Episode 5: Bowser (Mario) vs. King Dedede (Kirby)
Throughout history, one clear question has remained without an answer: Brain or Brawn? Well, these two video game villains use their overwhelming strength to prove that with enough brawn, you don't need brain to be successful. Bowser, Mario's greatest rival, and King Dedede, the self-proclaimed king of Dreamland. These two titans have fought before, but never with more than one incarnation counted, and that was when both characters were severely weakened versions of the originals. I'm LittleZbot, and it's my hobby to analyze their weapons, armor, and skills to find out who might win a Death Battle.
For clarification, every version of these characters available will be combined into one to be used in the analysis, including feats and history from shows, comics, games, toys, movies, manga, and even alternate versions of the characters such as Paper Bowser or Smash Dedede. However, the original, canon version will hold precedence when it collides with another medium or non-canon version (such as origin stories or specific weaknesses). While Light and Lelouch have a simple, pure form that everyone recognizes, so it makes sense to exclude certain side stories or non-canon material, Bowser and King Dedede are more subjective in that manner, and have multiple forms spread throughout canon and non-canon material that many recognize. Because of this (and because it makes for a better fight), we'll use a composite version of both characters. Don't get confused.
And, for the third time in a row, this was planned to be a later battle, but was moved up in celebration of both Kirby's 25th Anniversary and Super Mario Odyssey. Both happened this month, so what better way to celebrate both at the same time than by doing the most highly requested Mario universe vs. Kirby universe fight online?
Bowser:
Hundreds of years ago, seven Star Children were born. These children had enormous magical power imbued in their hearts, and each one would play a major role in changing the fate of the universe. And the most malicious, most diabolical, most threatening one of the bunch was Bowser Koopa, heir to the throne of the Koopa Kingdom. Trained and fathered all his life by the powerful wizard Kamek, Bowser quickly ascended to the throne, and with his incredible strength and durability, nothing seemed to be able to touch him. A natural conqueror, he set out to capture the whole planet not long after becoming an adult. Actually, he almost succeeded. In just a few years, he'd already conquered fourteen kingdoms, and was set to take the Mushroom Kingdom as well - until two plumbers from Brooklyn named Mario and Luigi washed down a drainage pipe, ended up in the Mushroom Kingdom, and utterly destroyed him. He got his revenge shortly after by turning all the citizens of the kingdom into brick and kidnapping the princess of the land, Peach, but was then stopped, again, by the same plumbers. However, something unexpected happened. See, Bowser initially kidnapped Princess Peach because she was another Star Child, and held the ability to counter any of his spells and potentially even defeat him in battle, so she was too dangerous to remain free and too deadly to kill. Then, while she was in his dungeon, he actually fell in love with her. After she was freed, he blamed Mario for stealing her heart and declared a permanent war on the Mushroom Kingdom. From then on, every week or so, Bowser would come up with a new plan, capture Princess Peach, and she would be rescued by Mario. This went on for over a hundred years (with their abilities as Star Children granting every one of them extended life), and Bowser almost won. Every time. Every single week or two, for a hundred years, he almost won - and never did.
Still, when you're competing against gods, demons, and planetary-level plumbers, you better have some serious firepower up your sleeve, and Bowser most certainly does. He's a vicious and resilient fighter who's mastered no less than six separate martial arts, including Karate, Boxing, and Jujutsu, and even held enough skill to temporarily handle a master of Plumb Fu, which is directly stated to be the most powerful martial art in existence. Oh, and he's an excellent swordsman and a crack shot with any firearm - and yes, there are firearms in the Mario universe. Bet you didn't expect that, huh? He owns an enormous amount of weapons and pieces of armor, many of which are magic in nature, and most of which he built himself. I suppose that's what you do when you have an IQ of 9,800.
Bowser has giant cannonballs, giant spiked cannonballs, throwing hammers, mechanized robot Koopas that can explode, Bob-ombs that will destroy entire buildings, and his very own version of Karubi's Shoe, an impenetrable shoe which he can hop around in and crushes everything in his way. His Lightplunger stuns foes who touch it, and his cold gun will freeze foes solid in less than a second. But his most powerful normal weapon is the Black Hole Bob-omb. A single one of these will explode with enough force to create an abyss that could consume a city block. He also has shown the ability to use any of Mario's power-ups for himself, though, for fairness's sake and because we technically can't prove he's able to use anything else, we'll only give him the ones he's already used before. This includes the Super Leaf, which gives him a powerful tail whip and the ability to fly, the Super Bell, which makes him into Meowser, who is larger and faster than Bowser and can climb up the steepest of walls and mountains, and the Fire Flower, which enhances his already great pyrokinetic abilities. The Super Star grants him temporary invincibility, and the Double Cherry will clone Bowser exactly, with each clone having a mind of its own. Bowser can even combine different power-ups to receive both effects, something even Mario can't do.
But none of those are the weapons he normally uses. He has two main weapons - his Giant Hammer, and his Magic Wand. The Giant Hammer is just that - an enormous, magically imbued hammer that can crush castles, which he uses with great skill. His other weapon, the Magic Wand, is far more…versatile. Built by Kamek to hone certain magical abilities, this wand actually gives Bowser access to several magic spells he otherwise wouldn't have. With it, he can summon, transform, and levitate other objects and creatures, and can even heal himself. It can fire concussive homing blasts or evaporation blasts, which take advantage of the magical nature of the wand in order to unleash a blast that physically destroys the molecular composition of whatever the blast hits - basically, unless you have wards guarding against it, no matter how powerful you are, if the blast hits you, you die. Of course, in addition to his weapons, Bowser has several pieces of armor that magically enhance him. His Wicked Shell has extendable spikes that can launch themselves out of the shell, only for new ones to immediately grow back, and is supposedly impenetrable. To top it off, he has multiple spares of this shell, and, when in a pinch, can pull one out and throw it at his opponent. His Power Band+ and Power Fangs X each cast a magical effect that increases his strength by 20%, and the Economy Ring reduces the amount of Star Power he consumes by half. What does that mean, exactly? Hold on, I'll get to that when we reach weaknesses.
He keeps all these weapons and pieces of armor in a little pocket of dimensional storage that he can access at any time via magic. Under the tutelage of Kamek, Bowser has learned to use his inherit abilities as a Star Child to incredible degrees, giving him a lot of magical power and some…stranger abilities. This eight-foot turtle can turn invisible, teleport short distances, and transform into other objects and people. He can create and manipulate fire as effectively as Mario, leading to his trademark breath attack or fireballs, control electricity to some extent, and manipulate the air currents around him with…interesting results. He vibrates the air to create weaponized soundwaves, inhales with enough force to move giant foes that would weigh several tons, and, if he's just really pissed off, he can literally breathe a tornado into existence. Yes, that's right, he can create a tornado by breathing too hard.
But that's hardly the extent of his powers. His physical abilities are tied into the magical realm, and because his magical power is off the charts, he has absurd levels of strength and durability, making him able to lift castles and survive planet-level explosions with ease. He's so durable, he once had all his skin melted off, and he still survived. Oh, and he can move at speeds exceeding that of sound. His body also naturally adapts to his environment, changing around what he can and can't live without as he needs it. This allows him to breathe in space and underwater, survive falling into a sun, and even slightly adjust his personality and speaking patterns to better fit the world he's in. And when this kicks into high gear, things don't work out for his enemies. When his life is threatened to a large extreme, or he gets incredibly annoyed, or he absorbs a large amount of energy and power, he transforms into Giant Bowser, a huge version of himself the size of a mountain. His strength and durability increases in proportion to this size change, as well - according to Mario & Luigi: Dream Team's statistics, Giant Bowser is over nine times stronger than normal Bowser and significantly tougher, though he is much slower. Giant Bowser has fought Dreamy Luigi, defeated an enormous robot castle powered by dark magic, and once did battle with Mario inside a black hole by using entire planets as weapons. But this still isn't Bowser's most powerful form.
