Death Battle 5: Mister Rogers in a Bloodstained Sweater

[Forum Explorer]

Spoiler: This time

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I'll admit I was surprised. Not because I thought Lobo would be immune to the soul eating thing, but because I thought for sure that Lobo would've picked up some sort of demon/god killing weapon or ability from his war on Heaven/Hell.

[Kitten Champion]

Spoiler: This time

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I'll admit I was surprised. Not because I thought Lobo would be immune to the soul eating thing, but because I thought for sure that Lobo would've picked up some sort of demon/god killing weapon or ability from his war on Heaven/Hell.

Yeah, me too. It's like Deadpool, it doesn't matter what his power-set actually is because the broader joke is always that he can do whatever he wants.

[Traab]

Yeah, me too. It's like Deadpool, it doesn't matter what his power-set actually is because the broader joke is always that he can do whatever he wants.

That being said,

Spoiler

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its hard to judge if even peak lunatic lobo is superior to peak power zarathos. After all, while zarathos didnt get much in the way of numbers, he was put on par with a being that devours planets for food and when in combat was obliterating worlds and such as side effects. So again it comes down to only one explicitly having the ability to truly kill the other. While lobo pulls out lol random wins that make no sense, ghost rider very much so has a confirmed ability to kill lobo despite his healing factor.

[Devonix]

Spoiler: Okay...

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This kinda confirms my worry that they picked this match-up over Etrigan vs Ghost Rider to end DC's winning streak as Etrigan was far more likely to have a way to both kill Ghost Rider and resist eating souls or Penance Stare because, well, he is a demon and that **** is his bread and butter.

People who usually resist Penance Stare, like Punisher or Deacon from Jason Aaron's run are so deluded their crimes have been done for a good, their fanaticism is so big they force themselves to walk through all this pain for their cause. Lobo never claimed he is a good guy, he knows he does horrible things and he clearly LOVES them, so he wouldn't qualify anyway.

And yeah, Lobo is close to Superman level, he moonlights as his villain after all.

The main issue is that instances of people resisting the stare through Fanaticism and forcing themselves through it blatantly ignore that that's not how the Stare works. The Stare doesn't make you feel guilt, it doesn't care about your willpower. Because it's not " You feeling those things. " What the stare does is basically act as an Empathy beam. You're forced to experience the harm you've caused others,
" From their point of view "


Basically if you killed a child, the stare turns makes you experience being killed. from the point of view of being an innocent child being killed by you. The stare doesn't care if you don't understand or care about causing pain.

It in D&D terms casts a spell that uses the will save of your victims, not your own. The Stare should be MORE powerful on people that lack empathy, because it forces them to experience something they're not familiar with.

[Celestia]

Spoiler

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Most Death Battles are pretty clear from the onset who's going to win, but this one legitimately surprised me. When they pulled out the Penance Stare in the first 30 seconds, and it didn't work, I was certain that meant Lobo was going to win.

Overall, though, I found this one disappointing. The battle seemed really lazy and half-assed. I'm pretty sure that whoever did this one just didn't care.

[Reddish Mage]

Spoiler: This time

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I'll admit I was surprised. Not because I thought Lobo would be immune to the soul eating thing, but because I thought for sure that Lobo would've picked up some sort of demon/god killing weapon or ability from his war on Heaven/Hell.

Spoiler: Lobo vs. A Stare

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What they said was that "only the one true god can kill Ghost Rider." If that's the One Above All, which fits the ineffable, incomprehensible sort of cannot question power, that's pretty much means Ghost Rider indestructible. However, it's not.

Also, there's heaven and angels.

Moreover, Ghost Rider can get killed by non-heavenly beings and has been in the past. Zarathos is one of the most powerful demons, but he's only a demon on the cosmic scale.

I'm not sure any of that matters for a battle with Lobo however. Lobo simply doesn't have regular, consistent access to holy weapons or uses a big-demon slaying weapon regularly.

Basically than, it comes down to the fact that Lobo can't kill Ghost Rider, and Ghost Rider has the stare. Despite Ghost Riders speed theirs a little blurb saying that Lobo's combat speed (since when was combat speed a seperatable thing) was faster.

