Death Battle / Tropes A to C

Back to Main Page | A-C | D-M | N-Z | Episodes

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• A Birthday, Not a Break: At the end of Deadpool vs Pinkie Pie Deadpool calls out Ben and Chad for putting him in a Death Battle on his birthday, and upon hearing this Pinkie Pie throws him a party which then turns the day into a break.
• Acceptable Breaks from Canon: Done for the sake of fairness: since all battles must end with a death, any reservations a combatant may have about killing are ignored (though there have been certain matches such as Hercule Satan vs. Dan Hibiki and Flash vs. Quicksilver where death was unintentional). Also, fighters may be strengthened or weakened slightly based on comparative feats and attempts to match the two series together (though this hasn't prevented a few fights from ending up a Curb-Stomp Battle).^note There's been TWO draws. One between Memetic Chuck Norris and Sega Sanshiro, and one between composite Scooby-Doo and Courage the Cowardly dog. Both were kinda cancelling each other out in feats.
• Accidental Murder:
  • Taokaka and the butterfly.
  • At the beginning of Tigerzord vs Epyon, Tommy accidentally blows up Noin with a blast from the Tigerzord, leading to the battle.
  • At the end of their fight, Hercule, in a panic, spills all of his capsules containing various items on the arena floor. One of them ends up going up into the air and straight down the mouth of his opponent and activates, opening into a jukebox which kills Dan instantly.
  • At the end of their fight, Flash blasts Quicksilver with lightning and sends him flying all the way to Japan, where he gets impaled on a samurai statue's sword. Flash's reaction makes it clear he didn't intend to do that.
  • Implied in Optimus Prime vs. Gundam. Optimus mistook the Gundam to be another Decepticon and not a human piloting a machine, and is most likely unaware that he ended Amuro's life when he blew the Mobile Suit up by using the Matrix.
• Action Girl: All of the female combatants fit this trope. This is, after all, a battle to the death. Also, this is the one case in history where Rebecca Black qualifies.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Segata Sanshiro's bio states that he was "a motorcycle-riding cyborg superhero" in a past life, referencing the most famous role of Segata Sanshiro's actor, Hiroshi Fujioka.
  • In Deadpool vs Pinkie Pie, Deadpool refers to Ben as "the idiot with the stupid face." His voice actor, Takahata101, collaborated with ScrewAttack to make a video parodying the more unreasonably angry comments Death Battle receives. His "reasons Ben is wrong" boil down to "his dumb face" (and "his dumb car" but he didn't have a picture of the car, so he used another picture of Ben's face) The episode had a second one when Pinkie tried to welcome Deadpool with a song. Deadpool stops her, saying "No! None of that! Shame on you!" This was the same line Taka used as Bardock in Episode of Bardock Abridged.
• Actually a Doombot:
  • Played by Dr. Wily in his battle against Dr. Eggman, using one of his classic dummies when it seems Wily has been stepped on by one of Eggman's mechas. It's noted that, if not for Metal Sonic going rogue, that level of preparation would be one of the reasons Wily would likely have taken the battle.
  • The Trope Namer himself pulls this in his fight against Darth Vader. Vader doesn't seem all that fazed, though (since under Death Battle's rules he doesn't know what Doombots are or that the real Doom would be any stronger).
  • In his second fight, Lex Luthor pulls this off against his opponent to buy himself time to don the Warsuit. What makes this funny is that said opponent he uses it against is Doctor Doom himself of all people. Y'know, the Trope Namer? Doom is unfazed, naturally:
    Doctor Doom: A mechanical replica?
    Lex Luthor: It's called a Lexbot, you knuckle-dragging buffoon.
    Doctor Doom: Its design is rather ingenious. Not as ingenious as mine, of course.
• Adaptational Badass: Some characters are given a noticeable boost to their combat abilities to make the fights more interesting. Bieber and Black are the stand-out examples.
• Adaptational Personality Change: This trope is sometimes used to instigate the battle in certain cases.
  • A good number of characters tend to do actions far darker and evil than what they would normally do in canon. Partially enforced since all characters who are of a more pacifistic nature will have any personality restraints from killing removed.
  • On the inverse side of things, when characters get a Role Reprise from an Abridged Series (starting from Season 3 onward), they'll act more like their canonical selves compared to their much more comedic versions.
• Advantage Ball: Because the fights are made after the research is made and are for viewing purposes only, the ball is passed around like a hockey puck.
  • One exception is in "Rainbow Dash vs. Starscream", where Rainbow holds the Advantage Ball for the entirety of the fight. They note it's a trait of Starscream's not to hold the ball. She wins, too, in what is literally one of the Curb Stomp Battles in the show's history.
  • Another exception is in "Scrooge McDuck vs. Shovel Knight", where Shovel Knight holds the Advantage Ball for almost the entire fight countering or even No Selling his opponent's attacks against him, up until the end where Scrooge whips out his Anti-Inertia and Neutra-Friction Rays to turn the match completely in his favour.
  • A point in "Goku vs. Superman" is that Superman consciously keeps his strength at just enough to win the fight. As Goku powers up, Superman holds back less and less and in using the Solar Flare and blasting him to the sun, Goku handed Superman the ball a few times.
  • The other main exception is in "Omni-Man vs. Homelander". Where Omni-Man completely dominates Homelander throughout the entire fight, only ever losing the advantage once when Homelander uses his sonic scream to rupture Omni-Man's eardrums, but that advantage only lasts a few seconds before Omni-Man retakes the Advantage Ball, and then promptly finishes the fight on the spot in one of the show's most brutal finishers. It's even noted in the analysis that Homelander very much in over his head.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
  • After getting infected by Roboenza, Metal Sonic goes rogue and kills everyone in the battle between Dr. Eggman and Dr. Wily.
  • The whole point of Ultron vs. Sigma is that both combatants are malevolent AIs bent on destroying humanity.
• The Alcoholic:
  • Boomstick is implied to be one; it apparently led to his divorce...
    Boomstick: (when discussing Link's hookshot) Man, that really would have helped to get that last beer all those times... probably still be married.
    Wizard: Doubt it.
  • That's not the only episode that has him mentioning beer either:
    Boomstick: (about Batman's utility belt) That belt has pretty much everything. Grappling hooks, smoke bombs, beer... okay, maybe not that last one, but mine would.
    
    Boomstick: (on the topic of Lion-O's Sword of Omens) And it even comes with a tractor beam, which is great for when you're on the couch. "Sword of Omens, bring me snacks beyond snacks! ... And a beer."
    
