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[Frumple]

In Superman: The Movie, Superman's speed was shown as fast enough to reverse the timestream.

Which is all that really needs to be said, I guess. There's probably other incidents involved, and gods know that if he couldn't himself he'd just go mug enlist one of the DC critters capable of it.

Superman's power levels also grew throughout the 1940s; by 1947, he is able to use his super-speed to break the time barrier for the first time.[13]

If the movies aren't acceptable. [13] points at #48 of Superman volume one (whatever that is). So. One of the superman incarnations can probably manage it.

Anyway, silliness and character breaking aside, is the thing actually entertaining to watch?

[LordBucket]

so where did you get that information? the movie? NO.

Yes, he did it twice in the movies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjgsnWtBQm0

Although...checking, apparently those movies were before the 1986 cutoff used in death battle, so they wouldn't be applicable.

comics are my one true passion.

Ok. So what's your take on the fight? I've seen the original movies, the remake, and I've seen Justice League and Justice League unlimited. The feats he performs in all of these just aren't of the magnitude he's given credit for in the death battle fight, which so far as I can tell is based on a few specific comics that give him extreme outliers compared to anything else he ever does in material I've actually seen. They basically ignored feats and chose to base power for both combatants on a few cases where numbers were given.

In the material I've seen he can punch people though buildings and absorb hits of similar magnitude, but feats like this are a dime a dozen in the Dragonball verse.

Like I said to begin with...this fight h always been about which particular authors and which sources you use for superman. "Sneezes destroy solar systems" superman, and so forth. But I just don't see him doing that kind of thing in any of the source material I'm familiar with, and it seems like they sourced his powers based on some particular comics that are extreme outliers compared to everything else.

So what's your take?

[LordBucket]

Which is all that really needs to be said, I guess.

Pretty sure both characters are consistently FTL when they want to be. How much faster is debatable, but both can at least travel some arbitrary multiple of light speed.

Superman's power levels also grew throughout the 1940s; by 1947

As above, everything pre-1986 was discounted due to the (I think) crisis on infinite earths retcon of pretty much everything. I don't think many people seriously suggest that Goku could take on pre-crisis Superman, who routinely did all sorts of crazy stuff like sneeze and accidentally destroy solar systems and so forth. And then the next day get beat up by regular humans for no good reason. It was wildly inconsistent.

[Scoops Novel]

You would think that human speciest's would be more popular in marvel and dc, given the sheer number of powered individuals and cosmic keystone status.

[Frumple]

Ah, fair enough. Th'point about 'im roping some other time traveling critter into it stands, though I don't think there's anything particularly meaningful stopping supes from time travel or whathaveyou if he really feels like it.

Pretty sure both characters are consistently FTL when they want to be. How much faster is debatable, but both can at least travel some arbitrary multiple of light speed.

I do wonder about this. I know Goku has the whole instant transmission thing (would would appear to obviously break FTL, perhaps to an arbitrary degree -- I don't remember if that thing had range limits or anything.), but I don't remember if he could break the limit just via pure speed. It's... been a long damn time since I've watched/read any of the dragonball stuff. Remember any examples off the top of your head?

[LordBucket]

I know Goku has the whole instant transmission thing (would would appear to obviously break FTL, perhaps to an arbitrary degree -- I don't remember if that thing had range limits or anything.

Yes, he's used it to travel not only between planets orbiting different stars, but also to instantly travel between either galaxies or dimensions depending on which translation you consider. There doesn't appear to be any range limit. But it's clearly a teleport, not a "speed" thing.

but I don't remember if he could break the limit just via pure speed

any examples off the top of your head?

The difficulty in evaluating Goku has always been that a number of his feats are depandant on inferring what he's capable of to what other characters are actually demonstrated to do, and in general require a lot of speculation and mental gymnastics.

For example, Vegita is shown in the anime both to be able to casually destroy planets as well as to travel between solar systems under his own power. And Goku is shown to be both faster and able to put out more power than Vegita on many occasions. Therefore we infer that he is capable of these things as well even though he's never shown doing them personally. Same things goes with breathing in space. There are lots of examples of people of his species flying around in space without difficulty, but Goku himself is never ever once shown to do it himself. So do we conclude that he can't just because he's never shown to, or do we conclude that because member of his species with far less ability are able to, that he can as well?

