Boomstick: And the Reverse-Flash, DC's psychopathic speedster fanboy.
Wiz: They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...
Boomstick: But I'd say the sincerest form of flattery is NOT trying to kill your superhero husbando!
For the 10th episode of Season 8, Death Battle provides us with a battle between two spiteful sociopaths who would steal the look of heroes they obsessively hate. Both abuse their ability of time travel to make things the way they want and both have gained aliases based on their enemies, but with an additional word to emphasize how evil they are. And now, these doppelgangers will be pitted against each other to see who would win a death battle.
For the first combatant, we're introduced to Goku Black. His origin begins with Zamasu, with his goal being divine justice and natural beauty. As Universe 10's Supreme Kai's assistant, he observed as the mortals could only commit violence and stupidity until he encountered Son Goku. Goku was able to become a Super Saiyan God and clash with Lord Beerus, with the shockwaves from their punch parry almost destroying all of Universe 7, which is at least 9 times larger than our own universe to be at most 13 times larger. This is something within Beerus's capabilities too, as when two Gods of Destruction clashed, they could destroy both of their universes rather easily. As the parry of shockwaves traveled across the universe in seconds, they have to be traveling past lightspeed. The clash also happened when Goku had not fully mastered the form, with him going Super Saiyan Blue gaining additional times 50 power boost, just like a regular Super Saiyan. As an added note, Goku has received additional training from Whis and fighting with Universe 6's fighters, making him stronger than when he parried with Beerus. Witnessing this power Goku could unleash, Zamasu realized he could be used. For that, he killed his master to become the new Supreme Kai and used the Super Dragon Balls to switch bodies with Goku before starting his mortal genocide. From then on, Zamasu would be known as Goku Black.
As Goku Black, he possesses all of Goku's powers, but with genocidal intent. He's able to use a version of Super Saiyan Blue called Super Saiyan Rosé, the Instant Transmission technique to teleport to ki signatures, his version of the Kamehameha called the Black Kamehameha, and the Saiyan ability to adapt and grow stronger from near-death. He also can form a ki energy blade like the God Split Cut that can cut Black's targets into ribbons and can be extended to be either Azure Dragon Sword to perform Divine Lasso to pull his enemies towards him or the Sickle of Sorrow to perform The Work of The Gods to summon shadow clones. The most powerful item in Black's possession is his Time Ring, obtained from killing his master. With it, he can travel through time, follow other time travelers, and stay in the past for a limited time.
This ring is what allowed him to travel to Future Trunk's timeline and team up with that timeline's Zamasu. It is also what prevented him from being erased, even though Beerus erased his past self from existence, making him a paradox. With these techniques and skills, Black has beaten Goku, Vegeta, and Future Trunks. When fused with Future Zamasu via the Potara Earrings, he was able to outlast Vegito, a fusion between Goku and Vegeta via the Earrings. Even when his physical body was destroyed by Future Trunks, his soul lingered and eventually merged with the universe to become one with everything before starting to spread to the rest of the multiverse.
However, despite all that he achieved and becoming the multiverse, all of Zamasu's actions would be for naught once Zeno arrived. Forced into taking drastic actions, Goku summoned him to erase the entire timeline just to destroy Goku Black completely. With the irony Zamasu never saw in killing every mortal despite him using a mortal to do so or becoming the most powerful god despite the existence of Zeno, it all came to naught as everything was wiped out from that timeline.
- Goku Black: You've been running around making messes for too long and now I'm going to choke the life from you. I can't wait to watch you die.
