Death Battle! Goku VS Superman Disscussion Thread

[Bussani]

Ohh, okay. So it's not really a stated, definite fact that it will cut anything, it's just kind of a major assumption based on what we see and know then.

I think Freeza's "and it will cut through anything" comment is the closest thing we get to proof.

Although...hmm. Wasn't Goku's use of the technique filler as well? And is it even really ever stated that it even was the kienzan? Couldn't it just be a disc shaped energy blast that he used, modeled after it, or...something?

Goku used one to cut Buu in half in the manga. At least, it looked and acted like one.

Also, now that you made me think about it Bussani...do you think the kienzan could cut the katchin stuff that broke the Z Sword?

I've also wondered that, and I have no idea. Some people would say that Freeza's comment was never contradicted, and that if it's not contradicted, it should be treated like a fact. I'm not sure I agree with that and find it more fun to give both possibilities fair thought instead. In this case, I think I can imagine it happening either way. I wouldn't be surprise if a Kienzan failed to cut a piece of katchin just to show off how strong the stuff is.

[dario03]

I always took Freeza's statement of cutting anything as a boastful statement. Kind of like how he keeps claiming to be the strongest in the universe even while Goku is beating him.

I also think that if Goku had used the Kienzan that it wouldn't work. They used filler so it's been shown that it won't cut everything and Superman is very durable.

Superman does have Super healing, I'm pretty sure somebody posted a scan of him getting his neck cut open by Wonder Woman with a magic sword and then healing really quick earlier in this thread. I don't think hes ever been cut in half but if for some reason he did get cut in half then maybe it would kill him but then again it is Superman so he would probably just debut his never before seen Super-puthimselfbacktogether power.

However in the DBZ universe I never did understand why people didn't just bust out a Kienzan when they were right next to their opponent or why they didn't use a hand sword version like Salza did. Like I said I don't think it can cut everything but it does seem like there needs to be a very large difference in power for it not to work.

[Mewzard]

One thing to keep in mind with Supes strength (just seeing the photos posted) is that DC seems to assume there is something of a psionic field one extends. This is more or less an attempt to hand-waive the sheer impossibility for a human-sized object to lift things the size their characters do without those things simply breaking. How that applies in combat I'm not sure, but just something interesting to keep in mind.

That would be Tactile Telekinesis. It was one of the few powers the cloned Superboy got from Superman. While it would augment his powers, it could be used for Flight, lifting heavy objects and enduring they don't fall apart.

I believe that now falls under his bio-electrical aura, that enhances his defenses, and hangs slightly over his body, protecting him, and his suit, though he's able to extend it to encompass objects as well. That and his super dense molecular structure mean the Kienzan might work, but it won't be hitting him without resistance, and it won't be the easiest cut. I'm legitimately curious as to if it would work actually.

He does have healing abilities, but he needs energy to do so, so if it happened at the end of a draining fight, it might be fatal, especially if he's out of range of Sunlight to begin restoring him. That said, his healing factor is impressive (once, he was shot with a Kryptonite bullet, and buried alive with Batman, Batman had to perform emergency surgery quickly with his tools, as his body was healing over the wound.), so he might actually lose his legs due to how fast he heals (I'm going to assume he doesn't grow new legs, lol), unless he forces himself together quickly.

Biologically, the Kryptonian seems far more deadly than the Saiyan, but the Saiyan's got more environments they can function in (Krypton itself orbited Rao, their Red Sun, leaving them normal beings in their own home). Higher highs, but lower lows.

[Onikage725]

Maybe psionic was the wrong word. Superboy was one of my favorite characters before the relaunch, so I know that ability. I mean strong characters (Kryptonians and Daxomites in particular). I've read before, but I can't source it at the moment, that the application of their strength was somewhat metaphysical. Not pure power. Someone asked how he could, at human scale, lift a large boat without the lack of support and distribution causing it to sheer in half. And whoever was being asked pulled a "Superman laughs at your concept of gravity" hand waive, cuz that's how they roll at DC Comics.

