Death Battle IV: The Source Material Loses

[Reddish Mage]

I'm talking specifically about extrapolated ability from extended calculations in settings that don't follow physics anyways

So ummm you’ll have to specify....that description basically captures...every single calculation. The typical fighter comes from a world where fighters don’t follow physics. The calculations are....well extrapolations, and I don’t know when they become “long.” Yang into a steel highway support girder that collapses...is that a long one? What about Superman from another star system to Earth in 3 minutes?

I’ve been here long enough to hear practically every fight winning calc get criticized from someone as forced for some reason. Usually with the implication the other side should have won.

that's where the rules are just wrong, with Kirby being a thorough example of that setting. This also applies to a number of the extreme outliers, where what we see on screen, directly is pretty consistent and a lot lower than what we get if we determine what's needed through a fair amount of math the authors clearly didn't do.[/QUOTE]

So.... Kirby can toss someone into the Sun with a frying pan. He’s done it. They extrapolate...Kirby can toss another someone into the Sun....where’s the need for calculations here?


First you criticize long calculations, now you ask for us to do a lot more calculations by asking for what’s typical “on screen.”

That’s the thing. Only some characters have canonical appearances on screen. For the most part it’s comic characters and manga characters. And who here has read ALL the comics for both characters in a fight to say what’s typical?

I can’t wait for you to come up with all the rules about what typical means anyway. Do early matchups count? What if only a few matchups in the end (or even just one) suddenly ramp up the power level? What if the character rather than get really stronger in the end actually loses their powers or gets a lot weaker? Also are you going to count every appearance meaning in video games movies books novels comics crossovers television and direct video?

When your finished with all that analysis for one character let’s talk about your findings for what the typical showing is for that character. Of course will need you to do it for two characters so that we can actually have a death battle.

When are we finally gonna get the only match-up that REALLY matters?

Wiz vs. Boomstick when?!?!?

They’re saving it for the final season. It’s going to end in double KO.

[Lemmy]

feats from vs things don't factor in Him fighting Wolverine in the intro of Marvel Vs Capcom is the same as saying that things from Namco x Capcom would be valid when none of it is.

We use things from their specific games, though stuff like The Streetfighter Movies are usable, Such as anything happening in the Alpha movies or street fighter the Motion picture.

But we don't limit the characters to game mechanics only otherwise we get into game balance problems.

Jin's Forcefields and his Telekenesis will also offer a serious problem to Ryu

Why do non-canon movies count but cutscenes from non-canon games don't? I'm not even including gameplay elements.

Does that mean nothing from TTT and TTT2 counts for Jin? Those games are non-canon.

[Knaight]

So ummm you’ll have to specify....that description basically captures...every single calculation. The typical fighter comes from a world where fighters don’t follow physics. The calculations are....well extrapolations, and I don’t know when they become “long.” Yang into a steel highway support girder that collapses...is that a long one? What about Superman from another star system to Earth in 3 minutes?

I’ve been here long enough to hear practically every fight winning calc get criticized from someone as forced for some reason. Usually with the implication the other side should have won.

So.... Kirby can toss someone into the Sun with a frying pan. He’s done it. They extrapolate...Kirby can toss another someone into the Sun....where’s the need for calculations here?

They didn't just extrapolate - calculations were made for the specific amount of force Kirby can throw around, to be compared to other calculations. That extrapolation also involves blithely ignoring how the planets, the sun, etc. in Kirby don't necessarily map well to what planets or suns actually are. It's a ridiculous cartoon world by the standards of the settings that come up in Death Battle, many of which are just the real world, but with [type of characters]. It's not that Kirby doesn't follow physics, that entire setting doesn't.

First you criticize long calculations, now you ask for us to do a lot more calculations by asking for what’s typical “on screen.”

It's almost like I have an issue with a particular type of calculation, and not the quantity of calculations overall. "On screen" in this case also clearly means "directly depicted".

[Devonix]

Why do non-canon movies count but cutscenes from non-canon games don't? I'm not even including gameplay elements.

Does that mean nothing from TTT and TTT2 counts for Jin? Those games are non-canon.

No it means jin doesn't get stuff from and RPGs where he's a guest character.

Like how hehachi and link don't get stuff from soul Calibur


No canon crossover games are different than Dream match games.

[Reddish Mage]

They didn't just extrapolate - calculations were made for the specific amount of force Kirby can throw around, to be compared to other calculations. That extrapolation also involves blithely ignoring how the planets, the sun, etc. in Kirby don't necessarily map well to what planets or suns actually are. It's a ridiculous cartoon world by the standards of the settings that come up in Death Battle, many of which are just the real world, but with [type of characters]. It's not that Kirby doesn't follow physics, that entire setting doesn't.

