would need is simply the gravitational binding energy of the star. Supernova was just a quick way to say "star exploding," but the explosion required can just (And given how the Sun is, can only) be the GBE. So Superman more likely took the GBE of the star than a supernova level explosion, which is almost 200x higher. *14:40-14:43

"He also has no special resistance to magical attacks."

- Wiz

Should have emphasized even further this isn’t a weakness but a general null-point for Superman. He is neutral to magic, but I feel they didn't emphasize that.

The Fight
I actually love this fight, no criticisms here. Great animation, great humor, showcases everything. Good fight.

Analysis

 * 26:00-26:06

"It’s over! It’s finally over! We never have to hear about it again!"

uhhhhhh, no comment, kinda obvious what's wrong with this statement


 * 26:15-26:19

"He can even patch up holes in reality with just his own static electricity."

- Boomstick

The description better shows it's similar to a black hole:



So, it's likely quantifiable through some complex electromagnetic formula I don't know about to cancel out the "black hole's" gravitational field through some gravitoelectromagnetic action requiring math way above my paygrade.


 * 27:02-27:06"You’re lifting 200 quintillion tons. That’s three times your record"

- All Star Superman

The 200 quintillion tons feat is All Star Superman, not Post Crisis Superman. I don't see the worth in it being mentioned to be honest.


 * 27:08-27:15

"While being timed by Max Lord, Superman flew to the sun and back in less than two minutes. That’s 9.4 billion km/h."

- Wiz

That is a super low end feat and they know it, why didn’t they use the flying to Rao feat or something? It would have been a better shutup for further arguments.


 * 27:28-27:34

"The Man of Steel can survive the impact of multiple supernovas, each with about ten octillion megatons of force"

- Boomstick

Him tanking the force of Supernova uses the scans/feats from earlier, refer to what I said then. It could be as low as just star level, which is hundreds of times lower.


 * 27:35-27:39

"So, Superman’s feats and skills are definitively measured. However, Goku’s are not"

- Wiz

This is just blatantly wrong and Death Battle knew it. I get they wanted to low end Superman to emphasize how superior he is to Goku, but why not use his best feats? They know these aren’t his best feats, they show it in GvS2, why do they go so low for Superman? This isn't definitive.


 * 27:49-28:05

"From the wish from Pilaf from the Black-Star Dragon Balls, accidentally turned Goku from an full-grown Saiyan to a Saiyan child. As ki is dependent on the physical body, his child form likely could not handle his own ki, sending his power into flux."

- Wiz

While I can accept this is true, they could have at least used beginning of GT adult Goku. Child Goku might have been more unstable but obviously comparable or weaker than BoGT Adult Goku, and Kid Goku could fight General Rirudo who was stronger than Boo.



This would have multiplied any number they have for Goku later on by at least around 400 times, given SSJ3 is a 400x multiplier and Goku could fight a SSJ3 level character in his base form. So again, at least should have used BoGT Adult Goku.


 * 28:11-28:15

"Not to mention we’d have to use future Superman, who’s pretty much God!"

- Boomstick

I think this one is a dead horse, but Superman Prime One Million (As of 2013, as of 2020 he'd be multiversal from World Forger scaling) is all hype and nothing truly greatly impressive. All he is is Superman in the Sun for milennia, so all his senses and powers are billions of times higher.


 * 28:18-28:52

"After experimenting with dozens of different theories, we discovered an iron-clad method to finding Goku’s limits, which we call the Gravity Formula, based around his training in increased gravity. Due to his style of training and Saiyan heritage, Goku increases his abilities proportionate to the amount of force he trains under. While in base form, Goku could lift just under 40 tons. This is equivalent to 586x normal Earth gravity, which we will use in the Gravity Formula along with the Super Saiyan multipliers to calculate Goku’s maximum potential."

- Wiz

The Gravity Formula is extremely flawed. One's gravity chamber earnings would be different from another's. It's inconsistent and just based on what the plot wants it to. Plus it ignores training and power increases Goku has had without the use of extremely high gravities, such as his zenkai before Freeza, training before fighting the Androids, or the Room and Space and Time. Without powerscaling to other characters, this form of scaling falls quickly short and is just inflexible and useless.


