DEATH BATTLE - Season 8: Settling the debate once and for all?

[Iamyourking]

I've always heard the Yardrat technique is Instant Transmission and the Kai technique is Instantaneous Movement, but I'll use Kai Kai in the future.

[McNum]

I feel like Reverse Flash is getting underestimated here. We're talking about a guy who once ran back in time to open the door of Barry Allen's home at the exact moment it would cause Barry's dog to run into the street and get hit by a car. His only real weakness is his need to gloat to Barry Allen. And be a petty jerk to make sure the Flash never has a moment's peace. Like, really petty. If pettiness was a fuel source, you could destroy the multiverse several times over from this level of pettiness.

Also he doesn't really die. I mean, yeah, he can be killed, but that doesn't stop him somehow. He'll remember dying, but at the same time, it never really happened. And if Hulk gets to resurrect mid-fight, Reverse Flash probably does, too. He's not so much paradox-proof as he's learned to weaponize them.

There's also the route I hope they don't take, but it being Death Battle and their love for transitive properties, here's one impossible fact about Flash: He's faster than Superman. And if Superman scales to infinity, Flash and Reverse Flash have a speed of Infinity+1. And that even makes sense thanks to the utter nonsense that is the Speed Force and its evil opposite. And for once that's combat speed, not straight line travel.

Now, defense-wise, a Flash can not take the kind of damage Goku Black can deal. Not even close. A regular gun can kill them, if you know, they weren't so ridiculously many times faster than a speeding bullet. Offense-wise... infinite mass punches will ruin anyone's day, Though I get the feeling Reverse Flash is going to be trickier than that. I mean a winning move is stealing Black's earring, then going back a fraction of a second and steal it again, then fuse with yourself because that's apparently a thing to do now, and go to Infinity+2 speed.

Amusingly, Black's be advantage here isn't some big ki blast or universal power or anything like that. Those are good to have, but Black's biggest strength bar none here?

Black is an amazing trash talker. Like, he cuts promos on the weakness of mortals all the time because he likes to do that.

And that's how you beat Reverse Flash. You get him monologuing. Because he is the pettiest man alive. That is his weak spot.

[Rynjin]

It's not "underestimation" so much as "can't be estimated". I always hate the comic book character battles because nobody has time to keep up with whatever dumb bull**** some one-off writer wrote into a character's powerset 15 years ago that was never mentioned again.

[TeChameleon]

And that's how you beat Reverse Flash. You get him monologuing. Because he is the pettiest man alive. That is his weak spot.

... that would be genuinely amazing, and I'd love to see them do that. Not sure they will, but it would be both hilarious and awesome.

On the other hand, neither of the combatants here can actually, y'know, die, which makes a death battle between them a bit problematic. They're going to have to pull out something interesting if they want to hold true to both characters.

[Iamyourking]

There is no reason to believe that Black is unkillable. Future Zamasu is immortal to anything short of-presumably-Zen'O and Merged Zamasu has a weird kind of immortality where his body can be destroyed but a mangled fraction of his spirit will persist as Universal Zamasu-who can only be killed by reality warping on the level of Zen'O-but Black is physically Goku and explicitly did not get immortality from the Super Dragonballs. He may or may not be able to die of natural causes due to having the soul of a Supreme Kai, but other than that, his immunity to paradoxes, and a healing factor in his Heroes incarnation he's no more immortal than anybody with his power level.

[Prime32]

Interesting note: Zamasu has canonically watched people from different universes fighting each other on the divine equivalent of Youtube. He hated it.

[SKarious]

Having an idestructible shred of spirit doesn't make you immune to loss in DB. See Starscream vs. Rainbow Dash.

[Rater202]

Having an idestructible shred of spirit doesn't make you immune to loss in DB. See Starscream vs. Rainbow Dash.

To be fair, that was because Star Scream's Spark was small enough to eat.

If they let Black fuse with Future Zamasu then that wouldn't apply.

[Dragonus45]

Having an idestructible shred of spirit doesn't make you immune to loss in DB. See Starscream vs. Rainbow Dash.

Starscream lacks the ability to really effect anything once he is dead though. Unlike Hulk who has rapid resurrection or Black Zamasu who apparently had his half dead soul posses the fabric of reality itself and immediately start attacking again.

[Delicious Taffy]

I don't really get why this match-up is a thing. Is it just a bare-bones "the hero except if he were an *******" thing?