All the worlds don't follow physics. DC comics the Speed Force is an actual, fundamental force of the universe (and also sentient with a will and the ability to favor specific individuals). Moreover, ordinary people survive things they shouldn't, "ordinary" weapons don't behave like they are supposed to and occasionally "normal" individuals show strength and speed that exceed even Olympic Athletes (its mentioned that if Batman competed in the Olympics he'd win every game).

Yes I understand Kirby world is a "cartoon" world as in, its that sort of cartoon. A Looney Tunes-like world where things don't fall properly, inanimate objects randomly come to life, and so on.

So I, personally, take your point that Kirby cannot necessarily strike with the force sufficient to toss someone into the sun....probably also enough force to send someone through many, many solid walls, deep into the earth crust, and instaskill anyone that can't survive such. However, at the very least, Kirby can chuck someone into the Sun, because he did it.

However, it sucks as a rule, because either you limit your criticism to Looney Tune-esqe cartoon characters (there aren't that many in Death Battle) or basically it becomes everything is absurd and one shouldn't even attempt at analyzing it.

It's almost like I have an issue with a particular type of calculation, and not the quantity of calculations overall. "On screen" in this case also clearly means "directly depicted".

I sympathize with the idea that things "directly depicted" has more credibility then things said or extrapolated. Death Battle doesn't have it as a hard rule and I don't support it as an absolute. If you are fine with calculations, then the question is...what's too far of an extrapolation?

What I'm hearing is if you don't like a result, you can say it was extrapolated ridiculously. Everything from Yang's win, to Kirby's, to...I don't know Wonder Woman's? Batman Beyond's? Superman's? Without something more firm, you basically have a criticism you can use for whatever you want, whenever. Also, having removed a major tool for measuring abilities your answer is what's "typical" for which I'm still waiting for an example of what's typical for a specific character.

[Forum Explorer]

The decision to assume that characters would always survive/counter every strike that they ever survived/countered is a particularly weird one. Kirby has been explicitly shown getting taken out by half a dozen relatively weak strikes, being able to take repeated planet killing explosions is just absurd.

Plus Kirby planets are pretty clearly not proper planets, so even if you're going to do the math on energy to orbit you wouldn't get their results.

Very much this. Sure, knowing a character can take a nuke to the face is important, but it's also worth looking at the time they got knocked out by being hit by a car.

[Lemmy]

No it means jin doesn't get stuff from and RPGs where he's a guest character.

Like how hehachi and link don't get stuff from soul Calibur

No canon crossover games are different than Dream match games.

I'm not seeing any meaningful differences there. Non-canon is non-canon. And if gameplay elements are ignored, what does it matter what kind of game it comes from?

TTT has exactly as much weight on Tekken's canon as MvC has in SF's. Even if the fight against Wolverine never happened, it still shows what the characters are capable of.

[Devonix]

I'm not seeing any meaningful differences there. Non-canon is non-canon. And if gameplay elements are ignored, what does it matter what kind of game it comes from?

TTT has exactly as much weight on Tekken's canon as MvC has in SF's. Even if the fight against Wolverine never happened, it still shows what the characters are capable of.

Take the KOF series. 3 main games then a Dream match is how it's usually done. Dream matches are games that have all of the characters but don't connect to the story. It has dead characters still alive to participate in the tournament and such. But the feats in these games are still seen as relevant because it's all taking things in universe.

Taking things from a completely separate series are a no no.

Can Ryu take on and beat Wolverine. Sure. Can you use MvC as proof of that No.

The Streetfighter EX games. Those you can use to get feats and info for Ryu because they are part of the streetfighter series, just a separate side canon.

[Knaight]

What I'm hearing is if you don't like a result, you can say it was extrapolated ridiculously. Everything from Yang's win, to Kirby's, to...I don't know Wonder Woman's? Batman Beyond's? Superman's? Without something more firm, you basically have a criticism you can use for whatever you want, whenever. Also, having removed a major tool for measuring abilities your answer is what's "typical" for which I'm still waiting for an example of what's typical for a specific character.

Typical in this case would refer to anything that we see them do consistently. Kirby clearly has access to limited flight, plus a vehicle. Batman clearly has batarangs and is a pretty good throw with them. Superman can clearly fly. Sonic can clearly outrun cars. These are all abilities we repeatedly see, and thus typical. They're usually background, and not even specifically remarked upon. That's what's typical.

Sure, this introduces some subjectivity. On the other hand, so do the various estimates made for what to plug into equations, along with the choices made of which equations to use (which often comes up in the context of what is and isn't neglected).

