I've always found the Goku v Superman idea truly absurd. It's not a fight. It's never been a fight. In order to be fair, you have to play by death battle rules- the strongest official version of...
I've always found the Goku v Superman idea truly absurd. It's not a fight. It's never been a fight. In order to be fair, you have to play by death battle rules- the strongest official version of each character competing.
And there's no possible way for Superman to lose that, because Superman has been so comically, absurdly, impossibly, over-the-top powerful that the best Goku could ever do is a stalemate, and even for that you'd need a Goku that's so far beyond the strongest Goku we've ever seen it's absurd. Without the use of Kryptonite- a weakness Goku not only doesn't know about, but, as per his character, would never utilize even if he did know about it, Superman is stronger. It's what they said in that Death Battle: Goku can surpass any limit. But that's the problem: Superman isn't a limit to be surpassed. Superman, at his peak, has no limits. He's so fast he can time travel at will. He's so strong, he can knock out godly and invulnerable beings while mostly dead, never mind while at full strength. He can control his heat vision with such precision he can deactivate psychic abilities by manipulating your brain- and do it so carefully that you'll fully recover in a day or two. He can create a hurricane by breathing out. His brain functions on such a ridiculously fast level that he can read and, with his heat vision, rewrite computer programs as they function. That's not a level of ability you can compete with. It's a fucking joke. Goku still, however tenuously, toys with the theoretical limits of reality- Superman hasn't cared about reality for decades.
The only way Goku can win is to do things his character would never, ever do. When the lives of literally everyone he ever knew, and the very existence of his own planet, were on the line, he still fucked around and waited to make sure his opponent was at full power so he could fight them at their best. More than once. The use of kryptonite, or destruction of the sun, or any other action of the likes of that are things he would never do because then he'd be fighting a weaker opponent instead of the full-strength logical impossibility that is Superman.
I don't think Superman was ever able to effortlessly destroy a planet or a great portion of the universe itself. Superman may be the top humanoid, but Goku is almost godlike....
I don't think Superman was ever able to effortlessly destroy a planet or a great portion of the universe itself. Superman may be the top humanoid, but Goku is almost godlike....
There's no situation in which he would have chose to destroy a planet or part of the universe. Superman can survive outside of spacetime. Existence can be winked out, but Superman will survive...
There's no situation in which he would have chose to destroy a planet or part of the universe. Superman can survive outside of spacetime. Existence can be winked out, but Superman will survive because. Superman is far more capable than Goku, and I'm more a fan of Dragon Ball than I am of Superman media.
Well yeah of course Superman would not destroy a planet or half the universe. Neither would Goku, I suppose. But he could! And what makes you think Goku has a ceiling? :P
Well yeah of course Superman would not destroy a planet or half the universe. Neither would Goku, I suppose. But he could!
I feel as if there are limits to what Toriyama and Toyotaro will have Goku do or not do, whereas American comic writers have proven time and again that they don't care to ground Supes in reality....
I feel as if there are limits to what Toriyama and Toyotaro will have Goku do or not do, whereas American comic writers have proven time and again that they don't care to ground Supes in reality. As soon as they got to the point where they were making Kryptonians abel to exist outside of reality (and make it so they cannot be erased from it), punch reality and create a new continuity (Superboy Prime), and have them capable of holding a miniature black hole in their hand, they lost the plot. That's what I mean by Superman having no ceiling.
Canon Goku has a ceiling in that I don't think either Toyotaro or Toriyama are that insane lol
Neither would Goku, I suppose.Neither would Goku, I suppose.
Goku has been willing to sacrifice a planet for the sake of fighting strong people (Namek and Earth specifically. Earth numerous times, actually). That's the equivalent of being willing to destroy a planet or half the universe lol
What's it always with western comic book superheroes being so overpowered? I've always liked to imagine imaginary battles like these, but I just gave up on them long ago since those kinds of...
What's it always with western comic book superheroes being so overpowered? I've always liked to imagine imaginary battles like these, but I just gave up on them long ago since those kinds of discussions always end with a swarm of comicbros going "haha superhero go brrrr" and the characters I like can never compare, feats-wise.
My personal theory is Japanese writers like to write their own stuff while western characters get multiple reboots and rewrites over (real-life human) generations. While writing characters into...
My personal theory is Japanese writers like to write their own stuff while western characters get multiple reboots and rewrites over (real-life human) generations. While writing characters into overpowered oblivion is not exclusive to either, statistically western characters have a much higher chance of getting simply lazy writers that invent new powers to jam a story around them.
I love Batman as portrayed in JLAS, but it is a super smart super rich, super tech'd character who is only awesome because WB forced its appearance to few super-moments. Original batman was a moderately rich, moderately smart character trained in martial arts and fighting local city crime, instead of going toe to toe against Darkside on his own planet.
