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I will note outdated information in red text, this means technically they might have been correct prior, but this is wrong after 6 years have passed.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. He's Wiz and I'm Boomstick."

- 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. In general, I assume most normies do not understand the 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
"He narrowly escaped the extinction of his entire race when he was sent to Earth with a single, simple mission…"
 * 1:35-1:45

- 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Outdated information: Goku's purpose for reaching Earth was now to escape Planet Vegeta's destruction by the help of his parents Burdock and Gine, this means he wasn't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.


 * 3:20-3:35

"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

Infinite 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 Infinite 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 Infinite 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