[Seppl]

Typical in this case would refer to anything that we see them do consistently. Kirby clearly has access to limited flight, plus a vehicle. Batman clearly has batarangs and is a pretty good throw with them. Superman can clearly fly. Sonic can clearly outrun cars. These are all abilities we repeatedly see, and thus typical. They're usually background, and not even specifically remarked upon. That's what's typical.

Sure, this introduces some subjectivity. On the other hand, so do the various estimates made for what to plug into equations, along with the choices made of which equations to use (which often comes up in the context of what is and isn't neglected).

So, how many times does something need to happen before it becomes "typical"? What if an awesome outlier is accompanied by a "Finally, a chance for me to cut loose!"-speech? What if it can only be done in an emergency? What if a character struggles 34 times to lift a car but lifts a planet 16 times with ease? What if...?

This does not introduce some subjectivity, but a whole lot.

[Forum Explorer]

So, how many times does something need to happen before it becomes "typical"? What if an awesome outlier is accompanied by a "Finally, a chance for me to cut loose!"-speech? What if it can only be done in an emergency? What if a character struggles 34 times to lift a car but lifts a planet 16 times with ease? What if...?

This does not introduce some subjectivity, but a whole lot.

It's simpler then it looks really. The only times it gets complex is with long running things with multiple authors. Like comic books.

But the rest of the time? You run off of common sense. If a character can survive being near a planet exploding, but still be menaced by a penguin with a hammer, the one you discount is the planet exploding. Or maybe I should call it 'narrative sense' instead of common sense. Because often what happens to a character isn't based on logic or physics, but on what makes the better story.

[Reddish Mage]

It's simpler then it looks really. The only times it gets complex is with long running things with multiple authors. Like comic books.

But the rest of the time? You run off of common sense.

In other words, this would be a great system, if what we were analyzing wasn’t Death Battles.

Also, they “long running” and “multiple author” thing isn’t all that necessary. Take the Dragonball manga just by itself. Take Star Wars just the first trilogy. What’s “typical” of Luke, when his powers clearly change right through to the end. Really “typical” only work for static characters.

Finally, if a character only does something once or rarely, but its something they can clearly do again and defines that character, the rule of “typicality” would toss it out. This would result in results that wildly differ from the expectations of a typical Death Battle viewer. Luke would lose the ability to make a Death Star killing shot, for example, and Yoda would no longer be able to move an X-wing.

Just by the way, what do you do with Superman, who has repeatedly did absurd things (or would you like me to post, once again, the sheer number of his cosmic-tier feats).

[Mato]

They do admit that either side could win but one side had the clear edge in strength, speed, and extent of powers.

Spoiler: Strange vs. Fate

Show

I thought it was a pretty good episode. I like how they flat out admitted both characters are absurdly powerful, and that that makes it difficult to choose a winner. I pretty much agree that Fate's greater inherent physical strength is a leg up. I probably would've made the same call, just on instinct, because given two extremely comparable characters I'm always gonna assume the DC one is stronger.

Spoiler: Strange Fate

Show

Basically this. Fate has just been shown to do things on a greater level of absurdly powerful than Strange. Strange has a variety of “I win” moves, but so does Fate, so it comes down to seeing who has the edge on their attributes and its Fate.

Spoiler

Show

I would have, and still will, go the other way. Strange is specialized to defeat other mages and in Marvel's universe "Gods" are pretty low ranked. And DB's math didn't really add up either, they let Dr Fate call in extra help and then claimed human+human+god > human+god+god+god but didn't allow Dr Strange to call any of the abstract entities of the universe ranked above gods that he normally uses. But it's Death Battle, it's how things are supposed to be.

One huge thing I'd like to point out through is around 05:01 of their video where they say Adam Warlock banished Strange to the edge of the universe using the infinity stone of space. About ten seconds later they claim it was just outside of our galaxy. Same difference right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Lemmy]

Take the KOF series. 3 main games then a Dream match is how it's usually done. Dream matches are games that have all of the characters but don't connect to the story. It has dead characters still alive to participate in the tournament and such. But the feats in these games are still seen as relevant because it's all taking things in universe.

I completely disagree. It may be an universe with the same characters, but it's obviously not the same universe, considering the events of one never affect the other. TTT has characters that are dead (e.g.: Ogre) or don't even exist in the main Tekken canon (Unknown, who despite all speculation, was never confirmed to be Jun) and others that are completely different (e.g.: young Heihachi).

Taking things from a completely separate series are a no no.

Can Ryu take on and beat Wolverine. Sure. Can you use MvC as proof of that No.

The Streetfighter EX games. Those you can use to get feats and info for Ryu because they are part of the streetfighter series, just a separate side canon.