Yeah, this is a good, short summary. I went into the idea a bit more in a reply of my own, but the basics of it is just as you said: It's lazy writers, or writers who just want their personal...
Yeah, this is a good, short summary. I went into the idea a bit more in a reply of my own, but the basics of it is just as you said: It's lazy writers, or writers who just want their personal favorite to be the superultrabest, etc. Dozens and dozens of writers over what's rapidly approaching a century of Superman have made him equal to the Japanese "joke characters" the likes of Saitama and Arale, who are literally unbeatable because it's funnier that way, but without the point being the humor- instead, the point is... Being the best.
I'm not sure about that. There are a lot of TV shows that have seen remakes, especially in the last decade or so. We've seen remakes of Kino's Journey, Devilman, JoJo, and probably more if I were...
My personal theory is Japanese writers like to write their own stuff while western characters get multiple reboots and rewrites over (real-life human) generations.
I'm not sure about that. There are a lot of TV shows that have seen remakes, especially in the last decade or so. We've seen remakes of Kino's Journey, Devilman, JoJo, and probably more if I were to think about it. And those are just the animated series; when you get into live action there are long running meta-series like Super Sentai and Kamen Rider, and then there's Toho's Kaiju film anthology.
I'd definitely agree that superheroes in the west are the victims of poor writing. Superman has the world's worst example of power bloat, and a lot of the time the writers just don't understand the characters that well. Justice League is probably the best example in it. Any time batman plays a major role he's basically there as a deus ex machina for the plot, where his intellect is played up so high he'd probably be smarter than Braniac.
Perhaps a better way to look at it would be that Japanese writers tend to look inward at the character and motivations and write from there, wheras a lot of the (lower quality) western writers look outward and rely on their physical capabilities to determine what happens in the story. This is, of course, an extreme generalization. Batman, again, is a really good example of well written internally-focused writing - at least most of the comic book versions are. And that's why he continues to be so popular in the DC catalogue while many of the other superheroes they own have fallen out of popular favor.
American writers like to write their own stuff too, but, in the case of Marvel and DC, they generally do not own the rights for the characters they create.
American writers like to write their own stuff too, but, in the case of Marvel and DC, they generally do not own the rights for the characters they create.
Honestly? The Japanese equivalents do exist. It's just always the wrong ones being chosen. You wanna give Superman a fair fight? Or, hell, have Superman get his ass beat almost instantly? Pick...
Honestly? The Japanese equivalents do exist. It's just always the wrong ones being chosen. You wanna give Superman a fair fight? Or, hell, have Superman get his ass beat almost instantly? Pick someone who doesn't have limits. Go for Saitama from One Punch Man. Go for Arale, from Dr. Slump/Dragon Ball. Go for the characters for whom physics is a joke they laugh at.
But even then, it doesn't necessarily work the same way for a few key reasons: Goku is the same Goku as Goku was in 1984, give or take a few details. Superman has been replaced, rewritten, reworked, remade, reshaped, and reimagined so many times that there's literally dozens of him. Modern Goku would barely need to raise a finger to beat the Superman seen in the first ever comic. But that was 1938. And if you compare 1938 Superman to 1984 Goku, Superman wins without even trying.
Superman started stronger, started more than four decades earlier (and thus has had four decades longer for power creep to make him grow in power beyond the gods), has passed through dozens more hands (Toriyama has basically always been on the edge of things, if not directly involved, and everything has always been intended to be at least somewhat similar to what Toriyama would have done, whereas Superman's creators were disconnected from him so early it's hardly worth mentioning that they created him), and more.
Western media just functions differently, too. That passing through dozens of hands thing is a lot more common in Western media than in Japanese, and often leads to the most overpowered characters as each new hand in the mix becomes all the more devoted to their favorite hero being the strongest instead of their favorite hero being what they were originally intended to be. So Batman becomes the superultramegaextramastermind of geniusness who can totally out-plan a literal god who could obliterate him in an instant because he's just that smart, we swear. Superman becomes... The literal god who could obliterate anyone in an instant because he's just that strong, we swear. The Flash becomes so fast that time itself has no meaning, reality is fiction, and he can totally beat Superman because he's just that fast, we swear. And so on and so forth, forever and ever, everyone beating everyone else because they all want their favorite character to be the superultrabest, and then any outside media that doesn't represent a joke character whose baseline starting strength is "literally unbeatable" (Arale, Saitama, etc.) physically cannot compare, because they have a cohesive identity.
And that's why Superman beats Goku. Because Goku is a better, more sensible, more soundly made character, with a set list of abilities and a power level that makes sense in-universe... And Superman is "the best, dude, trust me".
The problem with characters like Saitama is that in discussions like that, you're expected to actually provide proof of a character's feats and abilities, otherwise they're not accounted for. So,...
Go for Saitama from One Punch Man.