Unneceesarily complicated example:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://view.thespectrum.net/series/dragon-ball-volume-01.html?ch=Volume+40&page=124

That's 5 loops around the earth. Measureing with a straightedge, those paths are about 1.8 times the diameter of the planet. So, 5 loops 1.8 times a 12,756km diamater works out to:

5 * 2 * pi * (1.8 * 12756 / 2)^2 = 4,138,218,560km

That was done in "under a minute." We don't know how much under a minute, so let's just assume 60 seconds for simplicity. So divide by 60 and we get 68,970,309 km/minute The Speed of light is 17,987,547 km/minute. Gotenks was travelling on the order of 3.8 times the speed of light. Goku is faster than Gotenks, therefore Goku can travel faster than the speed of light. There's no indicator of how long he can maintain that speed.

But we have to make  lot of assumptions. For example, Goku is able to catch Gotenks, but is Gotenks going as fast as he was shown above at the time? Maybe he was tired and therefore going more slowly. We don't really know.

A simpler example would be the training he did with Mr. Popo. He was explicity shown to be able to travel faster than lightning. which is on the order of one third to one half the speed of light. Kaioken is explicity stated to increase both strength and speed by its multiple. And he's done kaioken as high as 20x. So 20 * one third the speed of light would be about 6c.

There are other example, but so far a I know they all require similar amounts of math and or speculation. The screwball attack estimate based on the Serpent's path feat put him at 2.3c. And I think that was quite some time prior to the first time he managed  kaioken as high as 20, so that seems reasonable. But on the other hand his training with Mr Popo was when he was just a kid. So if we've established a lower bound of at least 6c when he was a kid, obviously he's able to move faster as an adult, but how much faster? If you apply some of the extreme multiplliers that some people are coming up with for his various forms you could possibly claim a speed on the order of many thousands of c. Though that would be an extreme outlier compared to the majority of examples which put him at about 1-10 c.

So yes...definitely faster than light, but how much faster is debatable. It's also debatable how long he can maintain those speeds. For example, if I recall correctly the "faster than lightning" bursts were to travel distances of at most maybe a couple dozen feet. Travelling 50 feet at 6c is very different from maintaining 6c for hours or weeks at a time to travel between planets. But then on the other hand, using the screwball attack example, he maintained their estimated 2.3c for 28 hours.

[Neonivek]

2) They got some things strangely wrong about Goku. Biggest one: it was completely bizarre to the point of ludicrousness to suggest that Goku, of all people, would be surprised and confused at the notion of someone using pressure points on him. Another example: claiming that he couldn't breath in space. So far as I can tell that's based on a single comment by Freiza during the Namek saga of Dragonball Z. The problem is that it's demonstrated wrong on a number of occasions. Vegeta and Radditz are both shown casually hanging out in space during the series, Goku's father and various other Saiyan have been shown flying through and fighting in space...it's obvious that space is not a significant hinderance to members of his species. Maybe Goku himself is never explicitly shown to do this himself...but it it's pretty clear he can, and in fact even after Freiza said he couldn't, Goku was obviously not hindered when the planet blew up and actually did leave him in space. He just disappeared for a while and then showed up again. Obviously the vacuum of space didn't kill him, and once he realized it he just flew away. But then they also gave him powers that I'm not sure how they justified: for example the had him draw power directly from the sun for the spirit bomb even though I'm not aware of the spirit bomb ever having been used to draw power from anything other than living creatures. They had him use IT to teleport ahead to where Superman was going rather than where he was, even though IT explicitly required an energy source to lock onto for targetting. So some of the things they got wrong hurt him, some helped, some made little difference...but they did make a lot of mistakes

No Goku, Vegeta, AND Raditz cannot breathe in space. The explanation is that the space pod offered some protection even though it was opened. Goku cannot even breathe under water. He can hold his breath for extended periods of time but he still needs oxygen.

3) While they drew on material from GT (which is the third of three Dragonball series) they appear to have used about the middle of the second series as the measuring point for Goku's power. The Snake Way and "40 tons" events happened about halfway through Z. That's relatively ancient out of the Dragonball timeline. But they apparently chose it, disregarding a lot of other material because it was one of the few instances of numbers being given in Dragonball apart from power levels and the kaioken. Whereas for Superman they also used a set of "numbers" given at one point...from, once again...some specific source that I'm not familiar with and appears to contradict his generally demonstrable feats in material I have seen. Basically...it seems like they were comparing an obscure outlier of Superman to a very old mid-second-series Goku.