 * 28:56-29:01

"Multiplying the 40 tons by the Super Saiyan forms means he can lift up to 160,000 tons in Super Saiyan 4, strong enough to pick up a continent..."

- Boomstick

The 40 tons feat is absolutely dreadful. Goku has already lifted or leveraged several ton objects much easier throughout the series:



Which after calculating it's volume, mass, and taking into account of sliding it over dirt, would equal 129.63 to 249.56328 tons.



Piccolo weighs 256 lbs, and grew 10x taller. Square cube law dictates that he would be 1000 times more massive, and thus 128 tons.



Some pixel scaling time:



Tree Diameter= 54x285 = 290.070681042 pixels = 264.782468 centimeters

Goku = 178 centimeters = 195 pixels

Visible Tree Length = 867x195 px = 888.658539598 pixels = 811.185744 centimeters

4pi(132.391234 centimeters)^2 * 811.185744 centimeters = 178.668764 cubic meters

density of a Cryptomeria tree is 360 kilograms per cubic meter

178.668764 cubic meters * 360 kilograms per cubic meter = 70.9014958 short tons

This shows 40 tons shouldn't be his limit


 * 29:01-29:03"strong enough to pick up a continent..."

- Boomstick

160,000 tons cannot lift a continent. That is like the weight of a large ship or a skyscraper.


 * 29:21-29:40

"Except it’s filled with curves and Goku flew straight over it, so how far did he actually travel? By comparing Goku’s height to a single spike, we can measure each curve. We can then remove those curves from the overall length. So it turns out that Goku actually flew 307,000 kilometers, nearly 11,000 km/h."

- Wiz

They assumed Snake Way's length based on curves, but it's inconsistent with how its curves are and would be easier to just assume 1,000,000 kilometers, nevermind that it’s an early feat. Goku when training with Kami learned to dodge lightning which is 360,000 to 5,040,000 km/hr. During the Boo Saga he flew across the afterlife to Hell which is several billions of light years from one another.


 * 29:46-29:52

"To see how fast his base form is at the end of the series, we run the Snake Way number through the gravity formula to find that his top speed clocks in at over 2 1/2 billion km/h, over 2x the speed of light."

- Boomstick

They straight up messed up his speed with the multipliers. They get the final number correct (using their math) but still fudged the numbers. At 307,000 kilometers in 28 hours, that is 10,964.2857 km/hr. He became 58.3941605839x faster supposedly, putting his speed at base at 640,250.259854 km/hr and as SSJ4 at ~2.37293887c still. My point in general is they shouldn’t be making confusing mistakes like that, it leads to more unnecessary bashing. *29:54-30:21

"We can determine Goku’s durability through this bomb, which the brilliant Dr. Gero designed to kill Goku at age 25, when his maximum potential was Kaio-Ken x4."

- Wiz "Scans of the bomb display a TNT measurement of 657. “Bulma says the bomb could destroy the Earth, so this is likely measured in quadrillion megatons, since it takes at least 53 quadrillion megatons of force to destroy the Earth."

- Boomstick

The anime vaguely shows a number for the bomb supposed to kill Goku, but we cannot clearly see it, and we know Gero underestimated how powerful Goku would become later on. Lastly it is from anime filler which has better feats than this, such as when Future Trunks with one hand blocks Freeza’s Supernova which had quite a bit of power in the anime, or Kid Boo who had multi-stellar feats in the past, or Omega Shenlong being a galaxy buster according to guidebooks


 * 30:21-30:26

"So in his final form, Goku can survive up to nearly 35 sextillion megatons."

- Wiz

35 Sextillion megatons of tnt is wayyyyy too low for SSJ4 EoZ Goku. That is only multi-planet level, not even Star Level. This is especially inaccurate given anime feats which Death Battle has shown they are basing on. Goku when he fought 100% Freeza managed to hold back and deflect Freeza's 100% Death Ball, which should be comparable or far superior to his First Form Supernova which destroyed Vegeta. Even assuming a ridiculously high density for Vegeta, such as that of the most dense planet in the universe (26,000 kilograms per cubic meter) it has a GBE of around 50 quintillion megatons of tnt. SSJ4 as of the Boo Saga would have a power at around ~2.3 septillion megatons of TNT, enough to destroy small stars, likely even higher as I used a very conservative number for how much energy to destroy Vegeta.