They do narratively have similar physical concepts. Saiyans benefit from a harsh environment with heavy gravity. So, like a Kryptonian, a Saiyan flourishes on a world like Earth. Less challenging environment, lesser gravity making them tough and fast compared to the locals, etc. It's just for an entirely different reason. Saiyan power has seemingly unlimited potential for growth, but is limited by the vessel. Body strain and ki consumption are constant issues. The closest in concept to a Kryptonian really is Mystic Gohan, I'd say.

[omegalucas]

Didn't Kuririn try to use his Kienzan on Cell right after he gets his Perfect body only for it to fail? So I suppose it wouldn't work on Supes...

[Onikage725]

I think that was filler only, though. By the same token, he tried to use it against Bio-Brolli, and cut his neck clean through. Toei applies no consistency of their own here.

[johnboy1]

I posted this on another forum. For the record, I still think Supes would win, but this could make it a bit less one-sided. Yes, I'm assuming that the boasts of certain characters are accurate, and we could probably call them into question, but down that road lies madness.

That said, I might have just discovered a piece of less faulty data. When Cell gears up for his final attack, he says that it will probably be strong enough to destroy the solar system. Goku was weaker than Cell in the preceding fight, and that was before Cell got a huge boost from self-destructing and coming back. As such, this would tell us nothing, if not for a line from later on in the manga.

When Gohan prepares to fight Dabra during the Boo arc, Goku remarks that Dabra is comparable in power to Cell. Both Goku and Vegeta are later unimpressed by the difficulty Gohan is experiencing (due to not training for seven years). In fact, Vegeta is fully confident that he can handle Dabra... but also, as we find out later, almost certain that he couldn't beat SSj2 Goku without a Majin power boost (Goku can go Super Saiyan 3 at this point, but Vegeta doesn't know that). The chain of implication here is that SSj2 Goku is (significantly) stronger than Cell at this point, so the ability to destroy the solar system is the lower limit on his ki power.

But what does it mean to destroy the solar system? Simply destroying the sun would result in the (undestroyed) planets scattering into the wild black yonder, so the "system" as such is no more, even though pieces of what used to be the sytem still exist. This would take a force of approximately 55 septillion megatons. If by "destroy" we mean the beam attack tediously winding its way through all nine (at the time) planets and annihilating each of them before taking out the sun, it would be about the same (the energy needed for the sun makes the planets and asteroid belt negligible by comparison).

If we're talking all nine planets being demolished by a single explosion, however, then the amount of energy needed is astronomically more, since the vast majority of the energy will "miss" the planets and be wasted on empty space. This would take 51 nonillion megatons, almost a million times as much energy as destroying the sun alone.

These would be figures for SSj2 Goku, because that's what Vegeta believed he would be facing in combat. As such, the figure for SSj3 is four times whichever number you pick. While Death Battle used a factor of ten (4000x overall) for SSj4, there's nothing really supporting that calculation. If I had to guess where it came from, then perhaps it comes from the Ozaru transformation necessary to reach SSj4. However, there's no indicator than anything more than Super Saiyan was needed to reach this form (it was never seen before because all the Super Saiyans had lost their tails by the time they achieved the state), so multiplying the SSj3 multiplier by it is debatable. So the "golden Ozaru" form is at least 500x base (compared to SSj3's 400x), and SSj4 is... greater than that. That's all we know, but it at least gives us a lower bound.

If you pick the lower number, then Goku's max ki output is at least 275 septillion megatons, putting him only a couple orders of magnitude below the observed/stated durability of Post-Crisis Supes*. If you pick the larger number, then his output skyrockets to 255 nonillion megatons, thousands of times greater than the hardest hit Superman's ever taken.

Unfortunately, there's nothing to be done to alleviate the gross mismatch in terms of physical strength. The forty-ton scene takes place very soon before Goku's return to Earth, meaning his maximum physical output at the same time as the ki output above is at least 20,000 tons (Base x SSj x Ozaru + ?SSj4?).

