Boomstick: Well, on that fun note, let's jump into our season finale!
Wiz: First up is The Incredible Hulk, Marvel's mean, green, world-breaking machine.
Boomstick: Then there's Broly, the Legendary Super Saiyan from Dragon Ball.
To begin the match is a study of the Hulk, born as Robert Bruce Banner. Bruce's early years were spent developing his intelligence, but just as much time was lost being tormented by his abusive father Brian. Seeing his son as a monster, the Banner patriarch was responsible for scores of domestic abuse; regularly maiming his son and eventually going so far as to beat his wife to death. This trauma would manifest itself in Bruce's psyche as an alter ego, a behemoth lashing out at the world. Bruce struggled to keep this identity in check, but he persevered and furthered his education. He went on to become one of the leading figures in the field of nuclear physics, gamma radiation in particular. These connections Bruce had to gamma rays would only grow stronger over the years, culminating in his presence at the military testing ground of a gamma bomb. Bruce, accidentally caught in the blast radius of the bomb's detonation, was exposed to vast quantities of gamma radiation. Instead of killing him, this radiation gave Banner a means for his repressed traumas to resurface and take control over his body; from this accident did the Incredible Hulk emerge. Over the years, Bruce and the Hulk have been at odds with one another, two minds sharing the same body, but on the occasions where these two halves make peace, the world is sure to bear the full brunt of this titan's power.
The complicated nature of Banner's mind means that several personalities have developed from the original Hulk, and when he transforms, any one of them can take hold of the body. The specifics of these personalities vary; while some are more intelligent or sociable, the Savage Hulk, the most iconic form of the Hulk, is a brutish child acting on base instinct. Other forms have developed from the relationship between Banner and the Hulk, including ones that tap amplify the might of the beast within. Namely, the Green Scar Hulk and his eventual state as the Worldbreaker is said to be the Hulk's potential fully realized. Regardless of which personality takes control of Bruce's body, every Hulk shares the same general powerset. The cornerstone of said powerset is the Hulk's tremendous physical might; lifting hundreds of millions of tons and leaping into low orbit through his own leg strength are a few examples. This strength grows the angier the Hulk gets and even omniscient entities have said this strength has an unlimited capacity to grow. Immense stamina and endurance, adapting to hazardous environments, and the capacity to instantly recover from seemingly any injury are also among the powers the Hulk has displayed. That said, several developments have unfolded in the world of the Hulk since his last appearance on the show. It has been revealed that gamma-empowered entities such as the Hulk share an intrinsic connection to the satanic archetype of the Marvel multiverse, the One Below All. Every time the Hulk dies, his soul travels to the Green Door, an interdimensional portal leading to the lowest depths of hell, where the One Below All resides. There, the Hulk may return to the physical realm and resurrect his body, instantly recovering from whatever may have killed him.
Thanks to this unstoppable force that he embodies, the Hulk is considered one of the strongest heroes in the Marvel universe. The green giant can shatter whole universes with the shockwaves emitted from his clapping palms and even defeated the One Below All. This form of the Hulk has faced off against cosmic-scale foes like Hyperion and Umar, who are critical in gauging the Hulk's full potential. Hyperion withstood the destruction of two universes; though the Savage Hulk, one of the Hulk's lesser states, got the better of him with a single attack, he was only able to battle Umar for a few minutes. As the Green Scar proved capable of confronting her for a full twelve hours, this form of the Hulk is a hundred and twenty times more powerful than the Savage Hulk. Agility is similarly a trait the Hulk possesses in no short supply as he regularly faces off against gods like Thor, who has flown across the universe at several quadrillion times light-speed. He has even defeated an avatar of the One Below All, the very source of his power. Even so, the Hulk's strength and speed do not cover all his failings. The source of the Hulk's powers in conventional planes of existence stems from the hypothalamus; damage sustained here can surpasses his healing, if not outright kill him. With an attack of sufficient power, his transformation can be forcibly reversed, turning the Hulk back to the human Banner. However, as long as his link to the Green Door remains intact, nothing is safe from the Hulk's rage.