Lobo is from DC, his strength and durability feats far exceeded Ghost Rider. Lobo basically loses to a single trick, otherwise it would have been a draw at best, with the two unable to kill each other.

They also depict Lobo getting killed by Hellfire prior to the stare. However, they don't explain why Lobo couldn't just dodge it or shrug it off.

Spoiler

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Most Death Battles are pretty clear from the onset who's going to win, but this one legitimately surprised me. When they pulled out the Penance Stare in the first 30 seconds, and it didn't work, I was certain that meant Lobo was going to win.

Overall, though, I found this one disappointing. The battle seemed really lazy and half-assed. I'm pretty sure that whoever did this one just didn't care.

Spoiler

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I agree, we've seen big explosions all the time. Ghost Rider has the ability to grow to the size of a Celestial and fight like that. I feel they didn't take the fight to the extremes they could have.

Also the analysis seems very unsatisfying. While Ghost Rider does have the Penace Stare trump, he also has Hellfire and I would like to have seen more analysis and frankly some of their biggest feats and stories were absent or wasn't dwelled on.

Also, they did funny things like give Lobo his ability to multiply (Ghost Rider did this too once). This despite the fact that Lobo "had the ability taken away" and there was other stuff they could have gone into.

Ultimately, though, the battle was going to come down to Ghost Rider's tricks vs. Lobos cosmically superior stats, so they should have showed Lobos curve stomping Ghost Rider (like reducing the Spirit of Vengeance to just Hellfire) before the surprise win.

[Rynjin]

Combat speed and overland speed are sensible ones to separate, actually. Speed is useless in combat if it's not maneuverable/controllable. See: Sloth from Fullmetal Alchemist for how speed can be a detriment in a fight.

[Devonix]

Combat speed and overland speed are sensible ones to separate, actually. Speed is useless in combat if it's not maneuverable/controllable. See: Sloth from Fullmetal Alchemist for how speed can be a detriment in a fight.

Or seeing a Track sprinter from a trained boxer. One has faster movement speed, the other had better combat reaction timing.

[Forum Explorer]

Combat speed and overland speed are sensible ones to separate, actually. Speed is useless in combat if it's not maneuverable/controllable. See: Sloth from Fullmetal Alchemist for how speed can be a detriment in a fight.

They should've been doing that from the beginning, it's an unfortunate fact that they almost never do. I think this is the first time that they've made a distinction between combat and overland speed.

Spoiler: This time

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Also, though Ghost Rider can outrace Thor's Hammer at one time, doesn't mean he can outrace it at it's max speed. Or in other words, there is no reason to think that every time Thor throws his hammer, or summons it for that matter, that it's moving at the same speed.

But that's just a quibble

[Reddish Mage]

We all get that. Traditionally, though, Deathbattle did not separate out the two. Lots of Marvel and DC characters can move across-the-universe fast when they get out into the stars, but most of them usually fight at what looks like regular human speeds.

However, I have to bring up again that speed has a lot more factors to it in...really all the media DB goes to... than just combat vs. travel. Some characters are said to have reaction times that are sometimes superhuman or even faster than light but other times they appear to be surprised or something that moves at regular speed catches them. This happens to characters of extreme speed: The Flash, Superman (why doesn't he just move away the moment kryptonite shows up), and across franchises. Naruto, Goku, Quicksilver...they all get hit and nearly killed by attacks they dodged at other times.

Also, there are characters, like Wonder Woman, who seem to only move fast when she is catching bullets or dodging

Of course, all these characters are just plain inconsistently portrayed, in most incredible ways, across all their fights in various different media. "Travel speed," the notion a character can move fast but can't fight fast, may explain a lot, but then there might also be "Defensive speed" (which may also be inconsistent).

Then there seems to be characters, like Captain Boomerang, who seems to consistently be able to tag The Flash despite being ordinary humans. How do you measure his speed or his boomerang speeds?

