Death Battle 5: Mister Rogers in a Bloodstained Sweater

[Dragonus45]

No, they do different things to accomplish different things. one goes on the ground, one flies. the end goal is irrelevant, because a train and a plane are not comparable traveling methods, but IT and IM are equally fast. you can't compare them, trains can't fly, but both teleportation methods have similar mobility.

They both take you from point A to point B, just by different means.

[Lord Raziere]

In the analogy, Ki and Magic are the coal and natural gas.

Yes, which are terms not for the energy doing the work, but for techniques to manipulate the energy, just as coal and gas don't actually power the lightbulb. electricity powers the lightbulb. just as the same energy that two traditions call different things, can be gotten by two different methods that are not the energy itself.

I understand your analogy better than yourself.

They both take you from point A to point B, just by different means.

Which doesn't matter, trains are like DBZ Flight, planes are DBZ teleportation, and the teleportation and planes can both take you to Points B that no amount of flight or teleportation can take you.

[Keltest]

Yes, which are terms not for the energy doing the work, but for techniques to manipulate the energy, just as coal and gas don't actually power the lightbulb. electricity powers the lightbulb. just as the same energy that two traditions call different things, can be gotten by two different methods that are not the energy itself.

I understand your analogy better than yourself.



Which doesn't matter, trains are like DBZ Flight, planes are DBZ teleportation, and the teleportation and planes can both take you to Points B that no amount of flight or teleportation can take you.

Im not sure you do understand, since you keep focusing on the things that don't map to the topic in question.

Youre trying to claim that coal and natural gas are the same thing because you use them both to generate electricity. Ki and magic aren't analogous to electricity, theyre analogous to the fuels.

[Lord Raziere]

Im not sure you do understand, since you keep focusing on the things that don't map to the topic in question.

Youre trying to claim that coal and natural gas are the same thing because you use them both to generate electricity. Ki and magic aren't analogous to electricity, theyre analogous to the fuels.

Thats your interpretation. if ki and magic are the same then they are completely analogous to electricity with the only difference being specific methods, and they isn't much evidence to demonstrate the difference between them that can't be explained by them just being different techniques utilizing the same energy.

[Reddish Mage]

Ki literally means something in real Japanese and its not magic. Dragon Ball seems to treat it as a type of energy generated by all living things as they go about their normal business and it can disappear as one gets injured or rises as one prepares for battle regardless of whether they are using flashy blasts. If you say Ki is magic, then all Dragon Ball living beings are innately magical and everything they do is magic.

Hence, Bulma defeats Superman.

Tony Stark, Thor, Jane Foster and the Asgardians claim that "magic" is one and the same as really advanced science. Saying that anything derived from Ki is magic is a logical leap along the lines of deriving that all the OG Avengers are magical beings because they all get their powers from advanced science.

[Dragonus45]

Which doesn't matter, trains are like DBZ Flight, planes are DBZ teleportation, and the teleportation and planes can both take you to Points B that no amount of flight or teleportation can take you.

Magical Teleportation is a helicopter and Ki based TP is a jet plane then. Or vice versa. Either way, they both fly you from point A to B but are distinctly different things.

[Keltest]

Thats your interpretation. if ki and magic are the same then they are completely analogous to electricity with the only difference being specific methods, and they isn't much evidence to demonstrate the difference between them that can't be explained by them just being different techniques utilizing the same energy.

That's circular logic though. Youre claiming that theyre the same because theyre both used for teleportation (among other things), and then using the fact that you think theyre the same to try and map them to something different in the proof that your evidence doesn't work.

[Rynjin]

Ki literally means something in real Japanese and its not magic. Dragon Ball seems to treat it as a type of energy generated by all living things as they go about their normal business and it can disappear as one gets injured or rises as one prepares for battle regardless of whether they are using flashy blasts. If you say Ki is magic, then all Dragon Ball living beings are innately magical and everything they do is magic.

Hence, Bulma defeats Superman.

This is also incorrect BTW. Superman is not affected by magic as though it's Kryptonite, he's just affected by it as if he were a normal human being.

Bulma's punch were she innately magical would hurt Superman as much as the punch of a skinny woman with no martial arts training would hurt a beefcake of a normal human his size; i.e. not much, and he still retains his super strength and speed advantage as well.

[Devonix]

This is also incorrect BTW. Superman is not affected by magic as though it's Kryptonite, he's just affected by it as if he were a normal human being.

Bulma's punch were she innately magical would hurt Superman as much as the punch of a skinny woman with no martial arts training would hurt a beefcake of a normal human his size; i.e. not much, and he still retains his super strength and speed advantage as well.

Ki is life force, Life force fuels magic, but that doesn't make life force magic.

