Episode 0.1: Post-Season Extravaganza #1!
Well, this season was a lot of fun, and today I show it all off. Everything you never wanted to know about this season. I've acknowledged mistakes, answered questions, found battles I will never write, found battles I will write, and hinted at said battles. There's plenty of stuff here – including spoilers. If you haven't read all of the previous battles, please do before reading this. I poured hundreds of hours into these fights, so I'd be very disappointed if you just skipped them all and read this to find out who wins. Plus, then you have the right to complain about the winner? You really want to do that, right? Everyone does! Right?!
Let's see how I did on this long road.
MISTAKES:
Ah, but it can't be a road without a few stumbles. Might as well get these out of the way. During my first couple of months working on this project, I made my fair share of mistakes, and though I stand by the winners, I have to acknowledge where I went wrong. Let's start from the beginning and work our way down.
The Meta vs. Black Beetle:
Black Beetle's Origin: Most of Black Beetle's origin story was taken only from inference using the Young Justice TV Show Comics in relation to the actual comics. I used Dawur from the comics because he took a very similar role to Black Beetle in the show and had some similar abilities. So I just…made a hundred assumptions and leaps about Black Beetle's backstory and spat them out as if they were fact. They aren't. We don't know a thing about Black Beetle's backstory except that he's one of the most powerful Beetles and…I think it was said that he was the first one in the Young Justice comics. Don't really remember. It wouldn't change a thing about the winner or the fight, but I'm ashamed to have printed false information just to make something sound cooler.
The Metal Crate: How the heck was I able to put this thing at 8,600 Tons and have nobody question it? I myself didn't question it! I'm a little more experienced now. I used an online calculator to find the thing's weight, and I must have messed up the input numbers somehow AND had it calculate the weight as if the ENTIRE THING was one giant steel brick. Scaled appropriately, similar crates, when full, weigh in at around 27 Tons, and to throw it that far that fast would take around 265 Tons of Force. This battle has been updated with the right numbers. Again, it makes no real difference to the fight (except to make it even more of a stomp), but it was a major mistake that needed to be fixed.
Kamek vs. Twilight Sparkle:
Durability: Ah, the classic "how much this thing weighs is the same amount as the force it exerts when crashing." This is a surprisingly common argument online, which is why I thought it was true. It's not. In certain situations, it can serve as a minimum force, but that's kind of rare. So a 1200 lb piano falling would not hit Twilight with 1200 lb of force. I put in the right numbers the second time, though these days, that durability looks kind of lowballed. Though Kamek's was way more lowballed. Also, for some reason, the recap number for durability keeps remaining as the original stupidly low numbers no matter how many times I reupload the chapter. Argh.
Henry Stickmin vs. The Second Coming:
The Chosen One: The inclusion of The Chosen One in this fight was absurd and was in no way justified. Sure, it made for a mildly entertaining scene in the battle and allowed me to talk about his craziness, but The Second Coming has never transformed back into The Chosen One of his own will. Or at all, for that matter. The only justification is that his form flashes a few times in Animator vs. Animation IV and looks like The Chosen One – though it's only really used to solidify his origin as a reincarnation of The Chosen One. Would the result change without The Chosen One's inclusion? No. The Second Coming has handled far greater threats than Henry and has more impressive feats under his belt along with the Minecraft Block. But my consistent reference to The Chosen One form may certainly have nullified my arguments and results for some of you. For that, I'm sorry. As an interesting side note, The Chosen One himself has recently appeared in an episode of Animator vs. Animation alongside The Second Coming. No idea what that's about.
Tons vs. Tons-Force: Again, I was just starting out and didn't really know what I was getting into. I think Bowser vs. King Dedede was when I really started fully understanding how to measure characters and how to put their abilities against each other. But at this point, I didn't even understand the difference between Tons of Weight and Tons of Force, as clearly shown in my assessment of their strength capacity. Henry could throw a bullet with 6 Tons of Force, but TSC beats that by…lifting a 17 Ton Gold Block. That doesn't make sense. Now, TSC is definitely stronger than Henry (who struggled to lift a 2 Ton diamond), but I really could have shown that better. How about how he threw said blocks? That puts his strength way over 6 Tons of Force.