With that said, the second combatant featured is Broly, one member of the warrior race that is the Saiyans. Born to the Saiyan homeworld Vegeta, its similarly-named king took notice of Broly due to his immense power even as a baby and exiled him to an inhospitable planet. The reason for this wariness is because of Broly's status as the legendary Super Saiyan, a warrior of immeasurable power born once every thousand years. His father Paragus was also sent off to this world as Broly's sole caretaker; ironically, this fate saved them from the annihilation of planet Vegeta by the spacefaring warlord Frieza. For decades, Paragus took advantage of the innate potential his son had with grueling training regimens, forcing him to become a impressive fighter even by Saiyan standards. Father and son would eventually cross paths with Frieza himself and be inducted into his army, given the task of traveling to Earth and defeating its sworn protectors: the Saiyan hero Son Goku and their race's prince, also named Vegeta. Since this fight, Broly became both a friend and a rival to Goku, attempting to hone his temper when harnessing the might it brings.
Despite the power he wields, Broly is inherently a demure figure; he has little interest in combat and is calmer than most Saiyans. However, when sufficiently provoked, his status as the legendary Super Saiyan becomes all the clearer. Broly is an adept martial artist, able to study and adapt to his foes' fighting style mid-combat; his power grows alongside his anger in a similar fashion. Saiyans such as Broly are capable of harnessing the natural life energy known as ki and weaponizing it. For the legendary Super Saiyan, this takes the form of drawing upon his own ki to amplify himself or, more commonly, using it to unleash devastating ranged attacks. The standard form Broly's ki attacks take are energy spheres that can obliterate whole planets at their largest. Other, such as lasers, waves of energy, and showers of light rays, are also known to be how Broly utilizes his ki. Ki has other, more utilitarian capabilities, as well; flight and telekinesis are among these methods. The true calling card of a Saiyan, however, would be their transformation into numerous Super Saiyan forms that multiply their destructive capabilities. Notably, Broly initially didn't possess such a transformation but rather a "Wrath Form", which allowed him to draw on the power of the Saiyan's Great Ape while in human form, yet was more than enough to stand up to Goku and Vegeta's normal Super Saiyan transformations. Annoyed by how Broly faltered against the might of their Super Saiyan Blue forms, however, Frieza murdered Paragus in the hopes that the loss of his only family would provide Broly with the emotional anguish needed to become Super Saiyan and surpass them, and that it did. Specifically, this tragedy led to Broly's usage of the c-type Super Saiyan from, and, where the legendary Super Saiyan gains his namesake, b-type form. Far stronger than normal, the b-type Super Saiyan's power output it is, in fact, so overwhelming that Broly must constantly be on the attack lest he destroy himself with the power buildup.
Having this much potential to his name means Broly has plenty of hype to live up to, and he succeeds in that regard; by Goku's own word, Broly stands as strong if not stronger than threats like the timeline-devouring Zamasu, the seemingly infinite power of Jiren, and the destroyer god Beerus. Goku's earlier clash with the latter resulted in shockwaves threatening to tear apart the entirety of Universe 7; said universe, being a macrocosm of several other dimensions, puts its size at nine times larger than the universe of the real world. Goku can strike and react at speeds that far dwarf that of light, and surpassing his fellow Saiyans, so can Broly. In fact, the battle Broly had with Goku and Vegeta resulted in the trio fracturing reality. Despite their superior skill and experience, the Earth-based Saiyans faced a steep disadvantage against Broly. It took their fused form of Gogeta and their shared strength multiplied to finally defeat Broly even in his legendary Super Saiyan form. This fight did much to highlight Broly's accomplishments and skills, but also his few shortcomings. The b-type Super Saiyan state, while Broly's most powerful, is also his most vulnerable; in addition to the power overload, he takes on a berserker mindset, meaning more alert opponents can out-maneuver him. These forms are not absolutes either, in that powerful enough attacks can knock Broly into lesser states and even cause his anger to wear down. Thankfully, Broly took this loss in stride and was able to make peace with the Saiyans and befriend others. Now, the legendary Super Saiyan is a better man for his ordeals, harnessing his power and accepting its capability when he has no other option.