[Traab]

Reddish, why would lobo dodge hellfire when he has no clue what it does? We watch on the video that lobo tends to stand there and take whatever the opponent dishes out because his healing factor is so broken. Guns, punches, explosions, he doesnt care other than that it might force him to run back to the fight to get back into it if it knocks him away.

[TeChameleon]

I'm just glad that whiny edgelord Nu52 Lobo didn't turn out to be an actual factor in this Deathbattle, despite them acknowledging him. Honestly, they could've had Lobo turn into... that... and the fans would probably be cheering as Ghost Rider ate him.

Also, if you want to talk inconsistent portrayal... hoo boy, Lobo. Just in terms of strength alone, I've got an old JLI comic- one that very clearly portrays Lobo as the unstoppable bounty hunter, one that can and does throw down with Big Barda and the Martian Manhunter simultaneously- arm wrestling baseline normal human Guy Gardner, and actually being challenged, rather than ripping Guy's arm off by accident. In the same issue as tossing around two Superman-level threats like bean bags (along with Rocket Red and G'nort, but nobody cares).

... what.

And I can see why they didn't do Ghost Rider vs. Etrigan, honestly- even outside of possibly wanting to break DC's win streak, it would just end up being a hellfire-fest that would potentially be sort of boring to watch. Ghost Rider vs. Lobo, even outside of the tenuous bounty hunter connection, was badass biker vs. badass biker. Obvious enough from that angle.

[Lemmy]

Like I said, Lobo is extremely inconsistent (even by Marvel/DC standards) because he's basically a cartoon character.

Like Tom & Jerry or Bugs Bunny, what he can do is completely dependant on Rule of Cool and Rule of Funny.

[HolyDraconus]

Come to think of it, why DIDN'T Lobo use his smarts? He did against Supes and Bats, and shocked the hell out of them while doing it..... did.... did they choose Lobo cause they wanted DC to lose? Why didn't Lobo fight Deadpool, which would be a better fit? Why do they state that he has literal logic ignoring abilities, yet refuse to use any of them aside from the city eating? Why state that Ghost Rider CAN be worn down from not holy things, but then turn around and say that nothing lobo can do would matter? Why say that lobo could be smart enough to create a weapon for fighting Rider, but say he couldn't get away to do that, when he scales to Superman?
Zzzzz so many questions...

[Traab]

Come to think of it, why DIDN'T Lobo use his smarts? He did against Supes and Bats, and shocked the hell out of them while doing it..... did.... did they choose Lobo cause they wanted DC to lose? Why didn't Lobo fight Deadpool, which would be a better fit? Why do they state that he has literal logic ignoring abilities, yet refuse to use any of them aside from the city eating? Why state that Ghost Rider CAN be worn down from not holy things, but then turn around and say that nothing lobo can do would matter? Why say that lobo could be smart enough to create a weapon for fighting Rider, but say he couldn't get away to do that, when he scales to Superman?
Zzzzz so many questions...

Last one first. Death battle does not include a break while the combatants get a chance to setup attacks for round two. They fight till one of them dies. They stated that ghost rider has been defeated without holy objects so that they could acknowledge that yes, it is possible for him to lose. Just because he DIDNT lose doesnt mean they ignored that factor. As for logic ignoring abilities, they included the ones showed, or at least, as you said, the city eating one. So im not sure what the objection is here. Perhaps that they didnt just go "Meh, he wins because logic loses?" They chose lobo because the leather clad biker bounty hunter thing made for a solid pairing. Its POSSIBLE they wanted a dc character to lose, but I doubt that was their goal.

[Celestia]

Why didn't Lobo fight Deadpool, which would be a better fit?

Do you want a battle so obviously, hilariously one-sided that it puts Flash v Quicksilver to shame?

[HolyDraconus]

Do you want a battle so obviously, hilariously one-sided that it puts Flash v Quicksilver to shame?

Well, Deadpool did beat the Marvel Universe and Lobo is a Superman parody, I think it wouldn't be THAT bad... would it?

[Rater202]

Do you want a battle so obviously, hilariously one-sided that it puts Flash v Quicksilver to shame?