    Boomstick: (when Jak said his first words ever: "I'm gonna kill Praxis!") Aww... my first words were, "BEER! NOW!"
  • Tony Stark's alcoholism is brought up by Wizard during his rundown... complete with Boomstick nonchalantly popping open another beer before asking if he said something.
• All Men Are Perverts: Deadpool, he edited the script (and info card) of his episode to say that he's a "Raging Sex Machine" and ends his segment by forcing the audience to see him naked.
• All of Them:
  • The Joker vs Sweet Tooth: When Joker's Jokermobile (a newly-converted Batmobile) is under attack by Sweet Tooth, he decides on What Does This Button Do? and which one to press... before saying this trope by word and pressing all of them.
  • Megazord vs Voltron: When Pidge gets pissed after the Red Lion's arm is cut off, he sends his lion's head off to retrieve the dropped Blazing Sword. Keith tells the team to give Pidge covering fire, prompting Allura to ask him "with what?". Keith's response? "EVERYTHING!"
• Ambiguous Ending: The fight between Raven and Twilight Sparkle ends up having one. Twilight is left in a pony-shaped hole in the ground courtesy of Raven's soul-self, but it's impossible to tell if it actually killed her, or if she's just knocked out via Amusing Injuries. Word of God says that it was done intentionally — children would find it and be interested in both characters and the DB team didn't want to traumatize them.
• Ambiguously Gay: Wiz comments on He-Man and Lion-O having "questionable sexual orientation" in the video introduction. The pre-fight has Lion-O call He-Man a "muscular fiend" and He-Man has a bemused reaction to the size of Lion-O's sword. ^*The Sword of Omens, pervert.
• An Arm and a Leg: Sometimes fights will feature characters losing their limbs, whether it by being blown off or chopped off. This is usually a death sentence for the character in question, but there are a few exceptions.
  • The first instance of this happening would be the TMNT Battle Royale, where Leonardo slices Michelangelo's arm off before decapitating him.
  • The second time would be in Fox McCloud vs Bucky O'Hare, where Fox gets his artificial legs blown off by one of Bucky's Grenades. He survives, however, and turns the fight around, ending with him blowing Bucky's head off. This would be the first instance of somebody turning the fight around after losing a limb.
  • Godzilla vs Gamera follows suit, with Godzilla tears Gamera's arm off. Gamera counters with the Mana Cannon, but Godzilla survives and promptly obliterates Gamera (who tries to self-destruct) with the Spiral Atomic breath.
  • In Deadpool vs Deathstroke The aftermath of an impact with a flaming semi-truck falling on his face inflicts this to Deadpool. This being Deadpool, it doesn't faze him much and he puts himself back together (after a first failed attempt).
  • In Guts vs Nightmare, Guts slices Nightmare's arm off with one clean blow, then crushes his skull. That gives Inferno the cue to show up.
  • In Wolverine vs Raiden, After going berserk, Wolverine slices one of Raiden's arms off. Given his history with lost limbs, all Raiden responds with is "Shit! Not again!", before he gets stabbed through the torso. He activates Ripper Mode to fight back and win.
  • After a long delay, the trope returns in Power Rangers vs Voltron, where The Megazord slices off the Red Lion, which was forming one of Voltron's arms. Pidge doesn't take kindly to this and strikes back. The rest of the Voltron paladins give Pidge covering fire to retrieve the Blazing Sword and go on to win.
  • In Sub-Zero vs Glacius, Glacius melts off one of Sub-Zero's arms before engulfing him... but it turns out that after losing his arm, Sub-Zero switched places with an ice clone, allowing him to come from behind and tear Glacius' head and spine off.
  • In Shredder vs. Silver Samurai, As Super Shredder, the Shredder tears off one of Silver Samurai's arms with his bare hands, right before launching Harada's sword to impale him through the head, killing him.
  • In Samurai Jack vs Afro Samurai, in a rare case, both combatants are subject to this. In the final clash, Afro manages to slice off one of Jack's arms... but loses both in return. Jack makes quick work of him afterwards.
  • In Ben 10 vs. Green Lantern, After travelling back in time to avoid Alien X, Hal cuts off Ben's Arm to stop him from using the Omnitrix, then crushes him with a boot-shaped construct for the kill.
  • In a first for the series, this is shown as part of the aftermath of a battle. Specifically, All Might's corpse is missing an arm and a leg after his death at the hands of Might Guy.
  • In Gray vs. Esdeath, Gray manages to take one of Esdeath's arms off with his Zeroth Long Sword, but Esdeath creates a replacement out of ice. Esdeath then inflicts this on herself, hurling said replacement arm at Gray, interrupting his Lost Iced Shell and killing him on the spot.
  • Like in Samurai Jack vs. Afro Samurai, both combatants are subject to this in Goro vs. Machamp. At the climax of the fight, Machamp tears one of Goro's arms off. After noticing this, Goro returns the favour. Machamp then gets angry and proceeds to tear off all three of Goro's remaining arms, right before making the finishing blow.
  • In Jon Talbain vs. Sabrewulf, Talbain rips one of Sabrewulf's arms off, then follows up by tearing his head off to finish the fight.
  • In Sanji vs. Rock Lee, Lee blows one of Sanji's legs off using the Eighth Gate. Unfortunately for Lee, this wasn't enough to finish the fight, and Sanji turns things around to win with just his remaining leg.
  • In Blake vs. Mikasa, Mikasa slices one of Blake's arms off after breaking her aura with a Thunder Spear. Unfortunately for her, Blake turns the fight around, killing Mikasa by sending one of her Thunder Spears right back at her and detonating it.
• And This Is for...: Zechs shouts out "FOR NOOOOOOOOIIIIIN!" right before destroying the Tigerzord and Tommy.
• Angrish:
  • Starscream lets out an enraged "GYYYYAGH!!" during his fight with Rainbow Dash after she "tags" him.
  • Captain Falcon lets out a string of this after Johnny Cage punches him in the nuts.
• Annoying Arrows: Arrows tend to have little effect on their users' opponents:
  • In Kratos vs. Spawn, the Bow of Apollo does little to stop Spawn from rushing Kratos.
  • In Zelda vs. Peach, while the Light Arrow does penetrate Peach's chest, it hits Peach just moments before her rage magic wears off.
  • In Link vs. Cloud, all of the shots from the Hero's Bow are deflected by the Buster Sword, with the one exception (an ice arrow) only freezing Cloud for a few seconds. In the rematch, The Ice Arrow's freezing doesn't even fully encase Cloud before the Ribbon negates it.
  • In Ryu Hayabusa vs. Strider Hiryu, the arrows fired from Hayabusa's bow are all dodged by Hiryu.
  • In Guts vs. Nightmare, Guts' arrows are easily burned off by Nigtmare's fire wall. They do distract him enough for Guts to land a crippling blow, however.
• Anti-Climax:
  • The "Pikachu vs. Blanka" fight ends with the two combatants colliding with their Volt Tackle and Lightning Cannonball, respectively. Blanka very abruptly ends the fight by grabbing Pikachu and biting his head off.
  • "Goomba vs. Koopa" ends with the Koopa being knocked around back at Goomba and into a lava pit, killing everyone with little fanfare.
  • Also the end to "Vegeta vs. Shadow" after barely stopping Vegeta from hitting the planet with the moon, Shadow prepares his most powerful attack to finish the fight. Too bad his Super form runs out just then, making him an easy kill for Vegeta.
  • The "Starscream vs. Rainbow Dash" fight ends with the latter demolishing the former by getting him blown up by his own missiles, so it looks as though Rainbow Dash wins. But then, out of the wrecked remains of Starscream floats his Spark, which gloats that Starscream is invincible and can never be defeated, as though the battle is going to continue. While the Spark gloats, Rainbow simply eats it, thus officially winning the battle.
  • The ending of "Ragna Bloodedge vs. Sol Badguy" has both combatants transforming into their ultimate forms... and then Sol fires a single burst of energy, the screen whites out, and when it fades back Sol is standing in a crater untransformed while Ragna is totally vaporized.
  • The next combatant after Wolverine vs Raiden? Mr. Satan. Chad says how excited he is.
  • In "Deadpool vs Pinkie Pie" just as both begin pulling out their fourth wall breaking antics against each other...they realize they both are capable of fourth wall breaking antics, become best friends, and leave the video. Played for Laughs, as the fight doesn't so much end as both combatants decide going on fourth wall breaking, video jumping misadventures is more fun than killing each other, so they do that instead.
  • In "Lara Croft vs Nathan Drake" Lara takes down the helicopter Nathan is escaping in by throwing her climbing ax. Nathan seems to escape with minimal injury, then the rotor from the helicopter impales him, closing out the fight very abruptly.
  • After Wario and King Dedede grow huge, they perform a Punch Parry between Wario's fist and Dedede's hammer. It appears that an epic Kung-Fu Sonic Boom would occur as the scene zooms out with dramatic effects... cue a cut to both of them tired from their attempt.
• Anti-Regeneration: Several combatants have a powerful Healing Factor, but this doesn't guarantee victory. Oftentimes, the opponent has ways to work around that, including vaporization, wearing the opponent down, countering the mechanisms of the healing factor, or attacks that simply bypass healing factors.
  • Vaporization was seen with Kirby inhaling and blasting Buu's own attack back at him and sending him to the sun, Lucy's vectors sending an bomb-like blast to fire-vulnerable Carnage, Broly reducing Hulk's body to dust despite his resurrective immortality, and Cole MacGrath being able to affect Alex Mercer at the atomic level rather than just the molecular level.
  • Mechanism counters were seen with Raiden slicing Wolverine's head off and preventing regeneration from the brain stem and Shadow's attacks being too fast and powerful for Ryuko to regenerate in time.
  • Healing factor negation was seen with Deadpool's Carbonadium sword, which dealt with Deathstroke's healing but not the Mask thanks to its properties and Madara's Truth-Seeking Orbs decapitating Aizen.
• Apocalypse How:
  • The outcome of "Dr. Eggman vs. Dr. Wily" implies a Class 6 or Class X. The same episode also suggests the death battles happen in alternate universes, given Boomstick's line of "Well, that world's fucked! Our bad."
  • "Goku vs. Superman" ends in a Class X, with both fighters clashing with enough power to destroy the Earth.
  • "Kirby vs. Majin Buu" nearly ended in a Class X, but Kirby managed to redirect Buu's Planet Burst back at him and hurl him into the sun.
  • "Ragna the Bloodege vs. Sol Badguy" is a Class 0, with the final clash between the Black Beast and Sol's Dragon Install form destroying both the former and the entire city the fight took place in.
  • "Chuck Norris vs. Segata Sanshiro" seems to be a Class X-4, as both combatants made their universe collapse possibly destroying reality itself.
  • A subtle example is "Hulk VS Doomsday" which appears to be a Class 0, with a single frame showing the shockwaves generated by the combatants' clash destroying an entire continent.
  • "Thanos vs. Darkseid" begins with a Class 0 as their fight destroys the entire city, escalates to an X-2 when Thanos turns the Sun into a black hole, and finally reaches an X-4 when their blows cause the universe to reset.
  • "Mega Man Battle Royale" has a class 0 when the black hole created by four of the Mega Men explodes, destroying Abel City.
  • "Wario vs. King Dedede" has two: a Class 6 when Wario uses his Waft the first time, turning the entire planet into a barren wasteland, and a Class X when Dedede plugs a Gordo up a sized-up Wario's backside when he attempts to use the Waft a second time, completely obliterating the planet.
  • "Ghost Rider vs. Lobo" likely has a Class 0 occur when Zarathos enters the fray. One of his blasts is visible from space and covers a wide portion of Asia.
  • "Beerus vs. Sailor Galaxia" begins with a Class X, with Galaxia annihilating Earth barely ten seconds after the animation starts.
  • "Hulk vs. Broly" features multiple planets being destroyed.
  • "Saitama vs. Popeye" has Saitama destroying a planetoid he was standing on as he leaps towards Popeye in the fight's final moments. Earlier, the two of them destroy Mars in their battle.
  • "Frieza vs. Megatron" ends with a Class X with Frieza destroying Cybertron as he defeats Megatron.
  • "Goku vs. Superman 3" ends with a Class X4 where Goku, in his Ultra Instinct form, and Superman, after powering himself up by flying through multiple suns, cause universal destruction with their final clash.
  • "Galactus vs. Unicron" begins with a Class X, fitting as the two combatants are the two most famous Planet Eaters in media, where Unicron smashes the Earth into Galactus's face. Galactus retaliates by tossing multiple planets at Unicron.
• Apologetic Attacker:
  • Played with by the winner of Spider-Man vs. Batman; of course, as his opponent was just turned into paste by a webbing-based human slingshot moments before, his simple "sorry 'bout that" doubles as a Bond One-Liner.
  • At the end of Goku Vs. Superman 2, Superman says a quick heartfelt apology to his opponent before obliterating his brain with heat vision and winning the match.
  • Lara attempts to do this in Lara Croft VS Nathan Drake but is quickly interrupted.
  • Genos vs. War Machine has this, when Rhodes is standing over Genos' head (which is all that's left of Genos), apologizing that the fight escalated.
  • Aang vs. Edward Elric has the fight end with Aang sadly saying that Elric had given him no choice but to kill.
• April Fools' Day: Ben posted a fake list of upcoming list of Death Battles on his Twitter on April Fools Day 2016. Funnily enough, Goku vs. Ryu would later be entered into Season 11's Tournament of Champions in some form.
• Arc Words: Starting with "Goku vs. Superman 2", Goku is heavily associated with the lyric "watch me come alive".
• Arrow Catch:
  • Ryu manages to grab one of Scorpion's spears right out of the air just before the battle begins.
  • One of Hawkeye's noted abilities. He can even do this while blinded.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • While listing Orchid's various flaws and downfalls, Wiz and Boomstick cap it off with their disgust at how she "traded her lightsabers for tonfa."
  • A list of Doomsday's traits included "Created through rapidly-accelerated evolution", "Once gained temporary sentience", and "Huggability Level: Cactus".
  • Android 18 has an impressive list of feats, including dominating Earth in an alternate timeline, breaking Super Saiyan Vegeta's arm with a mere kick, deflecting Super Saiyan Blue Goku's Kamehameha, blocked Trunk's sword (which had killed Freeza in one hit, a being who had previously survived a planet exploding on them,) and "withstood love making with Krillin".
  • When listing Bill Cipher's crimes, they feature things like abuse of power, mass torture, and making a man's coffee to decaff.
• Artificial Limbs: All the pilots of the Star Fox team amputate◊ their◊ legs and◊ replace them with cybernetic ones so as to keep their blood from rushing to their feet while flying their Arwings. These legs of Fox's get blown off during his fight with Bucky. Not that it stops him from getting close to Bucky, driving him to the ground, choking him, and delivering a point-blank charged blaster shot to his face.
• Artistic License – Space: In "Chuck Norris VS Segata Sanshiro", after the Earth gets torn in half by Chuck and sends the other half containing Segata flying through space, Segata ends up at Saturn, and proceeds to lift its rings out of orbit as if it were one solid object. He then throws it at Chuck cleaving through Mars, Venus, and Mercury along the way, despite the fact that Saturn's rings are actually made of thousands of ice debris which makes picking it up and throwing it impossible. Though given that this is a fight between physics-breaking Memetic Badasses, this is probably an Acceptable Break from Reality.
• Art Evolution:
  • The first 19 episodes were done in basic 2D animation by Ben Singer. Starting with Peach VS Zelda the sprite fights after the hosts found an experience animator, the battles used a Sprite/Polygon Mix, with 2D characters on a 3D plane. They went back to 2D backgrounds in Ryu VS Scorpion but with better animation than the first 19 episodes. Later, fights made more use of pixelated textures for 3D objects, giving the illusion of 2D battles using multiple layers of animation, though the environments appear more 3D as time went by. With the introduction of hand-drawn animation, more battles would show a drawing of a character in a 2D battle, as well as an increase in usage of puppet animation to make the animation more fluid. Starting with the use of Blender in Season 8, the backgrounds are full-on 3D and this even extends to the objects.
  • The first 3D battle, the first "Link VS Cloud" episode, the animation was stiff and limited. There was a clear change in "Goku VS Superman", but it still showed some jank. The 3D animation has become more fluid as time went by, and further evolved with the use of Unreal Engine starting with "Optimus Prime VS Gundam".
  • This also applies to the music track artwork. Here is the artwork for "Shredding Silver", played in Shredder VS Silver Samurai in Season 4. Now here is the artwork for "Hell Over Heaven", played during DIO VS Alucard in Season 8.
  • When Deadpool busts into Wiz and Boomstick's breakdowns in his fights with Deathstroke and Pinkie Pie he's rendered like a cardboard cutout. In his cameo in Thanos vs Darkseid he's fully-animated and far more dynamic, on par with the actual combatants. He would appear in hand-drawn animation in Deadpool VS Mask, as well as his cameo in Macho Man VS Kool-Aid Man.
  • Wiz and Boomstick went through plenty of changes in artwork over the years. For Wiz in particular, this was an early design of him in 2014. His design following his and Boomstick's animated reveal had a more simplistic design, which would further change in Season 7.