 * 31:05-31:55

"Now we can keep throwing feats and equations around, but in the end, numbers cannot measure what Goku and Superman are capable of. They are both ultimate heroes, solutions to daunting problems and achievers of the impossible. The difference is at the core of their character. Goku has never been invincible; he has very clear limits and must overcome those limits to solve the problems at hand. That’s the whole point. On the other hand, Superman’s story is not about the fight to become the best, but of an immigrant facing the challenge of home versus heritage. After accepting his alien side, Superman has reached his full potential, which under the endless power of the sun is essentially limitless. In short, “Superman is as strong as he needs to be.” [Superman Homepage] So what happens when you pit a man with the power to break any limits against another who has no limits in the first place? Well, only one has limits to give at all."

- Wiz

I could be wrong about some interpretations of Superman's character, but never has he been limitless, like truly infinite (Well if you ignore Final Crisis and Rebirth). Superman learned quite early in his career the usage of the Sun is paramount to his powers, and after he mastered the modulation of it post-Eradicator's absorption (He had an arc where he was absorbing excessive energies from the sun and other radiation sources), he would grow more powerful. This was before Mongul's training. Mongul's training, and I mean this, was a shonen styled training arc to prepare for Imperiex. To give justification for Superman alone doing planetary stuff now. After this training, after he became "The True Superman," by Mongul II, even then he had limits



Even with the Sun, he isn't limitless. The Sun has a finite lifespan and in total probably outputs the energy of a supernova across it's whole lifespan in summation. This is massive, but not limitless or infinite. Even if Superman sundipped in a Wolf Rayett Star, the most luminous and energetic star in the universe, he would be crazy strong but not limitless (Ignoring Rebirth here a moment again).

My Thoughts
While the analysis is very wrong with a lot of stats, and they got so much wrong for Superman, I legit think this was an earnest attempt at debating Goku vs Superman, and one of the most comprehensive and in-depth ones at the time. While it is plagued with the usage of "logic" and "rationality" to justify things instead of hard science, it still was important for actually having some scientific empiricism in it compared to other analyses of Goku vs Superman, the analysis is just very dead wrong. The fight itself is phenomenal, and I wouldn't like a fight as much as it until Thanos vs Darkseid (Which I disagree with too coincidentally) hit youtube.

The same cannot be said about the sequel...

Goku vs Superman 2
Goku vs Superman 2 was hinted in several Death Battles, from Chuck Norris vs Segata Sanshiro, Iron Man vs Lex Luthor, and lastly Sam Fisher vs Solid Snake. However, it was finally revealed at the end of Doctor Doom vs Darth Vader. There was a lot of hype for it, it appeared at a convention, it seemed cool aaand it just sucked. It was one of my least favorite Death Battles, second to Yang vs Tifa. Just why.

Anyways...

Superman

 * 1:33-1:37

"Very inspirational, but man, does it get boring sometimes!"

The idea that Superman is "perfect" and can get boring is an annoying one. This is especially ironic because the writer who tends to make Superman be all powerful and everything, Grant Morrison, tends to write the most fun, optimistic, and enjoyable Superman stories:



In fact, when written well, usually by Grant Morrison who as I noted tended to be the one who pushed for "limitless Superman," Superman can be one of the most compelling and amazing characters in fiction.


 * 2:07-2:10

"which can be large enough to vaporize a planet"

- Boomstick

Again, Superman DID NOT vaporize a planet. It is planetary level as I will calculate but please actually read the comic I swear, claiming it vaporized a planet in that scan shows it was not read.

As I noted earlier, he warmed up the Earth. I will calculate this.

Earth's atmosphere weighs 5.15e+18 kilograms

Let's assume it reached a temperature under the warming of around 80 degrees F, and originally it is stated in the scans to be as low as 10 degrees but also stated to have arctic temperatures, so I will assume a temperature of -30 degrees F. That is a temperature change of 110 degrees.

https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/specific-heat

this calculator tool, using the heat capacity for air, gives an energy of 315823750000000000000000 joules, or 75.4836878585086 teratons of TNT, a comparable amount of temperature to that of the asteroid which killed off the dinosaurs (100 teratons of tnt).

That's not all, as I will now need to use inverse square law to see the energy to extend that across the 200,000 mile range.