Force of a Crashing Car: Wha- how…how on earth did I manage to calculate the force of a crashing car at 482,000 lb of Force?! I seriously don't understand. I remember running the stats through an online calculator, but…geez. This is why you don't rely on online calculators, kids. Do the equations yourself, then triple-check all of them to make sure your result is correct. It's what I do now, and it's the only fair way I've found. Anyway, properly measured, the force of a two-ton car ramming into you at 60 MPH is more around 11,000 lb of Force, though TSC taking several in a row without a scratch still showcases superior durability to Henry. Heck, Henry's died just from being hit by one truck! Still, these math problems make this episode probably my least-favorite of the bunch that I've done. They make the results feel untrustworthy, which saddens me greatly.
Light Yagami vs. Lelouch Vi Brittania:
Non-Canon Exclusion: This was made at a time where the Rules of Death Battle were a little less…defined. It was hard to say if non-canon material was allowed or not, or if only general equipment was included for a combatant or if all equipment was included. Since then, thanks to a certain episode of the Death Battle Cast, those rules have been firmly laid down, and I am able to refer back to them. And one such rule was that non-canon material is most certainly allowed as supporting evidence. So my not allowing any non-canon material in this fight was off the mark. I should have included such things as the Japanese Death Note Drama Series or the PS2 and DS Code Geass games. To some extent, anyway – Lelouch's Geass is completely different in one game, for instance. Still wouldn't have made a difference, but such things should have been accounted for, as they have been ever since.
Bowser vs. King Dedede:
Scaling to Kirby: Expressly stated to be a mistake in Kirby vs. Superman. I hadn't delved into the research for Kirby fully yet when I wrote this, so I didn't realize yet that he had the literal power of being stronger than anyone who faced him. Because of this, I counted Dedede's single combat-based win against him (when I later found out that, according to the Meta Knight, Kirby threw the match on purpose) along with a few game victories (you know, chess and dancing). It was a mistake. Would it have made a difference? No way. The Kirby Universe is still stupidly powerful and, for the most part, more powerful than the Mario Universe, and King Dedede still has the advantage in nearly every way over Bowser. Still needed to be covered, though.
Lightning-Speed: When a character is directly stated multiple times to be as fast or faster than lightning, you need to take that in context. If, say, Killer Croc were to dodge a blast that moved as fast as lightning and that was considered impressive, that probably means the beam was moving at 224,000 MPH, the initial stroke of a lightning bolt. But if someone like Green Lantern dodges a laser said to move at the speed of lighting and it's considered impressive, we should probably scale it up to 220,000,000 MPH, the speed of the reverse stroke of said bolt, since he's dodged plenty of similarly-fast beams and even faster ones many times. It's all about context, as it is with most projectiles. Considering the absurd level of speed that most Kirby characters have, I probably should have measured Kracko at 220,000,000 MPH instead of 224,000 MPH. I did it in Kirby vs. Superman, anyway.
Dust vs. Kirito:
Non-Canon Exclusion?: The beginning of the episode states that I'm not including non-canon feats or appearances…but I clearly do throughout the episode. Several of Kirito's Sword Skills, in fact, are only available in SAO-Based Video Games. So this is clearly just a thing I wrote automatically and forgot to take out. Eh.
As for the others…I really can't find anything majorly wrong. If you guys do find something questionable, definitely tell me about it. I'll list all further mistakes in my next Q&A after Season 2. So, let's move on to…
LITTLEZBOT'S DEATH BATTLE Q&A:
Let's get to our first question!
*crickets chirp*
Seriously, guys? Nobody had any questions? NOT ONE? Well, I'm kind of sad. Does this mean I'm really good at writing these things or really bad? Hmm. Well, here are some questions I wish you'd asked.