With the Goku Black's analysis complete, the Wiz and Boomstick move on to Eobard Thawne, AKA the Reverse-Flash. Hailing from the 25th century, Eobard had a complete obsession with the Flash. He studied everything about Barry Allen, especially the Speed Force, until one day, he came across a time capsule that so happened to contain Barry's costume. Using that costume, Eobard reversed-engineered the Speed Force connection and eventually become the Flash of his time. He was ecstatic when Barry himself showed up and made him Kid Flash until Barry realized that every crime that happened was caused by Eobard himself in an effort to look heroic. Heartbroken, Thawne promised to atone for his actions and eventually cleaned up his act, to prove to Barry that he was legitimate, just to realize when he got to Barry's time, he saw that Barry already had everything and just made him an afterthought. He then went to the Flash museum of Barry's time to see who was Barry's greatest arch-nemesis due to that knowledge being gone in the future, just to realize that it was he who would become that arch-nemesis. Devastated and realizing he was indeed truly used and forgotten, Eobard decided to tear down Barry's life, just as he did to him. Eobard would return from the future to terrorize Barry and his allies, unleashing revenge in reverse, and becoming, the Reverse-Flash.
Being the Reverse-Flash, Eobard switched his power source from the regular Speed Force to the Negative Speed Force, generating said force with every step he takes. Since they are mirrors of each other, the Negative Speed Force allows Thawne to do most abilities that the Flashes can do, such as having superhuman speed, fast healing, and superhuman stamina. He can keep up and even outspeed experienced speedsters like Barry and Wally West. Wally for instance ran across universes faster than two gods who could instantly teleport across the same distance and somehow Wally managed to beat himself in a race. Despite that impressive speed feat, Barry stated that Eobard is even faster than that.
Of course, Eobard, as the reverse of the Flash would also have his morality reversed, such as instead of just passing through solid objects with high-speed vibration, he'd use it to kill others by removing vital organs or messing with molecules. Thawne did this before, to Iris West, which naturally got Barry mad. Thawne can also use these vibrations defensively, such as when the DC universe was about to be destroyed, he unleashed those vibrations to cancel out said destruction. This is something even lower-tier speedsters such as Jenni Ognats can do, so it's not an outlier. Even more impressive, when Barry and Wally raced each other, the vibrations they produced combined almost destroy the DC multiverse.
Thawne could also do more than just vibrations, such as generating powerful shockwaves with just a snap of his finger, puppeteer victims by possessing them, or speak at such a high frequency the target believes his words are just their own thoughts, even if said target has a connection to the Speed Force. He can also instead of stealing speed, age people to death. His most devastating weapon is his own mastery of time travel and he fully weaponizes it to its most lethal means. Of course, Thawne knew he must keep Barry alive lest he deletes himself from the timeline. Hence, he went for proxy means like pushing Barry down a staircase as a kid, erasing his best friend from time, or even killing his mother and pinning the blame on his father. In fact, he even considered adopting kid Barry as his own son.
In fact, the morality between both Eobard and Barry can be seen in why they time-traveled. Barry only used it to prevent his mother's death but Eobard used it to kill his family when they tried stopping his research into the speed force. Thawne would also kill his career rival in his time's Flash Museum and both his crush's boyfriend and every single male his crush had before turning her into an invalid for the rest of her life when she still never accepted him. Normally he should have stopped existing due to destroying the event that made him go back in time in the first place but he was still roaming around, subtly turning him into a paradox, but the biggest and most obvious event that made him a paradox was when Barry saved his mother's life and caused the Flashpoint paradox to happen, which should ensure Thawne could not become the Reverse-Flash but due to Thawne being in the timestream when it happened, he retained his powers. Realizing what Barry had done, Thawne become a full living paradox where he could do whatever he wanted unfettered and survive mortal wounds such as being stabbed in the chest by Thomas Wayne, getting vaporized by Iris, or even being deleted by Doctor Manhattan. Despite dying in all these situations, he always came back. He survived getting hit by Barry while the latter absorbed the entire Speed Force into him, and was only knocked unconscious briefly when Wally punched him at near-lightspeed, essentially hitting him with the force equivalent to that of a White Drawl Star.