[Rynjin]

The motivation is jealousy, on both sides. And arrogance. And obsession.

I've never been 100% sure on why Reverse Flash is so completely envious of someone who died 500 years before he was born, but that's basically his motivation in a nutshell. He's utterly assured of his superiority, and equally obsessed with violating every shred of happiness Barry Allen could ever experience because...reasons.

Zamasu was a god who was extremely assured of the superiority of gods over the mortal races. On being matched (well overmatched) by a mortal in a spar, his already nihilistic tendencies took a steep turn. He went from questioning his role as a nurturer of life, to becoming completely obsessed with ending sentient life, which to his eyes was destroying the beauty of the universe. Tied to his obsession with that is a further envy of and obsession with the mortal who humiliated him: Goku. So he stole his body and used its power to annihilate all mortal life in the alternate future timeline.

Oh yeah, the time travel parallel is a match as well.

[Delicious Taffy]

Well, fair enough then. I don't know squat about Reverse Flash that hasn't been posted here or shown in The Forbidden Movie, but I kinda hope he wins just because he's not Zamasu. Anything is better than that loser.

[Rater202]

Ironically: Goku wasn't mortal anymore by the time this happened.

He'd long since undergone the ritual to become a Super Saiyan God, absorbed the power of the ritual, internalized it, and gained the ability to access it at will.

He can sense Divine Ki whether or not he currently has it himself, and only a God can sense divine Ki(in the Super Anime, Dende who has no Divine Ki but has the role of Earth's guardian deity is the only one who can sense Beerus' power level and can immediately tell that he's a god when he powers up.)

So Goku was a god by the time that Zamasu got pissy about a mortal being that strong.

And you could argue that he might just be pissed that a mortal became a god... Except that's actually kind of how it works. The Kais Supreme Kais belong to a race that's born as Gods, but planetary deities and Gods of Destruction are all mortals who are promoted up.

[Iamyourking]

Zamasu's problem was also that it was Goku in particular-who made a very poor first impression on Zamasu by acting like a moron-who had that much power. I doubt he'd have a huge problem with Jiren despite Jiren being far stronger than Goku and doing it entirely with mortal ki.

[TeChameleon]

The motivation is jealousy, on both sides. And arrogance. And obsession.

I've never been 100% sure on why Reverse Flash is so completely envious of someone who died 500 years before he was born, but that's basically his motivation in a nutshell. He's utterly assured of his superiority, and equally obsessed with violating every shred of happiness Barry Allen could ever experience because...reasons.

Reverse Flash's very first origin (not sure if it's changed over the various umpteen gazillion retcons DC is so fond of) was that he was Barry Allen's biggest fan growing up, and that the Flash was still a legendary hero even 500 years later. Theeen poor old Eobard discovered that he was destined (already was..? Friggin' time travel...) to be remembered and villified as the Flash's worst enemy, and... kinda jumped his trolley, eventually deciding that if he was going to be forced to become Barry Allen's worst enemy, then screw destiny, he was going to become Barry Allen instead, dumped the Flash through the time stream into his future-cell and trying to hijack Flash's wedding while disguised as him.

So Professor Zoom/Reverse Flash is basically seriously nuts with his mania focussed on why the Flash gets to be happy while he's stuck being time-Hitler without any choice in the matter. Self-fulfilling prophecy at its finest

[Anteros]

Ironically: Goku wasn't mortal anymore by the time this happened.

He'd long since undergone the ritual to become a Super Saiyan God, absorbed the power of the ritual, internalized it, and gained the ability to access it at will.

He can sense Divine Ki whether or not he currently has it himself, and only a God can sense divine Ki(in the Super Anime, Dende who has no Divine Ki but has the role of Earth's guardian deity is the only one who can sense Beerus' power level and can immediately tell that he's a god when he powers up.)

So Goku was a god by the time that Zamasu got pissy about a mortal being that strong.

And you could argue that he might just be pissed that a mortal became a god... Except that's actually kind of how it works. The Kais Supreme Kais belong to a race that's born as Gods, but planetary deities and Gods of Destruction are all mortals who are promoted up.

Well, Vegeta can also do all that and he didn't undergo any ritual or anything. Just push-ups, sit-ups, and plenty of juice.