The beam reached the Moon, making a minimal radius of Moon is 384,400 kilometers (Its distance from Earth)

200,000 miles is 321868.8 kilometers

Creating a cone from this, I get an area of 1657991839106982126170 square kilometers

Earth's surface area is 510.1 million square kilometers

1657991839106982126170 square kilometers/510.1 million square kilometers

= 3.25032707e+12

3.25032707e+12 * 75.4836878585086 teratons = 245.346674 yottatons of tnt, or large planet level

Still impressive, actually more impressive than "vaporizing a planet" potentially, but still, get the context right


 * 2:10-2:12

"or precise enough to perform lobotomies."

- Boomstick

Refer to what I said earlier, DCAU did show Superman could do lobotomies, but in the comics it’s not 100% confirmed


 * 2:13-2:17

"Superman was so powerful, he could carry entire solar systems on his back"

- Wiz

That is a bit more than just “solar systems," Superman said he was rescuing all inhabited planets in the galaxy. For reference, there are about 6 billion planets in the habitable zone of a Sunlight star in our Galaxy. If we take the mass of the Earth (5.97237e24 kg) and multiply it by 6 billion, we get 3.583422e+34 kilograms, more massive than any star in the universe by hundreds of times.


 * 2:28-2:44

"but over 75 years, Superman has changed quite a bit, including going through two separate reboots, which we'll be focusing on today."

- Wiz

Superman technically went through up to 5 reboots, and 3 other depowerment/powerup phases. His first reboot was the shift of focus from Golden-Age Earth Two Superman to the Silver/Bronze Age Earth One Superman, which is considered to be as early as Action Comics Issue 197 in October 1954, 2 years before the more official start of the Silver Age with Showcase Issue 4. A prominently ignored/forgotten status-quo change is that Kal-El of Earth One was tweaked into Bronze Age Superman with Superman Volume 1, Issue #233. This version of Superman actually has even more powerful feats, but “grounded” and with arbitrary weaknesses such as kryptonite seemingly being a deus ex machina being toned down, and Superman going through practically neurotic adventures with crazy abilities coming out of nowhere being toned down. This was the same Superman however, and he had his greatest feats here such as tanking the Big Bang or flying to Infinity. The next reboot was Crisis on Infinite Earths, which brought out Post Crisis New Earth Superman in John Byrne's the Man of Steel. He would have two status quo changes: when he had a powerup after absorbing Eradicator in Reign of the Supermen and when he trained with Mongul II. Between these two storylines, in 1994, Zero Hour occured and New Earth Superman's history was slightly modified through the Year One stories, which made him deal with New God level threats and achieve greater feats at an earlier point in his career, around the same time as the original Man of Steel storyline. Then in 2006, New Earth Superman's history was radically altered after the Infinite Crisis, having some of his silver age history of being Superboy and joining the 31st Century Legion of Superheroes, gaining new powers, being even more powerful, and in general achieving his greatest feats. lastly (As of the time of the video, now there has been Rebirth and 5G), there is Flashpoint which ends Post Crisis' 26 year career and brings forth New 52 Prime-Earth Superman.

And no, they didn’t JUST change his outlook, they blatantly weakened him. Superman purportedly lost 2/3rd of his power when transitioning from Silver Age to Bronze Age. This change in power is even greater with the beginning of Post Crisis. More can be read about the Post Crisis Origin here

Goku

 * 3:26-3:29

"but that's pretty much where their similarities end"

- Boomstick

That isn't true, they have a few similarities beyond that:


 * Doomsday can be seen as an amalgamation of Boo and Cell; with Boo's rampage amongst the cosmos attacking gods and destroying everything in his path being similar to Doomsday's rampage in his Year One comic, and Cell being the perfectly engineered organism responsible for Goku's death much like Doomsday with Superman.
 * Piccolo and Martian Manhunter being the token green alien tactician and strategist of the team
 * Ultra Instinct is very similar to Superman's technique Torquasm Vo, and both used it initially on an extremely powered gray and bald opponent.

The History

 * 5:06-5:15

"In 2002, Wizard Magazine delivered an answer. They deduced Goku would win, stating that Superman would die to a fall from the moon to the Earth."

