Boomstick: The Silver Surfer, Marvel's Sentinel of the Spaceways.
Wiz: The depths of space hold secrets beyond our comprehension, but these sage superheroes have seen more of it than any of us could ever hope to.
In this trip to the outer reaches of the cosmos, Wiz and Boomstick return to the rivalry between comic book juggernauts in order to examine two extraterrestrial heroes whose travels throughout the galaxy have imbued them with such an immense respect for all life that both are ready to lay their lives down to protect it at all costs. J'onn J'onzz and Norrin Radd have been heralded as being two of the strongest individuals to wander their respective worlds, and now, Death Battle seeks to test how strong they really are. While neither man would prefer to take a life if it can be helped, the hosts prepare to analyze the might shown from the survivors of Mars and Zenn-La to see whether the founder of the Justice League or the first herald of Galactus will have what it takes to survive a death battle.
The journey through the cosmos begins, ironically, on our planet when Doctor Saul Erdel used ancient technology to bring an inhabitant of Mars to Earth. He succeeded and the Martian in question, J'onn J'onzz also known as the Martian Manhunter, immediately began to showcase some of his amazing powers. Shapeshifting and mindreading are just a fraction of what J'onn is capable of, especially since Martians have control over their bodies, all the way down to the DNA. This allows them to transform into, among other things, a gargantuan dragon, a genetic duplicate of Wonder Woman or even an Expy of The Incredible Hulk. Beyond that, the Martian Manhunter is able to shoot Eye Beams and psionic blasts, turn invisible and intangible and possesses a healing factor so potent, J'onn has regenerated from being reduced to a single limb, minuscule pieces of himself and even goo.
All of this incredible power unfortunately gave Doctor Erdel a heart attack, and in the aftermath, J'onn disguised himself as a human detective named "John Jones", solving cases on Earth from the shadows for many years. Though, he eventually publicly revealed his alien identity by helping found the Justice League of America and proved that he could hold his own many times over. J'onn has helped pull the Earth around and his skill and power makes him so fearsome, Superman considers him the being he is most afraid of having to fight. This apprehension is well-founded, as the Martian Manhunter has gone toe-to-toe with other Kryptonians, such as Ultraman and the reality-shattering Superboy-Prime. If anything, Kryptonians are standard fare for J'onn as he would go on to battle even more esoteric foes such as the angel, Asmodel and the God of Evil, Darkseid. J'onn is not just powerful either, but fast enough to keep up with Superman and Supergirl's physics breaking speed. Of course, J'onn's greatest asset is his peerless telepathic ability, allowing him to read minds, shut them down and even warp the minds of godly entities. He can also protect the minds of his allies and sense the emotions of all beings throughout the galaxy. Perhaps his greatest feat of mental power is when he foiled the creator god, Perpetua's, attack by connecting his mind with everyone on Earth's within the span of Planck time, the smallest unit of time measurable. His defiance of this supreme deity earned him a complete smiting of the divine level and he still managed to recover. His regeneration is such that Batman claims the only way to kill him would be to destroy every atom in his body, an improbable task given his aforementioned power.
Yet, the Martian Manhunter is not invincible. Martians possess a very real weakness to fire, courtesy of the Guardians of the Universe, that can cause them to lose the otherwise perfect control they have over their bodies and even powerful mental suggestions of fire can induce a similar effect. Still, J'onn has fought plenty of fire-based foes in his lifetime and has developed a significant resistance, even if the vulnerability is always present. It is this weakness that led to the Martians' near extinction when J'onn's evil brother, Ma'alefa'ak, weaponized it into a curse that spread between the minds of the psychically linked Martians and set them ablaze with a mental flame. While J'onn and his family survived for a while by disconnecting themselves from their fellows, his wife and daughter succumbed to their despair and chose to reconnect, leading to their untimely deaths and leaving J'onn to live in guilt and isolation. That guilt, combined with J'onn's mental powers, led to him inadvertently tethering the spirits of the Martians to their desolate world, preventing them from moving on. Ultimately, he would find it in himself to return to Mars and finally allow his people to pass into the afterlife while fully committing his life to defending his new world. Truly, the Martian Manhunter's real power lies in his wisdom and compassion, neither of which will ever wane.