The Meta vs. Black Beetle:
Q: How come you used the version from Young Justice primarily instead of the one from the Blue Beetle comics? Isn't it a rule for Death battles to use the original canon as the primary source of information?
A: But…the Young Justice TV Show IS the primary source of this Black Beetle. There is a Black Beetle in the comics, but he's entirely different, with a different name, origin, alliance, place in the story, and powers and abilities. Also, he's a ridiculously minor characters that appears, like, twice. Black beetle as he's known is almost exclusively created by the show with nothing borrowed but the name. It's similar to Green Arrow from DC Comics and Green Arrow from the Arrow CW Show. Entirely different characters (even though one's based off the other) who share a name. Though at least Green Arrow CW has somewhat similar abilities and a mildly similar backstory. These Black Beetles don't even have that in common.
Dust vs. Kirito:
Q: How come both combatants can unleash far stronger strikes than they, themselves, can take? The laws of physics say this is impossible!
A: Simple answer? Magic and Technology. More specifically, Dust is created by and his powers are granted by magic (that is also not magic, because that would make too much sense), so while he could punch with enough force to shatter his hand, it wouldn't do a thing to him. But if someone punched him with that much force, it would shatter his hand. Make sense? Good. Similarly, Kirito, in his story, is a literal video game character with a healthbar. It'd be pretty annoying to play a game where your HP went down with every hit you landed.
Rainbow Dash vs. Red Tornado:
Q: You said "- it's not like there are any robot bodies waiting to be possessed in Equestria." I thought the battle stage didn't matter!
A: Poor wording? The truth is, it doesn't matter where the battle is held – so long as it's not in the Justice League Watchtower, where a few spare bodies are kept. Since that's pretty much the only place where he can get replacement bodies, to have that be the battle setting would be bias more than anything else.
Q: Wouldn't Ulthoon's true form kill Rainbow Dash, since it can defeat the whole Justice League at once?
A: As stated in the episode, it's unlikely. At least, assuming she doesn't stick around too long. Ulthoon as an elemental has only effectively fought twice after being transferred into his first robot body – once to kill a goon who pissed him off, and once when being wielded as a weapon during the Crisis on Infinite Earths event. On all other occasions, he's merely used the form to travel and enter a new body as fast as possible. And Rainbow Dash has survived weather-related phenomena that are quite similar in the past – like when she went up into the sky and fought off air demons, or when she temporarily held off the frozen north's winds, which were being led by a malicious spirit who had literally turned into the essence of wind. The point is, she has enough experience and ability to survive a short while against Ulthoon, and she only needs to survive long enough to make an escape – to hole up for 24 hours until he dissipates. And while Rainbow's cockiness has gotten her into trouble with more powerful opponents before, when she knows she's outmatched, she'll definitely run and hide until she can sort things out. She's done that plenty of times, so it's doubtful this would go differently.
Q: Why didn't you use Red Tornado's Superman-fighting body? Isn't using a character's maximum potential a rule of Death Battle?
A: This was one of the most difficult decisions I had to make in regards to this series. Yes, that is one of Death Battle's rules, but Red Tornado is an extremely unique specimen in regards to that rule. The rule was really made so that there's no bias by omission or restriction. If we have Batman in a Death Battle, it's not fair to give him the body of old man Bruce from Batman Beyond. One would then think it's unfair to give Red Tornado a body that's decidedly weaker than his best stuff, right? Especially since Ulthoon's maximum potential is enough to overpower Superman. But that's the reason this rule is so flexible. Think of it like this: if I were to do a Death Battle between Deadpool and, say, Saitama from One Punch Man, you wouldn't want me to say Deadpool would win because of the short amount of time where he was Captain Universe, would you? He lost that quickly, and it was due to outside sources anyway. It's the same deal here – Red Tornado only had a couple of bodies that could fight against members of the Justice League like Superman, Wonder Woman, and Shazam, and all were either destroyed or vanished without an explanation. For the same reason, I didn't put him in his nanobot body that instantly heals from any wound or his body that manipulates electricity and mind-controls people. Both barely lasted long enough to be acknowledged, and none of these represents the version of Red Tornado everyone knows and loves. He's almost always in a basic Red Tornado wind-controlling red-tornado-making body, and he can't generally access his other bodies at any point, just like Batman can't just call the Hellbat suit if he needs it. From a canonical standpoint, he should only have access to his most recent body, which was a general, average body. So we use all the feats it performed and all the others his general tornado-making bodies have performed because that's what we can give the character while still being fair. Plus, if you want to talk about bias, it's hard to be more biased than I'd have to be to give him a long-broken and almost-never-used Superman-fighting body. Of course he'd win, but nobody cares about that. Everyone wants to see him fighting as he's always represented and known.