• Art Shift: There is no consistent art style for the fight animations. Although 2D sprite-based is the most common, the battle can be depicted in a variety of styles.
  • Starting with "Link vs. Cloud", fights alternate between 2D and 3D animation.
  • Scorpion is the first MK character not to use Mortal Kombat sprites and is instead drawn in a style similar to a Street Fighter character.
  • "Metal Sonic vs. Zero" uses the pseudo-3D 16-bit sprite style used in games like Sonic 3D Blast and Mega Man X5.
  • "Samurai Jack vs. Afro Samurai" is done completely in computer-drawn animation, as opposed to predominantly using sprites or models.
  • "Daredevil vs. Nightwing" is the first live-action battle, with Winter Soldier vs Red Hood as the second two years later.
  • "Ganondorf vs. Dracula" was made in Source Filmmaker as opposed to Unreal Engine like most 3D fights since "Optimus Prime vs. Gundam".
• Ascended Extra:
  • During the Haggar vs. Zangief fight, Princess Peach was launched out a window in a skyscraper the two combatants were duking it out in. Peach then fights Princess Zelda about 15 episodes later.
  • Black Canary posed next to the winner of Green Arrow vs. Hawkeye, then fought Sindel five seasons later.
• Ascended Meme:
  • They're aware of the people suggesting Superman vs. Goku all the time. — it's the 25th Death Battle!
  • The remake of the Starscream and Rainbow Dash fight has them list Dash as being "20% cooler" than Starscream.
  • Aside from the Derpy Hooves cameo, at one point in the battle, when Starscream is being his usual treacherous self and trying to get Rainbow Dash to lower her guard, two really great ones pops up. First, Starscream claims "I'll join the herd!" This is quickly followed by Rainbow Dash saying how she should "Love and tolerate."
  • Doomguy's chainsaw is referred to as "the great communicator" which can "rip and tear through anybody".
  • During Wily's overview, Pharaoh Man is mentioned by Boomstick to be "known for being a little punch-happy", complete with clip.
  • Memetic lines in general are used once or twice in fights that contain dialogue.
  • Could Boomstick really have ended Batman's overview with anything but calling him "the goddamn Batman"?
  • In "Son Goku vs. Superman":
    Goku: Kaio-Ken!
    Superman: Kaio-What?
  • After the He-Man vs. Lion-O fight, we're treated to a 16-bit version of He-Man with rainbows and sparkles in the background.
  • In Fox vs. Bucky, Boomstick is quick to point out that the Arwing can "do a barrel roll!" This is followed up with a second example. Wiz explains that the Arwing actually performs an aileron roll, and Boomstick pulls a Wolf and goes "Can't let you do that, Wizard!^*(ruin the joke, that is)"
  • During Luigi's rundown section, one of his listed feats is "Won at Mario Party by doing absolutely nothing".
  • The hosts point out during his rundown that the time that Lex Luthor once stole forty cakes (and that's terrible) is now considered canon in the DC universe.
  • The fan blog analysis for Donkey Kong vs. Knuckles summarizes the fight like so:
  The nipples and the dong do battle.
  • They liken the Mega Buster's bullets to lemons.
  • Mega Man's quote 'you're full of s***' is a reference to Kajetokun's video named "Gutsman's Ass". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5TBeX405bc
  • Thanos's breakdown lists an alias of his as "Purple Shrek".
  • Ben 10 Vs Green Lantern had Hal's quote "Time, huh? Thanks for the tip." rise up in popularity in the fandom due to preceding Ben's infamous death. In 2021, a shirt with said quote would be released on the Rooster Teeth store, and the quote was even brought up by Boomstick during DIO Vs Alucard while discussing The World's time stopping powers.
• Aside Glance:
  • Rainbow Dash, after eating Starscream's Spark.
  • Donkey Kong sneaks in a quick one after he finds himself in a mine cart that's about to start rolling.
• Asshole Victim: Anytime a losing combatant is a villain, or has done horrible things in their background/during the battle.
• Ass Pull: Invoked. Boomstick flips out when he sees He-Man repairing a broken chain by simply touching the two halves back together. Wiz and Boomstick calls this plus the other impossible feats He-Man and Lion-O performs "80s [Lazy Writin'] Magic".
• Attack Backfire: Some combatants' attacks fail to help the combatant deal damage or win the fight. Often times, the opponent used said attacks to their advantage.
  • Some characters have abilities that send attacks back at the opponent, like Fox's Reflector and Kirby's Inhale/Copy Ability. Other characters can simply make use of an attack for their own cause, like Raiden getting supercharged from Thor's God Blast, Astro Boy with some of Mega Man's projectiles, Natsu eating fire to recover MP, and Machamp using Guts.
  • Other cases are more for comedic effect. This happened many times for Luigi during his fight. Such as sucking up Tails' bombs and shooting them back up. Only for them to miss Tails barely and drop back down onto Luigi. Luigi survives, but not for long.
  • In some cases, the failed attack directly caused the death, as seen with White Bomberman with his own bomb and Blake with her own Thunder Spear.
  • Other cases are more indirect in that these inspire the opponent to use abilities of their own, as shown in Ben 10 VS Green Lantern and Cole MacGrath VS Alex Mercer.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Some combatants have a weak point that affect their survival. The opponents may go for the weak point as a way to win the battle, but the weak point being obscure may be an advantage for said combatant.
  • Examples include Luke exploiting Harry's scar as a shatterpoint, RoboCop sticking a detonation charge at where the Terminator's waist hinge is, and Raiden slicing Wolverine's head to negate the healing factor.
  • Some analyses deem winners based on their ability to exploit the loser's weak points. Examples include Spawn's specific weakness to decapitation being unlikely for Kratos to accomplish in Kratos VS Spawn and Silver Samurai's armor not covering the entire body despite being more durable in Shredder VS Silver Samurai.
  • Taken to an almost ludicrous degree during the breakdown for Lara Croft who destroyed a helicopter by throwing a climbing axe at it. While it's not explained directly how it happened, the hosts suggest she threw her axe into the intake manifold which allowed sparks to travel through the fuel system and ignite the gasoline, causing the helicopter to explode.
  • Some battles have combatants that both can be defeated via their weak points, making the battle partially determined on who had the better means. This was seen in Ganondorf VS Dracula where Dracula's Demonic Meggido was a better holy weapon than Ganondorf's sword and Sauron VS Lich King where Sauron's ring was much smaller and less likely to be targeted than Lich King's sword.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever:
  • Godzilla and Gamera certainly fit this trope. They both tower over skyscrapers and can hold a human in a paw.
  • Additionally, Smokey Bear has the esoteric ability to grow so huge that he dwarfs a mountain, which he uses to his advantage in his fight against McGruff.
  • There's also Way Big, one of Ben's alien forms. He's around 90 meters tall, according to canon.
  • Dedede and Wario also both grow to giant sized, but through different means.
  • It's mentioned in Darkseid's analysis that New Gods are actually giant sized but they shrink themselves down to interact with lesser beings. When Darkseid reveals this, Thanos compensates with the Infinity Gauntlet to gain similar stature.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!:
  • Rebecca Black is purported to have ADHD, and it is played up here, ruining any chance she has of victory over Justin Bieber.
  • Both Felicia and Taokaka momentarily interrupt their battle to play with a butterfly.
• Audience Participation: Plenty of the battles are taken from really popular fan requests, and prior to Season 10, two of the fights, one 2D and one 3D, were decided in a Champion's Poll by paid Champion members: Bill Cipher vs. Discord, and Alex Mercer vs. Cole MacGrath
• Author Appeal: Wiz and Boomstick are huge fans of Haggar. Too bad he lost against Zangief.
  • The Death Battle crew must also really like the Super Mario Bros. characters, given that there have been no less than eight of such characters to engage in these battles: the Goomba, the Koopa Troopa (vs. each other), Mario himself (vs. Sonic), Yoshi (vs. Riptor), Princess Peach (vs. Princess Zelda), Luigi (vs. Tails), Bowser (vs. Ganon), and Wario (vs. King Dedede).
  • It's clear that both Wiz and Boomstick adore Bucky O'Hare, the inanity of the world he lives in, and his infectious theme song, and are audibly sad when Fox wins their duel.
  • This also seems to be true of Killer Instinct, which (despite falling on the obscure side of fighting game series) has had six participants (Riptor, Orchid, Fulgore, Glacius, TJ Combo, and Sabrewulf) three of which ended up winning their fights, making it their third most used fighting game series after Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat (discounting Super Smash Bros). They also tend to use the KI announcer in all these fights to emphasize combos.
  • It's quite clear that the Death Battle crew loves using Marvel Comics. At last count they have the most fighters in the series at 25 and hold the second most victories at a grand total of Thirteen. Rogue, Thor (who beat Raiden but lost to Wonder Woman), Spiderman, Deadpool (who beat Deathstroke, drawed with Pinkie Pie, and lost to The Mask), Iron Man, Doctor Doom (Who won against Darth Vader and Lex Luthor), Hawkeye, Venom (who beat Bane but lost to Crona), Black Panther, Ultron, Black Widow, and Spider Gwen have all won their respective battles while Captain America, Beast, Wolverine, Quicksilver, the Hulk (who lost to Doomsday and Broly), Captain Marvel (Who lost to Android 18 and Shazam), Silver Samurai, Spiderman 2099, Carnage, Thanos, Namor, Miles Morales, and Cable have lost. They also hold the second longest winning streak at three whereas most series only get two before having it broken.
  • Marvel's old rival DC gets plenty of appearances as well, often as the favoured opponent for Marvel characters. They have won multiple victories against non-marvel foes and, of Thanos vs Darkseid, have beaten Marvel's three fight winning streak holding it currently at 7 straight wins. They were also able to surpass Marvel again by taking the lead in most overall victories.
  • Boomstick is thrilled to tell you all about Guts, one of the most badass characters in all of fiction.
• Awesomeness Is Volatile: Chuck Norris and Segata Sanshiro's epic battle destroys their universe.
• Back from the Dead:
  • After losing horribly to Spider-Man, Batman gets another shot in the ring against Captain America...and manages to pull off the victory this time around.
  • Very obscure example, but in the alternate ending to Shao Kahn vs M. Bison, the titular characters team up and kill Ryu. 11 episodes later, he makes himself known in the Death Battle ring…and is killed off once again. After that, he comes back in season 5 to fight Jin. This time, Ryu manages to defeat his opponent, ending Street Fighter's losing streak.
  • Goku rises once again after his death to Superman for a rematch using his new Super Saiyan God form...and dies again.
  • After losing to Blastoise in the Pokemon Battle Royale, Charizard gets another shot at glory alongside his trainer Red against Digimon Greymon and his partner Tai Kamiya...and dies again with his trainer.
  • Shadow The Hedgehog gets a second round in the Death Battle arena against Mewtwo after Vegeta mercilessly obliterated him in their fight with a point blank ki blast. He once again falls at the hands of his enemy. He was revived for a second time to fight against Ryūko, and finally pulled off a win.
  • After dying to Sonic in season one Mario is pulled back from the brink for another shot in the Death Battle arena for a rematch with Sonic. This time Wiz and Boomstick declare Mario the victor.
  • After his loss to Astro Boy in Season 2, Mega Man (Classic) once again returns in the Mega Man Battle Royale. He's horribly outmatched and defeated by three of the other four Mega Men.
  • After her season four loss to Android 18, Captain Marvel gets a second round in the arena against her long time DC copyright rival Shazam only to once again get soundly defeated.
  • Tommy Oliver gets a second shot in the ring after losing to Gundam Epyon and Zechs Merquise against Mecha Godzilla and Akane Yashiro, this time piloting the Dragonzord instead of the Tigerzord. Once again he and his Zord is destroyed by the enemy.
  • After Voltron destroyed the entire Power Rangers team and the Megazord, Red Ranger Jason comes back from the dead to face two-time Death Battle winner Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Jason pulls off the victory this time.
  • After dying to Rogue in Season 1 Wonder Woman returns to the arena to face Thor and scores a commanding victory over the God of Thunder.
  • The Hulk returns from his Season 3 loss to Doomsday for another round in the ring with Broly. Unfortunately he is nowhere near able to match the Saiyan's overwhelming brute strength and falls once again to his enemy.
  • After dying to Iron Man, Lex Luthor returns to face off against Doctor Doom, another Marvel genius. Unfortunately, Doom's arsenal of abilities overcomes Lex's raw power, leading to Lex dying again.
  • After his loss against Link in Season 1, Cloud Strife returns to fight his opponent in a rematch. This time, his Materia and equipment is noted to counter Link's arsenal, forcing a physical competition, leading to Cloud's victory.
  • In that same fight, Link uses Mipha's Grace to come back from having his own Skyward Strike turned against him. However, Cloud just kills him again shortly afterwards.
• Back-to-Back Badasses:
  • Done briefly in Eggman vs. Wily, when Metal Man and Slash Man take on some of Eggman's henchmen with little difficulty.
  • There's also a sequence in Leon vs. Frank where both of them unintentionally annihilate a horde of zombies while trying to kill each other.
• Badass Adorable: Several of the fighters are on the cute side, and being here implies they're badass, too.
  • Princesses Zelda and Peach — they can both be counted as badass.
  • Pikachu — Puts up a good fight but ultimately loses to Blanka.
  • Three of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic's Mane 6 featured. Wiz and Boomstick tend to make fun of these cute characters ^note Boomstick begrudgingly asks "Are we really doing this?". until they learn about their abilities, badassery and experience in fighting against deadly monsters.
    • Rainbow Dash — Played straight. For a pony fighting a giant armed robot warrior, she wins remarkably easily due to her speed. And then she eats Starscream's Spark, to add insult to injury.
    • Pinkie Pie — a Genki Girl and cute pink party pony. She's also saved the world multiple times and is capable of keeping up with Deadpool. And she and Deadpool achieve the one thing no other combatant has ever done: beat the hosts to the point they concede and let them have a happy ending.
    • Twilight Sparkle — A dorky purple pony with incredible magical power (she is a unicorn, after all). She eventually upgrades into an Alicorn (a winged unicorn) and princess, making her even more powerful. It's enough to stand up to Raven's demonic power, but not enough to beat her.
  • Yoshi — He survives a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from a velociraptor long enough to spit her own acid back into her face.
  • Bucky O'Hare — comes close to victory, but loses in a respectably close fight.
  • Tails and Luigi both could qualify for Badass Adorkable.
  • Kirby — Manages to put up a good fight against Majin Buu. Good enough of a fight to win against him, no less.
  • Toph — She outbends and kills one of the most powerful shinobi in the world.
  • Agumon — Though he loses it once he Digivolves he still takes down Charizard.
  • Mob — Just a middle school boy with incredible psychic powers that goes up against one of the most powerful psychic superheroes in anime. Unfortunately her power and experience completely eclipses anything he can muster and she kills him, but Mob was able to put up a powerful fight and Tatsumaki walked away seriously injured as a result.
• Badass Boast: Since fighter analysis ends with an scene of the character, you sometimes get these. The most notable is the "Son Goku vs. Superman" fight, which ends with Goku's Super Saiyan transformation speech against Freeza and Superman's Badass Boast.
  • A nice one by Metal Sonic after Roboenza infects him.
    Metal Sonic: Kneel before your master.
  • Lex Luthor and Tony Stark trade epic boasts at the climax of their fight.
    Lex Luthor: Fool! You are just like all the rest. Building a suit to save the world, trying to play God. Let me tell you something Stark! There is only one man fit to play such a role... Me!
    Tony Stark: I don't know Lex, being a god can't be too hard. I mean I'm the most intelligent, capable person on the planet! I'm not playing God. All this time... I've been playing human!
  • In his fight with Doomsday, the Hulk delivers one that helps demonstrate his status as one of the most powerful Marvel Characters ever.
    Hulk: You break buildings good. But Hulk break WORLDS!
• Badass Normal: A few Death Battles have taken place between characters who lack superpowers or at least are closer to normal humans as they can possibly be. Examples include Batman and his fights against Captain America and Black Panther, Solid Snake vs. Sam Fisher, Green Arrow vs. Hawkeye, Lara Croft vs. Nathan Drake and Leon Kennedy vs. Frank West.
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • Godzilla vs Gamera, Ryu vs Scorpion, Hulk vs Doomsday, Gray vs Esdeath and Dio vs Alucard have the hero in those death matches dying in their attempt to defeat the villain, the last three being notable for having a definitive villain (compared to the ambiguous Anti Heroes that are Godzilla and Scorpion) beat a hero.