- Wiz

What Death Battle probably didn’t realize is that at the time of 2002, in Wizard Comics #133, Superman was much weaker at the time. He had none of his supernova level feats from Post-Infinite Crisis (Where he and the rest of the heroes had their history soft-rebooted so that, for example, Superman was Superboy in his childhood and did join the Legion of Superheroes, much like Silver Age Superman). Superman’s best (non-wanked universal nonsense) feats at the time was moving the Mageddon Gears, pushing Krypton, surviving a point blank explosion of Pluto, and moving the Earth around, all feats that were around planet to star level, but sub-supernova level regardless. Goku at the time, assuming they meant the anime (Anime was far more popular and used for debates at the time and Viz didn’t start translating Dragon Ball mangas until the month after Wizard Comics #133 was released ironically), was definitely much stronger than Superman.


 * 5:16-5:24

"A decade later, the website Outskirts Battledome launched, dedicated to answering versus matches, this time, Superman claimed victory."

- Boomstick

I find it ironic that they are mentioning Outskirts Battledome, who hates Death Battle and believed Superman would beat Goku simply due to a statistical disparity at the time, the general hate towards Dragon Ball as backlash against years of Dragon Ball wank, and never because of stupid character core crap


 * 5:34-5:36

"That's where we came in."

- Boomstick

Kind of arrogant to assume they gave a final answer


 * 6:05-6:58

"However, since January 2012, Goku and Superman have continued their adventures. Superman gained an all-new ability called the Super Flare, which jettisons all the solar energy stored in his body, essentially turning him into a solar bomb. However, it leaves him completely drained of his powers for the next 24 hours, as such, he will only use the Super Flare as an ultimate last resort."

- Wiz

"Goku attained a new legendary form called Super Saiyan God. Despite being a temporary boost, Goku's body absorbed the godly power, essentially making it his new base form. Then, after mixing its power with his Super Saiyan ability, he became a Super Sayian God Super Sayian....oh come on! There had to have been a better name! Ultra Saiyan, Master Saiyan, Super Ultra Combo with Fries Saiyan, anything but that mouthful!"

- Boomstick

"These new powers have naturally rekindled the ultimate debate."

- Wiz

This is a fundamental crux of why this whole Death Battle is just horrendous. As of July 2015, Dragon Ball Super just came out and New 52 Superman, who was a completely different one from Post Crisis, was having hints of something changing within the post-flashpoint cosmology which we would see was Rebirth. Point is both were going through massive fluctuations in character between 2015-2016, so why the hell do they battle at that time? Why not wait for episode 100 which as we saw was around August 2018, perfect time right after DBS to celebrate Goku vs Superman? This is just a horrible decision that makes no sense whatsoever. It is even worse when you realize at the time the Death Battle released, July 18-19 2015, we just got statement from Dragon Ball Super Episode 3 (Aired the same night the original livestream came on) claimed that Beerus was potential threat to the whole universe. This was becoming outdated the same day it aired. That has to say something.

The Fight
Onto the fight, which unlike the first fight I despise and will not give any clemency to. Here are some general things:


 * Why is the moon still around when Earth was destroyed?


 * How did Superman get these dragon balls which would have been destroyed along with Dende and the planet?


 * Why does Superman have his post-flashpoint outfit on? Is this Post Crisis or New 52 Superman?


 * As of July 18 2015, we didn’t know if Goku could even return to Super Saiya-Jin God without the ritual. In fact, the ritual would be outside help as of what we knew in 2015, so why and how would he be allowed to go Super Saiya-Jin God. In fact, DBS didn’t even have as good feats as GT or anime filler yet. So why even use DBS at all when at the time it was maybe weaker than GT? There was no proof the better feats from Kai were canon to Super (Still no clear answer. Sites only conservatively choose to ignore the Kai feats to keep consistency given there is no clear answer).


 * Also why is Super Saiya-Jin God so bulky? The whole point of the form is it slims him down, not keep him thick like his model is.


 * Why is Superman such an asshole in this fight?


 * 11:01-11:05

"I would prefer we don't accidentally destroy the Earth a second time!"

