DEATH BATTLE

So of the various incarnations of Superman, Earth 2 (Silver Age), Kingdom Come, and Prime are too strong, while Earth 1 (Golden Age/Original), New Earth/Post-Crisis, and New 52 are too weak. Do you think they'll do a composite character like they did with Link and Zelda - not that that would really work seeing how they're all separate characters? It'd be like merging Ultimate Peter Parker with 616 Peter Parker.

edited 10th Oct '12 11:40:34 AM by Arawn444

Just a little nitpick—Earth-1 was Silver Age, Earth-2 was Golden Age.

I think Earth-2/Golden Age Superman might actually be on par with Goku, since he was a little weaker than his Earth-1 counterpart but stronger than post-Crisis Superman, but since he started aging he was treated as a separate character.

edited 10th Oct '12 11:56:47 AM by Filby

Superman has done some crazy stuff, but Goku has just got too many advantages.

First off like Dragon Ranger said Goku is a warrior. Superman is a hero. Superman has definitely got some fighting skill but at the end of the day his approach is still "Hit the other guy". Goku was trained since he was a baby to be the ultimate martial artist. Watch a fight from Dragon Ball Z and a fight from Justice League. When superman hits someone he hits them hard. When Goku hits someone he hits them hard and then hits them fifteen more times in the blink of an eye.

So you'd have superman relying more on strength than skill. But you know what? I think Goku has that area covered too. Superman can move planets pretty easily, but Goku was fighting people that could annihilate planets with a casual flick of their wrist by the end of the Saiyan arc. Not only did he completely school them, he went on to fight exponentially more powerful opponents later on and several times over.

Goku also has the range advantage. Superman can shoot lasers out of his eyes sure but Goku can throw hundreds of Ki blasts at once and the Kamehameha easily rivals some of the more conventional weapons that have hurt superman in the past.

Actually, Superman easily has the advantage when it comes to raw strength; ki blasts are not strength, and no Dragonball villain has even gotten close to destroying a planet with anything less than a ki-blast.

Also, Dragonball is incredibly inconsistent on planet busting with anything before Cell. Master Roshi blew up the Goddamn moon (A fate so ridiculous it's used on this page), yet none of the attacks of villains in the Saiyan saga did anywhere near that much damage to the Earth. When Freeze, a villain hundreds of thousands of times stronger than Roshi, tried to destroy the planet, he couldn't even do it in a reasonable amount of time, even though he should have been able to. The moment of Vegeta casually blowing up a planet is anime-only, but it only makes the issue even weirder, since his attacks while angry afterwards still didn't do near that much damage.

So yeah, planet busting really is weird in Dragonball. Not that it matters when the Goku used is already stronger.

Goku's main advantage here is the sheer destructive power of ki blasts and the durability he must have to survive them.

edited 10th Oct '12 1:23:53 PM by Scardoll

True, but ki can also be used to enhance that strength many times beyond its regular limit. If Goku could power up enough, he could probably destroy a planet barehanded.

20x Kaio-ken Super Saiyan 4, anyone?

Saying Dragon Ball's power levels are inconsistent (Which they really are) kinda rings hollow when Goku's opponent is Superman a guy with such ridiculous fluctuations in power even among a single incarnation he can be knocked around by a Batman villain in one issue and then beat god in an arm wrestling match in the next.

...My point isn't even that Dragonball has inconsistencies. My point is that planet busting is something that's very unclear up till the Frieza saga. The filler feat of Vegeta casually blowing up a planet is ridiculous compared to the level of power in the Saiyan saga, but so is the amount of time it took for Frieza to blow up a planet.

Therefore, it's kinda disingenuous to suggest casual planet busting by the Saiyan saga.

Ki can be used to increase strength, but we've again never seen physical strength used for large-scale destruction in Dragonball. I think it might be a scale issue; blowing up a planet with a big ball of energy is easy. Destroying a planet by punching it would take forever.

edited 10th Oct '12 9:22:31 PM by Scardoll

I'd like to point out that Supes pulls his punches. Supes needs one punch and Goku will lose a head.

If Supes can even hit Goku in the first place, thanks to Instant Transmission.

...which takes concentration and a few moments to pull off, which is why he didn't use it to escape Cell when he blew up.