Every Star Child has the ability to, when under extreme duress or granted a boost of extra magical power, enter a specific "Super Form" in which their physical attributes increase tremendously and can even change around completely. Bowser's Super Form is Giga Bowser, a giant dragon-turtle-ox thing that's twice as big as Bowser and holds ten times his strength, speed, and durability. Giga Bowser is the one form Bowser has yet to master, and so isn't completely in control of - but it's still an enormously powerful move that almost always wins him the day. But even without these forms or his weapons, Bowser's still done some incredible things.
Bowser is strong enough to hold up an enormous section of a collapsing castle (which would weight around 300,000 tons), fast enough to dodge lightning, and durable enough to take a point-blank supernova and survive. All by himself, he defeated one hundred powerful samurai warriors in a row, bested Super O'Chunks, who was supposed to be stronger, faster, and tougher than him, and invaded Star Haven and stole their most prized possession. He's one-shotted Luigi, Toad, Peach, and the king of Giant Land, defeated an entire army with a single spell, punched a guy hard enough to send him crashing into the moon and, when he and Peach were eventually married (don't ask), the tumultuous bond between them took the form of a heart that could destroy reality. That's right; his feelings for Peach helped create a universe-destroying weapon. Still without help or weapons, he fought and defeated a more powerful, evil version of Luigi, captured Mario three times, and scared off the armies of hell itself with a single roar. On multiple occasions, he's outmatched Mario's strength, run faster than soundwaves, and survived falling into black holes. He fought and defeated his more powerful, evil self, helped to defeat Super Dimentio, who could effortlessly create and destroy dimensions, and once took over most of the universe. But that's just his physical feats; he's also built space-age devices exclusively using materials from the stone-age, built a device that was capable of inhaling entire galaxies, and once built his own Death Star and used it to take over half a galaxy in single day. He's also surprisingly knowledgeable about human nature and politics. He almost won a democratic election against Princess Peach (even though it was exclusively her people that were voting) and caused a planet-wide civil war to begin just with a little paint and a couple of well-placed words. He even once outwitted Herlock Sholmes, the greatest detective in the galaxy. But beyond all of that, the feats he's most proud of are his very few, but very real, victories against Mario.
And the fact that they're very few has just as much to do with Bowser's weaknesses as they have to do with Mario's strengths. Bowser may seem almost intelligent at moments (he does, after all, have an IQ over sixty times higher than Einstein's), but he lacks any form of common sense. He puts his self-destruct buttons right out in the open where anybody can get to them, for example. Also, he has self-destruct buttons. He's illiterate, doesn't understand basic addition principles, and will repeat the exact same battle strategy hundreds of times, even if it has never worked once - and even though he did outwit Herlock Sholmes once, he was destroyed in mental battles against him several times afterward. His ego is huge, to the point where even though he knows every one of Mario's weaknesses, he refuses to take advantage of them. He's a sore loser, incredibly lazy, and exceptionally clumsy. His own plans seem to backfire constantly, his power-ups vanish after a single blow, and he's been defeated and even one-shotted by virtually every other main Mario character, including Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, and Kamek - multiple times. However, perhaps his greatest weakness is actually the very thing that makes him so strong: Star Power, also known as SP. Star Power is a form of magic some beings can use, and is where all the Star Children's magic comes from. The problem is, each Star Child only has a finite amount, and Bowser's supply will only last him around half an hour if he's constantly using magic. It regenerates over time, but it takes far longer than is viable for a Death Battle, so his pool here is really all he has. Luckily, his Economy Ring effectively doubles his supply, so can last much longer, but if he runs out, all he's left with is his own strength. And all of this is not mentioning that it's been over a hundred years, and he still has yet to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom permanently.
However, that may be because he no longer really wants to. After fighting for so long and going on many adventures together, Mario and Bowser actually became friends to some extent. Neither will ever admit it, but they no longer fight because of Bowser's thirst for power or Mario's love for Peach, but because, well, that's just what they do. When they aren't fighting, Peach will bake a cake for Bowser, and Bowser will invite Mario over for a party. The three even occasionally seek advice from each other - Peach played a major role in restoring Bowser and his mother's relationship. I'm not joking; this tidbit is canonically documented. After fighting for so long, Bowser can finally accept things the way they are.
Maybe that's what he's really most proud of.
"You're disgusting, Koopa!" shouts Princess Peach, "Mean, cruel-hearted, vicious, and uncivilized!"
Bowser smiles sweetly and grasps Peach's cage with both hands. "Aren't I, though? But enough of this sweet talk." He turns forward and calls out to the crowd gathered below. "Listen close, you repulsive wretches! It's time to play 'Auction the Princess!'"
There are cheers from below as Peach gasps in horror.
Bowser speaks up again. "Do I hear one thousand gold coins? Remember, the money goes to my favorite charity: Me!" He laughs.
Bowser:
Name: Bowser Koopa
Species: Koopa Kid
Age: 150+
Height: 8'7" / 261.6 cm
Occupation: Koopa King, Martial Artist, Politician, Rap Artist, many others
IQ: 9,800
High-school dropout
Owns a coliseum and his own TV Show
Married to Princess Peach, technically
Items/Weapons:
Magic Wands (Transmogrification, Size Manipulation, Evaporation, ect.)
Giant Hammers
Normal Hammers
Spiked Balls
Giant Iron Balls
Lightplunger
Bob-Ombs
Cold Gun
Giant Shells
Double Cherry
Super Leaf
Super Star
Super Bell
Karubi's Shoe
Wicked Shell
Economy Ring
Power Band+
Power Fangs X
Abilities:
Adaptability
Pyrokinesis
Air Manipulation (Soundwaves, Inhale, Tornadoes with breath)
Teleportation
Invisibility
Transformation
Size Manipulation
Materialization
Dimensional Storage
Superhuman Strength
Superhuman Speed
Superhuman Durability
Can use and combine Power-Ups
Technical Genius (built giant weapons and vehicles with stone-age materials, and once built a planet-destroying super weapon)
Mastered Boxing, Karate, Ninjutsu, Jujutsu, Wrestling, Kendo, Judo
Giga Bowser (Super Form)
Feats:
Built a device that inhaled entire galaxies
Fought and defeated a robot castle
Fought and defeated his evil, more powerful self
Fought and defeated an evil, more powerful version of Luigi
Survived a Supernova
Survived a Black Hole (multiple times)
Survived being thrown into the sun
Once fought an entire battle using planets as weapons INSIDE a Black Hole
Defeated an entire army with a single spell
Punched someone hard enough to send him flying into the moon
Regularly bathes in lava and acid
Took over at least fourteen kingdoms, nearly took over an additional twenty
Once outwitted Herlock Sholmes (but was then destroyed by him several times after)
Built his own Death Star and conquered half the galaxy with it
Took over the real world three times
Competed with and nearly defeated Mario's Plumb Fu
One-shotted Luigi, Toad, Peach, various powerful ancient threats, and the king of Giant Land
Has captured Mario, Luigi, and Peach several dozen times
Almost won a democratic election against Princess Peach
Almost created a Planetary Civil War
Held up a collapsing castle (which would weigh around 300,000 tons)
Helped defeat Super Dimentio, who could effortlessly create and destroy dimensions
Defeated Super O'Chunks by himself
Invaded Star Haven and stole the Star Rod by himself
Defeated 100 powerful samurai warriors from another dimension
Defeated Mario a few times. Technically.