- Superman

Superman was mostly responsible for the Earth being destroyed in the first fight. Goku clearly was going out of his way to focus his attacks and not destroy Earth, and Superman should have known Goku (According to Death Battle's math) wasn't a star buster and couldn't destroy the Sun. Superman decided to slam into Earth and lead to the climax of the fight, and thus the one to destroy Earth. He could have ended the fight then and there without destroying the planet, but he chose to relativistic mass punch Earth into oblivion.


 * 11:18-11:37

Superman strolling through the Kamehameha like it was a morning breeze is just plain ridiculous. Goku was most certainly at some range of solar system at the time, and supernovae level attacks while not 100% lethal, still knock the wind out of him and will knock him out. This is just ludicrous.


 * 12:18-12:44

"I believe this is the part where I say I told you so..."

- King Kai

"But, King Kai I don't understand..."

- Goku

"King Kai: You can't beat him."

- King Kai

{{quote|Sure I can! I'll just train harder than ever!|Goku}

"No Goku! You can overcome any limit put in front of you, but his power has no limit! Even if you somehow found the power to surpass him, you wouldn't have anything left to aspire to. Do you truly want that?"

- King Kai

"Nah, sounds boring."

- Goku

Kaiosama's speech is just dumb, but we will see why in a second.

The Analysis

 * "Wooah! Torches and pitchforks down! Before you start raging, please hear us out on this one, all right?"

- Boomstick

Boomstick says “please hear us out” and prepare for the biggest wankfest of Superman, one which would let future people come in to absolutely inflate Superman's powerlevel to comical degrees./ because now we get to the WORST analysis I have ever seen for Death Battle aside for maybe Yang vs Tifa, again.


 * 13:12-13:19

"But Superman is on a completely different level. One which really doesn't belong in versus matches like these."

- Wiz

So what, he’s comparable to Yog Sothoth or Nyarlathotep? To Gan or the Crimson King? To Battler Ushiromiya and Featherine Augustus Aurora? To Hajun? To The Living Tribunal or Beyonder? To Saint Seiya? To The Time Lords, Xeelee, and Downstreamers? He’s above even all of them because some may even have limits?


 * 13:24-13:33

"Sure due to the writing style of Dragon Ball, Super Saiyan God Goku's exact limits are difficult to pinpoint. Also Goku will likely achieve a new form in the future, it's just how Dragon Ball works nowadays. However, none of that is really a factor."

- Wiz

A new form may not matter, but feats do, and Dragon Ball Super gave Goku some pretty good feats such as shaking the universe, having punches luminous enough to be seen from the Kaioshin realm, shattering a dimension made of pure time by powering up, mowing through the hardest metal in the multiverse as a collateral effect of his fights, surviving and escaping the singularity of a black hole created from his Genki Dama, and fighting and beating a character who transcends time through raw power.


 * 13:33-13:38

"Goku will always have limits while Superman's maximum potential is limitless."

- Wiz

Again, Superman even in the furthest future, unless we include later Rebirth stuff, isn't limitless. He's ridiculously strong, but even if he went in the most energetic star for a trillion years, he wouldn't be infinite, just ludicrously strong.


 * "Don't believe us? Well strap in boys and girls, let's look at how Superman breaks reality!"

- Boomstick

And I will be strapped in to see you fail at proving so


 * 13:43-14:22

"One day Superman was hanging out near Vega, the brightest star in the Lyra constellation."

- Boomstick

"For the record, that's 25 light years from Earth, or 147 trillion miles."

- Wiz

"Naturally a crisis occurred on Earth, so Superman's photographer buddy Jimmy activated his signal watch, calling for Superman's aid. And Superman arrived in a matter of minutes!"

- Boomstick

"Being a comic book, the time Superman took getting to Earth is unspecified. However, the comic never mentioned or implied any large time lapse and he arrived as the battle was ending. Even if we seriously low ball this feat to taking ten minutes, Superman would be traveling over 800 trillion miles per hour, over a million times the speed of light."

- Wiz

The Vega feat is good, except that it comes from Countdown to Final Crisis which is considered an apocryphal series events by Grant Morrison who actually wrote Final Crisis. Anyways, they could have just gone all out have used the “intercepting reality blitzing missiles” from Final Crisis: Superman Beyond, because the Vega feat is a wholly quantifiable feat and is quite surpassed by fictional characters. In fact, Beerus likely went billions of times faster than light by episode 2 of Dragon Ball Super, which came out before this video. Jiren outpaced a ship that could fly across galaxies


 * 14:25-14:43

"But more impressively, Jimmy's signal watch operates by emitting a high frequency sound only Superman can hear. Which means Superman heard the signal in the vacuum of space 25 light years away. That is physically impossible, except for Superman."