Not only does it need concentration it's basically useless in a fight as well unless it's Instant Transmission Kamehameha, and that's because it had concentration when charging up the attack.

That's also several, several, SEVERAL characters goku would loose against.

Silver Surfer, Nova, Gladiator, Hell, even most end of series Digimon villains (Like Lucemon casually piledriving Emperor Greymon through 2 MOONS) could probably kill goku, if not give him a run for his money (If we go by the Canon manga at least).

edited 11th Oct '12 5:27:16 AM by Demongodofchaos2

I'm surprised people forget how overpowered the Flash is compared to both of these guys.

I believe it's only certain Incarnations of the flash though (Like Kingdom Come Flash, in that he's practically Infinitely fast).

Hell, Sailor Moon could defeat both of these 2 (Especially as Eternal Sailor Moon and Sailor Cosmos, nonetheless Neo Queen Serenity).

edited 11th Oct '12 5:40:51 AM by Demongodofchaos2

The modern incarnation of the Flash is only broken if you actually think he can spam that "infinite mass punch" everybody loves to talk about (the only way he'd pull that off if he was running non-stop for the entire fight). Go further back to when the Speed Force just made Flash really fast and he'd get absolutely wrecked.

Well, I'm just going off a rant I heard. Here it is (lots of swearing and analogies).

Does Superboy Prime count as a Superman?

He's treated as a separate character in-universe, so I'm going to say no.

Each incarnation of Superman is treated as a separate character, so that doesn't really mean anything.

Superman can move faster than the speed of light when he wants to, so Goku's Instant Transmission's usefulness is somewhat lessened, and he needs to be able to concentrate (not easy to do in a fight) and focus on a person's ki signature to teleport to their location. So if it's just Goku and Superman, he will only be able to teleport to Superman's location - assuming Superman even has ki. See: http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Instant_Transmission

Even Kamehameha's usefulness is lessened because it needs to be charged, and Superman's Eye Beams don't.

edited 11th Oct '12 8:22:05 PM by Arawn444

In Lois and Clark Superman is said to have a chi of steel. I don't know how canon that is though.

edited 12th Oct '12 2:48:13 AM by Blurring

Probably not canon to the comics. I dunno if it would be even considered part of the DC multiverse either. Heck, is Smallville part of the DC multiverse? Either way it changes nothing. Goku's IT is either useless or can only be used to teleport to Superman's location, which isn't necessarily a good idea. Goku can hit hard, but Superman can hit really hard, (Silver Age Superman - one of the strongest incarnations - could juggle planets, after all) and it takes a lot to wear him down even his weakest incarnations. If they go for a composite Superman... well, let's just say if his feats from Kingdom Come and DC One Million are counted, Goku had best kiss Chi-Chi, Gohan, Goten, and Pan goodbye.

edited 12th Oct '12 9:24:56 AM by Arawn444

I wonder if they're going to count Ki blasts as being similar to magic, since magic has generally been one of Superman's few weaknesses.

Yeah, people have been wondering... I don't think it should really. It's just an energy blast, while "Magic" usually takes the form of limited Reality Warper powers in the DCU and revolves around symbols and chants. Look at Zatanna, she's usually a lot more creative than just shooting fireballs at her opponents while using "Llaberif" as her Kiai.

Ki is more of a "Force" while magic is more of a set of rules that you can bend. At least that's how I see it. I always thought it was a Logical Weakness for supes since they're messing with the rules he's minmaxed.

edited 12th Oct '12 1:17:51 PM by ShirowShirow

Magic and Ki is noted to be two different things in DBZ, so it's unlikely they'll count it as such.

Yeah, just look at Babidi. He's a weakling when it comes to ki, yet he has some pretty powerful magic.

I would actually like to see if Goku in the end of the manga could keep up with the Gunbuster.

I think he could if they buffed him up in that he would be allowed to breath in space.

I think a good Mecha battle could be Genesic Gao Gai Gar (Without the Goldion Crusher due to being Outside help) vs. Nono's Diebuster form.

Demongod, remember that giant robots are the ultimate gamebreaker. At any point during an argument you can just say that "X character has/is a giant robot" and you've won the argument.

Interestingly Rainbow Dash did beat Starscream rather legitimately but that was more a case of Starscream defeating himself.