Honestly you HAAAAAAVE to ignore the numbers given for Goku a lot of the time because those are absolutely dreadful. The creator of the series often made mistakes when making the numbers... those 40-tons are actually, if I remember correctly, are 40kg weights! the tons was a correction.

4) They appear to have completely glossed over fight speed mechanics. Seems like they just arbitrarily allowed the two to fight on equal terms. Superman is routinely seen taking punches from much slower fighters than Goku, whereas FTL combat is a regular and recurring theme in Dragonball. Even as early as original Dragonball, world tournament fights were shown to occur more quickly than the audience was capable of observing them, and throughout the various series it was common for some fighters to be unable to even see the attacks of other fighters because of speed.

Honestly just give it to them. Yes Goku can consistantly dodge easy to dodge attacks and Superman cannot because that is how the comic is set up. Makiing them roughly equal while painful for either one (afterall Goku is a lot faster then most of Superman's enemies... Yet Superman has dodged things MUUUUUUCH faster then anything Goku had set up)

6) It sort of felt like they were trying to "touch on everything quickly once" rather than actually have the two of them legitimately fight. They made mistakes for both characters here. For example, squeezing in the nyoi-bo and kinto-un, even though those were childhood toys that Goku pretty much stopped using s  teenager because he'd outpaced their usefulness. And they had superman complaining about the "magic" of the nyoi-bo, but even I would say that no...it was pretty silly to suggest it would have had any special effect on him. Again...it was something that Goku mostly stopped bothering with by the end of original Dragonball, let alone Z or GT. It was essentially a stick that could elongate itself. Yes...maybe that's magic...but so what? Goku wouldn't have bothered with it and it shouldn't have had any effect on Superman anyway. But they were doing stuff like this just so they could say that they included everything.

The Nyoi-Bo even though it is magical should have absolutely NO special effect on Superman specifically because its enchantment just makes it a really good bo that can extend and retract. So yeah you are right.

7) They ran out of time. With Goku dead and the earth destroyed...the obvious next thing to happen would be for Superman to reverse time to undo the destruction of earth, and for Goku to teleport out from the afterlife and continue the fight. But they just let it end there instead. Granted, the video was already over 30 minutes long by that point, but neither of the fighters would have stopped at the point they decided to end the fight.

I think the REAL answer is they both lost.

Superman should lose, if only because the concept of power levels is completely irrelevant to what makes Superman an interesting character. Dragonball Z is all about getting stronger and stronger, so defeating Supes fits in with both characters. As much as you could with apples and oranges characters anyway

Ohh you would be surprised what crazy flippity do Superman has done. I seen someone who could disintigrate a mountain in a single attack being considered someone who could mortally wound Superman and yet later only get a bloody nose. I've also seen Superman physically move a planet (Something impossible for Goku).

It is as I said: Goku could beat Superman everyday of the week, except Saturday. Saturday Goku doesn't stand a chance.

Or another way of putting it. If they allow Superman at full strength then Goku stands no chance. Superman at everyday strength would always lose.

---

Having watched the thing I can say this

They really didn't take the battle seriously. That should have been obvious the second Goku went "An Alien? That means he is trying to take the planet"

I think they lost credibility of ACTUALLY doing how a battle would turn out right there.

[LordBucket]

No Goku, Vegeta, AND Raditz cannot breathe in space. The explanation is that the space pod
offered some protection even though it was opened. Goku cannot even breathe under water.

There are plenty of examples of Saiyan in space without any difficulty, both with and without pods.

This shows Vegita standing around on a moon, travelling through space to the planet it orbits, landing on an asteroid blowing it up, flying through space, etc. At no point is he ever the least bit inconvenienced by it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXlHHEQCtuQ#t=4m23s

Here'a a whole bunch of Saiyan fighting in space:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZodMWfmaD8

There are other examples. Vegita has been shown in space a couple times. Brolly flew off from planet Vegita when Freiza destroyed it. When Namek was destroyed Goku was left in space but nevertheless survived.

Clearly they can be in space. They do it all the time. The one or two examples of them not being able to as the plot demanded can be dismissed just like they dismissed the fact that Superman needed to wear a spacesuit in Justice League.