That seems completely arbitrary. It's one thing to ignore factors that completely change the character (e.g.: Spider-man 2099 using the Mjolnir), which would pretty much defeat the whole point of the discussion, but the cutscenes in MvC are pretty close to how Ryu and the other shown characters are often portrayed, despite the differences in actual gameplay.

If anything, MvC is closer to canon than the SF EX series. MvC is actually developed by Capcom and is explicitly shown to be a case of different universes coming together, while SF EX is little more than fanfic at this point. If KoF 2002 and TTT count, then so does MvC. In the same way that Tekken7 should count when discussing Akuma and Geese Howard. Hell! Death Battle even used Frank West's gaining powers from video-games, which is a gameplay-exclusive ability.

[Forum Explorer]

In other words, this would be a great system, if what we were analyzing wasn’t Death Battles.

Also, they “long running” and “multiple author” thing isn’t all that necessary. Take the Dragonball manga just by itself. Take Star Wars just the first trilogy. What’s “typical” of Luke, when his powers clearly change right through to the end. Really “typical” only work for static characters.

Finally, if a character only does something once or rarely, but its something they can clearly do again and defines that character, the rule of “typicality” would toss it out. This would result in results that wildly differ from the expectations of a typical Death Battle viewer. Luke would lose the ability to make a Death Star killing shot, for example, and Yoda would no longer be able to move an X-wing.

Just by the way, what do you do with Superman, who has repeatedly did absurd things (or would you like me to post, once again, the sheer number of his cosmic-tier feats).

I really don't like comic books for Death Battles, for exactly this reason.

What? No, it's really easy. You still take them at their standard best. Typically this is at the end of the series, but sometimes it's right before the final fight or a few chapters preceding that. If you just stuck to only the original Dragonball manga, or the original Star Wars trilogy it's really easy to get the power levels of Goku or Luke.

Well it's a good thing I never mentioned typicality at all did I?

Again, it's common sense, or perhaps narrative sense would be better. Yoda lifting the X-wing should be easy to duplicate because it takes him basically no effort, and there is nothing signifying that it was a one time thing, or required a sacrifice on that part. Ditto with Luke making the Death Star run.


Superman falls under long running series and is done by multiple authors. There is no good way to get an idea of his feats because it's a giant cluster**** of tanking supernovas one instant and getting punched out by a villain the next. The way I see it, you've got two options. Either you make a composite like Death Battle did, which results in what Death Battle got, or you split the character apart, limiting yourself heavily to one source of information. Like saying, the new movie Superman, or Superman from the cartoons. But then you don't have 'Superman' you have a Superman, which doesn't work for a show like Death Battle.

[Lemmy]

In other words, this would be a great system, if what we were analyzing wasn’t Death Battles.

Also, they “long running” and “multiple author” thing isn’t all that necessary. Take the Dragonball manga just by itself. Take Star Wars just the first trilogy. What’s “typical” of Luke, when his powers clearly change right through to the end. Really “typical” only work for static characters.

Finally, if a character only does something once or rarely, but its something they can clearly do again and defines that character, the rule of “typicality” would toss it out. This would result in results that wildly differ from the expectations of a typical Death Battle viewer. Luke would lose the ability to make a Death Star killing shot, for example, and Yoda would no longer be able to move an X-wing.

Just by the way, what do you do with Superman, who has repeatedly did absurd things (or would you like me to post, once again, the sheer number of his cosmic-tier feats).

Using characters at their peak isn't a problem... The problem is when they take feats that the character clearly isn't (or shouldn't be) able to perform, but happen anyway because an author miscalculated, forgot or simply ignored a limitation. This is particularly egregious with cartoon characters that follow no logic other than "rule of cool" and "rule of funny". According to DB's logic, for example, Tom & Jerry are invincible. After all, they are literally impossible to kill (at least permanently) and often do stuff that is clearly beyond their abilities, simply because it's funny. Unless you want to convince me that Tom is actually capable of jumping to the moon and that Jerry can punch through walls.

[Seppl]

Using characters at their peak isn't a problem... The problem is when they take feats that the character clearly isn't (or shouldn't be) able to perform, but happen anyway because an author miscalculated, forgot or simply ignored a limitation. This is particularly egregious with cartoon characters that follow no logic other than "rule of cool" and "rule of funny". According to DB's logic, for example, Tom & Jerry are invincible. After all, they are literally impossible to kill (at least permanently) and often do stuff that is clearly beyond their abilities, simply because it's funny. Unless you want to convince me that Tom is actually capable of jumping to the moon and that Jerry can punch through walls.

You just described the premise of the show. Digging up these weird feats and calculating what they mean is the fun reason why people watch it.

[Mato]

I really don't like comic books for Death Battles, for exactly this reason.

I can make it worse.

