Justice LeagueBeen thinking about this, and here's what I've come up with:
Justice League
Superman is not a credible threat for even Frieza arc Goku. Justice League's portrayal is one of the weakest portrayals of Superman in any media since color television. He
takes punches and is bloodied by them. He
needs a spacesuit inspace. And I've already shown the
World of Cardboard speech, where his "showing you how powerful he is" is I think enough to show him to be worthy of consideration, but it's just not enough to show him to be a winner. He can fly, yes, he's strong, yes...but he's a terrible fighter and his best attribute seems to be that he's good at taking hits. And his best trait, durability, isn't better than Goku or Vegeta's. Superman gets knocked through concrete walls and pounded into the ground, and he gets scuffed up by it. Z fighters get hurled through mountains and they get scuffed up by it. Here's a
compilation of JLU Superman fight scenes. And while Superman is tough enough to take some Saiyan-level punches, he simply lacks the skill and endurance to stand up to them for an entire fight, and his fighting
style is generally very clumsy and slow. Here's a
Frieza era fight. They're doing similar moves, but Z fighters do them more casually and for longer, and they fight a whole lot faster. With Superman against Darkseid, for example, one punch, fly super fast around the other side, hit him again and the impact makes a crater...fight's over. Meanwhile, fights in Dragonaball routinely last hundreds or thousands of punches, with more punches in 5 seconds than are thrown in a minute of Superman fighting, and they endure just as much damage and just keep going. Here's Frieza taking dozens of hits then being
knocked completely though two rock formation that are so big you can't even see him in the video, and he bounces back up, exchages some words and goes back to fighting. Could Darkseid from that World of Cardboard video have taken that? No way. Dragonball fights are faster, longer, more intense and the fighters take massively more of a pounding and just keep going. Either Frieza-era Vegeta or Frieza-era Goku could beat Justice League Superman. He might be able to beat Piccolo.
Justice League
Wonder Woman is possibly more interesting, because unlike Justice League Superman...she's
actually a fighter. Superman isn't. He's mostly just durable enough to take hits. And glancing back llooking through a couple JL/JLU videos, her strength feats seem
almost as good as his. Superman looks to be stronger, but not by a whole lot. But she's not nearly as durable and not as fast. Just more skilled. I think she could beat Krillin, Tenshinhan and Yamcha. I think Piccolo would beat her. She'd stand no chance against Vegeta or Goku. They'd respect her more than Superman, they'd enjoy fighting her more, but she's just not tough enough, fast enough or strong enough to stand up to them.
Flash is an interesting case. Remember that through all of Justice League and most of JLU,
this is pre-Speedforce Flash. Which makes him difficult to evaluate. If you actually watch the "runaround the world" sequence, it looks like roughly three times around the world in a second, which is about .4c. Not as fast as
Buu saga Gotenks. But knowing what the
Speedforce is, it's
understood that Flash is faster than light, even if that video doesn't show it. But once we start saying "oh,well...that's what what the video shows, but this is how strong and fast this character
really is" that becomes very shaky ground and it sets a bad precedent that makes it difficult to evaluate other characters, since not everybody will agree on what "really" happened." I think certain amount of interpretation and extrapolation is reasonable. But I'm concerned that we might not all agree on how much and when. But maybe we don't need to. Deathbattle computed Goku's speed to be
2.3c.
But...the way they did it is kind of sketchy. They used a speed feat from a a very, very early Saiyan Arc episode (the very first Arc of Z) and then multiplied it by Super Saiayan sped multipliers...from GT. Saiyan Arc is too early to be a reliable base measure, and not only is GT debatebale whether it's canon, it's later than the "Frieza Arc Goku" that I'm talking about, and so that multiplier isn't applicable. We could try removing the GT speed multipliers from Deathbattle's calculations, and doing so gets us a base speed of 64 million km/hr for Goku, which is only .06c, which is a bit less than one sixth the speed we see Flash going in that video. But, that's means assuming that Goku didn't get any faster between Saiayn and Frieza arcs...which probably isn't reasonable. We do know that Gotenks is explicitly shown to be shown faster during Buu saga than Flash is explicitly shown to be in the above video. But deducing Gokus speed fromGotenks speed is something not everyone will agree on, and Buu saga is at the end of Z, so just like it's reasonable to speculate that Goku is faster during Friez arc than Saiayan Arc, he's obviously slower in Frieza arc than Buu Arc, but how much so is difficult to evaluate. In any case, just sort of looking at the numbers and guessing, it's probably reasonable to conclude that Justice League Flash is significantly faster than Frieza arc Goku.