Weaknesses:
Lacks any common sense
A complete idiot
Clumsy
Lazy
Absurdly huge Ego
Sore Loser
Moves slowly in comparison to Mario & friends
Power-Ups vanish with a single good blow
Own plans and ideas seem to backfire all the time
Defeated and one-shotted by Mario, Luigi, Toad, Peach, Yoshi, Kamek
Defeated by Babies. Several times.
…
King Dedede:
Long after the Galaxy Soldier War, many looked for a place to call home. The war had reached most of the universe and destroyed entire galaxies, and there were only a few who survived the carnage - and the most powerful of them was Meta Knight, the greatest Star Warrior to ever live (except one, but we'll get to that). Knowing that the demon Nightmare still lived and sought revenge specifically against him, Meta Knight fled to Popstar, the brightest star in the sky, a place naturally filled with so much good energy that Nightmare would never want to set foot there - and that's where Meta Knight met King Dedede, of the Dedede Clan, and that's when King Dedede's life became absolutely nuts.
You see, after the war ended, Nightmare spent the next few thousand years forming the most powerful creature in existence, Kirby, and released him to mature a few decades after Meta Knight landed on Popstar. Then, to build up funds, Nightmare began creating and selling monsters to different planets across the galaxy, and it wasn't long before King Dedede fell in love with the process of buying, raising, and using monsters for his own ends. But things went terribly wrong for both of them when Kirby's pod sensed a monster Dedede had ordered, thought Nightmare was reawakening the army, and crash-landed him on Popstar. When Kirby met the King, Dedede made quite an impression on him. On his face, more specifically. With a hammer. After that rocky start, Kirby still wanted to be friends with King Dedede (and literally everyone else), but Dedede quickly grew jealous of all the attention Kirby received, and annoyed at the fact that he kept killing all his monsters, and swore himself to be Kirby's mortal enemy forever. That…didn't work out well for him.
Still, if you're going to fight against the universe's strongest being for eternity, you better have some good things up your sleeve, and that King Dedede does. A tenacious and dangerous fighter, King Dedede has educated himself in Karate, Sumo, Capoeira, and Wing Chun and continually proves himself against masters of each martial art. He also tried to learn Ninjutsu and Tai Chi, but could never quite get them down. Because of this, he combined the moves he could get down along with some Capoeira and Sumo to form a brand new martial art that he constantly uses, and it's all brought together by the trademark Dedede Hammer.
We'll get to the hammer in a moment, but for now, Dedede has several other weapons he will often find useful in battle, including spears, swords, and steel throwing fans, each of which he can use with ease. Besides that, Dedede holds Balloon Bombs, powerful bombs that can each blow up a building. A Cracker is a lightweight portable cannon that fires explosive rounds at enemies, the Dash Shoe triples his speed and agility, an Invisibility Stone turns him invisible, and the Prism Shield creates a rainbow barrier that absorbs projectiles. Let's not forget the Stomper Boot, a supposedly impenetrable shoe that Dedede can ride around in and crush everything in his way with. An Invincibility Candy makes him temporarily invincible, and the Maxim Tomato completely heals his wounds. But his most powerful normal weapon is the Dynamite, which destroys areas the size of city blocks and leaves huge craters in the earth.
But none of these are what he normally uses. That would be the Dedede Hammer. Forged out of Dedede's own Star Power (yes, Star Power exists in the Kirby universe, too, and it does work the exact same way), this hammer is unbreakable and is known to break other things that are unbreakable. A full-powered blow from it is one of the few things in the universe that will hurt Kirby, and it has stood up to gods and demons with ease. It can create explosions, and, if he ever loses it, King Dedede can summon it right back in his hand out of nowhere. Even if, somehow, it is eventually destroyed, he can create another at the cost of a small chunk of Star Power. However, it may be well worth it. The hammer is warded against every single type of magic, and as such doubles as a fantastic magical shield, blocking and bouncing back magical beams and attacks. It's broken through titanium doors without effort, crushed mountain-sized creatures, and once, when Kirby borrowed it to defeat a possessed Escargoon, it broke through a shell that was literally created by Nightmare to be unbreakable. With a single swipe, it has cleared out monsters that can destroy planets and entire battalions of Scarfies. And it can even utilize Dedede's Star Power and energy to charge up more powerful blows; the longer it charges, the stronger the hit. Who needs anything else when you have a weapon this powerful that you're this good with?
King Dedede, apparently, because that's not all he has. Nope, we haven't even touched on the magical side of things. Oh, yeah, Dedede keeps all of this in a pocket dimension that he can access via magic. Which is what I'll now be talking about. As one of the very few non-Star Warriors in the Kirby world to be able to use Star Power, King Dedede has trained himself to use this however he can to get a leg up on Kirby. By now he has so much practice with using his Star Power that most of his magical arsenal takes almost nothing away. This arsenal includes the ability to create and manipulate electricity, ice, fire, control the air and winds in a few different ways. By vibrating the air around him, he can make weaponized soundwaves, by twirling his hammer around at incredible speeds, he can create tornadoes, and, after what is stated to be countless hours of training, he's managed to exactly copy Kirby's Inhale ability. This ability allows him to suck in everything from an acre of forest to an entire army and throw them into his personal pocket dimension. Now, unlike Kirby's inhale ability, this doesn't immediately kill them and only restores the soul if Kirby so wishes it. Rather, because of King Dedede's indirect relationship with Star Power, they're just trapped there, endlessly, until he decides to spit them out again. Oh, and he can fly.
Oh, you think that's the limit of his abilities? Shame on you. King Dedede's strength, speed, and durability levels are insane. The guy has moved castles, taken planet-level explosions to the face, and even broken the sound barrier. Multiple times! He's so durable, in fact, that he once ate a curry so hot, it literally incinerated his entire body - and he still somehow survived. He can create clones of himself, each with their own movements and thought patterns, and change his size at will. He can shrink to be the size of an ant, or grow to be the size of a mountain, and either way, his strength, speed, and durability increases and decreases proportionally (growing bigger, less speed, more power; growing smaller, more speed, less power).
But Dedede doesn't have to rely on his magic or extra weapons to prove himself on the battlefield. This yellow penguin has defeated Queen Sectonia and Drawcia by himself, both of whom were powerful enough to move stars and easily alter the fabric of reality. He helped defeat the all-powerful Magolor, who could effortlessly create and destroy dimensions, and then did it again all by himself. He's fought and defeated a more powerful, evil version of Meta Knight, and the original Meta Knight, too. He defeated Knuckle Joe, the most powerful monster hunter in the universe, and once even Galacta Knight, who had previously destroyed an entire universe over time. He's held up Blocky, a giant stone creature who weighed hundreds of thousands of tons, tanked supernova-level blasts and falling into black holes, and outpaced Kracko, who is canonically stated to move as fast as lightning. Oh, and he dodged lightning. He's one of only a couple fighters who aren't omnipotent that still outmatch the Star Warrior sense (which is basically an improved Spider Sense), and, hidden under the name "The Masked King," became champion of the underground fighting ring on Popstar. He threw Kirby with enough force to go into outer space, one-shotted Luigi, took an explosion of antimatter and lived, and equaled Meta Knight's reaction time, who can dodge multiple faster than light projectiles at once. He's defeated multiple monsters and even entire armies at once, had a dip in a lava-filled meteor, and fought and defeated his more powerful, evil self. And that's just his physical feats: Dedede's a tactician, and a surprisingly good one. He seeks out weaknesses in his enemies and exploits them - like the time he exploited Wario's greed to save the lives of several Smash Bros. heroes. He's invented television, comics, a printing press, and magical medallions that bring the dead back to life. He plays chess during his free time, and even worked his way to the top and became the world's best Avalanche player. But beyond all of that, the feats he's most proud of are his very few, but very real, victories against Kirby.