[Rater202]

1.) Yes, they do. Implicitly, by referring to some things as magic and others as techniques.

and yet, most of the time there's no such distinction made.

2.) And yet they run on different energy.

and yet, give me a citation because I recall no such thing. Explicit statement or WoG, not just an inferance.

3.) The Super manga deviates from the anime at several points, and it is the latter which is considered canon. If and when it is adapted and that distinction is made, I'll admit I'm wrong. Until then, nah, I'll go with the distinction as it's been set up for the last 20 years.

The Super Manga, in general, is done from Toriyama's notes. I doubt that something as major as whether the bad guy is using Ki or not is something left up to Toyotaro's whims.

Beyond that, the only distinction is the one you made up yourself by reading too much into certain things.

[Rynjin]

and yet, most of the time there's no such distinction made.

Because most of the time it's not magic.

and yet, give me a citation because I recall no such thing. Explicit statement or WoG, not just an inferance.

Check Daizenshuu 7. It's what the wiki sources from.

The Super Manga, in general, is done from Toriyama's notes. I doubt that something as major as whether the bad guy is using Ki or not is something left up to Toyotaro's whims.

Maybe, we'll see.

Beyond that, the only distinction is the one you made up yourself by reading too much into certain things.

It's from officially published databooks my dude, as well as direct statements in the manga and anime. Not sure what more you want.

[Rater202]

Check Daizenshuu 7. It's what the wiki sources from.

1: Never translated into English so I literally can't.

2: The Dragon Ball wiki is infamously unreliable and is known to include inferences as if they were canon.

In other words, you're gonna need more than that.

[Rynjin]

1: Never translated into English so I literally can't.

2: The Dragon Ball wiki is infamously unreliable and is known to include inferences as if they were canon.

In other words, you're gonna need more than that.

Then we're at an impasse, unless you'd like to go digging back through manga chapters for specific quotes.

Look for chapters with Baba, King Piccolo and Kami, and Babidi.

I certainly can't be arsed to spend that much time on it.

[Reddish Mage]

This is also incorrect BTW. Superman is not affected by magic as though it's Kryptonite, he's just affected by it as if he were a normal human being.

Bulma's punch were she innately magical would hurt Superman as much as the punch of a skinny woman with no martial arts training would hurt a beefcake of a normal human his size; i.e. not much, and he still retains his super strength and speed advantage as well.

Nah, Bulma hits HARD.

[Delicious Taffy]

This is also incorrect BTW. Superman is not affected by magic as though it's Kryptonite, he's just affected by it as if he were a normal human being.

Bulma's punch were she innately magical would hurt Superman as much as the punch of a skinny woman with no martial arts training would hurt a beefcake of a normal human his size; i.e. not much, and he still retains his super strength and speed advantage as well.

So, basically, Bulma hitting Clork Kent would have about the same result as when she slapped Beerus. Which is to say, not much, but if he hit her back, there'd be a Vegeta to reckon with.

[Reddish Mage]

We are talking about a magical-energy slap with the strength of Bulma behind it. Her attacks can floor powerful martial artists in her universe.

Then the theory is that Superman is affected by magic as if he was a normal human. So if the slap is hard enough to floor a super-martial artist it should be devastating to him.

In contrast, Beerus is BEERUS, a full powered God of Destruction, when he was slapped Bulma. That’s like Superman being hit by an ordinary person. That’s true regardless of how superhard Bulma hits...its not anywhere close to Beerus hurty levels.

However, Superman isn’t affected by magic as if he was a normal human...he’s affected by magic differently all over his comics. Initially, he was immune to magic as one of his superpowers and sometimes he has a special resistance to it. More recently he can be affected by spells. However, he has been known to shake them off.

What we are talking about, however, are not spells like mind control or metamorphosis, but magic-powered attacks. Those don’t hit him like a “normal person,” at best they hit him harder for being magical. Shazam has knocked Superman out that way. However, in the long running tally of battles between Shazam and Superman the two are roughly equal, although Shazam is a magically-powered superhero.

Magic attacks, at best, hurt Superman, they are not automatic wins.

Incidentally, Superman has just shrugged off kryptonite too on occasion, although that’s sometime he does pretty rarely.

[Devonix]

More likely a magical slap from Bulma would send him flying with a big steaming comical bump on his head that vanishes the next time the camera looks at him.

[Reddish Mage]

More likely a magical slap from Bulma would send him flying with a big steaming comical bump on his head that vanishes the next time the camera looks at him.

That’s just the ordinary Bulma power.

[Man on Fire]

...... so Zatanna vs Scarlett Witch? Or Electro vs Static Shock (I guess Black Lightning can rumble in that too)

I was thinking of putting Static against the protagonist of Certain Scientific Railgun actually. As for Black Lighting, I think most people would want to see him fight Luke Cage, though after watching the shows I would personally want to see Luke Cage fight BL's arch-enemy, Tobias Whale.