But, we're not talking about a race. There's more to a fight than just speed. Justice League Flash is fast, but that's kind of all he does. THough significantly, he's consistently shown to have the
Requireed Secondary Powers for his speed. Even though he's not shown to be especially strong or durable, he's never injured as a result of his speed. For example, He doesn't liquify when accelerating from 0 to.4c over a couple seconds. It might be tempting to look at that and conclude that he's durable enough to take that kind of acceleration, therefore nobody's going to be able to hit him hard enough to hurt him. But he's not shown to work that way. He seems to be more or less a regular human with speed, and his own speed doesn't hurt him.
Notably, he seems to be the only character in the lineup capable of fighting at Dragonball speeds. Go watch that fight between Goku and Frieza, and compare to the above video of Flash punching away Lex Luthor's armor. While Superman would be stuck taking hits, Flash would be able to dodge, just like Z fighters routinely do. But he doesn't seem to have any particular skill as a fighter, and even if he could keep up, I don't see him being able to do enough damage to win. The more interesting possibility here is examining reaction speed. Superman in the World of Cardboard video is shown to go fast, but not only is Flash faster...Flash is explictly shown to be able to
react at a rate in line with his speed. He's not simply going from point A to point B quickly. He can see and react to things when he's moving at significant fractions of c. He never crashes into any buildings or mountains or anything when he zips around the planet. So it's possible that the slower Z fighters might simply be unable to hit him, because he can see the punches and get out of the way before they arrive. This is contradicted by the fact that Flash
does take hits in Justice League. For example
in this sequence alternate-universe-Superman is able to club him with a chunk of building even when he's looking right at him. How? Was he taken by surprise? If his reaction time is always operating at significant fractions of c, that doesn't make sense. What
does make sense is that Flash's "required secondary power" is that his reaction speed increases to keep pace with his speed. If he's
moving, he perception speeds up to match. Whereas if he's just standing there, his perception is that of a regular human. I'm speculating. But that does explain what we see. If so, that makes him not impossible to hit (and he is shown taking hits.) Just, difficult to hit, if he's actively involved in what's going on. So...again, really hard to definitely judge Flash, but I'm going to say he can beat Krillin, Tenshinhan and Yamcha. He probably can't beat Piccolo. He probably can't beat Goku or Vegeta. But Goku probably won't be able to beat Flash either. Piccolo and Vegeta stand a chance, but only through use of subterfuge. Piccolo is smart and willing to fight dirty. Vegeta is no-nonsense and will do what works. And Flash is notoriously unfocused, easily distracted and likes to do dumb things like stop in the middle of a fight to taunt his opponent. Piccolo and Vegeta might possibly be able to take advantage of this. But if Flash simply decides to leave, there's nothing they can do to stop him.