Superman falls under long running series and is done by multiple authors. There is no good way to get an idea of his feats because it's a giant cluster**** of tanking supernovas one instant and getting punched out by a villain the next. The way I see it, you've got two options. Either you make a composite like Death Battle did, which results in what Death Battle got, or you split the character apart, limiting yourself heavily to one source of information. Like saying, the new movie Superman, or Superman from the cartoons. But then you don't have 'Superman' you have a Superman, which doesn't work for a show like Death Battle.

This complaint overlooks that fact that in-universe there are different versions of Superman.

Two of "Superman's" greatest displays of strength don't even belong to the "main" one. All Star Superman, the one that pushed two hundred quintilian tons, is a non-canon what-if spin off. And the New 52 Superman, the one that moved around in a machine replicating nearly sixtillion tons, was a history-ignoring reboot that spun into it's own separate universe parallel to the main timeline. Neither one of these have anything to do with the Earth-Two's version (action comics).

The western take on comics, an amalgam, mostly stems from not understanding which is which and not caring to learn the difference. It's inherently subjected to cherry picking and in the worst of times a double standard by refusing to acknowledge amalgams in different franchises.

[Reddish Mage]

Using characters at their peak isn't a problem... The problem is when they take feats that the character clearly isn't (or shouldn't be) able to perform, but happen anyway because an author miscalculated, forgot or simply ignored a limitation. This is particularly egregious with cartoon characters that follow no logic other than "rule of cool" and "rule of funny". According to DB's logic, for example, Tom & Jerry are invincible. After all, they are literally impossible to kill (at least permanently) and often do stuff that is clearly beyond their abilities, simply because it's funny. Unless you want to convince me that Tom is actually capable of jumping to the moon and that Jerry can punch through walls.

The way Death Battle does things, Tom is totally capable of jumping to the moon (I think he needs to be primed by a particularly bad owwee), and Jerry can punch through walls. They discussed Popeye recently on the Cast and noted the SPINACH Popeye can lasso and drag down the Sun...with perfectly ordinary rope no less. Yet spinach-Popeye is not anywhere near the strongest Popeye, because there is also double-spinach-can-Popeye and barrel-spinach-Popeye.

Your logic that the author "miscalculated, forgot, or ignored a limitation" is out of wack with gag-cartoon characters. These characters don't have limitations except by rule of funny. If you are going to bring them into Death Battle, which is something they like doing, you have to impose some way of handling them, and treating them as having the strength shown is one way of doing so.

I suppose you could say...and its a mouse, with ordinary mouse abilities. But that would not be fun or capture what's special about Jerry.

There is something to be said for when something happens in something non-canonical that is completely out of wack with who the character is, or even something that happens in canon that simply could not and never has been repeated, but I'm not seeing these examples.

I can recall a few cases where I am sympathetic to the notion that something was out of wack with the example, but without being very limited in what those are, you are taking things into far murkier territory then just showing the peak example and extrapolating from there.

I can make it worse.

This complaint overlooks that fact that in-universe there are different versions of Superman.

Two of "Superman's" greatest displays of strength don't even belong to the "main" one. All Star Superman, the one that pushed two hundred quintilian tons, is a non-canon what-if spin off. And the New 52 Superman, the one that moved around in a machine replicating nearly sixtillion tons, was a history-ignoring reboot that spun into it's own separate universe parallel to the main timeline. Neither one of these have anything to do with the Earth-Two's version (action comics).

The western take on comics, an amalgam, mostly stems from not understanding which is which and not caring to learn the difference. It's inherently subjected to cherry picking and in the worst of times a double standard by refusing to acknowledge amalgams in different franchises.

The idea to keep things to a "version" of a character has been discussed before ad nauseam and is picked up by them. They don't do that for several reasons

1) Which version do they pick?
2) People would expect to see the movie/anime/cartoon feats and clips.
3) This would open up the fight to the criticism that they picked the wrong version

They are fully aware there are different "versions" of many characters. Link, and recently Spyro, they were quite explicit in what they were doing.

For Superman, they were very explicit about taking the Post-Crisis version of him (something they now say they won't do) and saying those traits determined the battle. However, they were willing to help themselves to choice clips from other versions of Superman just because they provided good images.

[Lemmy]

The way Death Battle does things, Tom is totally capable of jumping to the moon (I think he needs to be primed by a particularly bad owwee), and Jerry can punch through walls. They discussed Popeye recently on the Cast and noted the SPINACH Popeye can lasso and drag down the Sun...with perfectly ordinary rope no less. Yet spinach-Popeye is not anywhere near the strongest Popeye, because there is also double-spinach-can-Popeye and barrel-spinach-Popeye.