[Devonix]

Reverse Flash's very first origin (not sure if it's changed over the various umpteen gazillion retcons DC is so fond of) was that he was Barry Allen's biggest fan growing up, and that the Flash was still a legendary hero even 500 years later. Theeen poor old Eobard discovered that he was destined (already was..? Friggin' time travel...) to be remembered and villified as the Flash's worst enemy, and... kinda jumped his trolley, eventually deciding that if he was going to be forced to become Barry Allen's worst enemy, then screw destiny, he was going to become Barry Allen instead, dumped the Flash through the time stream into his future-cell and trying to hijack Flash's wedding while disguised as him.

So Professor Zoom/Reverse Flash is basically seriously nuts with his mania focussed on why the Flash gets to be happy while he's stuck being time-Hitler without any choice in the matter. Self-fulfilling prophecy at its finest

Yeah Flash Rebirth and New 52 pretty drastically changed Reverse Flash's orgin because it drastically changed Flash's origin too.

[TeChameleon]

Yeah Flash Rebirth and New 52 pretty drastically changed Reverse Flash's orgin because it drastically changed Flash's origin too.

How'd that go? And was the revamped Reverse Flash Eobard Thawne or Hunter Zolomon? (Random fun fact: every single Flash has an evil opposite- Jay Garrick had The Rival, Barry Allen had Reverse Flash/Professor Zoom, Wally West had Zoom, and Bart Allen had Inertia. Even Johnny Quick had... well, Earth 3 Johnny Quick. Only speedsters I can think of that don't have evil opposites are Jesse Quick and Max Mercury).

[Iamyourking]

The previews are up, and they're scaling Thawne to Wally. Just to further rub it in, one of the researchers said on his blog that Black won't get to be Merged Zamasu. That's certainly one way to beat Dragon Ball's winning streak.

[Traab]

The previews are up, and they're scaling Thawne to Wally. Just to further rub it in, one of the researchers said on his blog that Black won't get to be Merged Zamasu. That's certainly one way to beat Dragon Ball's winning streak.

Not just to wally, but BEYOND wally. They are saying he is faster/better than him. Also pointing out the ways he has to bypass durability by phasing his hand into your chest/head/whatever. So it wont matter if black has universal durability feats or better, they will just say, "He can vibrate his arm right through black." and call it done. Assuming we dont just get ben10/green lantern time travel shenanigans as well since reverse flash is kinda known for that sort of thing.

[Anteros]

The previews are up, and they're scaling Thawne to Wally. Just to further rub it in, one of the researchers said on his blog that Black won't get to be Merged Zamasu. That's certainly one way to beat Dragon Ball's winning streak.

So basically: "We haven't pissed off the Dragonball fandom in a while and we want them talking about us again because we get a burst of popularity everytime we do."

Not sure what the point is in having a system where you explicitly always take characters at their peak...and then taking a less powerful version of a character. You can't expect DB to even pretend they're consistent though.

[Iamyourking]

Also pointing out the ways he has to bypass durability by phasing his hand into your chest/head/whatever. So it wont matter if black has universal durability feats or better, they will just say, "He can vibrate his arm right through black." and call it done.

That one I don't consider to be a big issue. It's a staple offensive power of the Flashes and even the lowest of low-balls would still mention it. Unless the full episode says something like "And he can even cut Superman with it!" or cites being able to phase through energy as well as matter Black has reasonable ways to deal with it-ranging from just being tough enough that it can't really hurt him to parrying it with his signature ki blade to putting up a barrier that prevents physical contact like Vegeta used against Lavenda (Merged Zamasu used a similar technique against Vegito, and since he's mentally just two Zamasus I don't see any reason why someone who is mentally one Zamasu couldn't, albeit at a lower power level).

Also I think the thing with Wally may have also been taken out of context. I know at least once Wally was weaker than Thawne because he couldn't envision himself being able to surpass Barry, but I don't know if the clip they used was after he got over that.

[Rynjin]

I'm torn between being very mildly annoyed that DB is probably going to get trounced by DC again, and kind of looking forward to seeing Goku Black get clapped because I kinda hate him, no matter how great James Marsters was in the role.

[Dragonus45]

Considering we have seen someone break dimensional boundaries and defeat time itself just by flexing hard enough in DB I think that saying a person could just physics their way into their body and bypass their physical defenses to be silly.

[Lemmy]

So basically: "We haven't pissed off the Dragonball fandom in a while and we want them talking about us again because we get a burst of popularity everytime we do."