Green LanternLantern is also very difficult to evaluate. On paper, his power should be able do anything and beat anyone. Because that's what his power is. To be able to do anything...that he can conceive of. So "I conceive of everyone in the Dragonball universe disappeariing in a puff of smoke!" And so it happens and he wins, right? But...no. Because he's usually shown to simply not be very imaginative, and I just don't remember him ever doing anything impressive at all on his own. Even random mooks sometimes give him problems
But, he also combines well with others. If you watch Justice League, most of the time Green Lantern does anything impressive, he's not the one doing it. He's helping somebody else do it. He goes from being the guy who gets knocked down by a stun baton and failing to stop trains to suddenly pulling out
stuff like this. So...again, he's difficult to evaluate. The limits of his power seem to relate to how stupid he is and how confidant he's feeling. And he's fairly stupid. But, his stupidity I think actually helps him sometimes. I suspect that the reason there's such a mismatch between his feats is that he simply
doesn't understand how difficult some things are. "Oh, just run over to the sun, no big deal. I'll help you go faster. You're already fast, so it will all work out. But wow! That train is really BIG! No way I could stop that." And since his power is limited by his perception of things, sometimes the far more difficult task is easier for him because he doesn't know any better. Again, this makes him very difficult to evaluate. For example,it might not be unreasonable to say that he simply doesn't know that a planet-busting attack is a planet-busting attack, and therefore repel it fairly easy, but then get punched in the stomach by Vegeta and go down.
However, speculation aside, Green Lantern does have one massive weakness: it's his ring doing these things, and it routinely runs out of power.
Like,
all the time. And without the ring, he wouldn't stand a chance even against Krillan. So overall I think his effectiveness is going to depend a great deal on the circumstances of the battle, who's involved, how long it takes, whether he's feeling confidant that day, etc. I think it's pretty reasonable to suggest that one-on-one, anyone from Piccolo and up would be able to keep him fighting long enough for his ring to run out of power, and then he's done.
BatmanBatman is smart, but not very strong. Again, straight up fight, even Krillan could turn him into a grease spot on the floor. But depending on the circumstances of the fight, I think it's reasonable to suggest that even Goku would have a difficult time with Batman, because Batman would realize he was outmatched, and leave. Or possibly let the others go in first and watch from a distance and decide to not even engage in thefirst place. Then study the situation from an underground bunker for however long was required to find a solution. Twice that I can think of in Justice League, Batman was shown to embark on plans that took decades to come to fruition. If that's what it takes, that's what he'd do. Sure, straight up brawl, he's dead. But he wouldn't let it come to a straight up brawl. Possibly retreat, give Goku poisoned food, which he would happily eat, and then find some sort of solution from there.
But that would not work on Vegeta. Vegeta would just kill him. I think Piccolo would gave Bats trouble too. He's also clever and patient, generally savvy, doesn't mind retreating into the shadows for years or decades to do what needs to be done. But unlike Batman, Piccolo is not only smart, he's also able to fly, regenerate lost limbs, and has the usual host of Z fighters strengths. Piccolo vs Batman would be an interesting story, but it would potentially take years to resolve, and if Batman ever made a mistake it would be much easier for Piccolo to end it than the other way around.
AquamanMeh. He was
shown to be a competent fighter and his Captain Hook thing is good at cutting stuff. But his feats are utterly unimpressive. He can hit a small girl hard enough to make her spin a couple times before she hits the ground. He can cut through magma monsters and ordinary office desks. Ok,that's nice I guess. Meanwhile
Ordinary mooks with spears can subdue him and he struggles to get out of restraints. Maybe that's special Atlantean metal. Or maybe it isn't. Either way, he's clearly a C-list character. Maybe he could beat Krillin. But probably not. Here's Krillin
cutting a hill in half, and that's during early Saiyan Arc. Also, remember that Krillin can fly. Overall I don't think Justice League Aquaman is a credible threat to any Z fighters.
Martian ManhunterThe big issue here is that I don't think the Z fighters can hurt him. All he has to do is go in corporeal and...what can they do? Meanwhile, he can
do stuff like go incorporal, reach into their chest while they can't touch him and rematerialize his arm inside their internal organs. And even if they somehow hit him, so what? Watch the video. He gets ripped in half and explodes, so he simply reforms his body. This is without even touching on the telepathy and mind control stuff. Vegeta has shown he can resist mind control. Maybe we can give Piccolo the benefit of a doubt, since he does have experience with multiple minds inside his head. The others, no, and Goku is probably especially easy to manipulate because he's kind of dumb. But again, he doesn't even need to go there if they physically can't damage him and he can reform his body even if they do.
Author
Topic: Goku vs Superman (Read 20590 times)