After an advertisement for One Piece (2023), the hosts journey from our solar system to the faraway planet of Zenn-La, home to Norrin Radd. Born into a veritable utopia, Radd was destined to live as a genius scientist until the arrival of the Devourer of Worlds, Galactus. Rather than see his home world destroyed, Norrin made a deal with Galactus: to become his Herald and seek out other, uninhabited planets for him to consume. Galactus agreed and bestowed upon him the almighty Power Cosmic, transforming Norrin into the Silver Surfer. The Power Cosmic grants the Surfer all of the power of his god-like master, albeit on a lesser scale. Such powers include nigh-unlimited energy, matter manipulation, phasing, Super-Strength, Super-Speed and invulnerability. These powers made the Silver Surfer adept at travelling the cosmos and finding uninhabited worlds for Galactus to consume.
For nearly a century, all was well until Norrin made a miscalculation and accidentally gave his master a world inhabited with life. Consumed by guilt, the Surfer allowed Galactus to suppress his emotions and memories in order to ease the pain of his mistake, giving him an indifference to the planets he would offer until he reached Earth. With some help from the Fantastic Four and Alicia Masters, Norrin's true personality reemerged and he rebelled against his master, saving the planet. Despite that, Galactus chose to leave the Surfer with all of his powers intact, out of respect for his first Herald. Afterwards, Norrin ensured that he would be more resilient to mental threats, even those on the scale of Psycho-Man and a Mind Stone-empowered Supreme Intelligence. Now free to roam the universe, the Surfer spent his days saving lives across the cosmos and contemplating existence, a freedom afforded to him by the Power Cosmic. The Surfer has used the Power Cosmic to perform all sorts of improbable feats, including rearranging molecules as he pleases, forcing anyone to feel pain, manipulating the elements and even creating stars bright enough to light an entire universe. His iconic silver surfboard acts as an extension of himself, able to change into weapons or energy, reform if it is broken and of course, soar across space at impossible velocities. On it, Norrin is able to outpace Thor, time travel through speed alone and even outrace a literal wave of universal destruction.
Even with all of this power, the Surfer is a deeply philosophical and moral individual who will always strive to protect life when he can. Even when confronted by the new host of the Starbrand, a near infinite energy source, who was on the verge of potentially wiping out all life on Earth, the Surfer chose to spare her after discovering she was pregnant, determined to preserve the life of her child using all of the power available to him. Such power includes the ability to sense other lifeforms throughout the cosmos, absorb energy even while on the brink of death and survive anything from a blast from the Infinity Stones, being smashed into pieces and crashing into the Big Bang. It's no surprise that Reed Richards considers him the most powerful being in the entire galaxy. Yet, it is not power that defines him but tragedy. Despite the bonds he would form with several heroes on Earth and beyond, the Surfer would always end up alone in the cosmos and as the capstone on that lonesome existence, Zenn-La, the home he had sacrificed himself for, was always destined for destruction, regardless of his intervention. Though, that's hardly enough to extinguish the Silver Surfer's light, the brightest beacon of hope in all of the universe.
With the Shady Rays advertisement complete, the space bound superheroes are finally ready for combat. It's time for a death battle!
In a film noir style detective's office, two figures are conversing with one expressing wonder with the unfamiliar environment. The other, Detective John Jones, is skeptical of his confusion and reveals the former's identity as the Silver Surfer. Both aliens drop their human guises while J'onn attempts to probe Norrin's mind for answers.
FIGHT!
But the Surfer repels the mind reading and quite literally steps out of the office, revealed to be a mysterious room floating in the depths of space. He calls his board and soars away, while the Martian also steps out of the room and pursues him. The chase leads them both into an asteroid field where J'onn uses his phasing to bypass the debris before using his telekinesis to hurl the surrounding rocks at the Surfer. The former Herald tries to shoot them down with energy beams but is quickly entombed, all the while still being mentally probed by J'onn.
Norrin decides to go on the offensive, phasing through his imprisonment and giving chase to the now fleeing Martian. The two use their powers to soar through the stars, phasing through asteroids and planetoids alike while the Surfer tries to shoot the Justice League founder down with his energy beams. To his shock, he discovers that J'onn has created duplicates of himself that all try to shut down his mind. Norrin's attempts to blast them all are in vain, but he resists long enough to use his extrasensory abilities to find the real Martian Manhunter, grabbing him by the neck.
J'onn retaliates by blasting the Surfer with his eye beams, knocking him off of his board. He then proceeds to grab it and snap in half while transforming into a gargantuan space dragon. Silver Surfer recovers from his surprise in time to summon a new board and dodge a moon-destroying rake of the now monstrous Martian's claws. Once again, the roles of the chase are switched as J'onn bites and claws at Norrin, before finally connecting with a tail swipe. But the Surfer is quick to recover, flying towards his foe and freezing his dragon form, forcing J'onn to return to normal. The Surfer capitalizes on the opportunity to snag his opponent's foot and drag him closer to a nearby star. The Manhunter tries to stop him with his eye beams, but Norrin is prepared this time, absorbing the energy and shaping it into an orb. He then hurls his opponent at the star before immediately following up with the energy ball to force J'onn into the inferno.