[Rynjin]

That unfortunately would be a stomp. Tobias Whale is basically the Kingpin; a big, meaty, muscly man but has no super powers.

Luke Cage can casually carry a fully filled 18 wheeler an unspecified distance, and has indestructible skin.

[Prime32]

I think you need to give Zatanna vs. Scarlet Witch to Zatanna hands down. She DC’s premier magic user and I assume she is fighting normal, sane, canon Scarlett Witch. Of course Scarlett Witch has moments where she can alter all reality with a thought, but not when she’s fully awake, in control of herself, and sane. Scarlett Witch is Universe+ in House of M but never really had control over that level of power.

Zatanna can time travel, can destroy foes across time and space...and even destroyed Universe+ foes. Zatanna is supposedly better than Constantine. Constantine did universe altering magic to hide the universe from Darkseid and convince Darkseid he already destroyed that universe. Zatanna has also been called the strongest of the Justice League.

Of course, both are human level (Zatanna is comic version of human with super martial art ability but still), so if you ran the scenario a thousand times both would get their wins in, but Zatanna just has more ways of winning and is overall more impressive.

IIRC, the reason Scarlet Witch was super-powerful and insane during House of M was because she'd recently travelled to the DC universe during the JLA Avengers event, where her "control over chaos" interacted weirdly with DC metaphysics. So that... complicates any match-ups with DC characters.

[Reddish Mage]

IIRC, the reason Scarlet Witch was super-powerful and insane during House of M was because she'd recently travelled to the DC universe during the JLA Avengers event, where her "control over chaos" interacted weirdly with DC metaphysics. So that... complicates any match-ups with DC characters.

So Scarlet Witch became insanely super-powerful because she was exposed to the DC universe?

This explains so much.

[Lord Raziere]

So Scarlet Witch became insanely super-powerful because she was exposed to the DC universe?

This explains so much.

Yeah, the DC universe is chaos, Scarlet Witch can control chaos, therefore by being able to control the DC universe, she was able to control everything in it which changed the definition of her power so she can control all things because she controlled reality there, now she controls reality everywhere. makes sense to me

[Forum Explorer]

Yeah, the DC universe is chaos, Scarlet Witch can control chaos, therefore by being able to control the DC universe, she was able to control everything in it which changed the definition of her power so she can control all things because she controlled reality there, now she controls reality everywhere. makes sense to me

That is hilarious.

[Rater202]

For what it's worth, the Scarlet Witch's son* Billy/Wiccan, who is not actually a Wiccan for the record, has the exact same powers as her and he is, in fact, a full-fledged reality warper.

Scarlet Witch's power is not control over chaos.

Scarlet Witch's power is 1: Probability control and 2: the ability to generate and control Cthonic energy, which is to say, the mystical energies of Cthon.

These combined give her an affinity for chaos MAgic, which uses chaos in the sense of "primordial, before creation," not "random or without logic." It's difficult to control, but it's not random or chaotic in the sense that you're thinking of. It was the first form of magic invented by the god of magic. Unfortunately, the God of Magic is both evil and a relative of Lovecraft's deities. (While Cthon usually takes the form of a robed old man, his true form is a dead ringer for Cthulhu and he speaks Rhleyian in Carnage vol 2.)

Originally Wanda could only fire bolts of energy that inflicted people with bad luck, but a combination of practice with her powers and being taught formal spellcraft by the witch that used to babysit Franklin Richards resulted in her quickly becoming one of the strongest sorcerers on the planet(Though Strange, Doom, Brother Voodoo, and Loki are usually considered stronger and her son and whoever currently owns the Staff of One definitely is.)

Billy has no formally training in magic. He doesn't cast spells, he just says what he wants to happen and it happens. Originally he had to say "I want X" several times but it's down to just the one and effects he's created frequently he can just will to happen. In addition, he's quite proficient in the creation of magical lightning and to a lesser extent other elemental manipulations.

He's also either the mortal incarnation of a Nigh Omnipotent Magic deity from whom all of Earth's Gods(including Cthon) are descended or else will travel back in time and become that deity someday. (America Chavez, who comes from a universe created whole cloth by that deity, has the appropriate reaction to learning that her teammate is also her God.) He's drawn on that level of power before and the only reason he doesn't walk around as an omnipotent source of infinite magical energy all the time is because he genuinely doesn't believe he's mature enough to be responsible with that kind of power.

His only known weakness is that he has to hear himself say "I want X" for the effect to work, which wouldn't be easy to discern in a fight and doesn't apply to any of his "go-to" effects.

If Dc's spellcasters are as overpowered as everyone else in DC, Billy would be a good bet for you know, a fight on the same level.