Eventually, when Barry finally managed to get Thawne to explain why he did all those destructive feats, Thawne explained that it was the only way he could come out with that could let him spend time with his hero. It explains his color scheme, being that of Kid Flash. Realizing that he was partially to blame for this, Barry forgave him, which angered Thawne into running into Barry, which caused him to now be connected to the universe once again and hence, delete him from the universe due to his paradox finally catching up with him. However, Barry did not kill Thawne but instead, completely reset his timeline in such a way, Thawne was just a normal Flash fan without any personal relationship to him. However, as per the nature of comic books, Thawne would sooner or later return once again, to terrorize the timeline.
With both evil time-travelers analyzed to the fullest extent possible, they are ready to fight it out to determine who is the better doppelganger. One advertisement for Bluechew later, it is time for a death battle!
The scene shows a newspaper where Pietro Maximoff is impaled on a statue with the headline: FLASH KILLED QUICKSILVER?! As the reader is laughing, it is revealed to be none other than Eobard Thawne, the Reverse-Flash. As he jokingly declared that he was the one who caused Quicksilver to die by Barry's hand, he was suddenly interrupted by the black vortex nearby. Soon, the vortex reveals its occupant, Zamasu, or in his alias, Goku Black. As the nearby people cheered for whom they thought was their savior, he outright declared he was going to execute all of them before blasting them with ki while drinking his tea. Angered that Black interrupted his self-monologuing for that, Eobard proceeded to dash towards him and prepared to punch him...
FIGHT!
... before revealing that he was only going to punch away the teacup. Outraged over that petty action, the fallen Kai proceeded to start blasting him with ki, which the evil scientist easily avoided before running up to a mourning civilian. With a faux facade, he took the man and used him as a shield to absorb the ki blasts before throwing his remaining head at Zamasu. As Goku Black flung away that head, he could only look at Thawne about to haymaker him before getting punt right into a few buildings. He then flew out and tried blasting at him with ki again to only miss. He then angrily ordered Thawne to stay still before punching him just to realize at the last second, the speedster used his vibration trick to evade the attack. Having enough, the rogue Kai took out his Black Azure Sword to unleash Divine Lasso to make sure he could not avoid the attack, which finally worked by blowing up near a laughing Thawne who dodged the incoming projectiles easily and sent him towards Zamasu. Holding his neck, he activated his Super Saiyan Rosé form and narcissistically asked if he liked the color before punching Thawne down the Earth. As Thawne is smashed through the other side and through the moon, Black teleported to where Thawne would be before smashing him back to where they fought at first. Thawne barely started running before Black teleported back to the city and began firing his Black Kamehameha in the bid to kill DC's psychopathic speedster. As the beam struck the city, causing wide destruction, Thawne quickly sped up on a building before activating his Negative Speed Force powers to access the time stream. As he declared he would end Black before the fight even started, he realized Black followed him and had the same idea. Just as took out his Sickle of Sorrow to kill Thawne, the speedster snapped his fingers and disappeared in a flash of light.
Back at the start of the fight, Goku Black declared he was about to start killing those civilians before he was splattered by the present Thawne. As the civilians ran from the carnage, Thawne saw his past self and they both started laughing that they know Black was dead. Just then, the present Black caught up and sliced him in half. Both combatants then realized they should have died and yet were alive. Black then unleashed his aura and sent an energy rift which Thawne dodged. However, out of the rift came several shadow clones of Black. As Thawne was confused over their presence, Black initiated a combo with a kick, with his clones smashing in a series of punches. As Thawne fell, he realized he was about to get sliced and quickly vibrated through it. Thinking quickly, he went into the time stream and went to the time where he got smashed back to Earth before impaling Goku Black with his fist.
Meanwhile, back to the time near the start of the battle, past Thawne just finished reading the newspaper before he got incinerated by a ki blast courtesy of present Black. And then yet another point in time, Black just fired off his Black Kamehameha at the city before he got grabbed by present Thawne and vibrated out of existence. Then, in an unknown point in time, that past Thawne is laughing as he sets up a statue that will kill Quicksilver. Just as he put it in place, he's surprised to see his future self come out from the timestream, which distracted him enough to be sliced in half by the present Black. As Thawne escapes back to the present with Zamasu in pursuit, Quicksilver comes flying in courtesy of Barry's attack to land right on the statue and dies on it.