The problem with characters like Saitama is that in discussions like that, you're expected to actually provide proof of a character's feats and abilities, otherwise they're not accounted for. So, while Saitama obviously seems like the strongest character imaginable, he hasn't actually accomplished much things on-screen, which makes him a bit of a dead end for discussions like these. Though if you use your imagination it'd be easy to imagine him crushing Superman into a tomato soup.
That's certainly fair, though I should point out that anyone making a reasonable, honest debate on the question (Rather than the all too common angry tribalism) would have to acknowledge the...
That's certainly fair, though I should point out that anyone making a reasonable, honest debate on the question (Rather than the all too common angry tribalism) would have to acknowledge the gimmick of characters like Saitama. That is, the stronger their opponent, the more certain that opponent will lose. The more bravado, the more confidence, the more world-shattering consequences, the easier they'll be taken out. It takes a completely inconsequential threat- such as, say, a single annoying mosquito- to defeat a joke character like Saitama.
Which tends to be why characters like Saitama are dismissed in these conversations, because they don't really count, because you have to be too weak to win.
I've always found the Goku v Superman idea truly absurd. It's not a fight. It's never been a fight. In order to be fair, you have to play by death battle rules- the strongest official version of each character competing.
And there's no possible way for Superman to lose that, because Superman has been so comically, absurdly, impossibly, over-the-top powerful that the best Goku could ever do is a stalemate, and even for that you'd need a Goku that's so far beyond the strongest Goku we've ever seen it's absurd. Without the use of Kryptonite- a weakness Goku not only doesn't know about, but, as per his character, would never utilize even if he did know about it, Superman is stronger. It's what they said in that Death Battle: Goku can surpass any limit. But that's the problem: Superman isn't a limit to be surpassed. Superman, at his peak, has no limits. He's so fast he can time travel at will. He's so strong, he can knock out godly and invulnerable beings while mostly dead, never mind while at full strength. He can control his heat vision with such precision he can deactivate psychic abilities by manipulating your brain- and do it so carefully that you'll fully recover in a day or two. He can create a hurricane by breathing out. His brain functions on such a ridiculously fast level that he can read and, with his heat vision, rewrite computer programs as they function. That's not a level of ability you can compete with. It's a fucking joke. Goku still, however tenuously, toys with the theoretical limits of reality- Superman hasn't cared about reality for decades.
The only way Goku can win is to do things his character would never, ever do. When the lives of literally everyone he ever knew, and the very existence of his own planet, were on the line, he still fucked around and waited to make sure his opponent was at full power so he could fight them at their best. More than once. The use of kryptonite, or destruction of the sun, or any other action of the likes of that are things he would never do because then he'd be fighting a weaker opponent instead of the full-strength logical impossibility that is Superman.
I don't think Superman was ever able to effortlessly destroy a planet or a great portion of the universe itself. Superman may be the top humanoid, but Goku is almost godlike....
There's no situation in which he would have chose to destroy a planet or part of the universe. Superman can survive outside of spacetime. Existence can be winked out, but Superman will survive because. Superman is far more capable than Goku, and I'm more a fan of Dragon Ball than I am of Superman media.
Superman has no ceiling, Superman is infinity.
Well yeah of course Superman would not destroy a planet or half the universe. Neither would Goku, I suppose. But he could!
And what makes you think Goku has a ceiling? :P
I feel as if there are limits to what Toriyama and Toyotaro will have Goku do or not do, whereas American comic writers have proven time and again that they don't care to ground Supes in reality. As soon as they got to the point where they were making Kryptonians abel to exist outside of reality (and make it so they cannot be erased from it), punch reality and create a new continuity (Superboy Prime), and have them capable of holding a miniature black hole in their hand, they lost the plot. That's what I mean by Superman having no ceiling.
Canon Goku has a ceiling in that I don't think either Toyotaro or Toriyama are that insane lol
Goku has been willing to sacrifice a planet for the sake of fighting strong people (Namek and Earth specifically. Earth numerous times, actually). That's the equivalent of being willing to destroy a planet or half the universe lol
What's it always with western comic book superheroes being so overpowered? I've always liked to imagine imaginary battles like these, but I just gave up on them long ago since those kinds of discussions always end with a swarm of comicbros going "haha superhero go brrrr" and the characters I like can never compare, feats-wise.
My personal theory is Japanese writers like to write their own stuff while western characters get multiple reboots and rewrites over (real-life human) generations. While writing characters into overpowered oblivion is not exclusive to either, statistically western characters have a much higher chance of getting simply lazy writers that invent new powers to jam a story around them.
I love Batman as portrayed in JLAS, but it is a super smart super rich, super tech'd character who is only awesome because WB forced its appearance to few super-moments. Original batman was a moderately rich, moderately smart character trained in martial arts and fighting local city crime, instead of going toe to toe against Darkside on his own planet.