*It's actually a lot more complicated than just being her son, but if I explain it we'll be here all day.

[Lord Raziere]

things like that just make me realize that while DBZ and super's wider cosmology is a cosmic horror story of a normal person living in the same world as a bunch of short-sighted dumb jerks with the power to destroy everything with their fists and being unable to do anything about it if there wasn't literal wish-granting orbs around to fix things....

Marvel and DC's cosmology is a cosmic horror story of normal people in the same world as literal reality warpers, time travelers, things like Galactus and Darkseid not only existing but being an intrinsic part of the universe you can't ever fully get rid of, and so many retcons that if anyone were to start becoming aware of how much their universes get changed around, they'd start doubting the very consistency of reality and be unable to find anything that is immutable or unchanging and thus familiar. because the DBZ destruction horror is bad, but the Marvel/DC reality warper horror is worse because it undermines any hope of knowing whether anything runs on consistent rules or logic and thus whether they can trust ANYTHING to remain the same and familiar. and the worlds heroes that defend against the villains can't really prevent this and seem to be the ones that that this reality warping occurs around, as if they were the cause.
like just the fact in these universes, that everything you know to be true could just change without warning on the whim of some entity or person to be something completely different, and that if someone knew of this, they'd be documenting everything that stays the same to determine what in existence changes the least to try and figure out what are realities real constant variables, the things they can trust to remain the same over the things they can't, and probably get real paranoid of said entities changing things up out of nowhere, behaviors that to the outside observer would look like conspiracy theorist stuff, so of course no one pays any attention to what they're saying.

like I feel it would just be interesting to explore a normal life in these crazy screwed up worlds just experiencing the background effects and after-effects of these cosmic struggles and whatnot and going about their day as its all normal to them when things like flickering between a bad and normal timeline constantly, or little details changing here and there and so on that would make the whole thing incredibly creepy and unsettling to the viewer who knows whats happening but the person they're following doesn't because their memory is being changed along with it or its just a normal superhero/villain thing to them.

[Rater202]

If you're looking for "comic book world explored from a normal's perspective," there's a Mini-Series called "Marvels" that explores the Marvel Universe from the perspective of a journalist.

tIt starts in the golden age with the unveiling of Professor Horton's synthetic human, The original Human Torch, goes through Namor's arrival and battle with the torch, the creation of Captain America, the Invaders kicking Nazi ass, the lull in the 50s, the birth of the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and the Hulk, the formation of the Avengers, the X-Men coming into the spotlight and the rise of both awareness and hatred of mutants, the coming of Galactus, the creation of the Sentinels, and all those other events ending on The Night Gwen Stacy Died.

The section covering the coming of Galactus, in particular, pretty much sums up the cosmic horror feel you're looking for: The strongest Heros on Earth can't do anything to this being who is all but literally, a god and the civilians are having a god-damn panic attack.

It also has a much more subtle horror to it: Our protagonist initially hated mutants but started having doubts when he was part of a crowd that was harassing the X-Men, Ice-Man almost threw a rock at him, only for Cyclops to stop him and say "he's not worth it" which shook him a bit.

Then he gets home one evening to find a mob on his street. They were hunting a mutant, a hideous mutant with a face like a skull, and our protagonist worries, goes to his house, and finds the mutant in question is in his basement...

and she's a little girl. Ten at the oldest.

And despite her solid black eyes and hideously deformed face, she has a look about her that he recognizes all too well.

A look that he saw in the faces of Holocaust survivors while he was researching for a story on it just after the war.

And he realizes with horror that he's become what he hates most: A bigot.

[Devonix]

A fun, and terrifying thing about DC is that it being a story it being a comic is 100 percent canon. And power in DC true power is based on awareness and knowledge. Each plane has pretty much complete control over a plane beneath it to being almost unstoppable, and vise versa to a plane above it.

A human from our world Isekaied to DC would be the most powerful being to have ever graced the entire multiverse.

[Anteros]

A fun, and terrifying thing about DC is that it being a story it being a comic is 100 percent canon. And power in DC true power is based on awareness and knowledge. Each plane has pretty much complete control over a plane beneath it to being almost unstoppable, and vise versa to a plane above it.

A human from our world Isekaied to DC would be the most powerful being to have ever graced the entire multiverse.

Has there not been one? I know Marvel has done it a few times, and the companies copy each other so much I assume DC has as well. I can't think of any examples offhand though.

[Devonix]

Has there not been one? I know Marvel has done it a few times, and the companies copy each other so much I assume DC has as well. I can't think of any examples offhand though.

Not that I can think of. Basically the closest you get are the Monitors who are aspects of people from the real world influencing the DC universe, but not actual people. Hell Final Crisis was about the effect of the comic book industry effecting the universe and the story trying to defend itself.