And the fact that they're very few has just as much to do with King Dedede's weaknesses as they have to do with Kirby's strengths. While he is intelligent at moments, he lacks any kind of common sense - and a brain. No, seriously, King Dedede literally does not have a brain. He's also illiterate, unable to complete simple addition problems, and will repeat an idea multiple times, even if it's never worked in the past. Beyond that, he's lazy at times and considers himself above nearly all others. His plans have a tendency to blow up in his face, and he's highly susceptible to mind-control. And even though he became champion fighter of Popstar and the world's champion Avalanche player, Kirby stole these titles from him shortly afterward. He's been one-shotted by both Kirby and Meta Knight, and even though he regularly stands up to extraordinarily powerful beings and wins, he's a coward, afraid of even the smallest of monsters. And, just like Bowser, he will eventually run out of Star Power, and with it goes most of his arsenal. Let's also not forget that it's been over a hundred years and he's still not much closer to being more powerful and well-liked than Kirby.
However, that may be because he no longer really wants to be. After fighting for so long and going on many adventures together, Kirby and Dedede actually became good friends. While Dedede doesn't like to admit it, he does care about Kirby and most of the others in his kingdom - he admitted so himself at one point after believing Kirby to have died. At this point in the story, the only times Dedede and Kirby fight are for fun, and both have completely forgiven the other - heck, Kirby's been officially declared a Knight of Dreamland and is also King Dedede's personal chef, so they must be getting along pretty well.
I wouldn't be surprised if that was what King Dedede was really most proud of.
King Dedede sits in his personal tank-like jeep, cannon pointed at the old god of wisdom, Kabu. "That's trash you're talkin', Kabu!" The king shouted at him. "Ain't no such person as Kirby!"
"That's right!" chipped in Escargoon. "You're full of Kabu-loney."
"Kabu can see the future," the enormous idol insisted.
King Dedede sniggered. "Then why don't you predict what's gonna happen when I push this here button?"
"I predict you will not push it."
King Dedede moved his hand to the trigger. "Yeah, well, I predict you're dead wrong."
King Dedede:
Name: Daio Dedede
Species: Penguin of the Dedede Clan
Age: 130+
Height: 2'1 / 63.5 cm
Occupation: King of Dreamland, Martial Artist, Professional Avalanche Player
IQ: 0
17,052nd Ruler of Dream Land
Owns a coliseum and his own TV Show
Second-favorite sport is golf
Items/Weapons:
Dedede Hammer
Invisibility Stone
Invincibility Candy
Balloon Bomb
Dynamite
Cracker
Stomper Boot
Maxim Tomato
Prism Shield
Abilities:
Controls Fire, Ice, Electricity, Wind
Sonic Shockwaves
Inhale
Can create tornadoes
Can clone himself
Size Manipulation
Superhuman Strength
Superhuman Speed
Superhuman Durability
Dimensional Storage
Flight
Feats:
Defeated Queen Sectonia, Drawcia, Knuckle Joe, Galacta Knight by himself
Fought and defeated Meta Knight
Fought and defeated his evil, more powerful self
Fought and defeated an evil, more powerful version of Meta Knight
Survived several supernova-level blasts
Survived a Black Hole (multiple times)
Survived being dipped into a meteor similar to the sun
Defeated an entire army with a single swing
Threw someone hard enough to send him flying into outer space
Can bathe in lava and acid
Invented some stuff
Outran Kracko
Took over the whole planet and several others
Outwitted several deities
Competed with and nearly defeated Kirby's Star Warrior Sense
One-shotted Luigi and various powerful ancient threats
Has captured Kirby, Meta Knight, and many others several times
Held up Blocky (who would weigh at least 500,000 tons)
Helped defeat Magolor, who could effortlessly create and destroy dimensions, then later defeated him alone
Stole the Star Rod and broke it by himself
Defeated several planet-level monsters
Defeated Kirby a few times. Technically.
Weaknesses:
Lacks any common sense
A complete idiot
Clumsy
Huge Ego
Sore Loser
Own plans and ideas seem to backfire all the time
Defeated and one-shotted by Kirby, Meta Knight
Cowardice
Defeated by babies
…
All right, the combatants are set. Let's end this debate once and for all! It's time for a Death Battle!
…
It was a beautiful day in Dreamland. The birds were sleeping, the flowers were sleeping, the Waddle Dees were sleeping…yeah, everything was sleeping - until a giant, blue wormhole opened up in the middle of the sky, and out flew an enormous turtle-like creature riding inside a white hovercraft with a clown face on it. He glanced at a wand in his hand.
"Hah hah hah! This new wand is great! And I have a whole new dimension to take over, thanks to Kam- I mean, thanks to me! I did all the work!" He shouted, despite nobody being around to hear him.
He crossed his eyes and stared at the horizon. Strange. This place looked…familiar. He felt for sure he'd been here before, but Kamek had claimed that the dimension he had entered was something none of them had seen before, filled with strange and unfamiliar creatures. He slowly lowered the Koopa Clown Car lower and lower until he could easily make out the creatures sleeping below him.
"Well," he grunted, "they're strange, but way too familiar. Darn it all, I'm in Dreamland! I'll have to have Kamek recalibrate this wand's dimensional magic." He laughed. "But while I'm here, they're no way I'm leaving without trying some of those delicious Dreamland pastries!" He laughed and moved his Clown Car up again before speeding off.
…
"Here you go, sire!" Kawasaki happily exclaimed, putting a plate filled with different desserts in front of the Koopa King. He wasn't supposed to call anyone "sire" except for Dedede, but Kawasaki was a little more afraid of Bowser than Dedede - and Bowser paid for his food.
Bowser grunted and dove in, shoveling dessert after dessert into his mouth. A couple tables away, somebody was talking about him.
"I don't like it when he's here," Tiff confided in Tuff.
"Well, whatsa matter with 'im?" Tuff asked, sucking on the world largest lollipop. "He doesn't beat us to a pulp, and I'm pretty happy to leave it there."
"It's just the way he looks and acts," Tiff explained. "I don't know…he looks just like one of eNeMe's monsters."
"I thought 'is name was Nightmare," Tuff replied in his own thinking kind of way. "And ain't you the one who always says not to judge a whatsit by its cover?"
"He also gets along way too well with Dedede."
"Who cares? Dedede's our friend now, remember?"
"He's going to have to do a lot more than destroy a few monsters to earn my trust," Tiff huffed.
Tuff eyed the Koopa King as he rung up another plate. "At least he pays Kawasaki. Dedede doesn't do that. Besides, Kirby likes him."
"Kirby likes everybody," scoffed Tiff.
Indeed, it was true, and Kirby was right there, ready to prove it. He hopped up on the chair across from Bowser and grinned. "Hiiii!"
Bowser pointed a claw at him. "Look here, puffball. I know all about you. You're cute, but if you try to steal any of this food, you've got another thing coming."
"Poyo?" Kirby tilted his body and stared in wonderment as Bowser continued to eat.
"You heard me." Bowser grabbed his glass of water and drank heavily. When he put it back down again, he saw Kirby smiling innocently. Too innocently. He glanced around his plate. He was sure he was missing an éclair or two. Or had the chef just not gotten his order right? He looked back at the kitchen door for a moment, and when he turned back to his plate, all six scoops of Ice Cream were gone. Bowser stared hard at Kirby. "You did this, didn't you? You don't steal my food. Not while I'm here! Well, you, uh, don't steal my food anyway, but especially not when I'm here!"