For speed, even if we say that Serpentine Road is truly a million kilometers from beginning to end, in spite of the curves, then Goku's speed at SSj4 is at least 17.9 million km/h, or about a fifth of lightspeed. The highest figure I have for Superman clocks in at almost a thousand times that, but there's no real way of knowing how much Goku's speed increased over time.

If you want to stick with the 4000x multiplier for SSj4, just multiply all these final figures by eight. On second thought, maybe it was inspired by the 10x Kamehameha? But, It's not like that's the only Kamehameha SSj4 Goku can do, so I'm not sure how that would apply. Whatever.

*As for Goku vs. Pre-Crisis Supes? The latter once destroyed a solar system by sneezing too hard and dragged all the planets in a galaxy out of their orbits... simultaneously, using a really long chain and his bare hands. Is it okay if I save us some time and just give him the win?

EDIT: Wait a minute. Where did the 28-hour time for Goku's return trip from Kaio's come from? Kaio said it would take him two days. In that case, SSj4 would have a theoretical minimum of 10.4 million km/h.

[JulieYBM]

Mother of God, John. Mother. Of. God.

Oh, but, uh...great point! Ki can be used to re-enforce physical strength, so I almost feel it's pointless to try to quantify that sort of thing.

[TonyTheTiger]

Did I mention how fun these astonomical numbers are?

I always imagined that "destroying a solar system" was effectively the same as destroying the sun. After all, the sun makes up about 98% of the solar system's matter and without it you have neither "solar" nor "system." If you blow something up and 2% of it's material is scattered about I don't think anyone would question whether or not you "destroyed" it. I think for the lack of proof one way or the other, we should stick to the lowest numbers by which a feat can be rendered technically true.

*As for Goku vs. Pre-Crisis Supes? The latter once destroyed a solar system by sneezing too hard and dragged all the planets in a galaxy out of their orbits... simultaneously, using a really long chain and his bare hands. Is it okay if I save us some time and just give him the win?

Pre-Crisis Superman just plain doesn't operate in a universe subject to rational observation. In the Silver Age, Superman was essentially a slightly more serious Bugs Bunny. Pitting Goku against him in a death battle would be like pitting Vegeta up against the Road Runner. "You can't escape through that tunnel! I am the prince of all Sai...*SMACK*"

[Gyt Kaliba]

Pre-Crisis Superman just plain doesn't operate in a universe subject to rational observation. In the Silver Age, Superman was essentially a slightly more serious Bugs Bunny. Pitting Goku against him in a death battle would be like pitting Vegeta up against the Road Runner. "You can't escape through that tunnel! I am the prince of all Sai...*SMACK*"

I'd pay good money to see this. Not the Pre-Crisis stuff, the Vegeta V.S. Road Runner.

[TheMightyOzaru]

Did I mention how fun these astonomical numbers are?

I always imagined that "destroying a solar system" was effectively the same as destroying the sun. After all, the sun makes up about 98% of the solar system's matter and without it you have neither "solar" nor "system." If you blow something up and 2% of it's material is scattered about I don't think anyone would question whether or not you "destroyed" it. I think for the lack of proof one way or the other, we should stick to the lowest numbers by which a feat can be rendered technically true.

*As for Goku vs. Pre-Crisis Supes? The latter once destroyed a solar system by sneezing too hard and dragged all the planets in a galaxy out of their orbits... simultaneously, using a really long chain and his bare hands. Is it okay if I save us some time and just give him the win?

Pre-Crisis Superman just plain doesn't operate in a universe subject to rational observation. In the Silver Age, Superman was essentially a slightly more serious Bugs Bunny. Pitting Goku against him in a death battle would be like pitting Vegeta up against the Road Runner. "You can't escape through that tunnel! I am the prince of all Sai...*SMACK*"

I have a question. How many megatons of energy would destroy our Solar System?

[TonyTheTiger]

According to johnboy1, either 55 septillion megatons or 51 nonillion megatons, depending on how you define "destroy."