Both these unstoppable berserkers have been studied, and now the time has come. One advertisement for Wonder Woman 1984 later, and now, it's time for a death battle!
Broly, the legendary Super Saiyan, meditates along in a stretch of desert; his only companions being a few stray deer. Gingerly, he pets the animals when the rumbling of earth intrudes upon the scene. The skies darken and a meteor plummets to the rocky ground behind him, causing the deer to flee. A jade green mass, the Incredible Hulk, emerges from the dust to confront Broly. The son of Paragus warns this stranger that his anger is barely kept in check, but the Hulk marches onward. By the time the two behemoths are face to face, they stand in the aura of Broly's power; the Hulk invites Broly to unleash that anger upon him. The Saiyan cocks a fist back...
FIGHT!
... and throws his punch at the grinning Hulk. Broly's own expression becomes tense seeing how little effect this attack has, and for his trouble, the gamma monster strikes him in the chest; skidding to a halt, Broly barely has any time to upright himself before being met with a rapid volley of punches. Flung about the desert, Broly quickly recovers, rising into the air and drawing from his ki. Enveloped in a green aura, the Saiyan flies back into action, slamming the Hulk across the parched land and into the air. The green giant has a ball of ki slammed into him before, with a twirl of Broly's arm, the Eraser Cannon is launched back to earth. Broly scouts around the resulting crater for any sign of the Hulk, only to hear him charging anew. The Hulk goads Broly further, even when faced with the storm of ki bullets descending upon him. As he leaps into the air, the monstrous form of Bruce Banner grabs an enormous and smashes it onto Broly; the Saiyan, unaffected, sends his foe rocketing across the area. What follows is both berserkers flying across the desert, waves of energy crackling from the tectonic plates beneath them. Soon, the fighters are in a stalemate, one broken by the Saiyan gripping firmly onto Bruce's head, and with a firm yank, tearing it off his shoulders in a spray of blood.
This is not the end of the Hulk, however. His soul travels through the Green Door to possess his headless body. Broly, catching his breath, is punched aside by the Hulk, letting go of his foe's cranium; tendrils of green repair the damage. A confused Broly is left helpless long enough for another series of punches to hammer him, leading up to a choking grip by the Hulk. Broly's anger gives way to the c-type Super Saiyan form. In a flash of light, the now-blond Saiyan breaks free from Bruce's grip and draws ki into his mouth. The Gigantic Breath pushes Hulk aside, but his face, readjusting itself over its burn scars, is that of unchecked rage and aggression. Broly takes to the skies and unleashes a second wave of ki spheres, yet the breaker of worlds is unperturbed. A thunderous clap of his hands dispels the bullets as Broly floats waiting for his foe's next move. The gamma-laden monster he leaps with enough force tackle the midair Broly. His jump goes further, carrying the pair well beyond the planet and out into the vast reaches of space.
The cosmos become decorated with flashes of emerald brilliance. Broly regains his advantage in the fight by pummeling Hulk into zigzagging directions, ultimately sending him back to the same abandoned planet. A tiny orb is flung from Broly's hand and closes in on the Hulk; before he can make sense of it, that same orb grows to a colossal size as Broly pumps his ki into it. Struggling against the Omega Blaster, the Banner son refuses to give in and soon tosses the sphere into the planet behind him. The celestial body explodes and propels the Hulk towards his cosmic foe. Even with all his might, Broly is taken aback by this showing before being once again tackled by the Worldbreaker Hulk and sent into another world. Explosions dot the planet's landscape before erupting into broken remains. The powers of the One Below All course through the Hulk as he continues coaxing further strength from the exiled warrior. What little remains of the planet is blasted to pieces by an enraged Broly, his form muscular and taller. No longer is the Hulk dealing with an ordinary Saiyan, or even a mere Super Saiyan; now, he faces the legendary Super Saiyan.