In the timestream, as Black chased after the speedster declaring himself a god while blasting him with ki but missing all of them, Thawne charges up in speed before disappearing, before returning right behind Black saying that those words were nothing to a living paradox, all a while looping his punches on Black. Thinking quickly, Black gets Thawne in a chokehold to stop the loop and get back to the now-destroyed city before the speedster vibrated away from Black. As Zamasu still mocked him for his efforts, he was suddenly surprised to see his Time Ring in Thawne's hand before it got destroyed. Thawne then smugly turned around and asked if it was important. Black could only look in shock before he was impaled by Thawne but when he realized Thawne was still there, he could only react in anger as DC's evil speedster flipped him off before disappearing. This new Thawne then slammed Black's face onto the ground before running around the Earth at supersonic speed a few times before pulling up the now faceless Saiyan. Smiling, this alternate Thawne then spun the body many times before using the momentum to throw Black into the sun. As Thawne admired his own work, the body smashed into the sun so hard it went supernova, causing the energy to come and consume the planet. Thawne wisely escaped into presumably another timeline before he too was caught by the explosion.
KO!
As Boomstick points out just how often the combatants of Death Battle are sent hurling into the sun, Wiz begins the rundown on how tricky the battle was to determine a winner. Both Goku Black and Reverse-Flash were not only powerful but nearly impossible to kill off due to being living paradoxes. While Goku Black is definitely more powerful, power alone wasn't enough, as their temporal invincibility meant it would rely more on speed and intelligence to overcome the other. As a speedster, Eobard Thawne clearly had the edge. While Black's attacks could move faster than light, Wally West (Barry's successor) was able to reach speeds impossible to calculate, and Wally is among the many speedsters Thawne has proven to be equal to. In addition, Goku Black relied on the Time Ring to remain untethered to time, something Thawne could easily take out of his possession, and since he isn't a speedster himself, Black had no means to do the same. While there's no way of knowing just how much stronger Goku Black is compared to Goku himself, it wouldn't have mattered as Reverse-Flash has shown being able to erase timelines and even generate enough energy to counter the destruction of the DC Universe, which is bigger than Dragon Ball's Universe 7. In fact, Barry and Wally, two speedsters Thawne has defeated, had a race that almost destroyed the entire multiverse, something Goku Black had no way of countering. Wiz also points out the most important thing to stress about Goku Black, despite having the same body, he and Goku are not the same character. Goku has the drive and willpower to face impossible odds and break his limits, whereas Zamasu stole Goku's body because he was unwilling to get stronger on his own and took an easier approach, meaning he lacked Goku's fighting spirit that would have potentially helped him win. Not to mention, since Zamasu was now in a mortal body, Reverse-Flash had multiple ways to kill him without overpowering him, from scrambling his molecules to aging him to death with a touch. Ultimately, even though Goku Black had the murderous mind of Zamasu in the body of Goku, making him a deadly and nightmarish enemy, Reverse-Flash had the smarts and speeds that allowed him to take the win.
- Boomstick: This fight was definitely not sun-derwhelming.
Wiz: The winner is the Reverse-Flash.
Goku Black vs. Reverse Flash contains examples of:
- Always Someone Better: Thawne proves to be this to Goku Black in several areas.
- In terms of speed, while Goku Black could scale to Goku's clash with Beerus when their strikes traveled at quintillions of times faster than light and has access to Instant Transmission, Thawne had proved himself capable of matching up and even besting Wally West, whose speed feats go to the incalculable levels and could beat opponents with instant teleportation.