[TheMightyOzaru]

55 Spetillion Megatons eh? Well if Vegeta can exert at least 53 quadrillion Megatons with his Gyariku Ho, which is equal to Goku's Kaioken x3, that would mean Cell would have to be a little over 1,000,000,000x stronger than Vegeta's Gyariku Ho or the power level required to destroy Earth which seems to be 14,580. Cell's power level seemingly has to be 15,130,189,000,000. I have Cell at 4,000,000,000,000 right now so it would seem I have to raise Cell's, and everyone's, level a bit. I was always under the impression that busting the sun would be in the Sextillions but I guess not.
EDIT: Hmm destroying the moon requires 30 trillion megatons. Vegeta is 100x stronger than Roshi and it requires more than 1,000x as many megatons to destroy Earth. It would appear that Ki and Megatons are not exactly linear. Anyone got an explanation for this?

[johnboy1]

In the interest of full disclosure, I used this guy's calculations for my energy estimates. Ignore the upper-rightmost figure on his table. He obviously put something there that he didn't intend to, since it should have the same figure as the cell to the left of it. I bet you that Star Trek nerd didn't expect his post to be used in a Dragon Ball debate twelve years later.

[TheMightyOzaru]

In the interest of full disclosure, I used this guy's calculations for my energy estimates. Ignore the upper-rightmost figure on his table. He obviously put something there that he didn't intend to, since it should have the same figure as the cell to the left of it. I bet you that Star Trek nerd didn't expect his post to be used in a Dragon Ball debate twelve years later.

True but something about 55 Spetillion seems off. It seems too big.

[johnboy1]

55 Spetillion Megatons eh? Well if Vegeta can exert at least 53 quadrillion Megatons with his Gyariku Ho, which is equal to Goku's Kaioken x3, that would mean Cell would have to be a little over 1,000,000,000x stronger than Vegeta's Gyariku Ho or the power level required to destroy Earth which seems to be 14,580. Cell's power level seemingly has to be 15,130,189,000,000. I have Cell at 4,000,000,000,000 right now so it would seem I have to raise Cell's, and everyone's, level a bit. I was always under the impression that busting the sun would be in the Sextillions but I guess not.
EDIT: Hmm destroying the moon requires 30 trillion megatons. Vegeta is 100x stronger than Roshi and it requires more than 1,000x as many megatons to destroy Earth. It would appear that Ki and Megatons are not exactly linear. Anyone got an explanation for this?

My best guess? Power levels are not a direct measure of ki, but rather a measurement of some physical attribute that strongly correlates with ki. This attribute could have a parabolic or otherwise nonlinear relationship with actual ki output. But this is 100% speculation on my part. As for your guess at Cell's PL, it's worth noting that the highest power level from any official source is for Super Saiyan Gogeta, who is almost certainly stronger than Cell, at 2.5 billion.

In the interest of full disclosure, I used this guy's calculations for my energy estimates. Ignore the upper-rightmost figure on his table. He obviously put something there that he didn't intend to, since it should have the same figure as the cell to the left of it. I bet you that Star Trek nerd didn't expect his post to be used in a Dragon Ball debate twelve years later.

True but something about 55 Spetillion seems off. It seems too big.

The sun is really, really big. Here's a to-scale model of the solar system. Compare the image of the sun to the tiny blob of pixels that is Earth.

[TheMightyOzaru]

55 Spetillion Megatons eh? Well if Vegeta can exert at least 53 quadrillion Megatons with his Gyariku Ho, which is equal to Goku's Kaioken x3, that would mean Cell would have to be a little over 1,000,000,000x stronger than Vegeta's Gyariku Ho or the power level required to destroy Earth which seems to be 14,580. Cell's power level seemingly has to be 15,130,189,000,000. I have Cell at 4,000,000,000,000 right now so it would seem I have to raise Cell's, and everyone's, level a bit. I was always under the impression that busting the sun would be in the Sextillions but I guess not.
EDIT: Hmm destroying the moon requires 30 trillion megatons. Vegeta is 100x stronger than Roshi and it requires more than 1,000x as many megatons to destroy Earth. It would appear that Ki and Megatons are not exactly linear. Anyone got an explanation for this?