Not sure what the point is in having a system where you explicitly always take characters at their peak...and then taking a less powerful version of a character. You can't expect DB to even pretend they're consistent though.

This kind of trolling, added to their bad-to-horrible "research" and blatant bias is why I stopped watching their show.

It's more interesting to see what people have to say here than to actually watch Death Battle videos... The fight scenes themselves aren't even very good, most of the time.

[Traab]

I still had a ton of fun with all might versus might guy. I loved the entire premise and the battle as it ramped up. it honestly felt like the sort of thing that would totally happen as they got carried away.

[Anteros]

This kind of trolling, added to their bad-to-horrible "research" and blatant bias is why I stopped watching their show.

It's more interesting to see what people have to say here than to actually watch Death Battle videos... The fight scenes themselves aren't even very good, most of the time.

Yeah. Even though I post here it's very rare for me to actually watch the show. Most of the episodes are bad, and even when they aren't, I simply don't enjoy watching murder porn of my favorite characters. I think it was watching Red get dismembered in the Pokémon vs Digimon fight that made me quit watching for good. It turns my stomach.

[Dragonus45]

Yeah. Even though I post here it's very rare for me to actually watch the show. Most of the episodes are bad, and even when they aren't, I simply don't enjoy watching murder porn of my favorite characters. I think it was watching Red get dismembered in the Pokémon vs Digimon fight that made me quit watching for good. It turns my stomach.

That one had a certain crosses the line twice quality to it for me but I can see how it might not sit right with others.

[Rater202]

I still had a ton of fun with all might versus might guy. I loved the entire premise and the battle as it ramped up. it honestly felt like the sort of thing that would totally happen as they got carried away.

I mean, I still think that should have been ruled a draw.

My main problem is that they often arbitrarily ignore things from the source material. Like the fact that the Omnitrix from Ben 10 literally will not let Ben die if it can help it. And it can.

Or that Kill La Kill late in the game make a big deal of how fully mature life-fibers will repair themselves or regenerate from literally anything short of being cleanly sliced in two by straight blades from both sides in perfectly symmetrical, simultaneous angles with even the slightest delay or variance in angle meaning it doesn't count. No saws. No fire, not a spinning hedge manipulating the flow of space-time so that time appears to be frozen from his perspective, and certainly not energy blasts and that Ryuko is canonically the most powerful hybrid who in-universe explicitly scales to the Primordial Life Fiber/Nui/Ultimate Kamui fusion.

Seriously, Isshin's plan to kill the primordial life-fiber boiled down to "give my life-fiber hybrid daughter a Kamui and a giant pair of scissors and hope that works" for a fracking reason. They are very clear that that's the only thing that would have worked.

Or the fact that the characters in dragon-ball explicitly possess the ability to focus and concentrate their energy so that the beam or blast only destroys what they want it to so the fact that an explosion didn't destroy the galaxy in and of itself is not proof that they're lying about their power.

Or that Carnage had been free of his weakness to fire and sonics for a year by the time they announced Carnage v Lucy.

Or that, if you're talking characters at their "peak" then Venom should have won against Crona because at the time "Peak Venom" was Eddie wearing the Legion symbiote.

Legion, also known as Venom II, was a "clone" of the Venom symbiote and canonically had the combined skills and powers of Captain America, The Thing, Wolverine, Hawkeye, and Tel-Kar as well as the Venom, Carnage, Goblin Child, Mania, Riot, Lasher, Phage, Agony, Sleeper, Tyrannosaurus, and Dreadface symbiotes and two other unnamed symbiotes.

And the Goblin Child symbiote, being an offshoot of the Red Goblin, was flat out immune to fire and sound which means Legion was as well.

[Lemmy]

It's particularly annoying how they take some characater's statements as truth and others as "well, he says this, but it's never demonstrated, sow e can't be sure".

Like with characters saying Cell could destroy the solar system... Have any of them actually seen DBZ?? Vegeta could easily destroy a planet when eh arrived at Earth... Cell being able to explode the freaking solar system is more than reasonable given DBZ scaling... And the fact that Toriyama's writing isn't exactly known for being subtle. The fact that it's a character saying it instead of a comic book narrator doesn't change that.

By the end of the Freeza saga, every character can (and does) easily perform and resist planet-busting attacks like they are nothing.