Kirby just looked at him curiously, as if puzzled by what he was talking about. Bowser kept his eyes trained on the puffball for a moment, then purposefully turned his head as if looking at something else - then snapped it right back, just in time to catch Kirby halfway across the table, shoving three donuts into his mouth at once. "Why you little-" Bowser roared, standing up. Kirby jumped up guiltily and ran away.
"Come here!" Bowser shouted loud enough to make everyone else in the restaurant cover their ears. Kirby paid no heed, but darted out the door.
"I'll wipe the floor with you, you little freak!" Bowser bellowed, then paused. He dropped several gold coins on the table, then ran out the door after Kirby.
"Where did you go?" He eyed the town around him. It showed no hint of a pink puffball hiding in this area, but he knew there was one. He stepped out onto the street - then heard brakes screeching and saw a golden car swerve in order not to hit him. Instead, it slammed right into a tree, and ejected the two occupants from their seats rather harshly.
The first one to pop up was a snail-like creature with a moustache. "Sire," he moaned. "We can't afford for this to keep happening. We run into trees everywhere we go! Can't we take a different vehicle?"
"Nonsense, Escargoon!" shouted the other one in a heavy southern accent. "That there racecar is in-vally-ble! There's not another one in the universe!"
"Then must we crash it into everything we see?" pleaded Escargoon.
Kirby temporarily forgotten about, Bowser strolled over. "Well, if it isn't the fat penguin king himself."
"Oh ho ho!" Dedede exclaimed, jumping up. "Is that Bowser I see? How's it feel to still be rulin' over that kingdom of useless turtles?"
"Better than ruling over a kingdom of useless clowns," Bowser replied good-naturedly. "Haven't seen you in some time!"
"Bowser, boy," Dedede told him as he wiped off his robe. "Things have changed 'round here. Why'd you come and visit us all a sudden like that?"
"Dimensional mishap," Bowser grunted.
"Heh heh heh! Happens to the best of us. And the worst!"
"Talking about yourself again, Dedede? I'm pretty sure that's unhealthy," Bowser joked.
"That's not the only unhealthy thing around here," Escargoon muttered.
"And you, snail guy!" Bowser directed his attention to him. "Why ain't you rigged up something for me and 'im to visit more often? Aren't you supposed to be a genius or something?"
"Because," Escargot snapped, "You're the only one in this universe that appreciates my talents! If tubby here would give me something to work with-"
"Tubby?!" shouted King Dedede. "I'll give ya something' at work with for the rest'o'your life!" He pulled out his hammer and prepared to clobber Escargoon over the head with it.
Seeing the hammer reminded Bowser of something. "Hey, Dedede, we never really finished that fight, did we?"
Dedede stopped mid-swing, much to Escargoon's relief, and paused to think about it. "No, we didn't. Wanna finish it now?" He grinned and held up his hammer. He knew both he and Bowser were eager to see which of them was truly stronger.
Bowser patted his stomach. "Nah, too much sweets in here right now. Tonight?"
"At the Dedede Cahl-ih-see-um! To the death?"
"I'll bring 1-Ups."
"I'll bring a crowd."
"Then it's settled." Bowser grinned. "Meantime, I've got a puffball to kill."
Dedede laughed. "Yeah, ya get used to it."
…
That night, at the Dedede Coliseum, the two were on stage together.
"I thought you said you would bring a crowd!" Bowser reminded Dedede.
"Oh, they're a buncha wusses. Said they'd had enough of monster fights. Ain't no such thing as enough!" Dedede laughed. "But hey, one person done showed up!"
Kirby waved happily from the stands.
Bowser looked at Dedede in disbelief. "WHY?"
"Shut your facehole, and hand me a 1-Up," Dedede demanded.
Grumbling, Bowser did as he asked. "You're going to need it."
Dedede readied his hammer. "We'll see."
-FIGHT!-
Bowser jumped toward Dedede, curling his left hand into a fist and bringing it down. Dedede lowered his hammer and readied himself to throw it up into Bowser's stomach - only to realize he'd fallen right into the first trap laid out this battle. Bowser curled himself into his shell. Dedede tried to bring his hammer up in time, but Bowser's shell moved far faster than Bowser normally did, and Dedede hadn't been ready for the change in speed. The shell smashed directly into Dedede, forcing him into the ground. The shell bounced off Dedede's stomach, and Bowser popped out. He dug his claws into the ground, stopping his momentum. He stuck his leg out and spun it, hitting it into King Dedede and bouncing him back. He breathed out a wall of fire, blocking Dedede's way to him - only for a burst of air to power through and snuff out the flames. Bowser sped toward Dedede, throwing his fist at him, but Dedede simply ducked under the blow and hit Bowser's nose with the back of his hand. The surprised Bowser was pushed back and retaliated by ducking into his shell again and spinning it toward Dedede, who now timed this carefully and swung his hammer at the exact right moment, sending Bowser's shell crashing into the stands and destroying several seats.
Bowser moaned and rose as Kirby clapped excitedly. He made a massive jump, landing hard back onto the arena, and pulled out his own Giant Hammer.
"That's a pretty good hammer you got there," Bowser laughed. "Let's see how it matches up against mine! This baby can destroy castles, crush-"
Dedede smashed his hammer into Bowser's and turned it into a pile of dust.
"Huh. Didn't see that coming."
Bowser dodged a blow from the hammer, shifted to the right, and grabbed Dedede's arm. He rose him into the sky and threw him back down into the ground of the arena. He launched himself into the sky with a might jump, and rose his legs up to do a full-on Bowser Bomb on top of Dedede. Dedede rolled out of the way just in time, charged up his hammer, and slammed it into Bowser, knocking him flat on his back. "Heh heh heh! That's how you cook a- hey!" A spiked ball bounced off Dedede's head. He rubbed the spot where it hit before noticing a hundred of the same spiked balls heading toward him. Dedede gulped and held out his Prism Shield. Calmly, and directly, he kept moving it and blocking the projectiles, each one evaporating the moment it hit the shield, until he'd hit every flying ball out of the air - only to be surprised by a punch in the face from Bowser. He retaliated immediately with a sweeping kick that knocked Bowser off-balance, and dropped several Balloon Bombs all over the place before ducking out. But Bowser recovered in time, inhaled the bombs, and spat them at Dedede. Dedede smashed them all into the air with a swing of the hammer, and they all exploded colorfully.
"Not bad, flock freak," declared Bowser, "but I bet you can't keep up with two of me!" He pulled out a double cherry and used it, creating an exact clone of himself next to him.
"Don't make bets that're sure to lose!" replied the king of Dreamland. He focused slightly - and out popped a new Dedede, just like the original. "I can pull that trick, too!"
The four flew at each other and things got…confusing. Essentially everything just degraded to a street brawl, and everyone was going for everyone. When the dust cleared several minutes later, There was one Bowser and one Dedede remaining, the two clones having spent their energy and dissolved.
"Okay," breathed Bowser heavily. "Time for some new tactics." He brought out his wand and fired a magic blast at Dedede, who quickly deflected it with his hammer.
"Hey!" Bowser shouted. "How come that paperweight didn't turn into a poodle?!"
"Give me a little credit, will ya?" King Dedede laughed.
Bowser angrily tossed out several more spells, but each one was redirected by the hammer. "My turn!" he shouted. Dedede pulled out a decent-sized cannon and aimed several shots directly at Bowser.
"Don't count on that," Bowser yelled back. He held back a punch, and as he threw it, time seemed to slow. Suddenly, all five cannonballs that had been shot were in one place, right in front of Bowser, and a powerful hit scattered them all - including one that went right into the mouth of the Cracker and tore it all up. Dedede swung his hammer with fierce force, and a wave of sonic energy buzzed out towards Bowser, but he just smiled and clapped. The force of the clap shook the arena and created a new wave of sonic energy that met the other one. Both clashed and created a sonic boom that sent both Bowser and Dedede reeling - and Kirby laughing.