The Martian Manhunter growls in pain from the heat and flames but manages to compose himself just as the Surfer also steps into the star while praising J'onn's willpower. The two grapple in the center of the star, before Norrin breaks the hold by intensifying the Martian's pain. As J'onn reels back, the Surfer fires a massive energy beam at his vulnerable opponent who reverts to his true Martian form. He attempts to regain control of the situation by probing his opponent's mind one more time, but finally realizes that, like him, the Surfer does not know what is driving them to fight. Accepting his imminent demise, J'onn can only pray that Norrin will be able to live with the aftermath. Having heard his opponent's concession, the Surfer sheds a single tear and intensifies his attack, creating a silver supernova that engulfs the surrounding planets. The Manhunter's body scorches and melts and he calls out to his lost love once more before finally the star erupts. Alone in the void that follows is the victorious Silver Surfer, kneeling on his board out of respect and grief for his fallen fellow alien.
KO!
As the Surfer lies despondent at his victory - still unsure what drove him and the Manhunter to battle, Boomstick expresses horror at how the hosts forced such an encounter to occur given the strong moral character of both combatants, only for Wiz to try and bring things back into focus. Both the Martian Manhunter and Silver Surfer possessed similar enough strength and speed along with many shared abilities such as precise molecular control and phasing, but the Herald of Galactus had several edges over the Justice League founder. While J'onn could employ his telepathy to mess with his opponent's mind, the Surfer has shown resistance against top-tier telepaths in the Marvel universe before, making mental attacks a moot point. Both have absurd healing factors meaning their battle would take a while to conclude, but the Power Cosmic meant that only Silver Surfer had the means necessary to overtax his opponent's healing factor by destroying every single trace of the Manhunter's being. Outside of Galactus himself, trying to remove the Power Cosmic from the Surfer only serves to fail as the Power replenishes him near immediately; Martian Manhunter attempting to steal it from him would still leave enough for Norrin to continue fighting and ultimately end the fight considering that the Power Cosmic is quite literally capable of anything the user wants. Lastly, while both heroes have tremendous respect for life and would never unleash their full repertoire unless provoked - much less actually kill, Death Battle's removal of such preconceived notions means that when push comes to shove, the Silver Surfer's near-infinite might meant that he had enough power needed to vanquish his incredibly talented yet ultimately outclassed foe.
Wiz: The winner is the Silver Surfer!
"Martian Manhunter VS Silver Surfer" contains examples of:
- And I Must Scream: By the end of the fight, both combatants realize that something is compelling them to try and kill each other even though neither of them want to, with both acknowledging that they have no idea why they’re even fighting in the first place. Silver Surfer’s horror over his “victory” speaks volumes.
- Call-Back:
- Before the fight starts proper, J'onn's desk has pictures that depict past Death Battles, more notably Scarlet Witch Vs Zatanna from last season, and Ant Man Vs Atom.
- During Norrin's chase after the Manhunter, Space Hawaii can be seen in the distance alongside the Macho Man Vs Kool Aid Man constellation.
- Call-Forward: On the noir office's billboard, two pictures
reminiscent of future combatants Bill Cipher and Discord can be seen. - Darker and Edgier: The battle has many somber moments as the two combatants begin to question as to why they're even fighting in the first place, unaware that they're just puppets made for the entertainment of the audience wanting them to beat the snot out of one another, but aware that they are forced to compelled to fight to the death. It also ends with Silver Surfer despondent over his victory.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The beginning and end of the animation are in black and white as a homage to the Film Noir genre, but the battle itself is in full color.
- Double-Meaning Title: The episode has a title screen called "Mind Over Matter", both a play on them being telepaths (the trope Mind over Matter) or they're having a shared mental conversation over the matter that is the reason why they're forced to fight in the first place.
- Downer Ending: Silver Surfer wins, but it is a futile one knowing that he and Martian Manhunter were stuck questioning why they had to fight in the first place. The only thing that could be called bittersweet about this battle is the faint implication that Martian Manhunter might reunite with his people in the afterlife, given his last word is calling out for his late wife M'yri'ah.
- The End: The ending of the episode has the words "THE END", with the Silver Surfer kneeling between them.