Honestly yes.

Though I'd prefer it to be Powerhouse vs Superboy. Either force them to admit that Superman's power set isn't invincible or prove without a shadow of a doubt that they're wanking the hell out of it.

[Anteros]

Well, Deadpool did beat the Marvel Universe and Lobo is a Superman parody, I think it wouldn't be THAT bad... would it?

Have you read Deadpool vs the Marvel Universe? It relies on a lot of characters acting extremely stupid, not using their powers, or having their powers not work the way they're supposed to. He kills Thor with his own hammer. He kills Spidey by shooting him with a normal pistol while his guard is down. It's just bad writing for the sake of wanking Deadpool.

Honestly yes.

Though I'd prefer it to be Powerhouse vs Superboy. Either force them to admit that Superman's power set isn't invincible or prove without a shadow of a doubt that they're wanking the hell out of it.

That's already proven to everyone who is the least bit objective about Big Blue so I don't think more matches for him are going to matter.

[HolyDraconus]

Have you read Deadpool vs the Marvel Universe? It relies on a lot of characters acting extremely stupid, not using their powers, or having their powers not work the way they're supposed to. He kills Thor with his own hammer. He kills Spidey by shooting him with a normal pistol while his guard is down. It's just bad writing for the sake of wanking Deadpool.



That's already proven to everyone who is the least bit objective about Big Blue so I don't think more matches for him are going to matter.

Was that the first or second time?

[Man on Fire]

Honestly yes.

Though I'd prefer it to be Powerhouse vs Superboy. Either force them to admit that Superman's power set isn't invincible or prove without a shadow of a doubt that they're wanking the hell out of it.

Except no Superboy has shown to be capable of feats Superman has on consistend basis and some of them flat out have different powersets like Conner's tactile telekinesis.

[Kitten Champion]

Lobo's a Wolverine parody - thus the grimy space-biker aesthetic - but operates on the cosmic scale, I suppose because it's hard to parody Wolverine by creating a character that's too similar given how hyperbolic Wolverine can be already.

Deadpool's a parody of the original Liefeldian Deadpool who was himself initially a "homage" to Deathstroke, right down to being named Wade Wilson.

[Rater202]

Except no Superboy has shown to be capable of feats Superman has on consistend basis and some of them flat out have different powersets like Conner's tactile telekinesis.

I was specifically referring to Johnathan. Clark's Half-Human sun with Clark's exact power set and the explicit potential to become stronger faster and surpass his dad.

The Godlike son of the world's greatest and most famous hero who got skipped from being a small child to a teenager.

The same as Powerhouse, hence the thematic connection.

DB has drawn feats from other people before--Ben 10 vs Green Lanter gave Hal the feats of other members of the GL Corps and Captain Marvel vs Shazam gave Billy feats from Zeus because they chose to interpret "Lightning of Zeus" literally.

Johnathan has the exact same power set as his dad if he ends up in a battle they can and will cite his father's feats if they can justify it.

[Reddish Mage]

Well, Deadpool did beat the Marvel Universe and Lobo is a Superman parody, I think it wouldn't be THAT bad... would it?

Deadpool bear the Marvel Universe in what was clearly a non-canon parody (of what’s already a parody).

Lobo, we mentioned isn’t a Superman parody but can beat Superman.

A fight between the two would be silliness, but the two don’t play at the same level. Lobo’s feats are much more impressive than Deadpool, although that doesn’t really matter...neither of them can die.

The analysis would end up being extremely meta.

Honestly yes.

Though I'd prefer it to be Powerhouse vs Superboy. Either force them to admit that Superman's power set isn't invincible or prove without a shadow of a doubt that they're wanking the hell out of it.

Clearly, you don’t actually want a match. You want to rehash Goku v Superman for the 301st time.

This right after DB broke DC’s winning streak.

[Celestia]

This right after DB broke DC’s winning streak.