  • Another more ambiguous one would be The Shredder vs Silver Samurai where the far more evil guy wins. While both of them are considered supervillains, Silver Samurai has been on the side of good before while Shredder is a full-blown villain. The same can be true of Frieza vs Megatron, where, much like Silver Samurai, Megatron has been on the side of good before, while Frieza is a full-blown villain- and just like that matchup, the full-blown villain wins.
  • Obviously in effect for when both of the combatants are villains of their respective universes.
  • Bill Cipher vs Discord plays with this one a fair bit. While Discord is morally grey, the fight's narrative paints him as being the hero fighting for a just cause against an outright villain. Though Bill Cipher won the actual battle, Discord was able to stop Weirdmageddon and save Equestria, so the bad guy only won the battle but lost in the story.
• Bait-and-Switch: When talking about Tifa Lockhart, Boomstick is quick to point out her big, beautiful, round weapons; the Premium Heart.
• Ballistic Discount: In the Terminator vs RoboCop episode, Terminator time travels to the present and materializes in a gun shop. He kills the clerk and takes his clothes and weapons.
• Battle Amongst the Flames:
  • Charizard torches the arena invoking this.
  • Natsu and Ace, being who they are, end up setting the town they're fighting in on fire.
  • At the climax of Shredder vs. Silver Samurai, Silver Samurai slices a lightning bolt fired by Super Shredder apart, which sends it into the surrounding trees and setting the forest on fire.
  • The entire battle in Smokey Bear vs. McGruff the Crime Dog takes place in a forest wildfire, thanks to McGruff's negligence in putting out an unattended campfire which caused the flames to spread rapidly.
  • Early into Sabrewulf vs. Jon Talbain, a lantern falls and sets the floor on fire.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind:
  • Doctor Strange vs. Doctor Fate has Strange invoke this on Fate after it's clear he can't win against True Fate. All this ends up doing is having his soul destroyed as well as his body.
  • Ultron vs. Sigma has Sigma try to take control of Ultron using the Sigma Virus. Unfortunately, Ultron's A.I. is too advanced for him and he's the one that gets controlled..
• Battle in the Rain:
  • Blastoise invokes this using Rain Dance. The weakening of Charizard's fire attacks and power up to Blastoise' water attacks seals the fight for the latter.
  • Also present, though hard to see due to the battle taking place at night, during the Ragna vs. Sol battle. It's still raining even once Sol is the only thing still left in the vicinity.
  • Carnage vs Lucy takes place in a train station while it's raining though the rain stops after Lucy nukes Carnage with her vectors.
• Battle Rapping: "Miles vs. Static"'s accompanying track is this, with two rappers representing the combatants dissing each other.
• Battle Trophy: Many Death Battles have ended with the winner taking something from the loser to signify their win.
  • Shao Kahn vs. M. Bison, Shao Kahn can use the Psycho Crusher due to eating M. Bison's soul.
  • Deadpool vs. Deathstroke had a pretty grim example. Deadpool straight up took Deathstroke's severed head and made it into a hood ornament.
  • Beast vs. Goliath had Goliath keep Beast head while tossing the rest of him into a nearby trash bin, signifying that all trespassers be warned.
  • Mewtwo vs. Shadow has Mewtwo taking the Chaos Emeralds for himself after learning of their potential from reading Shadow's mind and leaving him for dead.
  • Scrooge McDuck vs. Shovel Knight follows Beast vs. Goliath example by having Scrooge McDuck display Shovel Knight's head on a pike outside his home to warn all trespassers who dare to steal his treasure that it's a bad idea.
  • Samurai Jack vs. Afro Samurai had Jack taking the number 1 headband from Afro after defeating him, making him the best swordsman in the world.
  • Mario vs. Sonic's 2018 rematch ends with Mario taking the very same sunglasses Sonic used in the beginning for himself, watching the very same mushroom cloud he created by destroying Sonic.
  • Ultron vs. Sigma has Ultron taking control of everything Sigma had control over with, quite literally, but a thought.
  • Thanos vs. Darkseid has two for the winner. Darkseid ended the fight by putting Thanos in the Omega Sanction, leaving his throne and the Infinity Gauntlet at Darkseid's disposal. He more than happily takes the throne, but as one more FU to Thanos, he destroys the Gauntlet by crushing it in his hands.
  • Ben 10 vs. Green Lantern ends with Green Lantern taking the Omnitrix (with Ben's severed hand still attached) away after crushing the boy into pasted. Justified since Hal wanted the Omnitrix in the first place.
• Beam-O-War:
  • Superman and Goku engage in this repeatedly throughout their fight.
  • Ryu and Strider both fire energy attacks at each other simultaneously at one point in their battle.
  • Venusaur and Charizard engage in one of these. It ends up turning the forest the three starters are fighting in into a wasteland.
  • Ultron and Sigma engage in this using their giant forms before taking their battle into the center of the mind.
• Beat:
  • As a Running Gag in the He-Man vs. Lion-O battle, whenever the former does something impressive, a chorus bellows out his name. After Lion-O blows up a mountain He-Man threw at him with the Sword of Omens, He-Man charges Lion-O and slugs him. A moment of silence passes... then, "He-Man!"
  • Wiz and Boomstick seem genuinely shocked at the pervasive catchphrase of the Gargoyles cartoon.
    Goliath: Jalapeno!
    Boomstick (in an annoyed tone): ...Dammit.
• Beat Them at Their Own Element: The show's entire premise is built around taking two fictional characters with similar qualities and having them fight to the death, so a great many of the episodes qualify for this trope when both warriors are known for their elemental abilities. Examples include electricity versus electricity (Killua VS Mikasa, Miles Morales VS Static), fire versus fire (Natsu VS Ace, Red and Charizard VS Tai and Agumon), and ice versus ice (Sub-Zero VS Glacius, Gray VS Esdeath).
• Bestiality Is Depraved: When Boomstick "wonders" about Cat Girl Felicia implying sexual attraction, Wiz is quick to shut that down.
  Boomstick: What the hell? I thought we were talking about a deadly demon warrior and… is she naked?
  Wiz: Yes.
  Boomstick: But... she's a cat!
  Wiz: Yes.
  Boomstick: Hmmmmm... you'd think it'd be wrong to—
  Wiz: Yes!
• Beat Them at Their Own Game:
  • Shang Tsung tries to beat Akuma with his own moves after taking a portion of his soul. It doesn't work.
  • Goku creates a spirit bomb using the energy from the sun to counter Superman's recharging. It heals Goku well enough, but Superman's maximum potential is still higher than Goku's.
  • When Orchid attempts her flash attack on Ivy, Ivy simply laughs it off (since her breasts are a size larger than Orchid's) and pulls one of her own, stunning Orchid long enough to counter-attack.
  • The end of the Shao Kahn vs. M. Bison fight when Bison was being slowly but surely beaten by Kahn. Bison, in a last ditch effort to win, tries to possess Kahn with his psycho power. However what is usually M. Bison's trump card turns out to be his fatal mistake, being an outer world being who has devoured souls for millennia and has similar if not greater experience in possessing souls, Shao Kahn's will is ultimately stronger allowing him to devour M.Bison's soul and win the match.
  • Both Gaara and Toph are masters of manipulating sand but Toph is ultimately better at it with her precision, training, and wider range of abilities that give her stronger control over it than Gaara. Gaara adding gold to his own sand didn't help matters either as gold can be manipulated by metal bending.
  • Lex Luthor and Tony Stark both have immense wealth, advanced technology, and genius level intellect that inform the creation of their suits. At first the advanced technology of Lex's Warsuit stands up to anything Ironman could throw at it. Then the tables turn as Tony brings out advanced tech of his own in the Endo-Sym Ironman suit which absorbs all of the Warsuits attacks with ease, breaks through Lex's defenses, and destroys him.
  • Knuckles almost exclusively fights in melee combat with his fists which unfortunately for him is where DK has a massive advantage in strength.
  • Metal Sonic was specifically designed to be faster than Sonic and can hit up to Mach 35 at his highest speed. Zero, however is meant to be better than Mega Man in every way including speed. Since Mega Man can keep up with Quickman (who moves at 224,000 mph), it means Zero's reflexes and potential top speed is over eight times faster than Metal Sonic.
  • Sigma and Ultron are incredibly sophisticated AI that can control other machinery with a computer virus but Ultron is far superior and it overrides the Sigma virus and takes control of Sigma itself in order to destroy it.
  • Both Ganondorf and Dracula are beings who wield powerful dark magic and even a little bit of holy magic. Ultimately, Dracula's Realm of Chaos and Demonic Meggido is much more powerful than Ganondorf's Triforce of Power and Sage Sword which seals his victory over the dark warlock.
  • Both Mob and Tatsumaki are heroic masters of psychic arts. Tatsumaki however is vastly more powerful and experienced than Mob which leads to his death.
  • Beerus and Galaxia are destructive Gods of universe ending implication. However, despite both being incredibly powerful, Beerus proves that his sheer power and combat abilities are vastly superior to hers.
• Berserk Button
  • Boomstick strongly dislikes teen pop stars, particularly Justin Bieber. He especially can't stand how the strangest Bieber product sold was a lock of his hair, which sold for $40,000!
    Boomstick: Goddammit, that's the biggest waste of money I ever heard of!
    Wiz: True, unless they're planning to clone him.
    Boomstick: No, that's even worse! Why would anyone want more than one of this musical abomination roaming the planet?!
  • On that note, one Death Battle involved Bieber and Rebecca Black. Guess how it ended.
  • Wiz really doesn't think highly of Michelangelo, so no points for guessing who ends up dying first in the Turtles' battle royale. They acknowledged that one before the fight.
    Wiz: And for some reason, in all of his infinite wisdom, the great Master Splinter gave the most complicated weapon to the retard of the group. Why?
    (Beat)
    Boomstick: Mikey's not gonna win this fight, is he?
    Wiz: He'd better not!
  • Meta example: At least one viewer will have their button pressed when their preferred character dies.
  • Wiz got a little mad about Boomstick calling Link a fairy repeatedly.
  • Wiz was equally upset when a viewer said Boba Fett's cold-resistant armor should have given him immunity to Samus' ice beam.
    Boomstick: Yeah, Wiz is a little sensitive about this one so...
    Wiz: If you were wearing a parka, which is cold resistant, and you were shot by Samus' ice beam, you would be frozen solid!
    Boomstick: Yeah, don't bring this one up again.
  • Felicia got quite upset at Taokaka for accidentally killing a butterfly they were playing with.
  • If Fox whipping out a smart bomb is any indication, then don't kill any members of his crew. Then the battle went to the ground and Fox won by choking Bucky and blowing his brains out.
  • During Kirby's rundown, Boomstick brings up Kirby's Mike ability, in which Kirby sings so poorly that anyone who hears it dies.
    Boomstick: Like Wiz at karaoke night with the ladies.
    Wiz: Yea... HEY!
  • Chuck Norris tries to ignore the Sega Saturn. Segata forces Chuck to try it out, but Chuck destroys the console. Since Segata assaults people for ignoring the Saturn, having it destroyed outrages him.
  • Both Donkey Kong and Knuckles have one- touching DK's Banana Hoard and the Master Emerald respectively. This is what triggers off the fight- a hungry Knuckles decided to eat a single banana from DK's hoard.
  • Wiz also takes serious issue with two common fantasy conventions: fantasy metals that are stronger than Titanium and the comic book explanation that a superpower allows someone to "see faster" used in several of the character stories, to the point where in he goes into a small outburst addressing both of them in separate episodes.
  • Damaging Yang's hair causes her to be angry enough to activate her semblance and gain a massive power boost to her punches. Anyone who does this on RWBY usually winds up dead and/or exploded. And Tifa, who accidentally pushes this button, is no different.
  • Daxter does NOT like being called a weasel. Being called one by Clank is what ultimately sets Daxter and the fight off.
  • Hurting Spyro's allies is a great way to make him angry, regardless of incarnation. Crash learns this firsthand after squashing Sparx between his hands, which starts off a battle that ends the marsupial's life.
  • Tatsumaki is a very prideful woman (which is not entirely unjustified) and despises people when they mistake her for a child. All it took for her to attack Mob is for him to ask if she went to the local middle school.
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • The hosts note that when Goku isn't fighting, he's a friendly, cheerful family man.
  • Superman, naturally. Throughout the fight with Goku, he's holding back immensely to prevent damage to the surroundings while chastising Goku for continuing to escalate the fight for no reason. When he finally goes all out, he literally obliterates Goku as well as the planet Earth.
  • In her fight, Yang casually strolls into Tifa's bar and cheerfully asks for a drink despite bystanders fleeing in terror because of her, and she treats the start of the fight as a friendly brawl. Once blood gets drawn (hers to be exact), Yang stops with the joking and begins fighting very seriously. When Tifa uses her Limit Breaks on her and pulls a hair out in the process, Yang smashes Premium Heart to bits, furiously wails into Tifa, culminating with violently snapping Tifa's neck.
  • Kirby, the happy-go-lucky pink puffball of dreams. He kills the all-powerful Majin Buu.
  • Mob is a relatively shy and unremarkable middle school child who reluctantly uses his psychic powers to fight evil and is generally a nice person if a bit awkward. That doesn't stop him from giving Tatsumaki some brutal injuries after she fights him for accidentally insulting her.
• Beyond the Impossible:
  • This is why the hosts discounted Silver Age Superman for the Superman vs. Goku fight. Compared to Superman's appearance in other times and other media, Silver Age Superman's strength, abilities and powers range far and wide. Establishing any kind of internal logic with such an overpowered character wasn't feasible.
  • In the Superman vs Goku rematch, even Post-Crisis Superman is described as "breaking physics". He can lift a creature that weights the same as "eternity" and a book with an "infinite number of pages". He can hold a black hole in his bare hands.
  • At the start of his battle, He-Man declares that he's going to "do something normally considered impossible" and the hosts noted in his analysis that he has accomplished such things in the past.
  • As doing impossible, physics breaking, things is generally associated with the memetic traits of the fighters, Chuck Norris vs Segata Sanshiro has plenty of this.
  • Deadpool and Pinkie Pie end up Breaking the Fourth Wall so hard it allows them to break the rule Death Battle is built on and drive things so far Off the Rails that Wiz and Boomstick have no choice but to give up and let them have a happy ending.
  • Mecha Godzilla's Absolute Zero beam does exactly what it's name suggests and removes all energy from the molecules of its target flashfreezing it instantly to absolute zero temperature; a feat that is by all rights impossible in real world physics.
  • Because of his Cartoon logic nature being applied to the real world, Mask is effectively immune from all harm, which practically gurantees his victory in almost any scenario.
  • A similarity that Wally West and Archie Sonic have with each other is their feats are flat out absurd because of how impossibly fast they are. Wally can move faster than instant teleportation, made the concept of death die, and outran the Speed Force, which is the source of his powers. Archie Sonic can move through stopped time and somehow moved so fast that time went forward, plus he has literal Plot Armor. Wally manages to defeat Archie Sonic anyway.
  • Popeye has this in a similar manner to The Mask. Even against somebody of Saitama's level of power, it proves to be an obstacle the One Punch Man just has no means to bypass.
• Bizarre Beverage Use: Boomstick, upon hearing about how Captain Marvel is able to control gravity in her Binary form in "Captain Marvel VS Shazam", dropped his can of beer to prove he could control gravity just to realize he wasted said beer. He then poured another beer over it to mourn it just to realize he also wasted that beer.
• Black Comedy: Boomstick is a notable fountain of this; no matter how the fight ends, he always has a bad pun for both the fallen and the victor.
• Blade Lock:
  • Link and Cloud start off their fight this way.
  • Tigerzord and Epyon have one before Zechs breaks away.
  • Deadpool and Deathstroke get into one. Deadpool wins the struggle by drawing a gun with his free hand and shooting Deathstroke in the eye through his own wrist.
  • Guts breaks the lock he gets into with Nightmare by headbutting him.
  • Power Rangers vs Voltron has the Megazord and Voltron get into one. It's broken with a headbutt from the Megazord.
  • Optimus gets into a blade lock with the Gundam. He breaks it by dropkicking the Gundam away.
  • She-Ra and Wonder Woman lock blades twice in their battle. The first one they push off each other but the second one shears through She-Ra's Blade of Protection opening her up for the final killing strike.
• Black-and-Grey Morality: In this show, it's killed or be killed, no in-between. Characters who are heroic or normally avoid killing are only got it treated as a disadvantage.