- Foregone Conclusion: Since both combatants are able to regenerate From a Single Cell, the only way either of them can win is by completely annihilating the other on the atomic level. And although both of them are otherwise very close in terms of strength and speed, meaning that the fight between them could go back and forth for a long time (especially considering Martian Manhunter's superior telepathy), only the Silver Surfer's Power Cosmic, which is practically infinite, is able to output the incalculable amount of energy needed to accomplish this, ultimately leaving J'onn with no real win condition.
- Hurl It into the Sun: The Silver Surfer tries to destroy Martian Manhunter by throwing the latter into a star. Considering how fire is J'onn's Kryptonite, this causes him a lot of pain, but it's not enough to finish him until Norrin uses the Power Cosmic to make it go supernova.
- Internal Deconstruction: Both Martian Manhunter and Silver Surfer question just why they have to fight one another and have an awareness that they should get along but just can't, and neither can figure out an answer on who is pulling their strings, as if they are forced to play these roles just like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are fated to die in Hamlet.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: With their vast power and empathatic wills, both aliens are able to note the sheer oddity of just why they're fighting in the first place.
- Monochrome to Color: The fight starts in black and white, but shifts to full color when J'onn starts chasing Norrin across space. It goes back to black and white when the sun explodes after J'onn's death.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Norrin despairs over being forced to kill J'onn for reasons neither of them understand. After the fight, Boomstick has his own existential crisis over why they're pitting people against each other in fights to the death. Wiz doesn't.
- Mythology Gag: The Silver Surfer's infamous Game Over pose from his 1990 NES game is featured twice in the episode, once when mentioning the moral dilemmas he struggles with in his analysis, and again in the animation when Martian Manhunter attempts a mental attack, causing the Surfer to briefly assume the pose.
- No Plot? No Problem!: Deconstructed, as both fighters feel compelled by a greater force to fight each other to the death, but don't understand why. It's implied that they're almost aware that they're characters in a Hypothetical Fight Debate show where the characters have no choice but to kill each other just because that's the premise. In the end, knowing that he just killed a great hero for no apparent reason leaves the Silver Surfer devastated.
- Out-of-Character Moment: DEATH BATTLE! uses this trope a lot for reasons that should be obvious, but this episode directly interrogates its usage of that almost to the point of Deconstruction. The episode starts with J'onn fighting Norrin in an attempt to gain answers from him, but in a twist, he actually gets the information he wants towards the end of the fight... and they still have to fight each other to death for reasons even they don't understand, as if being driven by some warped compulsion. In the end, Norrin wins, but his continued perplexion and his guilt over killing a decent man when, by all appearances, he really didn't have to leave him feeling hollow in the aftermath.
- Padded Sumo Gameplay: Both fighters are noted to be absurdly hard to kill, and the only thing that breaks the tie is Norrin's use of the Power Cosmic, which is strong enough to burn away J'onn down to his last cell.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Discussed by both combatants. They know that only one of them is allowed to win, and J'onn even hopes that Norrin will be able to live with the circumstances of his victory.
- Sad Battle Music: The backing track for the fight, "Mind Over Matter", is far less energetic than most other tracks seen in the series. Rather than pump up the audience, it focuses on being far more ethereal and eerie, emphasizing how a battle between two gentle All-Loving Hero spirits like Martain Manhunter and the Silver Surfer can only end in tragedy no matter who the victor is.
- Spiritual Antithesis: To the Deadpool based episodes. The Merc with the Mouth knows that he's a fictional character having wacky death matches and screws around with Wiz and Boomstick for amusement. Meanwhile, both Silver Surfer and Martian Manhunter get close to the truth as to what they're getting into, but they don't know why they have to fight and this uncertainty terrifies them. More specifically, it's a dark mirror to the Deadpool vs Pinkie Pie episode as the combatants in that episode are goofballs who obliterate the fourth wall, become best friends, and win one over the creators of Death Battle by celebrating Deadpool's birthday.
- Surfer Dude: Much to Wiz's annoyance, Boomstick becomes an exaggerated one when going over the Silver Surfer's board and when delivering his usual post-analysis pun, complete with a surfboard, sunglasses, a backwards hat, a noticeable sunburn, and a surfer accent.
- Wrecked Weapon: Martian Manhunter breaks Silver Surfer's board, but he's able to instantly summon a new one.
- Worthy Opponent: Both combatants respect one another and their shared questioning on why they have to battle, with Martian Manhunter hoping his opponent can carry the weight on why they fight on his shoulders.