While Dedede was still struggling, Bowser immediately teleported behind him and landed a powerful uppercut, knocking Dedede back with considerable force. He began teleporting rapidly, to areas all around Dedede, each time landing a blow, then vanishing before Dedede could hit him Feeling his Star Power depleting a little faster than he'd like, Bowser decided to end the barrage with another very powerful blow, this one to Dedede's back, face-planting him into the ground. Dedede gasped and wheezed before trying to pull himself up. Then he was suddenly hit by what felt like a wave of pure frost, and he felt like his entire body was slowly being frozen in solid ice - which it was.
After the Cold Gun's blast had finished, Bowser calmly walked over and set down a Black Pit Bob-omb next to the frozen Dedede. The ice around him was already beginning to break due to Dedede's magic, but he wouldn't be able to get out of the way in time. Bowser quickly teleported into the stands, and sat down to watch. Seconds later, the explosion went off. It engulfed the entire arena, turning it into this enormous black pit - with a rainbow-colored penguin flying above it.
"That twerp…using invincibility on me like that…" Bowser growled. "Good thing I have something to match." He clenched a Super Leaf, and suddenly grew raccoon ears and a tail. He effortlessly flew up to where Dedede was and used a Super Star - he'd fought Mario enough times to know how dangerous it was to fight an invincibility mode when you don't have one yourself. The two fought evenly for a short bit, until the invincibility wore off for each and Bowser grabbed a Super Bell. His features became distinctively cat-featured, and he was faster. Much faster than he was before.
Dedede was suddenly being whaled on from all sides. Bowser wasn't teleporting, he'd just used some kind of power-up and was…faster now. Dedede tried to block the blows, but there was no way for him to keep up. He knew he just needed one hit on Bowser to disable the power-ups, but he couldn't get that hit in.
Fine, he thought, I'll use it. He immediately pulled out and absorbed the Dash Shoe, and everything seemed to be in slow motion. He saw each of Bowser's punched coming well before it hit him, and he was easily able to dodge. The speed boost wouldn't last forever, though, so he needed to make use of it. He pulled out his hammer and slammed it, hard, into Bowser's stomach. He saw both the raccoon and cat features vanish. Then he went to town, hitting Bowser at all angles on all sides as the two fell together. He ended the combo off with a terrifyingly strong downward hit that sent Bowser careening into the deep void.
He floated outwards and set down just outside of the Black Pit. "Well, that's the end'a'it."
Then Bowser teleported right next to him.
Bowser barred his teeth. "No way, birdbrain." He turned invisible, scooted to the right, and delivered a mighty shove, knocking Dedede down into the pit. When Dedede began floating up, Bowser jumped on top of him and barreled him down towards the bottom. He saw Dedede taking out a clear stone, immediately recognized it, and smashed it to pieces with a single kick. "Sorry, chump. There's only room for one invisible powerhouse here- huh?" He felt Dedede vanish beneath his feet, and then he was just free-falling, with no apparent end. He glanced around quickly, and noticed a much smaller Dedede floating away calmly. "Hey! I'm not done with you!"
Bowser teleported outside the hole. His head was spinning slightly, but he shook it off. He had to keep his Star Power reserves in check; all this teleporting wasn't good for it. Neither was remaining invisible, but…
King Dedede landed safely and regained his normal size. He laughed, proud of himself for outsmarting the big, dumb turt- "AGH!" Dedede was thrown back slightly bu a strong punch, and then immediately hit with another one from the other side. "Dag nabbit! Whatsthis with all the teleportin'?!"
Bowser offered no reply, but he did offer several more invisible punches. Dedede inhaled, closed his eyes, and focused. Hey may not be a Star Warrior, but he'd faced invisible, teleporting foes before. He needed just one point of reference…
A single spot of dust to his northwest moved.
There.
King Dedede turned and caught the next punch, then heaved the invisible weight behind it over his shoulder and into the pit again. Right away, Bowser appeared next to him.
"For the love of…stop throwing me in the pit! It's really getting on my-"
Dedede tripped him and bounced him off his foot into the pit.
Bowser reappeared. "ON MY NERVES!" He breathed in, trying to calm himself. "Look, we both know that sending the other guy into the pit's useless. I can teleport, and you can fly. So can we be done with the pit? Can we just make that off-limits?" He stuck out his hand.
"Oh…fine." Dedede was a little grumpy above that idea, but he shook Bowser's hand anyway.
And Bowser flung him over his shoulder into the pit.
"Hey!" Dedede shouted after floating back up.
Bowser shrugged. "Sorry, couldn't help it. Seriously, though, no more pit."
"Yeah, yeah." Dedede shot out a wave of electricity from his hands, engulfing Bowser. Bowser cried out in pain and anger, before his tough skin managed to adapt to the exact volts being used on him. Grinning, he rose his hands and threw them forward, sending every bit of the electricity back at Dedede. Dedede immediately held out his hammer and absorbed the electricity.
Exhausted, Dedede took out a Maxim Tomato and threw it up into the air, ready to catch it in his mouth. Then Bowser punched him out of the way and readied himself to catch it instead, but Dedede hit him once more and the tomato landed between them. The two immediately began inhaling, creating two powerful vacuums for the tomato to travel through. It kept switching between one or the other, never fully picking a side, until a third vacuum suddenly joined in, stronger than both of the others, and the tomato flew right into a smiling Kirby's mouth.
Both turned to him. "I'll going to kill that punk!" Bowser threatened. He took out a Bob-omb and lobbed it at Kirby - but it was met in the air with a Balloon Bomb. Both exploded in the air.
"Thissis our fight, Bowser," Dedede reminded him. "Ya can kill 'im later!"
Bowser scowled. "Fine!" He took out a Karubi Shoe that quickly enlarged itself, and jumped inside.
"Hey!" Dedede laughed. "I got one of those, too!" He pulled out his own Stomper Boot and jumped inside.
"Well, how about that. We got ourselves a shoe war," Bowser declared with a half-grin.
Both jumped at each other at the same time, collided, and bounced back several feet. They jumped again - and the same thing happened. The next time they jumped, Dedede decided to do this a little differently. As they crossed paths, he hopped out of his boot, grabbed Bowser out of his, and piledrived him into the ground. He charged up the hammer with a mountain of fire, and slammed it into Bowser's head, eliciting a shout of pain.
Bowser's body began to shudder, and then it grew. And grew. And grew, until he was the size of a mountain.
"HAH HAH HAH!" Bowser's voice boomed across the sky. "Try dealing with this now!" He effortlessly picked up the entire line of stands, shook Kirby off, and smashed them into the open-mouthed Dedede.
There was a shout as all the stands shattered into thousands of large wooden spears that drove themselves into Dedede. He gasped and struggled out of the wreckage, pulling out wooden sticks everywhere. He was bloodied, but alive.
"TAKE THIS!" Bowser shouted, and jumped thousands of feet into the air, and dropped straight on top of Dedede, the full force on his strength put into crushing him. Then he got up, and he only saw blood and dirt.
Bowser roared in victory, and shrunk down to his normal size once again.
"And that's how you cook a goose!"
"Eh, I've seen better," Dedede said, emerging from the pile of wood next to Bowser. "You're big, boy, but slow. Lemme show you another giant." As Bowser looked on, shocked, Dedede grew to the very size Bowser had just been at. And then the hammer came down.
It crushed Bowser completely, driving him underground. Dedede switched hands, grabbed Bowser, and dragged him through the ground, churning up all kinds of dirt, rocks, and…lava? Whatever it was, it barely affected Bowser's tough hide. Time for different tactics.