- In terms of destructive potential, Goku Black also scales against Battle of Gods-era Goku who was strong enough in a clash with Beerus to threaten to destroy all of Universe 7, which is anywhere from 9-to-13 times larger than our universe. The Super Saiyan Rosé possibly boosts this destructive potential by another 50x, meaning he's at least strong enough to destroy the real universe 650x times over, and he's likely hundreds if not thousands of times stronger than Goku was at that point. Thawne, meanwhile, could generate enough energy to counter the destruction of the entire DC universe...which is over a billion times larger than our universe and 70 million times larger than the largest estimate of Universe 7, plus he's destroyed entire timelines when even the stronger-still Fused Zamasu was killed in such destruction.
- Most significantly, their status as a Paradox Person. In a similar manner to Darkseid and Thanos, where the former was a reality-warping god by default while the latter needed means exterior to himself to gain such power, Thawne's powers made him a "living paradox" with innate immunity to changes to his past while Zamasu needed the Time Ring to do so. With said power coming from a source outside his own abilities, it also meant they could be removed while Thawne's couldn't.
- Asshole Victim: Goku Black's death is pretty horrifying, but seeing the horrible things he had done just in this episode alone (to say nothing about the atrocities he'd committed in his home series), it's rather deserving.
- Badass Boast: The two trade boasts while battling in mid-time travel towards the tail end of the fight.Goku Black: To stand atop all things and look down on creation itself! That is the work of a god!
Reverse-Flash: Empty threats to a living paradox! - Black Comedy: All over the place, between Reverse-Flash reveling in making Barry kill Quicksilver, him "politely" using a bystander as his human shield, the two fighters angrily complaining that the other should be dead after killing their past selves, and then continuing to travel through time and repeatedly murder each other to no avail.
- Book Ends: The fight starts when Reverse-Flash breaks Goku Black's cup of tea, pissing Black off. The fight ends when Thawne destroys another item of Black's, the Time Ring, which allows Thawne to finish Black off for good.
- Broken Win/Loss Streak: On both ends:
- Goku Black's defeat marks the end of Dragon Ball's winning streak since Hercule Satan way back in Season 2.
- Reverse-Flash is the first DC character to win since, ironically, the last speedster to be featured, Wally West, with Red Hood, Batgirl, Lex Luthor, and Batman falling since (although he also continues DC's record of never losing to non-Marvel foes).
- Call-Back:
- The prelude before the fight shows a newspaper headlining Quicksilver's death at the hands of The Flash back in Season 3. Reverse-Flash admits to having something to do with it. During his fight with Goku Black, another Reverse-Flash is seen moving a samurai statue that Quicksilver will fall on before he's killed by Black.
- Just like fellow Dragon Ball antagonist Majin Buu, Goku Black is killed by being thrown into the sun.
- Combat Pragmatist: When killing each other's past selves, neither of them wastes time with theatrics and go straight for killing blows while they're unprepared.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Goku Black gets subjected to this when Thawne phases his hand through him, drags him across the ground and around the world dozens of times in the span of a few seconds, reducing him to a bloody skeleton with some skin left over. Then, to add insult to injury, he throws what's left into the sun with enough force to make it go supernova. It's perhaps one of the most grisly, over-the-top, and needlessly violent deaths in the entire series. By the way, Black is still in his Super Saiyan Rosé form when Thawne pulls his body up and Saiyans go back to their base form when they die, meaning Black is still alive after Thawne literally wiped the floor with him.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: One time-traveler proved to have a massive advantage in "Goku Black VS Reverse Flash". While both possessed immortality, Goku Black needed his time ring to survive the battle while Eobard simply didn't have any such disadvantage. That wasn't the only problem Goku Black faced, however, as Thawne proved to have almost every advantage imaginable, including but not limited to speed, sheer power, and relevant knowledge. Tellingly, the hosts note that while Fused Zamasu (the strongest version of Goku Black) was not included in this fight, they would have had trouble surviving the fight due to the Reverse Flash being capable of performing a similar attack to the one that killed them in canon. It's also shown in the animation, with Black only being able to land hits on Thawne by distracting him and the speedster otherwise dominating the fight.