- Wiz

Ignoring that first off they are ultrasonic waves which cannot even propagate from space so the feat is nonsense in the first place? Surpman can hear from space which is physically impossible? And characters in Dragon Ball can breath in space, physically impossible too. Superman just has extrasensory perception like you know, the same way he can see a person’s soul, but they want to implicitly highball him to transcending physics


 * 14:45-14:51

"Hohoho, you want impossible? How about the time he lifted Spectre off the ground? A guy literally made up of eternity!"

- Boomstick

For one thing, "eternity" is unquantifiable and could mean anything. Even if it's "heavy" that's inconsistent in the first place because Spectre has no body:



So he should be weightless, that or his mass is esoteric and wonky which would mean lifting it is unquantifiable in the first place.

If it really was infinite, as I established earlier with the Relativistic Mass Punch, anything with infinite mass would create a singularity tearing the universe asunder:



And obviously that didn't happen. Plus, it was on the Moon which has (admittedly low) gravity. So it would have nuked the Moon out of pure mass.

Regardless, Superman failed at lifting Spectre. He managed to lift upon the cape with the help of Green Lantern and Wonder Woman and failed at even lifting up much past his cape.


 * 14:54-15:10

"No, not insane enough for you? Well then how about the time Superman lifted up a book of infinite pages? That's right! Superman lifted both Eternity and Infinity!"

- Boomstick

"Though he did have some help from Wonder Woman and Shazam."

- Wiz

"Hey Wiz, what's half of infinity? In-f***ing-finity!"

- Boomstick

I should note that the infinite pages were all residing in one space, effectively meaning it was a sheet of paper with a ludicrous (infinite) gravity field around it, which refer to the scan about creating a singularity above, especially egregious in the fact that both these come from the same storyline (Final Crisis). If it had infinite mass under normal physics, reality would break.

Fortunately for Superman, they exist in Limbo, a space beyond even the Godsphere, a platonic sphere transcendent of space, time, and physics. Limbo sees it as fiction. In fact, Morrison has stated many times Limbo exists at the edge of comicbook logic and reality, even in the multiversity map:



"IGN Comics: [laughs] That's fascinating. How does the whole world of "Limbo" from Superman Beyond fit into the idea of the white page as God?

Morrison: Limbo is what's been erased, isn't it? It's literally the characters that are almost forgotten. Almost whited-out. It's the characters that have been dumped from the continuity for one reason or another. When I visited the idea in Animal Man back in the eighties, most of those characters were forgotten sixties characters. But now, the place is populated by these nineties Blood Pack and Hero Hotline guys! I've just always loved it as a concept. In the case of Superman Beyond, which was like a Yellow Submarine, Jason of the Argonauts tale, I wanted to take my super-Argonauts to that place at the very edge of art where all these forgotten ideas live. The last outpost of the DCU proper before the archetypal Monitor World and the Overvoid."

- IGN interview

So the feat takes place in a place where physics and logic is so trivialized it's subfinitely irrelevant and it's starting to veer into just plot-induced causality (The Monitor Sphere is the full submergence into narrative causality), and Superman likely couldn't replicate such a feat in realspace because a book like that (Which by the way isn't infinite; it's transfinite. It includes the history of the entire Marvel Omniverse which is infinitely dimensioned and exists beyond just basic countable infinity.) if brought to realspace would either


 * 1) Be larger than it, and just crush the infinitesimal universe into nothing
 * 2) Create a singularity and destroy everything, Superman included

Superman could only do this feat because he was in a place where physics and matter broke down and plot induced causality was more important.

Even then, Superman failed at doing anything regarding physically transferring the book. Looking at the comic, one will see Superman and Shazam attempt to hold the book but as they bring their hands forth they are flooded with the Monitor Sphere's history which overwhelms and throws them back.It doesn't even appear they actually successfully grabbed onto the book or moved it far. So regardless, it was a failed feat.


 * 14:54-15:10

"Regardless, they have limits in their own strength, so while they were lifting a specific set part for each load, Superman was lifting everything else, which literally means everything else. Really Wonder Woman and Shazam didn't even need to be there."