• Blade Spam: Cloud's Omnislash, which he uses at the end of his battle against Link. Unfortunately for Cloud, it sets up for the strike the latter needed to win the duel. In the rematch is Omnislash Version 5, Which Link has a lot less luck in blocking, leading to him getting cut in half.
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands: RoboCop's marksmanship allows him to shoot the Terminator's shotgun out of his hands.
• Blocking Stops All Damage: Used pretty liberally in the fight scenes. Also, some fights have come down to the fighters' ability to literally do so.
• Blood Knight: Ryu and Akuma live for nothing more than fighting and self improvement.
• Bloodless Carnage
  • Link vs. Cloud is one of two fights where there is little blood shown or a clearly fatal injury committed at any stage in the fight. From the looks of things, Cloud gets cut in the neck and is visibly blown up by bombs by Link, but his body remains whole even after the explosion, cut and the decisive blow right after with no visible bleeding. In the rematch, The only blood seen is from Link's corpse after Cloud slices him in two with the final hit of Omnislash Version 5.
  • Ratchet and Clank vs. Jak and Daxter is another of two fights where there is no blood shown at any stage in the fight. None of the shots or blows draw any blood, and the final blow has Ratchet use his Liquid Nitrogen Gun to freeze Jak and Daxter, before shattering them via his Omniwrench, the remaining ice pieces lacking blood whatsoever.
  • Being true to their series, "Crash Bandicoot vs. Spyro the Dragon" has no blood spilled from any attacks. The final blow is also bloodless due to Crash and Aku Aku being completely vaporized by Dark Spyro's Aether Breath.
  • The "Starscream vs. Rainbow Dash" also counts as while Rainbow is organic, Starscream isn't and he failed to land any blood-letting hits on her.
  • Not to mention "Chun-Li vs. Mai Shiranui". Sure, Chun was burnt to a crisp, but still no blood.
  • Seemed to be the case in Donkey Kong vs. Knuckles up until the end when DK pulverizes Knuckles into a red mist via a Shockwave Clap.
  • Mega Man vs. Astro Boy had zero blood in it. The same goes for Metal Sonic vs. Zero, Ultron vs. Sigma and the Mega Man Battle Royale. Justified as all of them are robots/AIs. Sure, the human Geo Stelar loses an arm, but still no blood.
  • Subverted at the very end of Smokey Bear vs. McGruff the Crime Dog. The entire fight is completely bloodless up until a giant Smokey squashes McGruff's monster truck with the Crime Dog inside, after which blood can be seen flowing out of the wreckage.
  • Subverted at the end of Batman Beyond vs. Spider-Man 2099. Throughout most of the fight there's no blood spilled, even when Miguel throws Terry's razor Batarangs back at him which successfully slice him. The final blow where the explosive Batarangs blow a hole in Miguel's torso does contain blood, but is relatively bloodless compared to most deaths.
  • There is absolutely no blood shed in "Raven vs. Twilight Sparkle". Both combatants were slinging magic blasts at each other, and the final blow involved Raven's soul self divebombing Twilight, the aftermath of which was Twilight's Impact Silhouette in the ground with no blood in or around it.
  • Thanos vs. Darkseid...until Deadpool shoots Thanos dead.
  • In the span of Weiss Vs Mitsuru, nobody lands any bloodletting hits despite both combatants being impaled at two different points of the battle.
  • Aang vs Edward Elric is also this. Sure, Aang rips off one of Ed's arms, but it's the latter's automail arm and the finishing blow has Aang blow Ed up.
  • Subverted in Danny Phantom vs. Jake Long. While the entire fight appears to be bloodless, Jake's claws cause brief spurts of green ectoplasm to fly out when he slashes at Danny with them early on in the battle.
  • Wally West vs. Archie Sonic is also this. That includes the final blow, as it vaporizes Sonic.
  • Yoda vs. King Mickey also has no blood, and its finishing blow is King Mickey vaporizing Yoda with Ultima.
  • No blood is shed during Iron Fist vs. Po, with the finishing blow being Po using his chi dragon to vaporize/eat Iron Fist.
  • Steven Universe vs. Star Butterfly has no blood, but does have some watermelon juice in its place courtesy of the slain Watermelon Stevens. It also ends with Star vaporizing Steven with a laser beam.
  • Gogeta vs. Vegito does not have blood..until the final blow. Ironically, the winner Vegito bleeds while the losing Gogeta turns to stone and disintegrates.
• Bloody Hilarious: Deadpool vs. the Mask begins with the Mask firing several BFGs at Deadpool and turning him into Swiss cheese, only to watch in surprise as the merc's guts sew themselves back together, shortly followed by Deadpool chopping off the Mask's head and sending it flying straight up, only for it to drop down and reattach itself to his neck the wrong way. All of this happens in the span of 10 seconds. It's a real tone-setter.
• Blowing a Raspberry: Rainbow Dash taunts Starscream with TWO of them.
• Bond One-Liner: Usually at the end of each, a combatant will deliver a post-victory one-liner. This also extends to Boomstick, who usually delivers a witty one-liner at the end of the post-fight analysis, with most of them featuring a Pun regarding the fight in question. Due to the sheer amount of one-liners delivered by both the combatants and Boomstick himself, it has its own page.
• Book Ends:
  • "Mario vs. Sonic", "Starscream vs. Rainbow Dash", and "Wolverine vs. Raiden" both start in one place, travel through other areas (a mountain and lake for "Mario vs. Sonic", the sky for "Starscream vs. Rainbow Dash", a balcony for "Wolverine vs. Raiden") and then end back at the same place they started.
  • "Ratchet & Clank vs. Jak & Daxter" begins with a shot of a bird pecking at a blue ScrewAttack icon. The post-fight animation has another pecking at Jak and Daxter's frozen remains.
  • In a meta way, Season 4 began with a Square Enix character (Lara Croft) and ended with another Square Enix character (Sephiroth). Furthermore, both won their fights.
  • In another meta way, Season 5 both starts and ends with a Marvel vs. DC matchup.
  • "Cable vs. Booster Gold" begins with Cable traveling back in time to the present. The end scene has Booster doing the same after disposing of his opponent.
  • Another meta example: Season 7 both starts and ends with a Marvel character dying by being blown up or vaporized.
• Boom, Headshot!:
  • At the end of the fight between Fox McCloud and Bucky O'Hare, Fox manages to tackle Bucky to the ground and get him in a chokehold; with Bucky unable to fight back, Fox charges up a blaster shot and blows Bucky's head to pieces.
  • Deathstroke easily snipes Deadpool in the head, but given Deadpool's Healing Factor, this doesn't do much.
  • Guts manages to fire his Arm Cannon right in from of Nightmare's face, at point-blank range. This being Nightmare, it doesn't kill him, but it does good enough damage to stun him and even makes him give a compliment of "Impressive"...right before turning into Night Terror.
  • Superman in the rematch fears that Goku will destroy the planet again, so he goes all out and fries Goku's brain with heat-vision.
  • Carolina blows off The Meta's head with his own Brute Shot.
  • This is how Sora finishes Pit off, with a beam of light via his Keyblade piercing Pit's forehead.
• Borrowed Catchphrase:
  • In the fight with Starscream, Rainbow Dash borrows Rarity's catchphrase "It. Is. ON!"
  • Done by both combatants in "Hulk VS Broly". Broly opens the fight with "You're making me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." Later on, Broly asks if Hulk is a monster to which Hulk replies "No, the devil!"
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs:
  • During the post-fight analysis, it's brought up how Fox will tend to go at missions on his own, often at his own request.
  Boomstick: Like a real man... fox. Fox-man!
  • Also during Sonya Blade's character analysis, its brought up how she's taken down cyborgs, ninjas, and cyborg ninjas!
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Deadpool, of course. He even provides the official fight starting announcement. To compensate for this overwhelmingly powerful ability, his match-ups after his debut fight with Deathstroke, Pinkie Pie and Mask, also had fourth wall breaking abilities.
  • Discord also pops into studio with Wiz and Boomstick, and he shatters it completely by exposing Chad and Ben VOICING them at that moment in time.
  • Scoob-Doo manages to create a universe ending explosion that breaks the monitor and blinds both Wiz and Boomstick.
• Brick Joke:
  • When the two hosts bring up how He-Man once fixed a broken chain by touching the two ends together, Boomstick flips out over this, asking how that could be possible; Wiz replies with the simple answer of "lazy writing magic." Later on in the episode, while examining Lion-O's feats, Wiz expresses a similar amount of confusion, which is met with his own reply by Boomstick.
  • In the same episode, Lion-O's control over felines allows Battlecat to turn against He-Man; He-Man responds by uppercutting Battlecat into the sky. By the time the fight ends, Battlecat lands and starts eating Lion-O's corpse.
  • Also in the same episode, we have Wiz stating that the only thing Lion-O copied from Superman would be their origin stories (young children from dying planets send to other worlds to preserve the species); but while discussing his weaknesses, he briefly mentions thundrainium, little more than the ThunderCats version of kryptonite, and promptly apologizes for lying.
  • Partway through Ivy vs. Orchid, Boomstick makes a few remarks about the size of Orchid's breasts; once Wiz brings up how she can flash her foes into having a heart attack, Boomstick prods the viewers about assuming his earlier comments were just his usual perversion.
  • In Deadpool Vs Deathstroke, Wiz likens Deadpool's reaction to finding out he had cancer to a "flaming semi-truck falling on his face." Even Boomstick notes how oddly specific that is. You have three guesses regarding to what happens to Mr. Wade Wilson during the fight and the first two don't count.
  • Before the Meta Vs. Carolina fight, Carolina and Epsilon are arguing over what kind of movie to watch. Epsilon quips that if Carolina wins, she can pick the movie. After she kills the Meta, the first thing Carolina says to Epsilon is "No action movies."
  • In Link vs Cloud (2011), Link throws a boomerang past Cloud, causing Cloud to turn and watch it fly by before beating Link with his sword several times and causing him to lose his sword, forcing him to hide behind his shield as Cloud hits it several times. The boomerang then flies back and hits Cloud, stunning him and allowing Link to retrieve his sword.
  • In Goku Black vs. Reverse Flash, the fight begins w Eobard reprising the "It was me, Barry!" meme in regards to His accidental killing of Quicksilver. Right before the climax of the fight, we see Eobard pushing the samurai statue into place, then right as Eobard leaves, Quicksilver flies into it and gets impaled by its sword.
• Broken Win/Loss Streak
  • Superman finally brings home a victory for DC Comics.
  • Chun-li however, broke Street Fighter's winning streak of 2 episodes.
  • Shao Kahn has also broken Mortal Kombat's losing streak of 2 episodes. Unfortunately their next fight didn't restart the streak as Sektor lost to Fulgore.
  • After Marvel Comics' notorious winning streak of 3 in a row, Captain America is the first to go down. Since Batman was the winner it also pulls DC Comics into the main pack with 2 straight wins.
    • And that streak got instantly broken thanks to Deadpool defeating Deathstroke.
    • Marvel's streak got broken after 2 straight wins after Beast loses to Goliath.
    • DC had another run at the hat trick after Wonder Woman beat Thor and Batman Beyond beat Spider-Man 2099 but lost it when Black Panther beat Batman.
  • After many fans heckled the series for an anime/manga losing streak, it was broken by Guts' victory over the videogame character Nightmare.
  • The Mario and Sonic series have done 3 battles against each other, with the Sonic series winning twice until DK kills Knuckles.
  • The losing streak Dragon Ball was on starting with Goku vs. Superman was broken with Hercule's victory over Dan.
  • After a few straight female victories over male ones (Rainbow Dash vs Starscream, Gaara vs Toph and Samus vs Boba) Dante breaks this streak by defeating Bayonetta. Tracer appears to have restarted it by beating Scout right until it's broken again after Zoro kills Erza.
  • After the losses of Deathstroke and Lex Luthor (in the latter's case, his first), the Joker is the first DC villain to win.
  • The losing streak of Pokemon, losing 2 battles in a row excluding the battle royale, (Pikachu vs. Blanka and Charizard vs Agumon) until Mewtwo broke the streak by defeating Shadow.
  • Sonic's own losing streak of two straight battles by Knuckles and Shadow was broken by Amy after her victory to Ramona Flowers.
  • The Mega Man franchise's losing streak Wily to Metal Sonic, Mega Man to Astro Boy was broken by Zero winning his fight, against Metal Sonic no less.
  • Final Fantasy's losing streak of 2 (Cloud to Link, Tifa to Yang) was broken by Sephiroth winning his fight against Vergil.
  • After having a huge loss streak of 6, Ryu from Street Fighter manages to break it in his fight against Jin.
  • In Season 5, Marvel's streak of 3 losses (Doctor Strange to Doctor Fate, Carnage to Lucy, Daredevil to Nightwing) was broken by Ultron's victory over Sigma.
  • After Thanos vs Darkseid and Aquaman vs Namor, Black Widow ends Marvel's streak of two losses.
  • DC finally managed to pull off the three win streak only managed before by Marvel after Raven, Doctor Fate, and Nightwing, won their death battles consecutively in season 5. When Darkseid won at the end of Season 5 they surpassed the reigning champion Marvel setting the new Killstreak at 4. Thus far, their win streak is at 7, with the next DC combatants, Aquaman, Shazam and Hal Jordan, defeating their opponents, Namor, Captain Marvel and Ben Tennyson. This streak however was broken when Lobo was defeated by Ghost Rider.
  • Might Guy breaks Naruto's streak of two losses after Naruto vs Ichigo.
  • After fighting two matches and effectively winning both, Deadpool finally meets his match and is obliterated by Mask.
  • Jason the Red Ranger finally pulls out a victory for Super Sentai/Power Rangers over Leonardo after a brutal three loss streak. Meanwhile, Leonardo not only gets his first loss, but the first loss for the TMNT.
  • After Deadpool vs. The Mask and Miles vs. Static, War Machine brings Marvel another win.
  • Voice actor example: Nicholas Andrew Louie used to voice characters who have lost, until he voiced Danny Phantom who won his fight.
  • After Goliath's and Scrooge's victories, Jake Long is the first in-house Disney character to lose.
  • Zuko's loss to Shoto Todoroki ended three winning streaks. He's the first Western Animation character to lose to an Anime/Manga character. He's the third Avatar character, following Toph and Aang, and the fourth in-house Nickelodeon character, following Danny Phantom. As a result, both winning streaks came to an end.
  • Another voice actor example: Natalie Von Sistine voiced both Wonder Woman and Black Widow, both of whom won (in the case of the former, her second and third fights). Then Natalie voiced Queen Maeve who lost.
  • DC's winning streak in Season 7 started with Miles vs. Static and ended with Winter Soldier vs. Red Hood.
  • Shadow's victory against Ryūko not only breaks the Sonic series' four year long losing streak after Amy vs. Ramona, but also breaks Shadow's own personal losing streak after his losses against Vegeta and Mewtwo.
  • Goku Black's defeat at the hands of Reverse-Flash ended Dragon Ball's 6-year-long winning streak that began in season 2 with Hercule Satan vs. Dan Hibiki.
  • Shao Kahn's victory against Akuma ended two losing streaks, being both the first victory for Mortal Kombat since Sub-Zero vs. Glacius in season 4, as well as the first victory for a character voiced by Gianni Matragrano.
  • After the losses of Kakashi and Lee, Madara broke the Naruto series' second losing streak with a victory against Aizen. Hilariously this has setup Bleach's own losing streak with Ichigo being the first to lose to Naruto.
  • Jinx was able to defeat Harley Quinn in the premiere of season 9, breaking DC's winning streak against non-Marvel characters that's been going on since Goku vs. Superman.
  • Dragon Ball's second losing streak, which started with Goku Black's defeat at the hands of Reverse Flash (not counting the same-series fight Vegito vs. Gogeta), was ended with Frieza's victory over Megatron in Season 10.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Despite being siblings, it's pointed out that Orchid's flash finisher still works on Jago. His brief appearance in the fight has Orchid flashing him, possibly to get over Ivy having a bigger pair.
• Brought Down to Badass: In a meta (and highly ironic) sense, Batman. He's been elevated to godlike capabilities with the proper amount of prep time, but he gets no time to prepare for his battles against Spider-Man, Captain America, and Black Panther. Calling him a push-over in his "de-powered" state, however, would be like saying the Green Goblin is a perfectly sane individual.
• Bullet Hell: At the end of the fight between Spider-Man and Batman, Spidey unleashes a hail of webbing upon Batman, eventually trapping the Dark Knight in a web, setting him up for the killing blow.
  • DK does this with coconuts of all things.
• Bullying a Dragon: Sometimes, the animation shows one combatant clearly stronger than the other. The other combatant still refuses to step down. It usually leads to their death.
  • At no point did Darkseid felt threatened by Thanos and yet Thanos tried killing him, even when he's confronting his true form in the Fourth World universe.
  • The Hulk kept fighting Broly even though in just his Wrath state, he had his head ripped off. Him becoming Legendary Super Sayian and then vaporizing him was just salt in the wound.

• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Experience has been a major deciding factor for multiple episodes, but some of them include how their opponent has traits similar to what the winner deals with regularly and would be unlikely to be caught off guard.
  • Examples include Kirby battling teleport-spamming bosses, Dante hunting demons, and Zero fighting evil animal robots for Kirby VS Majin Buu, Dante VS Bayonetta, and Metal Sonic VS Zero.

• Butt-Monkey: Some characters still get looked down on despite the show often trying to paint a positive light for them. This is often due to their abilities or their reputation.
  • Michelangelo and Mega Man Volutt are both deemed to not win their respective battle royales in the analyses. For Michaelangelo, only his negative attributes are shown to show why he sucks compared to his brothers. For Volnutt, Boomstick referred to him as "diet Mega Man" after finding out he has no black hole abilities. Unsurprisingly, both of them landed in last place.

  • The hosts intentionally did this to Deadpool based on their prior experiences during the episode against Mask. They actually succeeded as the Mask out-trolled and beat him while Deadpool realized he was going to die, but the hosts realized they went too far in that. Deadpool still got the last laugh in the end though.

  • Some combatants are sent on the receiving end of curb-stomp battles, both in calculation and portrayal. This happened in Starscream VS Rainbow Dash, Mewtwo VS Shadow, and Omni-Man VS Homelander. In the Seven Battle Royale, The Deep had the shortest rundown of any combatant in the show's history, was deemed to suck by Boomstick and even Black Noir, and A-Train kills The Deep before the fight starts.