My best guess? Power levels are not a direct measure of ki, but rather a measurement of some physical attribute that strongly correlates with ki. This attribute could have a parabolic or otherwise nonlinear relationship with actual ki output. But this is 100% speculation on my part. As for your guess at Cell's PL, it's worth noting that the highest power level from any official source is for Super Saiyan Gogeta, who is almost certainly stronger than Cell, at 2.5 billion.

In the interest of full disclosure, I used this guy's calculations for my energy estimates. Ignore the upper-rightmost figure on his table. He obviously put something there that he didn't intend to, since it should have the same figure as the cell to the left of it. I bet you that Star Trek nerd didn't expect his post to be used in a Dragon Ball debate twelve years later.

True but something about 55 Spetillion seems off. It seems too big.

The sun is really, really big. Here's a to-scale model of the solar system. Compare the image of the sun to the tiny blob of pixels that is Earth.

Gogeta's power level is from a V-jump scan supporting Budokai 3 that can't even work, if you wan't to know why I'll PM you. I'm aware that the sun is really big but 1.3 million Earths would fit in there last I checked.

[Nex Carnifex]

I'll repost this from my thread:

In the GvS battle, there were some things that just were plain stupid. For one, they calculated how strong Goku was based on a feat towards the end of the Cell saga...wait I thought they were using the end of story GT Goku? If so, his base form should be way way stronger than it was back then, apparently (according to GT) even stronger the SS3 Z Goku. So, their calculations are way off if you take those facts into consideration. Even then, using GT is going to be stupid, GT does NOT make it look like SS4 Goku can lift a continent anyway. I'm not saying Goku should have one, I mean I think he could of and I think they showed that in the battle just Goku made the mistake of blasting Supes into his power source given him God powers, but they weren't as flawless with the information as they preach.

[TheMightyOzaru]

Ok looking at the discrepancies between Ki and Megatons I decided not to use them to calculate Cell's power level since the differences could potentially be quite large. Now Roshi can destroy the moon. The volume of Earth is roughly 49.3x greater than the Moon. This means the power level required to destroy the Earth is likely 8,874. The volume of the sun is 1,300,000x greater than Earth's. That would mean destroying something the size of the sun would be 11,536,200,000. Now a Supernova is roughly 9x the size of our sun meaning Cell's power level would have to be 103,825,800,000. Now I'm not sure if this works this way but its possible. I can certainly see Cell with a power level greater than 100 billion.

[johnboy1]

I'll repost this from my thread:

In the GvS battle, there were some things that just were plain stupid. For one, they calculated how strong Goku was based on a feat towards the end of the Cell saga...wait I thought they were using the end of story GT Goku? If so, his base form should be way way stronger than it was back then, apparently (according to GT) even stronger the SS3 Z Goku. So, their calculations are way off if you take those facts into consideration. Even then, using GT is going to be stupid, GT does NOT make it look like SS4 Goku can lift a continent anyway. I'm not saying Goku should have one, I mean I think he could of and I think they showed that in the battle just Goku made the mistake of blasting Supes into his power source given him God powers, but they weren't as flawless with the information as they preach.

Okay, Goku should be stronger... how much stronger? You have to put a number to it (a real measurement, not just a power level). The reason they used Buu-arc (not Cell-arc) Goku instead of GT Goku is because the feat they used is the most impressive one with a real number attached to it (or deducible from it). And it actually makes a certain level of sense. The infamous "office building" scene from GT finally doesn't seem so out of place: someone who could only lift 160,000 tons (possibly less, if you think the 10x multiplier for SSj4 was too much) would not be able to hold up an average office building by himself. I don't know where the Hell they got "lifting a continent" from, because that's orders of magnitude heavier than the number they just gave.

And really, think about it. We've seen DB characters do crazy shit with ki attacks, and we've seen them knock enemies into the stratosphere, but when do we see them moving anything really fucking big? Very rarely, and not usually on a very big scale. You don't need building-support superstrength to knock a 180-pound opponent across town. It would seem that the vast, vast majority of Goku's destructive power is concentrated in his ki attacks, not in his fists.