Your logic that the author "miscalculated, forgot, or ignored a limitation" is out of wack with gag-cartoon characters. These characters don't have limitations except by rule of funny. If you are going to bring them into Death Battle, which is something they like doing, you have to impose some way of handling them, and treating them as having the strength shown is one way of doing so.

I suppose you could say...and its a mouse, with ordinary mouse abilities. But that would not be fun or capture what's special about Jerry.

There is something to be said for when something happens in something non-canonical that is completely out of wack with who the character is, or even something that happens in canon that simply could not and never has been repeated, but I'm not seeing these examples.

I can recall a few cases where I am sympathetic to the notion that something was out of wack with the example, but without being very limited in what those are, you are taking things into far murkier territory then just showing the peak example and extrapolating from there.

My point is exactly that: the way DB does thing is stupid. There'll never be perfectly consistency in comics, movies, anime, games or anything... But using only the outliers is stupid, unless they can actually prove that the character can actually do that, but chooses not to for whatever reason, it should be treated as what it most likely is: the author making a massive mistake.

In the case of cartoon characters that follow only "rule of funny" (like Tom 7 Jerry), there's really no point to the argument. It's basically trying to use math to decide what color is the prettiest. But if they really want to do it ("for the lulz"), then they should only match cartoon gag physics against cartoon gag physics. It's idiotic to match them against more serious franchises because one has limits (as inconsistent as they may be) and the other doesn't. There's simply no meaningful discussion to be had. No interesting point to be made. It's just a random video of fictional character beating each other... Which I suppose can still be enjoyable, but misses the whole point of DB: seeing the hows and whys the matches end the way they do. Even when I vehemently disagree with their decisions, it's still interesting to see on what they based their decisions and how they reached their conclusions (although, sadly, some times that is just "we are very, very biased in favor of this character", but c'est la vie).

If it's just about seeing flash animation of characters fighting, then it's just boring. Might as well go with the dozen other shows of fictional characters beating each other.

[Reddish Mage]

My point is exactly that: the way DB does thing is stupid. There'll never be perfectly consistency in comics, movies, anime, games or anything... But using only the outliers is stupid, unless they can actually prove that the character can actually do that, but chooses not to for whatever reason, it should be treated as what it most likely is: the author making a massive mistake.

If it's just about seeing flash animation of characters fighting, then it's just boring. Might as well go with the dozen other shows of fictional characters beating each other.

Maybe you could show some examples of these "outliers." From where I sit, most of the time they just pick examples where the character is at or near their peak strength. Often times the events prove to be more than outliers by being repeated, or there being other examples that are in the same ballpark, or the example is highly consequential to that character.

In the case of cartoon characters that follow only "rule of funny" (like Tom 7 Jerry), there's really no point to the argument. It's basically trying to use math to decide what color is the prettiest. But if they really want to do it ("for the lulz"), then they should only match cartoon gag physics against cartoon gag physics. It's idiotic to match them against more serious franchises because one has limits (as inconsistent as they may be) and the other doesn't. There's simply no meaningful discussion to be had. No interesting point to be made. It's just a random video of fictional character beating each other... Which I suppose can still be enjoyable, but misses the whole point of DB: seeing the hows and whys the matches end the way they do. Even when I vehemently disagree with their decisions, it's still interesting to see on what they based their decisions and how they reached their conclusions (although, sadly, some times that is just "we are very, very biased in favor of this character", but c'est la vie).

You can say the same about superhero battles. Neither superhero-characters or gag-cartoon-characters obey laws of physics, but are riddled with inconsistencies, even the exercise of saying who will win on something like Thor vs Superman or even Thor vs. Hulk have incredible problems. Death Battle is about comparing two physics-defying characters, if you think that this can even be done without major inconsistency you are not caring apply more than a casual acquaintance with common-man physics.

If you try to understand nature on a deeper level then "things fall," "punches hurt" then stuff gets quite ridiculous immediately. Like how so many characters manage to go near, at or even exceed the speed of light without relativistic physics happening. How sonic booms never occur from punches being exchanged at those speeds...or how being can fly at all without any form of propulsion.

The requirement that gag-characters fight gag-characters is a purely aesthetic choice of your brain because you don't like seeing the contrast of a gag-character vs. a serious character. I personally think it makes for a funny contrast and seeing it play out in, say, the filler episode of DB Super, or in a Death Battle, is very enjoyable. These fights have meaning, I can recap them, say what happened, tell a story about why they happened. They have rules, the rules give the fights a feeling of consistency and fairness even if many of the decisions (like which of many ridiculous feats to highlight) are at least somewhat arbitrary or at least debatable.