[Moghjubar]

Goku's critical flaw: Must fight opponent at full strength: prevents him from letting the kryptonite finish off Superman... yet...
Superman's critical flaw: Marks the safety of metropolis/citizens of Earth more important than himself: doesn't prevent him from exploding the earth?

Someones getting an alignment change on their character sheet!

[Neonivek]

This shows Vegita standing around on a moon, travelling through space to the planet it orbits, landing on an asteroid blowing it up, flying through space, etc. At no point is he ever the least bit inconvenienced by it.

The issue is less "able to move through a vacuum" and more "He will still sufficate eventually"

Also in that second part he was in the Upper Atmosphere.

I don't know why you are confusing "breathing in space" with "explosive space decompression". I think we firmly established that goku can withstand SEVERAL earth atmospheres worth of pressure.

[LordBucket]

How do you justify Brolly flying away from planet Vegita when it blew up? How do you justify Goku surviving the destruction of Namek?

If suffocates "eventually" allows them enough time to blow stuff up, sit around chatting to one another, fly under their own power to a neighboring planet...I think that's "long enough" don't you?

In any case, I've given a bunch of examples of Saiyan being functional in space. What reason do you have to place arbitrary limits on those examples?

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Hey, so, that fight was pretty sweet. I dunno about all the other nerd stuff. Why didn't Goku use that badass energy-sawblade move of his that he stole from Krillin? That move rules.

Someones getting an alignment change on their character sheet!

SUPERMAN
Level 999 Hero
L+
N-

[Neonivek]

How do you justify Brolly flying away from planet Vegita when it blew up? How do you justify Goku surviving the destruction of Namek?

If suffocates "eventually" allows them enough time to blow stuff up, sit around chatting to one another, fly under their own power to a neighboring planet...I think that's "long enough" don't you?

In any case, I've given a bunch of examples of Saiyan being functional in space. What reason do you have to place arbitrary limits on those examples?

Brolly was a baby when Vegita blew up and he was in a pod. Goku survived the destruction of namek because he found a pod.

Can you find an example of a Saiyan being in space space?

Heck I saw an episode where Goku actually goes out to space space and he needed a space suit.

[LordBucket]

Brolly was a baby when Vegita blew up and he was in a pod. Goku
survived the destruction of namek because he found a pod.

You're making that up. Cite me a source. Show me a video. Show me a screenshot. Show me something. I've looked for a video online of the Brolly sequence but haven't found one. However for Goku and Namek...I have that episode on DVD. He did not use a pod.

Can you find an example of a Saiyan being in space space?

I already linked you a couple. But here you go: Here's Vegita and Nappa hanging out for a good minute blowing up a planet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnqtg0bte6w

But you don't like that because they have their pods nearby. Go ahead show me a source for your assertion that the pod is providing them with air. They're able to talk due to cartoon physics and I'm pretty sure if we looked hard enough we could find old super friends episodes showing superman talking in space too.

So show me a source for your assertion that the pods are providing air. Whether or not you can, here's a video of Vegita in space without a pod:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNVaXDs9434

The moon he's on has no atmosphere. if it did the sky would not be shown as black when viewed at 90 degrees to the ground. The sky on earth is blue because earth has an atmosphere. That moon has no atmosphere.

Even if you choose to arbitrarily ignore that for some silly reason, he is clearly shown in that video leaving the moon and flying right into space unaided, stopping in the middle of the trip to the nearby planet to stare at a boulder and blow it up. He's obviously in no rush, and can still fight and use ki blasts and things. He's not inconvenienced by being in space. Justify that however you want, whether by saying they don't need oxygen, or they can go several minutes without, or they can use their battle auras to create  bubble and take air around with them...it doesn't matter. They can clearly survive and function in space and continue to fight while they do.

Keep in mind that if you look at that and insist on claiming that he just held his breath, I could just as easily claim that the scenes where superman is flying through space, he's just holding his breath too. I don't recall seeing superman in space for more than a few minutes at a time either.

I saw an episode where Goku actually goes out to space space and he needed a space suit.

And here's a screenshot from Justice League showing superman wearing a spacesuit. But nobody is seriously suggesting that he needs it to survive in space.

[GlyphGryph]

Since this was a hypothetical battle to the death, I think it's pretty much mandatory that we remove the constraints that would result in them not battling to the death. Such as worries about, say, destroying the earth.

Is that "fair"? I don't know. I guess one of them suggesting they take it to a different solar system would have at least been nice.