Marvel || DC
Rogue v Wonder Woman
Spider-Man v Batman
Captain America v Batman
Deadpool v Deathstroke
Iron Man v Lex Luthor
Hawkeye v Green Lantern
Quicksilver v Flash
Hulk v Doomsday
Venom v Bane
Thor v Wonder Woman
Spider-Man 2099 v Batman Beyond
Black Panther v Batman
Doctor Strange v Doctor Fate
Daredevil v Nightwing
Thanos v Darkseid
Namor v Aquaman
Captain Marvel v Shazam
Ghost Rider v Lobo

I started this post to try and argue, but you turned out correct. That was a rather long streak accounting for fully half of all DC's wins. Even when Marvel was winning in the early seasons, there was still the Cap/Bat battle to shake things up a bit. And DC still has two wins over Marvel in total.

Still, I don't know if I'd claim there was any real bias going on. The battles may have been divided largely into two streaks, but they seem largely even in the end.

[Keltest]

Marvel || DC
Rogue v Wonder Woman
Spider-Man v Batman
Captain America v Batman
Deadpool v Deathstroke
Iron Man v Lex Luthor
Hawkeye v Green Lantern
Quicksilver v Flash
Hulk v Doomsday
Venom v Bane
Thor v Wonder Woman
Spider-Man 2099 v Batman Beyond
Black Panther v Batman
Doctor Strange v Doctor Fate
Daredevil v Nightwing
Thanos v Darkseid
Namor v Aquaman
Captain Marvel v Shazam
Ghost Rider v Lobo

I started this post to try and argue, but you turned out correct. That was a rather long streak accounting for fully half of all DC's wins. Even when Marvel was winning in the early seasons, there was still the Cap/Bat battle to shake things up a bit. And DC still has two wins over Marvel in total.

Still, I don't know if I'd claim there was any real bias going on. The battles may have been divided largely into two streaks, but they seem largely even in the end.

What happens if you extend it to DC vs non-DC rather than just Marvel?

[Delicious Taffy]

What happens if you extend it to DC vs non-DC rather than just Marvel?

Goku/Superman
Joker/Sweet Tooth
Raven/Book Horse
Green Lantern/Ben 10

Unless I've missed any, DC characters have a 100% victory rate against non-Marvel characters. I'm not taking any sides here, just offering some requested information.

[Reddish Mage]

Goku/Superman
Joker/Sweet Tooth
Raven/Book Horse
Green Lantern/Ben 10

Unless I've missed any, DC characters have a 100% victory rate against non-Marvel characters. I'm not taking any sides here, just offering some requested information.

I assume we mean the superheroes proper. He-Man comics have been published by DC and that's ongoing (yep that's news from 2 days ago). DC even did a He-Man vs. Lion-O comic!

However, Thundercats was, originally, a Marvel title!. So maybe it belongs in the DC vs. Marvel pages.

He-Man actually appeared in some DC comics alongside Superman.

Anyway. DC and Marvel are busy making lots of comics, so even characters that you wouldn't think are DC or Marvel (example...do Star Wars characters count as Marvel) may fall under that extensive and cross-over loving umbrella.

[Rater202]

Clearly, you don’t actually want a match. You want to rehash Goku v Superman for the 301st time.

1: I want a match.

I just want a match that will either prove that DB is wanking Superman's powers to the point that everyone will have to acknowledge it or else admit that they made a mistake when they claimed his powers were limitless.

2: Though, since you brought it up, the Planet Eater Moro storyline in Dragon ball Super(manga only right now, but the anime's confirmed to return,) confirms that magic and ki are the same things in Dragon Ball.

The villain is a wizard who is explicitly using magic but all of his spells are explicitly fueled by ki and life-force, the same as every other special ability in the series.

Between that and Chi being a kind of magic in DC, Superman should logically lose due to his lack of specific defenses against mystical energies.

[Delicious Taffy]

I know That Argument is starting up again, and there's no possible way to avoid it, but can we at least try to get it over with in less than 5 pages, this time?

Here, I'll even lay out some flash cards:
DB is corrupt and biased, ki=chi=magic, Super manga, New 52, amalgam, math, Toriyama in an interview, infinite pages, Martian Manhunter, tons of TNT, travel speed/combat speed, comedy physics.