DEATH BATTLE

Surprising absolutely everybody with this opponent.

Welp, I guess Doomsday takes it.

This might be a repeat of Yang vs Tifa, in that its a superior foe with static abilities going up against an inferior foe who's abilities ramp up over time. (Yes Doomday isn't static static, but he doesn't upgrade til after he loses. He doesn't do midbattle upgrades as far as I'm aware?)

Though unlike Yang vs Tifa, if Hulk wins I'd actually be happy with that. Which is weird, because I actually like Yang more then Tifa but I'm still annoyed that Tifa lost that one.

Anyways, stuff in Hulk's favor is that if I remember right all of Hulk's stats increase as he gets angrier, durability included (I think, I might be wrong on that one). Even if the strength and healing factor boosts are the more noticeable. So yeah, Hulk might be able to survive long enough to ramp up to the point that he out matches Doomsday. Maybe.

I think this really depends on if they feat scale Doomsday to Supes or if they stick to just going off of Doomsday's displayed feats. Because I remember reading Death of Superman and everything Doomsday pulled off in that, would have been basically Tuesday for the Hulk (except for the killing supes thing I suppose). But I don't know how much power creep has happened to Doomsday since then.

I mean, New 52 Superman basically ripped Doomsday in half with his bare hands once he decided to stop messing around, and it's implied that Death of Superman still happened in that continuity, so Doomsday should have gotten stronger than he was then.

That sort of implies the opposite. That Superman has gotten way stronger while Doomsday hasn't. Which means feat scaling him wouldn't be right.

After this one got suggested I remain convinced that we here in this thread are capable of coming up with better battles than DB itself. Case in point—a while back someone suggested Kirito from Sword Art Online vs Neo from The Matrix. Many laughs were had, given the God-Mode Sue nature of both characters, but you know what? It's a better concept than Hulk vs Doomsday. Stronger theme, less lopsided, it's pretty much a better notion in all respects and I say that as someone who fully understands the criticisms of both Kirito and Neo as protagonists.

You weren't here last time we discussed this one, were you? Doomsday is perfectly capable of upgrading midbattle. Case in point◊ from Hunter/Prey which was written by Doomsday's creator, Dan Jurgens.

...Then breathed Doomsday's remains into his lungs to try and stop Doomsday from coming back, a decision that resulted in Superman getting bodyjacked by Doomsday and turned into a vessel for the monster's return. Well played.

Given what happens next (see above) it remains highly likely that New 52!Doomsday let that happen. Also, in the most recent issues of Action Comics a Doomsday closely resembling the Post-Crisis, Pre-New 52 one took on Post-Crisis Superman, New 52!Luthor, and New 52!Wonder Woman and pretty much walked all over them.

edited 22nd Oct '16 4:13:46 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

IIRC, they mentioned that when Doomsday killed Superman the latter wasn't at his peak power level, so you can't really feat-scale the former if that's the case.

That still means that Superman is strong enough to tear Doomsday to shreds if he wanted to.

No, it means that on one occasion New 52!Superman was able to do that to New 52!Doomsday one time. As mentioned above, a version of Doomsday closely resembling the Post-Crisis one is currently walking over not only Post-Crisis Superman, but New 52!Luthor and New 52!Wonder Woman as well.

And of course all of this is meaningless since Hulk doesn't come within spitting distance of Superman.

I'll pass that on to Superman. I'm sure he'll be very shocked to learn that, during Hunter/Prey when he was armed with the weapons of the New Gods, physically bolstered by the Mother Box, and assisted by Waverider, and proved incapable of killing Doomsday or even fighting him to a draw, that he wasn't at peak power. I think he'll be quite surprised.

Since his initial death at his hands in Death of Superman, Post-Crisis Superman has always treated Doomsday with the utmost respect, and knows full well that picking a fight with him is an excellent way to die again. It's not the attitude of a man who wasn't at full power and has nothing to worry about.

edited 22nd Oct '16 4:20:04 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

The way that statement is phrased makes it sound like the evolution was a response to something in their original fight, not the current one.

What in the living Hell are you talking about? Superman fires a sonic weapon at Doomsday. Doomsday's ears promptly close. It happens over the space of literally a couple of panels.

The same fight features Doomsday evolving a counter to Superman's flight by projecting his spikes. Again, over the course of a couple of panels.

edited 22nd Oct '16 4:23:11 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

You also forget that they think Superman has infinite strength, that Goku would need to gather energy from the entire multiverse just to kill him (and even then they said it was only theoretically possible), and that even after Goku nearly destroyed the universe in Super during his fight with Beerus, they still believe that Superman would beat him.

No need to be rude, geeze. That's not cool. Anyway, the way it's phrased "he evolved to go against my power, even the thing I did in my first fight has been fixed" makes it sound like the new stuff he does is because he knows how to counter Superman now after fighting him and dying to him.

...And your point is what? That's not an argument against Doomsday here, that's an argument in his favour. Particularly given that the most recent clash between the two ended with Superman and Wonder Woman, in tag-team, being unable to overcome Doomsday, and resorting to luring him to the Fortress and using the Phantom Zone projector to banish him, a temporary solution at best (as evidenced by Doomsday being freed by another villain by the end of the issue).