  • Season 2 introduces Cringer/Battlecat, who gets forcibly transformed against his will, punched into the sky by He-Man when Lion-O attempts to use Battlecat against him, and is revealed to have been spayed and neutered in a PSA.
  • Slippy gets unceremoniously killed off before the Fox vs. Bucky fight even begins.
  • Wizard refers to Luigi as "Nintendo's whipping boy".
  • A sprite of the Garcia enemy from Streets of Rage is often used for comedic misfortune. In "Flash vs. Quicksilver", he's seen getting hit by the police car carrying Captain America, and is later caught in Quicksilver's tornado. In "Bane vs. Venom", two characters with the same design appear as mooks who get quickly slaughtered by Venom; another mook in the "Batman vs. Scorpion" DBX gets maimed by Scorpion. In "Cable vs. Booster Gold", Booster has already caught him in front of a large crowd before the fight begins.
• By the Hair: Android 18 isn't afraid to grab Captain Marvel by the hair. Marvel calls her out on this.
• Call-Back:
  • In the "Son Goku vs. Superman" fight, Vegeta shows up in the beginning, blowing off Superman and declaring he could kill him with his eyes closed before mentioning "that stupid transforming hedgehog".
  • In He-Man's intro, he's described as having fought Superman. You know, that one guy who can lift entire planets and maybe killed your favorite person ever. In the same episode, the two hosts bring up how Lion-O's enhanced strength and speed "make it unlikely for curiosity to kill this cat, unless he's distracted by pretty objects;" while this is being said, the screen shows Felicia and Taokaka playing with a butterfly, a scene taken directly from their Death Battle.
  • Shao Kahn vs. M. Bison is one huge Call-Back to Akuma vs. Shang Tsung. It's the second match of its season and involves a Street Fighter antagonist fighting a Mortal Kombat antagonist, just like its predecessor. More subtly, Shang Tsung threatened to take his enemy's soul in the preview, but failed. Shao Kahn makes no promise, but succeeds where his underling didn't.
  • In Strider Hiryu vs. Ryu Hayabusa, while Wiz describes the "security system" of the Dragon Sword, Boomstick points out that he could use some added protection for his car. He must not have gotten it fixed after Riptor fell into it.
  • Luigi vs. Tails is quite obviously a Spiritual Sequel to Mario vs. Sonic; Donkey Kong vs. Knuckles follows the trend.
  • Batman vs. Captain America is the Caped Crusader's opportunity for revenge against Marvel after losing to Spider-Man in season 1. He succeeds; Batman beats Captain America.
  • Ryu vs. Scorpion is the second call back fight to Akuma vs Shang Tsung, being a fight between a Shotoclone and a fire wielding warrior of both sides. Shang Tsung morphed into Scorpion in the fight, making the parallels more apparent.
    • In a nod to Akuma's introduction was seen when they brought up the death of Ryu's master Gouken.
      Boomstick: Oh yeah, he can fingerpaint.
    • In a more subtle nod Scorpion's spear move is noted to usually follow up a sweet uppercut, something Shang Tsung did when he morphed into Scorpion's form.
    • Boomstick struggles to pronounce one of Ryu's moves, the Tatsumaki Senpukyaku. He had similar troubles with Akuma's Kongou Kokuretsuzan.
    • Plus, in this battle, Ryu also gets the Raging Demon to use thanks to the Satsui no Hado. Unfortunately for him, it fails to work.
  • In Deadpool vs. Deathstroke, when Boomstick brings up Deathstroke's Super-bomb, Whiz says to guess who that's for and Deadpool pops up and says "The guy who killed Goku in one the most biased, fanboy videos ever!. In the following episode, Kirby vs Majin Buu (during the commercial no less), a possessed Goku figure brings up the fight again, asking if Ben loved him why did he lose and saying he should get another chance with his new SSJ God form. Due to the episodes being re-ordered though, and the deal the commercial was offering being for that month (a month after Kirby vs Majin Buu was scheduled to premiere) it's likely that this commerical was supposed to be in Deadpool vs Deathstroke originally as well.
  • In Goku vs. Superman and Kirby vs. Majin Buu, the loser of each battle leaves only one thing behind - One of their boots. Also, Goku tried to kill Superman by propelling him into the sun, not knowing yellow sunlight makes Superman stronger. Kirby tries the same thing with Buu, and succeeds.
  • At one point in Guts vs Nightmare, the constellation of Chuck Norris and Segata Sanshiro still fighting can be seen in the sky.
  • The premiere of DBX being Jango Fett vs Master Chief easily makes it a call back to the premiere of Death Battle, Boba Fett vs Samus Aran, seeing as they both feature a Fett versus a super soldier in powered armor.
  • The ending of Shadow vs Mewtwo had the latter finish the fight with a "sayonara" just as Vegeta did when he killed Shadow.
  • The hosts themselves stated that Metal Sonic vs. Zero is a Spiritual Sequel to Eggman vs. Wily. The episode also has a callback to Mega Man vs. Astro Boy, where Mega Man's feats are used as a reference point for Zero's.
  • While analyzing the insane power Thor has, they wonder why they bothered putting him up against Raiden in the first place.
  • At the end of Naruto vs. Ichigo, the Tailed Beast Bomb that obliterated Ichigo travels into space, flying straight past Chuck Norris and Segata Sanshiro, who are still fighting after their own battle. They stop for a moment as the blast passes, then continue fighting.
  • "Wiz and Boomstick", the new theme music for Season 5, has a few pieces that sound like "Invader", the previous theme music.
  • As in Vegeta vs. Shadow and Mewtwo vs Shadow, Shadow vs. Ryūko Matoi once again has Shadow's opponent attempt to finish the fight right after saying "sayonara". Unfortunately for Ryūko, Shadow subverts Rule of Three by turning the tables and killing Ryūko instead.
  • The main ending for the DBX episode Goomba vs. Koopa II is a callback to Green Lantern vs. Ben 10, where like Green Lantern, the Koopa ends up going back in time and killing his opponent before the fight begins. Koopa even tells his past self "Don't Ask" as they look on in shock. His travel through time also shows Green Lantern, Flash and Sonic from their battle, and Booster Gold. Though unlike Green Lantern, Koopa's time travel was unintentional.
  • At the end of Harley Quinn vs. Jinx, Harley attempts the same trick Joker used at the end of Joker vs. Sweet Tooth. Both are lying wounded at the mercy of their more brutal foe, and attempt to psychologically manipulate their opponent's lust for violence to trick them into getting up close and personal to savor the final kill, getting them close enough to strike first. While it worked on Sweet Tooth, it didn't really work on Jinx, who much rather prefered to simply fire an explosive rocket at her.
  • In Trunks vs. Silver, Trunks' reaction to seeing Silver transform into Super Silver is to call him a ripoff, just like Vegeta did in Vegeta vs. Shadow, way back in season 1.
  • Goku vs. Superman (2023) has multiple.
    • Pieces of the analysis in Season 10's are taken verbatim from the original classic. For instance, during Goku's analysis, Boomstick says this line, which is nearly a verbatim repeat of a line said by Boomstick in the original Goku vs. Superman.
      Boomstick: Within a few years he was so strong the only worthy teachers left were gods! ...And a talking cat, but mostly gods!
    • In the fight animation, during the climax, Goku once again uses the Kaioken to try to power up his Kamehameha to try to fend off a supercharged Superman that's charging at him, just like the original fight (only this time he's in Ultra Instinct instead of Super Saiyan 4). And once again, it fails, leading to a super-powered punch clash (this time with Goku's Ultra Instinct avatar doing it for Goku) that ends in Goku's death.
• Call-Forward: At the end of Naruto vs. Ichigo, Naruto has his ramen stolen by Luffy, possibly setting up their fight in One Minute Melee.
• Calling Your Attacks:
  • Done gratuitously by Goku in the fight against Superman, from his initial usage of the Kaio-Ken, to his final move in the battle, a Super Saiyan 4-boosted Dragon Fist.
  • Strider Hiryu gets a mention for calling out Ragnarok right before finishing off Ryu Hayabusa.
  • True to Power Rangers form, Tommy has a habit of doing this while in command of the Tigerzord.
  • Of course, Ryu and Dan do this as well with some of their moves
  • As part of Hercule's natural talent for showmanship, he calls out the names of his attacks in a match to play to the crowd.
  • Shadow does this in all three of his fights, calling out whenever he uses Chaos Control or Chaos Blast.
  • Given that they are Shonen Protagonists, it should come as no surprise that both Naruto and Ichigo do this at least a few times during their fight. Namely Ichigo with his Getsuga Tenshou, Bankai and Mugetsu, and Naruto with his Rasengan, Rasenshuriken and Sexy Jutsu (although he just yells "Transform" for that last one).
• The Cameo
  • Derpy Hooves can be seen during the "Starscream vs. Rainbow Dash" fight.
  • The cast of heroes from Dragon Ball Z Abridged are seen in the intro of "Son Goku vs. Superman".
  • The rest of the 64-era Star Fox team appear in the beginning of the Fox McCloud vs. Bucky O'Hare fight, flying in their Arwings before an ambush from the Righteous Indignation.
  • In several character rundowns, many past combatants make a brief appearance in the current fighter's analysis, oftentimes being beaten by whoever the two are examining.
  • Here's one involving an inanimate object; in "Deadpool vs. Deathstroke" during the fight on the falling city traffic, the BMW M3 GTR from Need for Speed: Most Wanted is among the various vehicles flying though the air, complete with its familiar blue/silver livery.
  • The Scissor Blade, Rush, and a Bob-Omb are all some of the items released from the capsules Hercule smuggled with him into the fight.
  • The Mane Six and Derpy Hooves show up at the end of "Deadpool vs. Pinkie Pie" celebrating Deadpool's birthday at the end.
  • Batman appears at the end of "Venom vs. Bane" reacting in shock upon finding Bane dead.
  • Little Mac appears in the breakdown of "Balrog vs. TJ Combo" when they explain the Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors that helped TJ Combo nab the win; Balrog is a slugger, TJ Combo is an out-boxer, and Little Mac is used as an example of a swarmer.
  • At the end of Naruto vs Ichigo, there are two, both on the KO screen. On the side depicting the winner, it shows Monkey D. Luffy stealing a bowl of Ramen from Naruto, and on the side depicting the loser, it shows the Tailed Beast Bomb that killed Ichigo fly straight past Chuck Norris and Segata Sanshiro.
  • Rainbow Dash can be seen putting out the fire on the Golden Oak Library via jumping on a cloud at the end of "Raven vs. Twilight Sparkle" unware that her friend is either dead or badly incapacitated.
• Camera Abuse:
  • Doomsday's barrage on Hulk's head ends up spilling Hulk's radioactive blood all over the screen.
  • "Balrog vs. TJ Combo" ends with Balrog's decapitated head landing on the camera, ending the match's broadcast.
• Canon Discontinuity: As per the rules of Death Battle, all established works of canon at the time of the episode's writing are taken into consideration for a character's abilities.
  • In Jotaro Kujo vs. Kenshiro, It is mentioned that Jotaro's stand, Star Platinum, learned an ability called "Reality Overwrite" in Jojos Bizarre Adventure Eyes Of Heaven. However, the events of that game are largely contradictory to the source manga and was omitted from the Death Battle.
  • Sailor Galaxia's Chaos Galaxia form is expressly omitted because it was created for the anime itself, and is not in the original manga's canon.
• Captain Ersatz: Most battles involve combatants with similar abilities and storylines, but some characters have much more, being made from the same creator or take inspiration from their opponent. These commonalities may be referenced in the fight itself.
  • Mega Man has examples for both his battles. His first game was originally a concept for an Astro Boy game until Capcom lost the licensing. His successors are then based on the original, especially MegaMan.EXE, who have multiple expies to other characters from the original timeline.
  • Vegeta and Trunks called out Super forms of Sonic characters as rip-offs, likely from the similar design.
• Caption Humor: A witty comment or two can be spotted in almost every episodes' character rundown, and even sometimes during the final analysis.
• Car Fu
  • Rebecca Black's friend manages to nail Beiber with his car and slam him against a brick wall, killing him... but also kills himself and Rebecca in the process.
  • Superman smashes Goku with one in their fight.
  • RoboCop hurls one at the Terminator in their fight near the end.
  • Deathstroke launches Deadpool into a heavy intersection during their fight where he gets hit by a truck. Eventually both combatants end up fighting on the roofs of city traffic.
  • Hulk rips a police car in half and uses them as boxing gloves against Doomsday.
  • Optimus Prime himself performs this on the Gundam when he transforms into his Big Badass Rig alt-mode and rams into it.
  • Thanos throws a taxi at Darkseid, who then throws multiple taxis at him.
  • Captain Falcon is capable of using the Blue Falcon to ram his opponents, and he uses it to ram Johnny Cage before turning on Falcon Boost Fire to grind him like a buzzsaw and open him up for a finishing Falcon Punch.
• Casting Gag:
  • During Goku and Superman's fight, when Goku activates his Kaioken, Superman asks "Kaio-What?" before getting punched in the face, referencing a Running Gag from Team Four Star's Dragon Ball parody series. For bonus points, MasakoX of Team Four Star voiced Goku.
  • Before this, Lanipator and Takahata101 had voiced the "Vegeta vs. Shadow" Battle, which contained a reference to the majestic Space Duck... lett.
  • Danielle McRae once again voices an unhinged girl treated as a lab experiment that wants to murder everyone for being called a monster.
  • After voicing Venom's opponent, Bane, Chris Guerrero would later voice the former's offspring, Carnage.
  • Gianni Matragrano voiced Lex Luthor, whose first opponent was Iron Man. He would later voice Iron Man's second opponent in Batman.
  • Valentine Stokes voiced Reverse Flash, which in itself is hilarious since he's played the character in the now infamous "It's was Me, Barry" Meme, in fact, that's how the episode starts out, R. Flash taking credit for orchestrating Quicksilver's death in Japan in his race against Barry, framing him for murder.
• Casualty in the Ring: In "Balrog vs. TJ Combo", it is revealed that Balrogs' fall-from-grace started when he killed his opponent during a boxing match. Since the fight itself is also depicted as a boxing match, it too ends in one. Balrog's the victim this time.
• Cat Fight: Any fight between two females can be seen as this, but "Felicia vs. Taokaka" takes this trope to its logical extreme.
• Central Theme: If two characters with similar abilities, talents, or careers are pitted against each other in a Duel to the Death, after painstaking reaseach and analysis, who would come out on top?
• Chainsaw Good: Doomguy, Frank, Bayonetta, and Zitz all have chainsaws. Surprisingly, only Zitz uses his during his actual fight.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: In the backstories of both TJ Combo and Balrog, both are shown to have cheated during matches, costing them dearly once the truth surfaces. Whereas TJ chose to redeem himself and reclaim his title without cheating, Balrog instead turned to crime and continued to fight dirty. In the Death Battle itself, this trope remains applicable, as Balrog pulls some dirty tricks on TJ and beats the shit out of the ref when he reprimands him. Guess who ends up with a bleeding stump where his head should be?
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • A rare mid-fight example came during the "Peach vs. Zelda" battle, when a Sleepy Sheep that was deflected into the air near the beginning of the fight ends up clonking Zelda on the head much later on. It provides the opening Peach needs to use her Empress Peach Mega Strike, directly leading to Zelda's defeat.
  • Oddly enough, in "Kirby VS Buu", there's a Miracle Fruit inside of his stomach when Majin Buu is inside of Kirby. When Kid Buu looks like he's going to win, Kirby becomes Hypernova Kirby and spits Kid Buu's attack right back at him, vaporizing him.
• The Chew Toy: In the earlier seasons, if a character is playable in any of the Super Smash Bros. games, expect there to be footage of them giving Jigglypuff a beating.
• Children Forced to Kill: Some combatants like Tails, Toph, and Ben Tennyson in the series are organic pre-teens. Since these are battles to the death, they'll fight to the death to win, either succeeding or dying trying. In some battles like the Miles VS Static, Danny Phantom VS Jake Long, and Steven Universe VS Star Butterfly, both combatants are minors and so one would have to kill the other.
• Clark Kenting: Boomstick wonders just how the hell Spider-Gwen never had her identity found out when she actually went around under the superhero moniker of "Spider Gwen".
• Climactic Volcano Backdrop:
  • In "Mario vs. Sonic"; they do eventually make it to the inside of a volcano... but said volcano is full of bob-ombs, which promptly explode and send the two fighters flying without a single punch being thrown.
  • The climax of "Darth Vader Vs Dr. Doom" takes place in a volcano, this also counts as a Book Ends for Vader since he dies in the same way he became Darth Vader.
  • Heihachi from Tekken and Geese Howard also fight on a volcanous mountain top, with the loser ending up inside of it.
• Cloud Cuckoolander:
  • Boomstick. He wonders why Spidey doesn't shoot his webs out his rear "like a real spider" and has considered the possibility of making a rifle that fires babies.
  • Ivy vs. Orchid has a prominent example.
    Wizard: (discussing Valentine, Ivy's Whip Sword) The blade is also sentient, as Ivy used her alchemy with the hand of Nightmare, who then breathed life into it.
    Boomstick: Wait, so the hand breathed life? How is THAT possible!?
    Wizard: (Beat) Of all the things I've said, that's what you question?
• Cluster F-Bomb: Boomstick gives a glorious one at the end of the fight between Naruto's Gaara and Avatar's Toph when Toph trumps Gaara effortlessly.
  Boomstick: AUGH, FUCK! SHIT! FUCK! FUCK!!! GOD DAMN FUCK!!! SON OF A SHIT WEASEL!!! Why did another anime character have to lose?!
• Colony Drop:
  • Vegeta does his best Donkey Kong impression during his fight with Shadow by punching the moon towards Earth, forcing Shadow to use up his remaining energy to restore it with Chaos Control.
  • Both Donkey Kong and Knuckles have this listed as a feat, but DK's was far more impressive.
  • Zero is noted to have stopped one by ramming it with a space shuttle and survived the ensuing explosion.
  • Crash has survived being within a falling space station that crashed into a mountain from orbit. This meant that most of Spyro's attacks couldn't hurt him much, with the exception of Aether Breath.
• Color Coded Timestop:
  • Metal Sonic vs. Zero had both combatants use time stopping abilities. As such, they both get a different time stop color to show the difference. Metal Overlord's Chaos Control inverts the colors, while Zero overwrites that with Dark Hold which turns the colors grayscale.
  • In ''Smokey Bear vs. McGruff the Crime Dog, McGruff's time stop turns the colors of everything except for himself into grayscale.
  • Jotaro's time stop courtesy of Star Platinum inverts the background colors.
• Combat Clairvoyance:
  • The Epyon System allows Zechs to see all possibilities in a fight. Unfortunately, this kind of mental bombardment sometimes causes the user to see hallucinations and could drive a less able person insane. The side-effects showed up in the battle itself when he saw a hallucination of the Mega Tigerzord destroying the Epyon with the Phoenix Strike, preventing him from finishing the fight early. However, it did mean the Zechs was well-prepared when Tommy started using the Phoenix Strike in reality.
  • As a Newtype, Amuro Ray has a form of this where he can predict what can happen and where his enemies would be. He does get an advantage against Optimus via this but it's not enough to compete with the Autobot's superior experience and weaponry that's too fast for the Gundam to dodge.
• Combining Mecha: The Tigerzord can form with the other zords to create the Mega Tigerzord. Likewise, the Power Rangers' Dinozords can join together to form the Megazord, and the Voltron Lion Force can combine together to form Voltron.
• Comedic Sociopathy: Wiz's favorite thing to do to Boomstick and vice-versa.
  Boomstick: You lied to me.
  Wiz: Ah. Goddammit!
  Boomstick: And I got stabbed.

• Composite Character: The show draws feats and abilities for a character across multiple media or even continuities as long as it doesn't heavily conflict with the main source material. This is stated in one of the rules of the show and elaborated on by Wiz when discussing the Mario cartoons in the rematch.
  Wiz: Any official material counts so long as it's supported by the games, otherwise we'd be ignoring a huge majority of the character's history.
  • One example is Link with his retained combat skills and experience through the incarnations. Other examples include Fulgore with all the forms, James Bond despite the differing looks through the years, and Sauron as depicted from books to movies, show and video games, and other characters.

