Welcome back to DEATH BATTLE! Spyro Edition. Last time, the fated matchup of Spyro and Homelander happened, and Spyro emerged victorious! But how exactly did that work out? Well, today, we discuss the results. So let's get on with it! Here we go!

Boomstick: Whoa! That was brutal! I love it! But how'd that work? Isn't Homelander supposed to be super powerful?

Wiz: Both Spyro and Homelander were much stronger than you'd probably anticipate, but this wasn't as much of a one-sided stomp as you'd think. At least not for who you'd think. And yes, Boomstick, you'd be correct. Homelander is clearly the stronger of the two, and comparing speed feats, he's also about ten times faster than Spyro. Though, Spyro's Time abilities effectively cancelled out Homelander's speed advantage. But despite his lower strength, Spyro had two things going for him. Durability and raw power.

Boomstick: Sure, Spyro surviving hits of 2 Million pounds of force is impressive, but how'd he manage to avoid damage from Homelander's laser vision? So far there hasn't been something it can't cut through!

Wiz: A very good question. The answer to which begins with determining what exactly the beams are. What makes the most sense is that Homelander's laser vision is actually composed of plasma, much like stars and lighting, and given their usual red coloration, it's safe to say they hit temperatures approaching 3000 degrees Kelvin. But given people hit with the lasers get cut in half rather than explode from blood vaporization, it's probably safe to say that's the extreme high-end estimate.

Boomstick: I think I see where you're going with this Wiz. It's got to do with Spyro withstanding lightning, doesn't it?

Wiz: Indeed it does, Boomstick. The lightning Spyro has been hit with varies from source to source, but most of it is pitted towards the blue end of the spectrum, particularly in that one moment from Skylanders Academy, where the lightning was clearly a light blue plasma. But just using lightning at all as an estimate, Spyro's scales can withstand temperatures of up to around 28,000 degrees Kelvin.

Boomstick: That's nine times hotter than anything Homelander could put out! No wonder all Spyro got was a small burn!

Wiz: But ultimately, this fight boils down to a single question: Could Spyro put out anything that could actually hurt Homelander.

Boomstick: Considering this star-spangled asshole has survived every weapon on the planet being thrown at him, which may or may not include nuclear bombs, that may not be easy.

Wiz: So we'll start our analysis with the easy variable to figure out. Homelander's max defense. For this estimate we'll take Madelyn Stilwell at her word and assume Homelander can survive nuclear weapons. Currently, the strongest nuclear weapons in the United States' arsenal, which is theoretically what the US based Vought would use for testing Homelander's durability, have a maximum payload of about 1.2 megatons of TNT. We'll use this as Homelander's maximum defense.

Boomstick: Now the real question is how does Spyro stack up?

Wiz: If we're comparing apples to apples here, we'd need to use Spyro's strongest output of energy for comparison's sake. And the most energy Spyro ever put out was when he pulled his planet back together at the end of Dawn of the Dragon.

Boomstick: I thought you said that scene made no sense.

Wiz: When Spyro first appeared here, it didn't. But in the intervening time, I've had some time to think about it. Specifically by analyzing what the heck that moment was. While reviewing the scene, I finally saw the key that explains everything, sort of. What Spyro did in that scene was surround the splintered fragments of his world with a bubble of pure Aether energy, and that pulled the planet back together.

Boomstick: It's still not making a lot of sense, Wiz.

Wiz: It will in a moment. If what Spyro is stopping here is a planet-busting attack, the initial attack must have put in energy equivalent to the gravitational binding energy of the planet. Since this world is pretty much an alternate Earth, we'll use our world's numbers, putting the GBE at 2.24X1032 joules of energy. For Spyro to not only stop this dead in it's tracks, but pull the planet back together, that bubble must've created a new gravitational field. Given the lead concept artist has said gravity is an equivalent for Aether's power, this fits. This means, Spyro must have exerted a minimum, repeat a minimum energy of 4.48X1032 joules of energy, assuming no loss of energy due to beat or dissipation in energy density, so in all likelihood the actual energy in this scene is higher. Convert that to megatons of TNT to compare with Homelander's defensive feats and we get 107,074,569,789,674,960 megatons of TNT.

Boomstick: That... is one really big number.

Wiz: It's probably the biggest power differential that we've ever seen, since it's easily 89 TRILLION times stronger than anything Homelander could withstand.

Boomstick: Wait, Spyro's THAT powerful?!

Wiz: Probably more powerful, actually. In short, even if we scale Homelander to the most powerful nuclear weapons on the planet, Spyro could use a trillionth of a trillionth of his maximum power and still outclass Homelander by a wide margin!

Boomstick: And considering Homelander pissed Spyro off enough that he entered his Dark form before using Aether, he wasn't holding back in the slightest! Homelander stood no chance!

Wiz: Homelander may have had the strength advantage, but Spyro outclassed him on every other front.

Boomstick: Yeah, John would've even been lucky to home-land the blows he did against someone clearly stronger.

Wiz: The winner is Spyro the Dragon.

And there you have it. To be clear, all the numbers I have here are not made up. I did the actual research on plasma temperatures using stars as a reference point, temperatures of lightning, payloads of nuclear weapons, and the gravitational binding energy of Earth times two. If it weren't for incognito tabs, I'd probably be on some sort of watchlist somewhere. In fact, I probably already am since the first time I did that GBE calculation. Fun fact, that was the calculation that inspired this matchup to begin with, though my initial calculations were done with the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated, at 50 Megatons of TNT. Didn't make much difference in the long run. Anyways, that's Spyro vs Homelander wrapped up. Next time, we see who Cynder is set up against. So be sure to tune in for that! Same time... same channel!