Death Battle: More Fantasy Matches

As I have already written in my article Death Battle: Brutality is Fun, the web series Death Battle involved the imaginary match-ups of two different fictional characters in fights to the death. Some of the fights involved the minions of the same franchise, some of the fights involved identical fighters from different franchises, and some fights were between different characters from different franchises. The episodes were simple. Two hosts, Wizard and Boomstick, introduced the fighters, talked about their backgrounds, and then allowed the viewers a few moments of silence while the fighters beat each other to death. For instance, one match, Mario vs. Sonic was a fight that reflected the real life rivalry between Nintendo and Sega when it came to the consoles' popularity. Another match. Goku vs. Superman had two ridiculously overpowered individuals who have canonically died and came back to life in the past, fight each other in ways that emphasized how ridiculous their strength was. Even parodies of each other got to fight each other in episodes of Death Battle, like in the Deadpool vs. Deathstroke fight, where the "Merc with a Mouth" fought against the character he was supposed to be ripping off. These fights had characters who had more abilities to utilize, more combat training that would aid them in battle, and ridiculous abilities like strength that could help pull entire planets through space or the ability to heal from a wide variety of injuries. And for the viewers, this web series produced content that was both awesome to see animated, and a learning experience in mainstream media.

Recently for the Super Smash Bros. franchise, Sonic the Hedgehog, mascot for Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, was a recently added character to the roster. This is ironic because Nintendo and Sega have had a rivalry for years against the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo. And since Sonic the Hedgehog was the mascot of Sega, he had to be in a rivalry with Mario, Nintendo's mascot. Needless to say, Death Battle got to make an official animated fight between two popular video game icons. During the review phase past abilities like Mario's ability to smash various hard objects with his fists, the various power-ups he had over the years, and the mushroom power-up which made him giant; or Sonic's default ability to go to ridiculously high speeds whenever he ran, his various spinning abilities, his old shield power-ups, his inability to swim, and the awesomeness that was Super Sonic. The main fighting phase made Sonic aware that they were part of some rivalry. Sonic had the first attack, but Mario soon countered with his fireball shooting abilities. Mario then punched and kicked Sonic with various fire-based attacks, and followed-up with a giant fireball blast. Sonic's fire shied power-up nullified that attack, however, Soon came a montage of the fight where the viewer got to see random moments of the fight where both fighters were beating each other senseless. Eventually, the fight took them underwater, and it seemed like Mario won the match due to Sonic's inability to actually swim. But then Sonic transformed into Super Sonic and was able to save himself. Unfortunately, Mario consumed a Mega Mushroom that made him giant and made him capable to beat-up Super Sonic until the transformation wore-off. But when Mario's giant transformation wore-off later, Sonic finally defeated Mario with his speed and spinning attacks. Thus Sonic the Hedgehog was the winner in this fight to the death.

Sometimes pitting two well-known protagonist against each other can sound fun. Especially if both characters were characterized similarly. So similar that fans who were familiar with both characters have asked who could beat the other numerous times. Take for instance Goku form Dragonball Z and Superman. Both were alien humanoids from another planet, both were temporarily the last of their kind, both possessed superpowers, and both died but came back to life. Of course, there were some fascinating differences between both characters. Goku came from the Saiyans, a group of warriors who were destroyed by a malevolent space alien. Superman came from a race referred to as the Kryptonians, alien scientists whose planet was destroyed by natural causes. Goku became the powerful being that he was through rigorous training from expert martial artists and various gods, whereas Superman was specifically written to have his normal super abilities and additional abilities due to his alien biology and absorbing the rays of the sun. Basically Goku was a character who became strong by supassing his own limits, but Superman was a character who literally had no limits. Naturally, when Death Battle had these two characters fight, it was pretty awesome. Also very one-sided. See, while Goku did use all of his abilities that were able to reduce even the most powerful enemies to atoms in the Dragonball franchise, his need to have a fair fight and Superman's ability to get even more stronger than he already was via exposure to the sun, resulted in Superman winning this match. But it was still an awesome fight.

The fascinating thing about Death Battle was that some of the opponents were interesting foils to each other. Deadpool was a character from Marvel Comics. Deathstroke was a character from DC Comics. The interesting thing here was that Deadpool was originally created as a parody of Deathstroke, but soon evolved to be his own character. And develop the ability to constantly break the fourth wall. Deadpool the "Merc with a Mouth" and Deathstroke the Terminator were both assassins who received various biological enhancements due to scientists from some government agency. Deadpool acquired the ability to heal and regenerate from practically any injury that he received, whereas Deathstroke acquired the ability think faster, hear better, see faster, fight better, and heal from more injuries than an ordinary man. Of course, one advantage that Deadpool had over Deathstroke was his own portable teleporter. Ironically, this fight actually started in a rather humorous fashion. With Deathstroke looking at a wanted poster of Deadpool and vice versa, this fight began in a park in a city. Starting with a gunfight where both combatants dual-wielded machine guns, it was a surprisingly even match. However, Deadpool utilized his portable teleporter which enabled him to land a few hits on Deathstroke. But then Deathstroke used a staff which was strong enough to break both of Deadpool's swords. Soon the fight moved to a bridge where both combatants fought on top of moving cars. After Deathstroke insulted Deadpool by referring to him as predictable, Deadpool decided to kick it up a notch. While Deadpool's theme from video games played, Deathstroke was getting beaten until he was killed at the end of the match. Deadpool won because his unpredictability and regenerative abilities made him a better fighter.

Death Battle was an Internet series that made fictional characters fight each other to the death. Some fights, like Mario vs. Sonic were interesting because the rivalry reflected a similar rivalry between the companies who made the characters. Sometimes the fight could essentially be an attempt to answer the question of who was a better fighter, like in Goku vs. Superman. Or some fights could involve two ironically similar characters, like in Deadpool vs. Deathstroke.