Flying towards the giant, Broly meets his foe with a body slam that sends the pair across the cosmos. At this point, the shockwaves from their collisions can be seen from outside the galaxy, wiping out countless stars with each blow. Soon, the entire galaxy is obliterated and smothered by the void surrounding it. Floating amidst nothing but each other, the green glows surrounding each berserker grows increasingly brighter as their punches collide. The sheer energy exerted proves enough to tear asunder the walls of this fragile reality. The fighters lunge at each other from fragments of existence before being caught in a grip. Smashing their heads into one another, the force of their destruction warps reality further with every impact; these headbutts become stronger and faster until this infinite void is fill with a flash of green. By the time he comes to, Broly awakens in the desert, holding the remains of the Hulk as they turn to dust. The son of Paragus reclines on the desert floor, cheerily accepting the same deer that was once scared off now tending to his wounds.
KO!
In the aftermath of the fight comes its analysis. The Hulk possessed greater experience, and by scaling him to Thor, is faster than Broly could be scaled to Goku and Beerus; his healing capabilities also meant nothing short of total disintegration would put him down. Depending on which personality was in charge of the transformation, intelligence could be another point in Bruce's favor. However, as the Hulks regularly fight for control over Bruce's mind, this is a variable that could just as easily work against him. Broly had more battlefield control in ability to fly and attack from a distance through numerous ki projectiles. Even the idea that the Hulk could defeat the One Below All is dubious when considering he only faced an avatar rather than the real thing. The true tipping point in Broly's favor, however, comes back to the fighters' strength, which Broly had more than enough power to overwhelm the Hulk with. While the Hulk could shatter a universe a hundred and twenty times over, Goku could only do so to a similarly-sized universe nine times, but the story gets more complex from there. Power on that scale soon became Goku's standard, and it only increased with the four hundred multiplier of forms like Super Saiyan 3. As Super Saiyan forms multiply their user's power regardless of baseline, that would give Super Saiyan 3 Goku enough power to destroy over three thousand universes by the time he fought Broly. Additional boosts in power, such as the Gogeta fusion and the multiplier of Super Saiyan Blue increase this further, giving Broly an astronomical lead in strength over even the Worldbreaker Hulk. Both fighters' strength increases with their anger, and as the Hulk can revert back to Bruce with enough damage, he could not close that gap in sufficient time. The last point to ensure Bruce's defeat would be that while the Green Door can resurrect him, there needs to be a part of his physical body to regenerate with; the hypothalamus is critical for this procedure, and its elimination would result in that of the Hulk's. Broly, having millions of times more power than the Hulk, would have more than enough capability to vaporize the Hulk, giving him nothing to recover from and giving himself the win.
Wiz: The winner is Broly!
After all has been said and done, Boomstick receives a letter from the Mask. He reads its contents...
Next season, Death Battle returns, bigger, bolder, and better.
Hulk vs. Broly contains examples of:
- Blah, Blah, Blah: While Wiz explains the intricacies of the different Super Saiyan forms, Boomstick reminisces about his Disappeared Dad; Wiz's lecture devolves into this in the background as Boomstick tunes him out.
- Book Ends:
- Broly is introduced in the fight enjoying the presence of some deer. By the time he's done away with the Hulk, he's taking in their company again.
- In a meta sense, this season began with the loss of a Marvel character via total disintegration and it ends the same way.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: Broly gives Hulk’s “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry,” line, while Hulk ends up using the “Devil” line from Broly’s debut movie (original Broly, not the new one featured in this episode).
- Brick Joke: Boomstick notes that the Worldbreaker Hulk could survive twelve hours of smashing with Umar, but not the kind Wiz is thinking of. By the time he addresses how the legendary Super Saiyan Broly had little trouble smashing Frieza, he makes it a point that, yes, this time he is referring to that kind of smashing.
- Call-Back: The size of Universe 7, first mentioned when Beerus had his turn on the show, is scaled to for Broly and proves critical in his victory.
- Continuity Nod: Hulk’s first death against Broly has the latter pull off his head from his body, much like his first round in Death Battle. Unlike with Doomsday however, Hulk just revives through the Green Door and keeps fighting.
- Dead-Hand Shot: After Broly blows him up, the Hulk's hands are shown disintegrating.