Yeah, this is a good, short summary. I went into the idea a bit more in a reply of my own, but the basics of it is just as you said: It's lazy writers, or writers who just want their personal favorite to be the superultrabest, etc. Dozens and dozens of writers over what's rapidly approaching a century of Superman have made him equal to the Japanese "joke characters" the likes of Saitama and Arale, who are literally unbeatable because it's funnier that way, but without the point being the humor- instead, the point is... Being the best.
I'm not sure about that. There are a lot of TV shows that have seen remakes, especially in the last decade or so. We've seen remakes of Kino's Journey, Devilman, JoJo, and probably more if I were to think about it. And those are just the animated series; when you get into live action there are long running meta-series like Super Sentai and Kamen Rider, and then there's Toho's Kaiju film anthology.
I'd definitely agree that superheroes in the west are the victims of poor writing. Superman has the world's worst example of power bloat, and a lot of the time the writers just don't understand the characters that well. Justice League is probably the best example in it. Any time batman plays a major role he's basically there as a deus ex machina for the plot, where his intellect is played up so high he'd probably be smarter than Braniac.
Perhaps a better way to look at it would be that Japanese writers tend to look inward at the character and motivations and write from there, wheras a lot of the (lower quality) western writers look outward and rely on their physical capabilities to determine what happens in the story. This is, of course, an extreme generalization. Batman, again, is a really good example of well written internally-focused writing - at least most of the comic book versions are. And that's why he continues to be so popular in the DC catalogue while many of the other superheroes they own have fallen out of popular favor.
American writers like to write their own stuff too, but, in the case of Marvel and DC, they generally do not own the rights for the characters they create.
Honestly? The Japanese equivalents do exist. It's just always the wrong ones being chosen. You wanna give Superman a fair fight? Or, hell, have Superman get his ass beat almost instantly? Pick someone who doesn't have limits. Go for Saitama from One Punch Man. Go for Arale, from Dr. Slump/Dragon Ball. Go for the characters for whom physics is a joke they laugh at.
But even then, it doesn't necessarily work the same way for a few key reasons: Goku is the same Goku as Goku was in 1984, give or take a few details. Superman has been replaced, rewritten, reworked, remade, reshaped, and reimagined so many times that there's literally dozens of him. Modern Goku would barely need to raise a finger to beat the Superman seen in the first ever comic. But that was 1938. And if you compare 1938 Superman to 1984 Goku, Superman wins without even trying.
Superman started stronger, started more than four decades earlier (and thus has had four decades longer for power creep to make him grow in power beyond the gods), has passed through dozens more hands (Toriyama has basically always been on the edge of things, if not directly involved, and everything has always been intended to be at least somewhat similar to what Toriyama would have done, whereas Superman's creators were disconnected from him so early it's hardly worth mentioning that they created him), and more.
Western media just functions differently, too. That passing through dozens of hands thing is a lot more common in Western media than in Japanese, and often leads to the most overpowered characters as each new hand in the mix becomes all the more devoted to their favorite hero being the strongest instead of their favorite hero being what they were originally intended to be. So Batman becomes the superultramegaextramastermind of geniusness who can totally out-plan a literal god who could obliterate him in an instant because he's just that smart, we swear. Superman becomes... The literal god who could obliterate anyone in an instant because he's just that strong, we swear. The Flash becomes so fast that time itself has no meaning, reality is fiction, and he can totally beat Superman because he's just that fast, we swear. And so on and so forth, forever and ever, everyone beating everyone else because they all want their favorite character to be the superultrabest, and then any outside media that doesn't represent a joke character whose baseline starting strength is "literally unbeatable" (Arale, Saitama, etc.) physically cannot compare, because they have a cohesive identity.
And that's why Superman beats Goku. Because Goku is a better, more sensible, more soundly made character, with a set list of abilities and a power level that makes sense in-universe... And Superman is "the best, dude, trust me".
The problem with characters like Saitama is that in discussions like that, you're expected to actually provide proof of a character's feats and abilities, otherwise they're not accounted for. So, while Saitama obviously seems like the strongest character imaginable, he hasn't actually accomplished much things on-screen, which makes him a bit of a dead end for discussions like these. Though if you use your imagination it'd be easy to imagine him crushing Superman into a tomato soup.
That's certainly fair, though I should point out that anyone making a reasonable, honest debate on the question (Rather than the all too common angry tribalism) would have to acknowledge the gimmick of characters like Saitama. That is, the stronger their opponent, the more certain that opponent will lose. The more bravado, the more confidence, the more world-shattering consequences, the easier they'll be taken out. It takes a completely inconsequential threat- such as, say, a single annoying mosquito- to defeat a joke character like Saitama.
Which tends to be why characters like Saitama are dismissed in these conversations, because they don't really count, because you have to be too weak to win.