SUPERMAN vs. Son Goku...

[seawasp]

The guys who brought you other Death Battles, including Rainbow Dash VS Starscream, have now taken on one of the longest-standing and most hotly debated "Ho'od Win" questions of all time: Son Goku VS Superman, the Man of Steel.

And it is AWESOMELY well done. I also agree with the overall outcome (with some caveats, below). It of course won't stop the arguments.




Overall, I agree that Superman is the likely winner; I can envision more scenarios in which Superman beats Goku than those in which Goku beats Superman, and of course any of these things comes down to a lot of judgment calls, even by those trying to be as impartial as possible.

However, I felt that given the scenario they set up, they failed to be entirely consistent with their own lead-up narration.

They made a point of the fact that Superman worries more about other people, sometimes about property, than he does about himself. And Superman's shown himself more than willing to talk with adversaries whenever possible -- so has Goku, even if he intends to finish the fight anyway -- and yet Superman didn't ask to remove the battle elsewhere, even though it was clear his adversary was just interested in a fun fight, not crime or atrocities. This ends up being taken to LUDICROUS levels at the end, in which by now Superman has a good grasp of just HOW powerful Goku is and STILL keeps fighting him near/on the Earth... which is eventually vaporized. This just isn't consistent with the way the Man of Steel operates; he'd at least TRY to talk, and CERTAINLY try to remove the battle to some location where no one could be hurt (and given that Goku demonstrated his Instant-Transmission technique, he'd be able to do so by the expedient of flying far away and letting Goku follow); Goku even KNOWS of a couple such places, and it's not like Goku WANTS to hurt people, so he'd go along.

(Actually, one of the scenarios I see in which Superman wins is by literally talking Goku down. Goku actually WILL listen to people; heck, he even gave Freezer a chance to live, he'll certainly listen to Supes.)

On the other side, they ignored some of the most objectively awesome indications of power level in Goku's universe. Early in the manga, Kame-Senin *BLOWS UP THE MOON* to force Goku to revert to his humanoid rather than rampaging Oozaru form.

Blows. Up. The. Moon. The amount of power necessary to do that to even a small planet, like the Moon, is IMMENSE.

And this is early on in the manga. Piccolo does that again (someone put the moon back) almost casually later on; blowing up planets is a relatively EASY feat for high-powered Ki warriors, and by the time of Goku's prime, he is MANY orders of magnitude more powerful than that; their ki-powers can literally blow holes in reality, shatter solar systems, etc. So I'm not sure that it would come down to Supes being able to one-punch nuke Goku.

But, as I said, I can still come up with more scenarios in which Superman, who's VASTLY smarter than Goku, would win than ones in which Goku would win, so the overall outcome -- Superman beats Goku -- I agree with.

And as I said before, the match work itself is AWESOMELY cool.

Comments

[jessica burde (from livejournal.com)]

"Superman, who's VASTLY smarter than Goku"

Not quite understatement of the year, but getting there. I love Goku, but god is he thick!

Awesome summary and some good points on issues with the scenario.

[seawasp]

In the relevant area, though -- combat tactics and skills -- Goku is not nearly so stupid. He's not even stupid in general, but more CLUELESS on some things. But when it comes to Beating People Up, he's a frickin' GENIUS. He just doesn't think too far ahead, which is where Superman will almost certainly beat him. Goku is a REactive fighter almost all the time, while Superman will often be an active fighter when the situation calls for it.

[dotchan.livejournal.com]

Supes might win the FIRST fight, sure, but I wouldn't bet on him for a rematch, where Goku would've undergone a training from hell and unlocked heretofore unknown new potential.

Still, the inevitable result of Superman versus Goku will definitely be Superman AND Goku as the ultimate tag-team, and at that point if the villains have any brain cells in their heads they'd surrender well before plotting world domination.

[seawasp]

Well, yes, and I'm writing a short little fanfic that brings some closure to the end of that battle, too, because something that epic deserves it. It's not ANYTHING like their usual Death Battles which basically just videogame it out in a few minutes; they took their sweet time on this one and it showed.

Yes, if the worlds could regularly connect you could easily envision Superman keeping Goku as one of his trump cards to play when things got REALLY ugly. "Darkseid? I'd like you to met Goku. I've told him you're stronger than me, and you're a bad man. Have fun playing."

[voradams.livejournal.com]

If the real Son Goku (Japanese translated of Sun Wu Kong aka Great Sage equal of Heaven) was fighting Superman, he can not die. He erased his entry in the book of when people die (a huge no no in Chinese Celestial Bearuocracy).

So he can not die.

I play his son in a RPG called Scion. His main story was Journey to the west. AKA Monkey or Monkey Magic. The bloke was so outrageous the Buddha had to bury him under a mountain for 500 years. Dragon ball is just a pale initiation of the outrageous Monkey King!

[seawasp]

Not to mention the time he ate ALL the peaches of immortality. Not only isn't he in the book, he's filled up with life!

But yes and no. The original myths don't play on the same level of POWER, in general, that DBZ or Superman do -- it was utterly beyond the ability of people that far back to comprehend (and in truth most people today can't get their heads around the scale of things like "blow up moon") -- but OTOH Sun Wu Kung was a deity or at least the baddest-ass god-level warrior ever, and he had some things that are absolutes (like "cannot die") that almost no TV show or book will grant to any character simply to leave them some vulnerability window. Similarly, burying DBZ's Son Goku under a mountain wouldn't even slow him DOWN; they can blow up PLANETS, and the Kami (Gods) of their universe are actually WEAKER than the Z-Warriors... and even DEATH doesn't stop DBZ's Goku (he's literally come back from the other side of Heaven to help his son).

So really there isn't a very useful comparison between them. They're both awesome warriors and the greatest in their respective universes. In my forthcoming sequel to _Grand Central Arena_, you'll get to meet my own universe's version of him...

The same problem shows up any time you try to compare a modern interpretation of a myth with the original myth. Thor (Norse Myth) VS Thor (Marvel) for instance, or any of the versions of Herakles/Hercules.

[dotchan.livejournal.com]

A mountain sealed by His Holinesses mystical powers, even. And after that they still needed to put the equivalent of a shock collar on him, so his leash-holder Sanzang (Tripitaka) could discipline him.

One does wonder how much of Wukong's character development really took after the end of the series. I think it only took a few days before he got bored out of his mind again, though maybe out of respect for Tripitaka he might restrict himself to minor-ish pranks.

[seawasp]

Well, the whole Journey was not just about getting some stuff from the West, but about the SPIRITUAL journey of those who traveled. It would rather undermine the entire point of the story if Goku/Wu Kung/Wukong were to just dump all the enlightenment he gained along the way, I'd think.

[dotchan.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying he'd go 100% back what he used to do, I'm just saying old habits die hard and I could see a post-journey Wukong run somebody's pants up a flagpole or something

[seawasp]

Oh, certainly. His basic nature is the Trickster God, though with a generally good heart overall once he completes his journey, so he'll always be something of a troublemaker, but less inclined to be pure chaos than he was before.