To make a long answer short, all those bodies were either broken or forgotten, and since they were so rarely seen and almost always outliers, including them would be way more biased than not including them.
DEATH BATTLES I WILL NEVER DO:
Every once in a while, I'll see a suggestion that either looks good on paper but ends up being terrible, or is super-highly requested despite being a pretty darn bad idea for a Death Battle. These are some of the battles I will never write.
Goku vs. Sonic:
Or, for that matter, Vegeta vs. Shadow, Trunks vs. Silver, Metal Sonic vs. Cell, Chaos vs. Buu, Infinite vs. Jiren, or any of those highly-requested Dragon Ball vs. Sonic fights. Even though every fight matches up awesomely in terms of abilities and backstory, Dragon Ball characters can perform destruction on a scale nothing like Sonic characters can. It's never a fair fight.
Hiccup & Toothless (How to Train Your Dragon) vs. Eragon & Saphira (Inheritance Cycle):
These two are almost exactly matched in every possible way except for one thing: Magic. Eragon's magic gives him a thousand ways to instantly kill Hiccup and Toothless in an instant. BUT IF HE DIDN'T HAVE IT, THIS WOULD BE AWESOME! But he does have it. If Hiccup and Toothless gain magical immunity in HTTYD3, then we'll talk. But that's absurdly unlikely.
Emerl (Sonic) vs. Amazo (DC Comics):
Seemingly a perfect matchup in terms of powers and uniqueness and backstory, but while Emerl has all the powers of the Sonic world, Amazo has all the powers of the DC world, which is far and away superior. Superman's powers alone obliterate even Ultimate Emerl.
Shadow (Sonic) vs. Meta Knight (Kirby):
Excellent matchup, with surprisingly close stats and unique abilities. But DeadAliveManiac already did this battle – and I agree with virtually everything he said. There's no need for me to repeat what's already been determined.
Winston (Overwatch) vs. Gorilla Grodd (DC Comics):
NO. Has anyone who requests this matchup ever read about Grodd? This fight would be over a hundred times before it began. It's Thor vs. Raiden and Flash vs. Quicksilver all over again.
Nui (Kill la Kill) vs. Neo (RWBY):
Both are perfectly matched in the type of characters they play; it'd be hard to find a more fitting match for either as colorful parasol-wielding classy ladies whose skill and power is far beyond any of the heroes'. But Nui is on a completely different level than Neo. Kill la Kill by itself is on a different level from RWBY, and Nui is on a different level from Kill la Kill! Sorry, no. Way too one-sided. Just like Winston vs. Gorilla Grodd.
SEASON 2 – UPCOMING BATTLES:
Yes, folks, Season 2 is on its way! Featuring ten more episodes, it will all climax on Number 20 with a battle between two big factions, where I'll have to study not one, not two, but EIGHTEEN characters. *silently cries* But what battles are going to appear? Well, enjoy this section where we hint at every planned battle in Season 2 thus far!