Overall, that's all you can expect from a Death Battle. There's no one way to set up the fight, measure the abilities, determine the winner. Predicting the outcome of fights isn't something people are good at in the real world, and oddsmen, boxing judges, war historians, and other specialists have trouble agreeing on these things. When it comes to fictional characters throwing it down, if you have a fairly consistent method that works well for your fights and analysis, then its fine, even if it creates interesting outcomes sometimes.

I have great doubts you could create and sustain a show on the basis of your method.

[Lemmy]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, then. Because I seriously don't have the patience for having this argument again.

[Mato]

Maybe you could show some examples of these "outliers." From where I sit, most of the time they just pick examples where the character is at or near their peak strength. Often times the events prove to be more than outliers by being repeated, or there being other examples that are in the same ballpark, or the example is highly consequential to that character.

I think part of Lemmy's deal can be seen in your paragraph. If most of the time they pick peak strength, then they are not often picking repeated content. Ball parking values, as I just exemplified earlier in this page, is something DB is incapable of doing as their own arguments collapse in on them selves due to a rampant bias that can often be seen in every single video they release. And it's that bias that also decides whats consequential or not (aka cherry picking) and what people tend to complain about.

And I have no doubt your all encompassing view wants to lump writer inconsistencies, gags, mistakes, and physics-defying in a pure binary system, that as we can see, you consider it totally pointless to even bring up. And that's a poo poo fallacy if I'm not mistaken. That's when you ridicule an argument without actually responding to the argument, basically an ad hominem attack but it's directed at the topic rather than the speaker.

Like it seems Lemmy's direction is he wants statements, not pixel measurements and assumptions, about a character's power or abilities. To beat the horse carcass some more, in Strange vs Fate DB is willing to change saying someone was moved to the end of the universe to saying they were only moved to the end of a galaxy in less then fifteen seconds. This change up allowed them to claim Fate as being faster than Strange and the intentionally obvious "mistake" (aka argument bait) was included as part of their reasoning to picking their out come. If you stick to well identified traits, without reneging on them later on in the video, then you would avoid situations like this is they were an actual mistake.

And there is a correct way to set up a fight between two fictional characters. It's called being fair and applying the same standards to each. That's also how you can often answer a question or find the correct answer in a debate.

[theNater]

One huge thing I'd like to point out through is around 05:01 of their video where they say Adam Warlock banished Strange to the edge of the universe using the infinity stone of space. About ten seconds later they claim it was just outside of our galaxy. Same difference right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Boomstick saying something wrong then being corrected by Wiz is a bit they occasionally use(example: 2:07-2:22 in Batman vs Captain America). The implication that it's an inconsistency in their analysis is unfair.

[Reddish Mage]

I think part of Lemmy's deal can be seen in your paragraph. If most of the time they pick peak strength, then they are not often picking repeated content.

The word being used is "outlier." Peak values are not necessarily, and in fact, can only very rarely be "outliers." ALL data is going to have a highest value or values.

Outliers are events that occur so rarely, and have values that are so far out of the range of expected values, that the outlier should be disregarded to maintain data integrity.

Outliers are properly disregarded because a single value thats really out of wack skews the data, which is quite clear if you graph the dataset (something which apparently people here would like to do every death battle, but I've yet to see one). By definition, only very rarely will you even see an outlier. The accusation that Death Battle relies on outliers all the time is a contradiction in terms.

Again, most of the time a peak feat is going to be repeated with similar results, or the character will have performed other feats in the same ballpark, or the peak feat occurs in circumstances that's meant to show peak ability (as opposed to some sort of mistake).

I've asked repeatedly for examples, and I'm not getting any. If every Death Battle is supposed to be an example then your problem is not outliers, its using peak values themselves, no matter how regular and expected those peaks are. Which is exactly what you are saying your problem is.

Like it seems Lemmy's direction is he wants statements, not pixel measurements and assumptions, about a character's power or abilities.

Again, how does vagueness help? Take Strange vs. Fate. If you weren't calculating their abilities, and instead making a vague statement about their powers...well each one is in the same ballpark. How do you settle who wins? Qualitatively they are about the same.

I see two proposals, and both require extrapolating some sort of quantitative value to settle these fights. One is DB's approach of comparing peak value feats (they make mention of doing this right in the commentary to the Strange v. Fate video btw), and the other suggestion was to take an "average," although its not clear what the data range is suppose to be.

I suppose you could make some vague qualitative argument about the origins of the two superheroes....you know that Strange is a man borrowing the powers of a god and Fate is a god borrowing the body of a man...but Death Battle did that! They actually settled this fight on both a quantitative and a qualitative ground.

[Mato]

Boomstick saying something wrong then being corrected by Wiz is a bit they occasionally use(example: 2:07-2:22 in Batman vs Captain America). The implication that it's an inconsistency in their analysis is unfair.