  • In the fight animations, some characters take on one appearance (usually the most well-known) yet use abilities not associated with that appearance. One example is Solid Snake, who has the model of Super Smash Bros. Brawl's portrayal of Snake, which in turn was based off of his look in Metal Gear Solid, but he also has the Solid Eye and Octocamo from Guns of the Patriots.

  • Some battles specify the continuity used for characters like Archie Sonic, King Mickey, Xeno Trunks, Superfriends Aquaman, and both Gogeta and Vegito. With that said, they may use every version based on said continuity, like with Optimus Prime sticking with G1 rather than other versions like the Unicorn Trilogy but pulling info from the Sunbow cartoon and IDW comics.

  • Earlier characters from the Sonic series composited the games with the Archie continuities. For example, Tails is a mix of the games, SATAM, and the pre-reboot comic, though Tails' parents are still alive◊ in the comic. However, modern episodes no longer do that but rather consider the Archie version as their own character, though analyses on the Archie versions sometimes pull info from the games.

• Commonality Connection: Each match-up will have one of these somewhere, linking the two together.
• Comically Missing the Point: Wiz might sound the saner of the two, but he has his moments of this.
  Wiz: Yoshi has a large arsenal of eggs to use as lightweight projectiles and can even create a giant egg-shell to use as an all-encompassing shield.
  Boomstick: What is it with creatures from the Mario universe usin' their babies as weapons? Is it that effective? I'm gonna have to test this out, maybe some sort of baby-launcher...
  Wiz: Boomstick! That's a terrible idea! Any time you'd want to reload, you'd have to wait nine months!
• Complete Immortality:
  • Deadpool and The Mask are probably the only characters who legitimately cannot die under normal conditions, as Death Battle tries to avoid using immortal characters.
  • Spawn and Scorpion are nearly immortal due to their hellish powers but can both be sent to hell (which is similar but technically not death) if they take too much damage and Spawn can legitimately die from being decapitated by holy or unholy weapons and magic.
  • Majin Buu doesn't age and his healing factor is impressive but he can still be killed if completely incinerated.
  • Nightmare is immortal so long as Soul Edge, his sword, is intact; and this sword and the spirit within it can only be killed by something that kills spirits or something on the astral plane and even then have come back from things like that.
  • M. Bison, Starscream and Raiden can survive as immortal spirits and Bison and Wolverine have a healing factor but all of them still can have their bodies killed.
  • Chuck Norris can die and was killed by Bruce Lee, but since the grim reaper fears Chuck, he just kept going. Segata Sanshiro is rumored to have faked his death at the hands of a missile explosion and has made multiple appearances after this incident, though normally under other aliases. He even appeared in the Sonic universe, which is sometimes set at least 1000 years in the future.
  • Doomsday can theoretically revive himself from any death. What's worse, he is immune to whatever killed him in the past.
  • The Mask is not bound by conventional physics but cartoon logic even in the real world. Only he, himself, can decide if an attack can hurt him, making him effectively invincible as long as he chooses to be.
• Confusion Fu: Deadpool uses this after Deathstroke notes that he's too predictable. His response is pulling out a boombox, playing his theme song, and breakdancing.
• Continuity Nod:
  • At the end of Naruto vs. Ichigo, it's mentioned that the loser will eventually reincarnate. Until then, his soul gets to watch Segata Sanshiro and Chuck Norris continue their eternal battle.
  • At the beginning of Beerus vs. Sailor Galaxia, the a constellation of stars forming Segata Sanshiro and Chuck Norris is seen in the background.
  • Flash vs. Quicksilver ends with Quicksilver being skewered by a statue of the Silver Samurai, though it wasn't Flash's intention to kill. Goku Black vs. Reverse Flash reveals that Reverse Flash moved the samurai statue in place to make sure Quicksilver was killed just to mess with Barry Allen.
• Cool Sword: Many combatants have swords with varying properties that Wiz and Boomstick discuss in their analyses to show why said sword is cool. These swords may have elemental properties or extensive histories to the combatant and their world.
  • Guts VS Nightmare is themed on both combatants having gigantic swords. Guts’s Dragonslayer exists on the physical and astral plane, and Soul Edge was a regular sword that was soaked in blood so many times, it turned into a demonic, living weapon which can drive the wielder to insanity and an unstoppable bloodlust. Ultimately, the Dragonslayer was able to cut through Soul Edge.
  • Raiden had the HF Muramasa, a Vibroweapon that can cut through almost any matter on the molecular level. It was how Raiden can deal with Wolverine’s Adamantium, but Excalibur had counters to that sword.
  • Xeno Trunks has other swords like the Master Sword and Keyblade referenced when discussing him and his respective Keyblade, which negates abilities of his opponent. In the battle, he used it on Archie Silver but ultimately died to it from Silver’s redirection.
  • Asta carries multiple types of swords. Many of them invoke Anti-Magic, but the Demon Slayer has the unique property of being able to selectively cut through anything. Despite Anti-Magic not being useful against Deku, he was still able to pull a win from that.
• Cool vs. Awesome: The premise is super heroes/super villains, space mercenaries, robots, and gods duking it out.
• Country Matters: Billy Butcher has this as his first line in "The Seven Battle Royale".
  Billy: Alright, supercunts! Who's first?
• Crack Fic: On occasion, the matches can wind up like this in a big way.
  • Such as "Starscream vs. Rainbow Dash". Though there's a logical explanation for Starscream and Rainbow Dash to be paired up, due to their most prominent and defining attributes being polar opposites — Starscream being a chronic backstabber, while Rainbow Dash is the very Element of Loyalty. Also, Hasbro's two most famous animated franchises are My Little Pony and Transformers, both characters are the The Lancer to their respective teams, and Rainbow Dash is the #1 flyer in Equestria while Starscream is (nominally, at least) the Air Commander of the Decepticons.
    Wiz: Television has been used to market toys to boys and girls for generations. Ranging from G.I. Joe to Barbie, and Transformers to My Little Pony.
    Boomstick: Are we really doin' this?
    Wiz: Yes. Yes we are.
  • The "Link vs. Cloud" fight had some leftover models... used for... something.
• Crazy-Prepared: Some combatants are known for carrying extensive arsenals based on their preparation. These arsenals can give them an edge and be a factor in winning should experience and power be similar, but opponents with higher stats in strength and speed may still win. However, over-reliance on preparation could be a downside, as scenarios often invoke no outside knowledge of the other combatant outside of within canon.
  • Link has an interesting case with Cloud in their fight and rematch. Link won the first time as the scenario used left Cloud to basics while Link had the arsenal. But in the rematch, Cloud wins as his Materia can match Link’s extensive arsenal, making stats more of a deciding factor.
  • Batman is known for preparation and has used expertise in the four battles he appeared in. He only won against Captain America as Captain America had little options outside his shield. On the other hand, Spider-Man had answers to Batman’s stealth and had the edge in speed and strength, and Black Panther has a Made of Indestructium suit.
  • Tails has few natural abilities but has dozens of weapons and intelligence. Tails won against Luigi even with Luigi’s lightning abilities as his arsenal allowed him to make up for his weakness.
  • Billy Butcher had research on the Supes within the canon of The Boys and can use it to his advantage in The Seven Battle Royale. This is part of why he won as he can bring a laser baby to the fight despite not being a Supe himself. It also helped that he is less likely to be targeted at first.
• Creator Cameo: Ben Singer, the producer of Death Battle and voice of Wizard, makes a cameo on a Metal Gear Ben poster in Deadpool vs Deathstroke. Metal Gear Ben was a series in which he was the main character.
  • Ben Singer and Chad James both appear as themselves (or as Wiz and Boomstick being performed by Ben and Chad?) when Discord breaks the fourth wall and shows the behind the scenes studios.
• Crippling Overspecialization: The de facto decider of battles when strength and experience are more or less matched is that the fighter with the bigger bag of tricks has the edge.
  • Wonder Woman and Chun-Li are formally trained fighters, making them poor match-ups for their respective opponents, as Wonder Woman would eventually hit Rogue's uncovered face, causing a power absorption, and Mai's ninja training made her too unpredictable.
  • While Kratos wasn't held back by his training, his weaponry was forged by Olympians, which the video noted wasn't a different plane of existence like Heaven, and wouldn't necessarily be able to kill Spawn.
  • Zelda is extremely powerful and experienced, but it's specifically noted that her power and experience are almost entirely in areas unrelated to combat, leading to her defeat by the less magically potent but more athletic Peach.
  • Boomstick noted that Raiden's main method of attack, electricity, is useless against Thor.
  • Cloud has a much more predictable and forward fighting style compared to Link, who collectively has over 15 years of dungeon-crawling inventory and technique to work with. However, when he has all his materia, he has answers for everything Link can throw at him, simply letting him overwhelm Link with raw physicality.
  • Blanka could resist Pikachu's Electric-type attacks and Iron Tail is ineffective against electricity. Much like in Thor vs. Raiden, it all came down to brute strength and endurance, which Blanka had the edge in.
  • Riptor is considerably stronger in a fist fight, but tooth and claw could only get her so far against Yoshi, who's weaker in that category, but contains a much more diverse arsenal; especially his ability to eat Riptor's acid and redirect it into her face.
  • Also shows up with the Starscream vs. Rainbow Dash fight. Starscream's Null Ray is specifically designed to work on machines; Rainbow Dash is organic, and thus it had little effect on her.
  • This is one of the deciding factors in Batman vs. Captain America, as Cap is an expert in pretty much all known forms of hand-to-hand combat, whereas Batman is that plus many more tricks up his sleeve.
  • Gaara's exclusive focus on using sand as a weapon is one of the reasons he lost to Toph. While there is no doubt Gaara has powerful control over sand, Toph's training goes on to cover Earth in all of its forms as solid rock, mud, sand, and metal which allows her control over the battlefield in almost any condition and a wider array of abilities that Gaara cannot counter effectively.
  • Lex Luthor's weaponry in his Warsuit is primarily based on Kryptonite, making it effective at crushing any Kryptonian foes that face him, but only normally effective against other enemies.
  • If Knuckles hadn't kept going into close range where DK prevailed, the fight could've ended in his favor. In fact, his advantages come when he ISN'T punching.
  • As in Thor vs. Raiden and Pikachu vs. Blanka before them, Natsu and Ace both specialized in using one element (in this case fire), and both were immune to it - the deciding factor, consequentially, was Natsu's having branched out into a secondary element he could use but wasn't as skilled with that actually COULD hurt Ace, while all Ace could do was feed Natsu.
  • In canon, Twilight Sparkle is completely dependent on the magic of friendship to defeat enemies. Guess what happens when she can't use it?
  • Widowmaker had the overwhelming advantage in firepower with Widow's Kiss during her fight with Black Widow. However that was about the only area that she surpassed Natasha in. Once Black Widow was able to use her superior speed and agility to close the distance between the two she easily overpowered Widowmaker in hand to hand combat to score the kill.
• Criss-Cross Attack:
  • Rainbow Dash opens the fight against Starscream with such a move, leaving rainbow trails behind her that are soon criss-crossing. It's of little effect against the giant robot, but it's just a warm-up.
  • Strider Hiryu's "Ragnarok" attack. It's used to finish off Ryu Hayabusa.
  • Zero briefly pulls this off on Metal Sonic at the start of the fight. The hosts note that his reflexes and possibly speed surpass the speed of the metal hedgehog.
• Cross Counter: Superman vs. Goku ends with Goku's Dragon Fist against Superman's Infinite Mass Punch in the core of the Earth. Neither the Earth, nor Goku make it out in one piece.
• Crossover: The Season 3 episode "Agent Carolina vs. The Meta" is also part of Red vs. Blue's 14th Season.
• Crossover Alternate Universe: This series takes where worlds from each and every franchises merge just for their inhabitants to fight each other.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: With a show called DEATH BATTLE!, it should come as no surprise that it has its own page.
• Crying a River: In the episode "Tigerzord vs Gundam Epyon", after when Epyon defeats Tigerzord, Zordon cries so hard that his tank starts flooding with tears.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Goku thinks that, since Superman is an alien, he came to destroy the earth. This is exactly what happens when the two use their final blows in the center of the Earth.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Given how the show is about analyzing characters' greatest strenghts and weaknesses, it was bound to have its own page.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: Animation-wise, even the most one-sided matches will have the loser giving as good as they get before going down, with the Advantage Ball passing like a hockey puck between the combatants.
• Curse Cut Short:
  • Saba shouts "SON OF A BIIIIIII-" just before he dies.
  • Much like in Twisted Metal Black and the 2012 reboot, Sweet Tooth's "SHUT UP AND BLEED, YOU MOTHERFU-" gets cut short. This time, it's due to The Joker's Electric Joybuzzer.
• Cuteness Proximity: Felicia and Taokaka get distracted by a butterfly.
• Cutting the Knot:
  • Pikachu is on the receiving end of this: He might be able to absorb electricity from Blanka, so Blanka just bites his head off instead.
  • How DK smashed Knuckles could count.
  • It was noted by the hosts that the winner between The Shredder and Silver Samurai would be whoever could land a fatal blow first, or that Oroku could just chug some Mutagen to become Super Shredder and steamroll Harada with superior strength and defence — which is what happened in the fight.
  • Hal Jordan defeats Ben 10 by going back to the point in time before combat started and cutting off still-human Ben's Omnitrix arm, before squashing him to a paste with a boot construct.
  • Wally West runs forward in time to when Archie Sonic's Ultra form would wear off, then literally punches him out hard enough to vaporize him.

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