Dedede whirled his hammer around and around, creating a tornado the size of a town, and entrapping Bowser inside of it. Dedede dropped dozens of bombs inside the tornado, waited for them to explode, and when the smoking and screaming Bowser flew his way after the explosion, he swung his hammer like a baseball bat, hitting Bowser thousands of miles away. Dedede clapped, scattering the winds and destroying the tornado, and waited for Bowser to teleport. Eventually, he did. He looked exhausted, bloodied, and barely able to stand.
"And…one punch should do it!" Dedede launched a full-powered punch towards Bowser - only to be met in equal force with a casual wave of Bowser's hand.
"Whazza what?"
Bowser grew slightly. His skin grayed. His eyes turned into flaming balls of anger. Spikes protruded from his body. He was different. He was…Giga Bowser.
"Oh, cra-"
Giga Bowser lifted the giant King Dedede effortlessly and threw him into the ground. He teleported above him and smashed him down with an incredibly strong headbutt. Dedede tried to swat him, but Giga Bowser was far too fast. He was faster than Dedede had ever seen him. Dedede rushed at Giga Bowser, intending to win the whole match with one decisive blow, but Giga Bowser wouldn't give him the chance. He dodged every attempt at a blow Dedede made with relative ease, and delivered his own blows in turn that were far more powerful than normal blows from Bowser. To compete with his speed, Dedede was forced to shrink to his normal size again, and then constantly dodge Giga Bowser's attacks. He just needed to outlast this form, he felt, and then he had victory in the bag. Giga Bowser, however, had no intentions of giving him that luxury. Without warning, he pulled out a massive sheel just like his and threw it, full force, at Dedede. Surprised at this, Dedede was hit full in the face by the shell, and it sent him into the air. Giga Bowser used the opportunity to unleash a storm of clawed attacks on his opponent. The strikes devastated Dedede\, and, when he was about to land, Giga Bowser wrapped himself up in his shell and spun around under him, impaling him in several more places. When Dedede finally landed he was dangerously wounded all over his body and struggling to move. He looked up at Giga Bowser with no obvious way to win.
Giga Bowser laughed and stepped on Dedede's head. He ground his foot into the skull, ready to pop it. Even as the form wore off, Bowser was still in the same position. Victory, he felt, was his.
Then he heard the hiss of a fuse around his waist.
Dedede rolled out from under him and jumped into the pit right before the dynamite went off and sent Bowser howling. He flew up right away and cloned himself one last time to keep the now weakened Bowser busy while he charged his hammer.
The clone unleashed a wall of flames on Bowser, and right when Bowser began to charge through them, frozen him solid. It grabbed the frozen Bowser, threw him high into the air, flew up, and hit him with a charge attack from his hammer. Then he was suddenly below him, smashing his face in with another blow, and did one more spinning blow to force all the ice off and get a dangerously woozy and beaten Bowser to the ground. The clone vanished to save some of Dedede's Star Power, and Bowser slowly managed to stand, only to fall to his knees again. He hazily looked up and saw the equally half-dead King Dedede preparing to throw his hammer at him.
Bowser roared and ran towards Dedede. Neither one of them could take any more. He wrapped himself up in his nigh-unbreakable and supersonic shell and spun towards Dedede just as Dedede threw his hammer.
One way or the other, this was the blow that would decide victory.
Dedede's hammer smashed into Bowser's shell.
And Bowser's shell fell to pieces.
Bowser flopped out of it, moaning in agony. Nothing remained of his shell except scattered green and yellow slivers. "That's…impossible! My shell is unbreakable!"
"So is my superiority over you," King Dedede replied, grinning.
Bowser grimaced. "I still have…one trick." He pulled out another Black Pit Bob-omb and tossed it at Dedede. "And no invincibility to save you!" He began laughing like a madman. The pain, the anxiety, the stress, all came out of him as he laughed.
But Dedede wasn't worried. He simply sucked up the Bob-omb and spit it back out directly into Bowser's laughing maw.
Bowser gagged as the bomb slipped down his throat. "Wha- oh, man."
The bomb exploded, sending pieces of Bowser flying everywhere.
-KO!-
"Well, I de-de-declare myself the oh-fish-ee-al winner!" Dedede shouted. "Ey, Kirby, can I have that Tomato back?"
Kirby had been standing some distance away, due to no longer having any stands to sit on. He nodded happily and spat the fruit right at Dedede, who easily caught it. "Thanks, friend." He ate it, and instantly his wounds were healed and his energy restored. He walked over to where Bowser's head had landed. "Well, guess you needed this more than I did." He dropped the 1-Up on top of the head, and suddenly Bowser's body fully reconstructed itself, healed of all wounds and fatigue.
"What- what happened?"
"You lost, that's what!" Dedede grinned.
Bowser smiled a big, toothy smile. "Aw, man. And I really wanted to win!"
"You…ain't mad?"
"Eh, I'm used to it," Bowser replied. He looked up at the sky. "Wish I could stay, but I'm already really late for a visit to my new kingdom."
"New kingdom? Where?"
"A new dimension. Well, future new kingdom. I'll have enslave everyone already there first." Bowser grinned. "You know how it is."
"I wish," Dedede replied grumpily. "This guy won't let me take over no more kingdoms!" He pointed at Kirby.
"Hey, pipsqueak!" Bowser called out, and Kirby ran up shockingly fast. "You stop stealing my food, and we'll get along nice. But give this guy a break every once in a while, will ya?" He glanced at Dedede. "He deserves it."
"Hiya!" Kirby nodded eagerly, though it was a mystery whether or not he understood what Bowser had said.
"Well, I'm off. If you need me, I'll be taking over a kingdom of ponies."
"Ponies?"
"Ponies."
Dedede waved. "Uh, good luck?"
Bowser gave him a thumbs-ups and headed out to his clown car.
…
Well, that was an explosive victory (I'm not sorry).
Initially, this seems a close call. Both have a variety of items and weapons with much the same capabilities, and both move castles, survive supernova-level blasts, and move at speeds faster than sound. However, King Dedede's statline tends to be well above that of Bowser's, many of his weapons and abilities are better, and those that are left he can easily counter. Much of their arsenal counters each other (Double Cherry & Cloning, Invisibility & Invisibility Stone, Bob-ombs & Balloon Bombs, ect.) and so bears little meaning. But when you take all of that out, what remains of Bowser's arsenal is easily taken care of with the Dedede Hammer alone. Remember that a single hit on Bowser disables his power-ups and that not only can the Dedede Hammer block and counter any magical attack Bowser uses, but also that King Dedede faces planetary-to-galaxy-level magicians, like, every day. He's quite used to blocking magical blasts and countering other forms of magic, and since Bowser's magic has been countered and avoided by Mario and friends several times in the past, there's little reason to say that King Dedede couldn't do it. Bowser is tough, and his shell is supposedly unbreakable, but the hammer has broken unbreakable things before, and King Dedede is every bit as hard to kill as Bowser is. Actually, Dedede is both stronger and faster than Bowser.
At maximum strength, Bowser was able to hold up a section of a collapsing castle that would weigh around 300,000 tons, though he was only able to do so with O'Chunks' help. Even if we factor in the Power Fangs X and Power Band+, that puts his strength at around 432,000 tons. However, Dedede was able to lift Blocky, a stone monster with magically enhanced weight. This guy effortlessly flattened Kirby, creates earthquakes with just a step, and easily smashed through 38 floors of a castle. Even the lower end of weight estimation for this guy puts him at around 500,000 tons. And even though Bowser has been shown to move at speeds of almost Mach 3, or over 2,300 MPH, King Dedede outpaced Kracko, who is canonically stated to move at the speed of lightning, or around 224,000 MPH. And while Bowser has dodged lightning bolts, he has never shown the ability to dodge light-speed attacks like the Mario Bros. have, while King Dedede can dodge such high-speed attacks and even match the reaction time of others who can.