- Evil Counterpart: Both combatants are evil copies of two iconic heroes of their respective franchises.
- Evil Is Petty: Both villains have petty grudges against their heroic counters.
- Zamasu couldn't stand losing to the mortal Goku, so he stole his body as payback, becoming Goku Black and enacting his Zero Mortal Plan.
- Eobard, meanwhile, is angry at Barry's rejection of him due to his false heroics. It gets worse after he learns that Barry has a better life with friends and family, and Eobard was destined to become Barry's archnemesis. This caused him to embrace his destiny and become Reserve-Flash.
- In the episode proper, both villains have petty reasons to fight each other. Reverse-Flash is pissed at Goku Black for ruining his day off while Goku Black is outraged by the mortal Reverse-Flash breaking his cup of tea.
- Evil Versus Evil: Both men are utterly remorseless sociopaths with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, fully willing to slaughter countless beings for their own personal goals.
- Hard Work Hardly Works: Discussed as one of the core differences between Zamasu and Goku and one of the major points against Black in this fight. Goku’s power was gained through years of training and his sheer determination allows him to constantly shatter his limits. Zamasu stole Goku’s body specifically because he was unwilling to put in the effort to reach that level of power on his own and there’s no evidence that Black actively trained after the body switch. While the real Goku could hypothetically reach the same level of destructive power Thawne possesses, Zamasu simply lacked the drive needed to actually put in the effort needed to reach such a level.
- Hurl It into the Sun: After grounding Goku Black all over the pavement, around the world, Reverse-Flash finishes him off via this, causing a supernova. Also, Boomstick lampshades how many combatants have been thrown into the sun, to the point of believing that they should start a timeshare.
- Logical Weakness: While Reverse-Flash is a "living paradox" that is unaffected by time throughout his life, Goku Black (Zamasu) needs his Time Ring to be unaffected by fatal attempts at his past selves. After swiping the ring from Black, Reverse-Flash had the edge he needed to finish him off.
- The Many Deaths of You: Goku Black and Reverse-Flash put each other's past selves through the wringer of deaths, which include bifurcation, impalement, disembowelment, blown to bits, and even atomization.
- Paradox Person: Both Zamasu and Eobard are this, having had multiple past selves killed off in the battle, yet neither of them is affected by it. Eobard proves to be superior in this case due to his natural status as a "Living Paradox", meaning he was this by nature while Zamasu needed his Time Ring to have this status. Once Thawne puts two and two together, he removes the ring and finishes the battle for good.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Both combatants have the power to easily threaten the entire universe by their lonesome, with their battle ending in Thawne throwing Zamasu into the sun with enough force to make it go supernova.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Reverse-Flash gives one after breaking Goku Black's Time Ring, complete with a smug grin.Reverse-Flash: Sorry, was that important?
- The Sociopath: Both Zamasu and Eobard are petty, spiteful, and merciless people who don't care who they kill in order to get the job done, as evidenced by Goku Black blasting people left and right when he arrived and Reverse-Flash using a man grieving someone who was just killed as a human shield.
- Stylistic Suck: The scene recreating Quicksilver's death uses the exact same sprite background from Season 3, which sticks out when compared to the 3D backgrounds used throughout the rest of the episode.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: Goku Black's Time Ring and Reverse-Flash's Negative Speed Force cancel out their attempts at offing each other in the past.
- Villains Out Shopping: Eobard is enjoying some downtime while reading the news about Barry's battle with Quicksilver and was about gloat about how he was really responsible for the latter's death until Goku Black shows up.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Boomstick calls "Eobard" the dumbest first name he's ever heard.
- Why Won't You Die?: Both combatants are genuinely shocked the first time they kill one another's past selves, only to find that doesn't erase either of them from existence.WHY AREN'T YOU DEAD?!