- Destructo-Nookie: Boomstick manages to turn this into legitimate scientific analysis, calling it "The Science of the *bleep*". The Hulk has slept with Umar, ruler of the Dark Dimension, as both Savage Hulk and the Green Scar; Savage Hulk reverted to Bruce Banner after six minutes, but the Green Scar was able to last up to twelve hours. Since they have solid figures for Savage Hulk but not the Green Scar, this allows Wiz to extrapolate the Green Scar's most probable power output based on Savage Hulk's greatest measurable strength feat.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus:
- When Hulk resurrects from Broly ripping his head off, the head initially has a slack, dead-looking expression. The moment his body places its hand on Broly's shoulder, however, right before punching him, Hulk's head suddenly adopts a wicked grin.
- The constellation of Chuck Norris and Segata Sanshiro fighting can be seen when Broly is pelting Hulk with ki blasts while the two are in space.
- I Call Him "Mister Happy": Boomstick takes to the name of Broly's Gigantic Omega Storm attack well enough to reappropriate it for himself.
- Hiroshima as a Unit of Measure: The two combatants are so powerful that by the end, their destructive power can only be properly measured in universes they can destroy.
- Kung-Fu Sonic Boom: Exaggerated with the final moments of the fight, which see the fighters reshaping reality with their repeated headbutts.
- Mythology Gag:
- Off the bat, Broly unintentionally borrows Hulk's trademark catchphrase when he first sees him. Hulk pays it back by calling himself the devil like the original Broly did in his movie.
- In the second half of the fight, Hulk and Broly’s clashing destroys the stars in the galaxy in a shot like the original Broly film.
- The reason for Broly's victory is lampshaded by Boomstick as being the outcome most Dragon Ball fights are won via; by leaving nothing of the opponent to regenerate from with sheer overwhelming power.
- Person of Mass Destruction: The two fighters are so ungodly powerful that the only way to properly measure their destructive power is using how many universes they're capable of destroying.
- Running Gag: Because the name Vegeta is used for the Saiyan homeworld, its king, and his son, the hosts use increasingly awkward addendums every time a Vegeta is addressed in Broly's rundown.
- Serial Escalation:
- During Hulk's rundown, Wiz calculates the Green Scar's damage output in the traditional prefix-tons of TNT, but the resulting number is so large as to be effectively meaningless. Broly's rundown points out the scale of the Dragon Ball universe is about 9 times the size of ours (or Marvel's), and from that point on, our universe is a unit of measure.
- In the fight itself, the first half starts with the two blowing up mountains and the surrounding terrain, before they end up in space blowing up planets, and eventually move on to extinguishing every star in the galaxy before destroying the universe and shattering reality dozens of time over by headbutting.
- Shout-Out: Although the Super continuity of Broly is the basis, the hosts still bring up how the original version of the character was fueled by baby Goku's incessant crying; Boomstick in particular likens it to that of Baby Mario from Yoshi's Island.
- Super Mode:
- Worldbreaker Hulk is presented as this for Hulk, being his absolute maximum.
- Broly has his Wrath form, normal Super Sayian form, and finally Legendary Super Saiyan.
- There's No Kill like Overkill: While not shown in the animation, the results indirectly reveal that Broly already would have been able to permanently kill Hulk in his Wrath form alone as Goku's new base post Battle Of Gods with Super Saiyan 3's multiplier (x400 as revealed by the Daizenshuu) would already be 30 times stronger than Worldbreaker Hulk and given Broly's Wrath form forced Goku to Super Saiyan Blue just to overwhelm the Mutant Saiyan in his movie... in hindsight, Broly turning Super Saiyan and Legendary Super Saiyan was just rubbing salt into the wound for Hulk.
- Use Your Head: How the battle ultimately ends, with both Broly and Hulk headbutting each other repeatedly, with each clash causing reality to further break until Broly annihilates Hulk in the heat of the clash.
- Wham Line: The ending has DUMMI give Boomstick a letter from "some green guy in a zoot suit". Boomstick reads it and is aghast at what it says:Boomstick: DAD?!