- Wiz

This is just nonsense. Aside for the fact that Superman failed equally alongside his partners. For the infinite book it's outright implied Shazam would be doing most of the work due using the full extent of tapping into the gods. Should I really buy Superman being infinitely superior to the rest of the league?


 * 15:24-15:25

"Superman's held a black hole"

- Boomstick

As I showed above in part 1, this isn't too greatly impressive


 * 15:26-15:28

"survived an explosion equal to 50 supernovas"

- Wiz

Well for one thing, let's look at the feat:



It's noted to be about 50x stronger than the Kepler Supernova, which makes it equal 75 foe.

However Superman only took the electromagnetic energy being hit at him. For a normal supernova like Kepler that is only >0.01 foe of energy. 0.01 foe * 50 = 0.50 foe, or only about half the energy of a supernova. So Superman would have taken sub-supernova levels of energy being hit on him here.

Plus we know Goku (As of July 2015) is around Solar System level as SSJG/SSJB, which is at least 22.5 foe, so Superman would be around 3x more durable than Goku using this feat at its high end in the first place.


 * 15:29-15:33

"flew through the center of a red sun, which is like tanking millions of nukes rapid fire"

- Boomstick

And as a result of doing this, he lost his powers for over a year.


 * 15:34-15:38

"and once easily absorbed enough solar energy to vaporize half a galaxy."

- Boomstick

Note that Superman said *if* it detonates. Assuming I don't just die of poisoning/cancer/suffocation, if I drank a tank of gasoline, enough to blow up a car, do I have the power of the explosion to destroy the car? Superman can metabolize the anti-sunlight poorly. It rips through him, but its slowly digested and absorbed by his solar cells, not violently exploded with such force to destroy half a galaxy.


 * 15:39-15:50

"And to put an end to the Wizard Magazine's argument, here he is getting thrown from orbit into Earth with enough force to devastate the planet and cause nuclear winter. Oh look! He stood up moments later more pissed off than hurt!"

- Boomstick

As I noted, they are ignoring when the magazine came out. Goku with anime feats (Manga wasn't even translated when it came out for another month) would crush 2002 Superman who was only large planet level.


 * 15:50-15:55

"Oh and by the way, none of this was Pre-Crisis."

- Boostick

But you never specified the era of "Post CoIE" either. Are you using New 52 or Post Crisis, before Rebirth and even afterwards they really weren’t the same character and wouldn't scale with one another.


 * 15:58-16:05

"And hey it's not our fault, these writers just keep making Superman the most impossibly OP guy ever. That's kind of what he's all about."

- Wiz

Not all writers. Really the only writer I think tends to make Superman all powerful and everything is Grant Morrison.


 * 16:05-16:10

"Exactly, Superman isn't just a sketch on paper. He's an ideal."

- Wiz

Superman is an ideal, especially as after revealed in Doomsday Clock, but the character core does not mean much especially when we are dealing with Post Crisis/Post Flashpoint physical supermen and not the composite “force” of Superman. The composite "Superman" as envisioned by Morrison and in Doomsday Clock transcends the body and wouldn't matter for debates past giving Superman heavy plot shields for cosmcic events. The debate is the commonly used Post Crisis Superman of New Earth of Post Flashpoint Superman of Prime Earth vs Goku, not "Superman" as in the platonic ubermensch created by the Primal Monitor.


 * 16:50-17:00

"Superman is an all powerful being who is only weak to alien radiation and supernatural magic. He is not meant to be relatable. He is not meant to lose."

- Wiz

This is just plain ridiculous, even looking at the ideal this is nonsensical. Superman has lost and been toyed with by villains even after his death. He wins due to his creativity and will to fight even against odds stacked against him, which is why he is an inspiration. Superman didn't beat Doomsday in his rematch, or Dominus, or Superboy Prime, or any of those by punching him as hard as he can. He outsmarted and outflanked them into situations where their strength advantage is nullified. He is certainly not all powerful. And again, he is meant to be relatable. Superman is Clark Kent, Superman is just the mask, the example of man. He is meant to be the epitome of relatability, what man can be on a moral level if they carve their own self and achieve excellence and eudaemonic happiness.