Actually when Wiz normally corrects Boomstick it's pretty obvious since he accents the word "actually" , as your link helpfully reminds you of, but Wiz has another role and that's expending on Boomstick's statements.

And that source in question is Adam Warlock with the Infinity Gauntlet used the Infinity Gem of Space to blast Dr Strange, Pip, and Gamora so far out into the vicissitudes to space they can only see one grouping of stars and Dr Strange is surprised how far out they were. Contextually, the Space Gem can teleport you to any place in the multiverse instantly, you can see actually see multiple galaxies if you were in the void Wiz spoke of, and Dr Strange had to invoke a spell from one of his artifacts rather than using a normal speed spell that makes him faster than everyone else which can make him explode if he catches up to him self. Breaking logic with his speed isn't a writer's error either, he does it intentionally. Mostly the entire exchange was Adam invoking the powers of the Gauntlet one by one on Dr Strange who, one by one, counters each of them because Dr Strange > Infinity. Which isn't surprising if you know anything about him, the guy can bind life it's self to augment his powers. It's one of his things.

So I'm going to stick to what Marvel fans have said, which is what Boomstick said, and not Wiz's comment that was inanely wrong and later used to claim Dr Fate was faster.

[Lemmy]

Outliers are properly disregarded because a single value thats really out of wack skews the data, which is quite clear if you graph the dataset (something which apparently people here would like to do every death battle, but I've yet to see one). By definition, only very rarely will you even see an outlier. The accusation that Death Battle relies on outliers all the time is a contradiction in terms.

What?! No, it isn't. You can make a thousand different researches and use outlier data in every single one of them. There's no "contradiction in terms", there... Just the researcher being consistently biased and/or incompetent.

There's a difference between "peak values" and "outliers", and while consistency is rare in comic books, animation, games, etc, sometimes it's very, very clear:

Here are some outliers:

Superman lifting infinity weight (which he never actually did, BTW) - When in every other story he's shown to have limits.
Superman tanking a supernova (which he also never actually did, BTW) - When in every other story he's shown to be seriously hurt by far less powerful forces, including lightning, nuclear missiles, bites from dinosaurs, punches from mutant gorillas, etc.
Superman struggling to beat a terminator - When in every other story he shows enough strength to be able to destroy such a robot with a flick of his fingers.
Superman being knocked out by a non-nuclear missile - When in every other story he shows enough durability to easily tank one of these.

So... Why do we count his positive outliers, but not the negative ones? If DB had a rule as simple as "a character has to show feats of similar scale at least three times before it's considered", 50% of their bull**** would go away.

[Reddish Mage]

Shall I link, once again, to that reddit index of Post-Crisis Superman doing the feats Lemmy just said he did “only once” over and over again?

I’m on my phone so here is a new “respect post-crisis Superman” thread for fun with some new absurd feats.

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/forum...hread-1621461/

Of course, since DB isn’t doing specific versions anymore you could also take a look at the pre-crisis feats, the New 52 feats and whatever else comes up when you google “Respect Superman.” It’s all Superman and there’s a whole lot of the supernova/blackhole tanking sort of stuff.

[HolyDraconus]

The outcome was DBd so I expected that. The next match is stupid for multiple reasons. Let's not forget that ever since Tekken 7 it's been canonized that they share a universe with Street Fighter, and Jin has beaten a god. Pretty sure that trumps anything Ryu has done.

[Lemmy]

Shall I link, once again, to that reddit index of Post-Crisis Superman doing the feats Lemmy just said he did “only once” over and over again?

I’m on my phone so here is a new “respect post-crisis Superman” thread for fun with some new absurd feats.

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/forum...hread-1621461/

Of course, since DB isn’t doing specific versions anymore you could also take a look at the pre-crisis feats, the New 52 feats and whatever else comes up when you google “Respect Superman.” It’s all Superman and there’s a whole lot of the supernova/blackhole tanking sort of stuff.

What feats exactly did I say he only did once? Or did you suddenly decide vagueness is ok, when it fits your argument? Did I ever say Superman wasn't stupidly powerful? I said he doesn't have infinity strength and has never lifted infinity weight

Literally nothing in that link shows "infinity" anything. Unless you want to use the "he lifted spectre, and spectre weighs infinity", which is obviously not the case unless you expect me to believe the moon is capable of holding infinity weight and that somehow, despite having infinity strength, he still needed the help of two other super-heroes... Or the supposedly "infinity book" (that he still also needed help from Captain Marvel to lift, despite his supposed "infinity strength) which is given no weight value and nothing other than Superman's words claim has infinity pages. He also tanked just the shockwaves of a supernova, not the supernova itself... And even then, he was pretty wounded after doing it.

Lots of these scans are also missing context and additional information.