SEASON PREMIER: 11. Beacon's Youngest Monster Hunter vs. Spider-Man's Deadliest Monster
12. Psychotic Hammer-Wielding Jester vs. Psychotic Chainsaw-Wielding Cheerleader
13. Ultimate Life Form vs. DON'T LOSE YOUR WAAAAY
14. Marvel's Deadliest Android vs. Dragon Ball's Evolving Machine
15. Red High Leader of Revolutions vs. Green Ninja of Dragons
16. Powerful Alchemist Whose Soul is in his Armor vs. Powerful Magician Whose Soul is in his Sword
17. Indie Spaceship that Kills Rebellions vs. Indie Spaceship that Kills Chickens
18. Heart of a Chief and Soul of a Dragon vs. Heart of a Princess and Soul of an Insect
19. Pokémon's Mountain Mover vs. Fossil Fighter's Mountain Breaker
SEASON FINALE: 20. Blood Gulch Battles vs. Empty Lot Battles
So guess away at the combatants, and let your mouths froth with excitement! Or salt. Whichever, really.
SEASON 1 STATS:
And now, for the end of it all. Season 1 has come to a close, so let's take a look back at the fights, who won, and why. And see how many words long each chapter was, because why not?
1. The Meta vs. Black Beetle:
Winner: Black Beetle
Reasoning: Superior weaponry, experience, physical abilities; his healing nullified any real damage the Meta could do; has the ability to wipe out the Meta's A.I., granting himself a further advantage
Word Count: 9,980
2. Kamek vs. Twilight Sparkle:
Winner: Kamek
Reasoning: Better magical arsenal; superior training and experience with magic; higher physical abilities; has fought and bested foes more powerful than Twilight
Word Count: 8,110
3. Henry Stickmin vs. The Second Coming:
Winner: The Second Coming
Reasoning: Superior skill and knowledge of martial arts; equal, if not better, arsenal; better physical feats; has dealt with foes with greater powers than Henry
Word Count: 10,580
4. Light Yagami vs. Lelouch Vi Brittania:
Winner: Lelouch Vi Brittania
Reasoning: Better intellect; far more impressive feats; more experience; Geass is a better tool than the Death Note
Word Count: 17,136
5. Bowser vs. King Dedede:
Winner: King Dedede
Reasoning: Dedede Hammer alone counters almost everything in Bowser's arsenal; Dedede has far more experience dealing with far deadlier foes than Bowser; he's stronger and faster and just as hard to kill
Word Count: 12,069
6. Dust vs. Kirito:
Winner: Dust
Reasoning: Extremely close fight. Equal physical abilities and almost all other advantages cancel each other out. This leaves the winner decided entirely by skill, technique, and fighting style – and Dust takes all of the above
Word Count: 13,201
7. Rainbow Dash vs. Red Tornado:
Winner: Rainbow Dash
Reasoning: Physical superiority; attacks hold more variety; fighting style counters Red Tornado's extremely well
Word Count: 10,621
8. Kirby vs. Superman:
Winner: Kirby
Reasoning: Similar physical capabilities (and both are potentially infinite); abilities held more variety and countered anything Superman could throw at him; better martial arts; one inhale ends the match; Kirby has dealt with foes that Superman can't deal with
Word Count: 20,451
9. Link vs. Terrarian:
Winner: Link
Reasoning: Superior training, experience, abilities, arsenal, weaponry, strength, speed, durability; fighting style completely annihilates Terrarian's
Word Count: 26,861
10. Mario vs. Sonic:
Winner: Sonic
Reasoning: Superior strength, speed, durability, training, strategy, skill, abilities; can counter anything Mario can throw at him; Super Forms are far above anything Mario has; feats go several steps beyond Mario's
Word Count: 25,102
TO BE CONTINUED…
Well, with Season 1 out of the way, it's time to get to work on Season 2. When will the first episode be premiering? Well…
I'm happy to announce that Episode 11 of LittleZbot's Death Battles, and the Season 2 premier, will be out for everyone to read on October 1st, 2018! Yes, that is soon. And if that's not exciting enough, prepare for Episode 12 on October 31st, 2018, as a wonderful little Halloween special. Consider it my gift to you.
As always, leave any and all questions down below, and review the crap out of this story, please! I require substance if I'm ever to take over the world! What? No! I'm not evil! Totally!
See you guys in a little over a week.
- LittleZbot