So, Dedede is faster and stronger, and both are pretty much equal in durability, but Bowser's bigger arsenal and higher level of fighting experience still give him the edge, right? Well, not quite. As I mentioned before, much of Bowser's arsenal is countered by Dedede's, and what's left is taken care of by the Dedede Hammer. Let's go into the specifics of that: Bowser's projectiles (including smaller hammers, fireballs, spiked balls, and even extra Wicked Shells) are all blocked and bounced back by a single swing from this hammer - Mario has certainly shown the capability to do that with his own Ultra Hammer, and the Dedede Hammer is at least as powerful as that, if not far more so. The Lightplunger uses electricity to stun its foes, and not only is the hammer warded against elemental attacks, but electricity typically can't travel through wood anyway. Each of Bowser's Power-Ups might initially present a challenge, but that's only until Dedede can hit him. And with his superior speed and tactical mind, that's sure to happen eventually. Bowser's own Giant Hammer, while powerful, still isn't nearly as powerful as Dedede's. Heck, Dedede has faced powerful hammer-wielding foes before and won quite easily. And, of course, the Dedede Hammer specifically counters all magical attacks, ruining any chance Bowser's wands had of impacting the fight. The only weapon that could present an actual problem would be Bowser's Cold Gun. Since the weapon is technologically made, no magical or elemental wards will protect against it, and since it's carried via laser beam, it's hard to dodge - even Mario and Luigi, who have dodged laser beams before, couldn't dodge it. However, not only has King Dedede had far more experience in dodging such beams and matched those who can as well, but he's been frozen solid multiple times and managed to escape and continue the fight each time. It's unlikely this weapon would lead to anything more than a delay for him. Other than that, the Giga Bowser form may provide a challenge, but Dedede is more than tough enough to last until the form wears off, and the fact that Bowser has little control over the form makes it that much easier to outmaneuver. And while Bowser may have more experience in battle, King Dedede has trained far more and, most importantly, his fighting style and martial arts completely counter Bowser's. His more unique fighting style is totally different than what Bowser normally faces, while Bowser's study of Judo, Kung Fu, and Boxing isn't rare at all in the Kirby universe.
Dedede's feats also typically go a step over Bowser's. Bowser may have an IQ of 9,800, while Dedede literally has no mind, but Bowser only ever uses that IQ to build weapons and machines. In terms of strategy, Dedede has consistently accomplished far more and been fooled by far less. Bowser's Inhale ability can move large creatures that would weigh nearly 5 Tons, but Dedede's is specifically stated to be on the same level as Kirby's, who has moved entire mountains with his Inhale ability, weighing some hundreds of thousands or millions of tons. Both defeated their more powerful, evil self, but Bowser's had the specific weakness of only being as powerful if he had the Fawful Bug inside of him, and easily expelled the bug when hit by a gut punch. Bowser also had the bonus of being secretly helped by Mario and Luigi in that fight, and regularly summoned a massive amount of his own minions to help him out. However, Dedede fought his clone without any outside interference or exploitation of weaknesses - and he defeated Dark Meta Knight, who was even more powerful than normal Meta Knight, immediately afterward. Bowser survived having all his skin melted, and King Dedede survived having his everything melted. Bowser has fought and defeated planet-level foes on occasion, and King Dedede regularly defeats star-level foes on his own. And while both have faced universe-level beings (in Super Dimentio and Magolor) and won, Bowser was only able to do so with the help of both Mario and Peach. Even then, the only reason the three of them stood a chance was because of the Pure Hearts countering Super Dimentio's dark magic and making him vulnerable. However, King Dedede was able to defeat Magolor by himself without any outside help or exploitation of weaknesses. Not to mention that Dedede was able to defeat Drawcia, a god-like being who's at least Planet-to-Star-level in power, without the use of his limbs. No joke. Drawcia turned him into a living bouncy ball, and he still won. In comparison, not only does Bowser do poorly when under any real restrictions, but he himself often relies on power boosters like Power Stars, Grand Stars, and the Star Rod (does he have an obsession with Stars or what?) in order to get the job done, and is lacking without them.
But really, none of that is what matters most. For all intents and purposes, these two villains work the exact same way in their respective universes. Both are absurdly strong and hard to kill titans who counter the main hero in the ways that matter most. Both are easily defeated by that hero, but will sometimes win anyway. Both have actual lives and secret obsessions, both aren't the best of rulers, and both end up becoming friends with and fighting alongside their lifelong enemies. The only problem is…the gap in power between the two universes. Every role is filled by different characters in each reality, but the character from the Kirby universe is almost always going to be more powerful than the one from the Mario universe. In comparing Mario and Kirby, what is often considered to be Mario's strongest feat is the time he lifted a full castle and kicked it away with ease - which would put his strength at somewhere around 100,000 tons. However, that level of strength is very low when compared to Kirby, who, at different times, threw a monster out of the galaxy, redirected a moon-sized meteor with a single blow, cracked an earth-sized planet in half on three separate occasions, shattered his home planet, Popstar, with one punch, and won what was essentially an arm wrestle against a being with infinite strength. Similarly, Luigi is capable of withstanding a black hole, but Meta Knight can not only outfly the force of a black hole, but survived being sucked through multiple ones at once, tanking the equivalent to three Supernovas to the face, and taking and redirecting blows from a monster who could defeat an entire army of Star Warriors (each of which would be planet-level on average). That level of durability makes Luigi's seem kind of silly. You can repeat this for nearly every slot in the universes, and will find a similar power gap between both universes - including, as shown above, when comparing Bowser and King Dedede. Bowser fights Mario and constantly loses, but almost wins, and Dedede fights Kirby and constantly loses, but almost wins.
There's only one theory that allows for the Mario universe to be on the same level as the Kirby universe, which is that all the Mario characters can easily destroy solar systems, since they have defeated beings powered by Power Stars, which supposedly create entire Solar Systems. However, this is a ridiculous notion - there is no other piece of data or evidence to back up the idea of that level of power, and it was never stated that Power Stars create the world Mario travels to. They may very well have only created portals to such worlds - as is implied by the fact that you visit Whomp's Fortress again in Super Mario Galaxy 2, where it's its own island in the sky. Not to mention that just because something has the power to create doesn't mean the same power goes to other things. A factory machine that can create a car could never travel down the highway at 60 MPH by itself. Maxwell's notebook from the Scribblenauts series can create a nuclear bomb, but the notebook itself can't destroy an entire city without making anything. For that matter, Einstein helped create the first Atomic Warhead. That doesn't mean that he can punch with the power of an Atomic Warhead. No, this "theory" has too little evidence and is too easily disproven to be taken seriously. We must rely on what feats we see the characters perform - and those feats are well below those of the Kirby universe.
When everything is put together, the picture it paints is unfortunately easy to see. Dedede is stronger and faster, has a superior arsenal, his fighting style counters every one of Bowser's, and any advantages Bowser has just aren't enough to overcome the gap between the two worlds.
Dedede just flew away with this one.
The winner is King Dedede.
…
Next time, on Death Battle…
A blue-clad warrior swings his sword at hypersonic speeds towards a monster the size of a mountain, destroying it in a flash of color with a single blow, then smiles at his furry, flying companion.
VS.
A black-clad warrior swings his sword at hypersonic speeds towards a monster the size of a mountain, destroying it in a flash of color with a single blow, then smiles at his childlike, flying companion.
(Dust vs. Kirito)