I reiterate—the most recent fight saw Superman and Wonder Woman, together, unable to overpower Doomsday. You may now make an argument for why the Hulk will succeed where they failed.

Except that it's not phrased that way. Superman fires the sonic weapon. We see Doomsday stagger. We then see his ears make an odd sound, and Superman remark on how his auditory canals have closed up.

He then makes an additional comment about how the spike Doomsday lost in their previous fight has grown back. You're conflating two separate comments.

edited 22nd Oct '16 4:33:47 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

To be fair to them the Goku Beerus fistbumps potentially destroying the universe thing is bullshit, because that sure as hell didn't happen during the Battle of Gods movie. And it was just so stupid and unneeded. I mean sure it happened, but I can't blame them for just ignoring it.

Now I don't know if I agree that Supes could still beat Super Saiyan Blue Kaioken x10 Goku, but its pretty damn hard to really gauge just how that compares to Supes feats. Like as far as I'm aware we don't even have actual numbers for the Blue multiplier, let alone what sort of increase to Goku's base form happened thanks to Super Saiyan God.

edited 22nd Oct '16 4:30:55 PM by Kosjurake

Because, they'll ultimately think that Superman is still stronger than Doomsday, since Superman is apparently universal in their eyes, and Doomsday doesn't even remotely come close to that. Hell, they don't even say Superman died to him, just that he was put in a "healing coma."

Here's the thing, the Super anime does not have the same power scaling as the movies; the movies had Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan simply be a Super Saiyan with the power of Super Saiyan God, and any increase in power being due to him training with Whis; in Super, the 6, 10, and 15 god scale thing does not exist, Base Goku is able to fight Beerus leagues better than his old Super Saiyan 3 form was able to do (especially since his and Vegeta's base states are able to destroy SS3 Gotenks), he can still use all of his Super Saiyan forms in his empowered base state, with his Super Saiyan form rivaling the power he had in his old God form, and he can make his Super Saiyan Blue form 10x stronger using the Kaio-ken, to the point where he can move faster than stopped time. Through all of this, Beerus is still stronger than Goku, and can flat out destroy anything on the subatomic level with just a single word.

edited 22nd Oct '16 4:36:56 PM by Ssj3Gojira

...And your point is what, exactly? Whether Superman or Doomsday is stronger isn't exactly relevant here (though the fact that Doomsday is stronger than Superman is, in point of fact, canon, confirmed repeatedly by numerous authorial statements). Doomsday fights and regularly injures Superman. That is indisputable. The Hulk is nowhere near at that level.

Now, if what you're saying is that the guy's at DB are not as great at their jobs as they'd like us to believe and will invent a way for the Hulk to win, sure. I have no doubt that will happen. But they'll still be wrong.

To me the "even" indicates the second statement is an extension of the first statement, but if you don't interpret it that way then whatever.

Also, technically Goku beats like 90% of the Death Battle participants now, seeing as he now knows the Evil Containment Wave as of the latest Super episode, and can now just seal people away if he needs to.

edited 22nd Oct '16 4:47:27 PM by Ssj3Gojira

x4 And? Like nothing you just said allows us to really quantify how much stronger Goku has gotten. The closest thing is the moving during a time stop. But that's about it. Which is kind of unquantifiable in its own way, because last I checked, there isn't a hard number for moving faster then frozen time. Like not even the universe busting fist bump is applicable here, because its played off as less one big boom, and more some wonky interaction between their punches that generates some sort of matter disruption wave that gets stronger the further out it goes from the start.

Anyways, back to the Hulk vs Doomsday thing, yeah it does sound like the Hulk is screwed. Since they have plenty of grounds to justify feat scaling Doomsday now.

edited 22nd Oct '16 4:48:13 PM by Kosjurake

I mean, Goku was also having trouble controlling all of his power during that whole sequence, and once he managed to get it under control, he was simply cancelling out the force in his and Beerus' blows.

@Moth 13

We literally see Doomsday's ears close on panel. And that's only one example of him adapting over the course of that fight. I have the comic in question. He adapts a bunch of times. If you go back to the prior discussion on the topic you should find a place where the whole fight got linked.

edited 22nd Oct '16 4:53:59 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

It seems like a simple enough principle to me.

• Can Hulk defeat any iteration of Superman in any of his?
• If the answer is yes, he stands a fighting chance against Doomsday who won a couple of fights but was ultimately beaten. If the answer is no, there's no contest to speak of.

Doomsday also has feats that don't involve Superman, including, but not limited to, defeating a being made of living radiation, burning down most of Apokolips, defeating Darkseid (which, yes, involves Darkseid jobbing, but it's not like many of the Hulk's greatest victories don't involve the same), and, while under the control of the Eradicator, helping Superman defeat numerous further super-empowered Doomsday clones.

The situation as it comes across in that one page is that Doomsday does not have his ears closed all the time because why would he, but after Superman used sonics in his first fight he gained the ability to shut his ears when needed. Now obviously that might not be what's happening if Superman didn't use that attack in the first battle or if later in the comic he adapts to non-superman related things, but from what I'm seeing in that page it's not some sort of absurd implausible situation.

Superman does not have a sonic weapon as a part of his regular arsenal. That's never been a thing. That is literally the first and only time that Superman has ever used that against Doomsday.