"He's Wiz and I'm Boomstick –"
"—and it's our job to analyze their weapons, armor, and skills to determine who would win – a Death Battle!"
The idea of X versus Y, or "Who'd Win?" is probably one of the oldest of old ideas. I would be unsurprised to find out that Greek children argued about whether Heracles could beat Perseus. The basic concept of pitting real and imaginary characters against each other took on more energy and interest as various modern fandoms gained in strength, of course, and while you can trace the discussions back a long, long way – "Can Superman beat Captain Marvel?" was one in the days when my mother was president of the local Captain Marvel fan club – probably the most iconic in SF/F fandom is "Enterprise VS Death Star".
I have of course indulged in these arguments scholarly discussions many times over the years, and of course they tend to be resolved, or fail to be resolved, in similar ways even over the course of decades. Many people (my wife included) do not understand the attraction of such discussions, but there are – naturally – a heck of a lot of people who do.
The trouble with any such arguments where the "X" and "Y" are from differing universes is that each comes with their own baggage, their own sets of assumptions – and often with their proponents having a predisposition to interpret the information on each side through a particular lens. Yet there is a reasonable ideal in such discussions – one in which the assumptions of both universes are accepted as true for their respective character, and a good-faith effort made to try and compare the resulting capabilities.
A lot of groups, small and large, have tried to do this in various more or less public ways. Svudu has done their "Cage Matches", in which they pit a large number of fictional characters against each other in a tournament that ends with a championship match; it is common for selected authors to write stories of their characters' participation in the battle (my friend Harry Connolly's Ray Lilly, from his Seven Palaces series, was chosen one year and he wrote some awesome little pieces for Ray's matches). There is Bat in the Sun's Super Power Beatdown, a video show which bases its results more on popular discussions and voting.
And then there is ScrewAttack's Death Battle!
Hosted by Ben "Wiz" Singer and Chad "Boomstick" James, Death Battle! is the closest to the platonic ideal of the X VS Y debate I've ever seen realized. Unlike most of their colleagues, Wiz and Boomstick conduct painstaking research into the capabilities of their chosen combatants – and then present this research, with entertaining commentary, video clips, and all the trimmings, before the actual "Death Battle".
The concept of the Death Battle itself is of course a necessary conceit; in a "realistic" situation, many of the proposed conflicts would never turn into a fight, or at most would be a quick sparring match that was resolved shortly and ended long before it was determined which of the two was more capable. That said, the ScrewAttack production does often make a nod to setting up the bare bones of a plot in their actual Death Battle videos to at least partly justify the clash, whether it be sending Boba Fett to capture Samus, showing the Terminator materializing in Robocop's Detroit and starting its usual rampage, or setting up a misunderstanding between He-Man and Lion-O.
Naturally, it's quite possible to do tons of research and still end up presenting a badly skewed contest. But Wiz and Boomstick try their best to be fair in their presentation even when it's clear one or the other of them has a preference.
I first encountered Death Battle! when someone posted a link to Starscream VS Rainbow Dash. Yes, you read that right, the backstabbing psychopath of the Decepticons from Transformers versus the flying wonder of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. And Starscream loses.
(that was also the event that introduced the Ponies to my household, so Wiz and Boomstick are also to blame for the tidal wave of Ponies that inundated my household for the last couple of years)
What impressed me about that – and later – Death Battles was that they weren't afraid to simply follow the numbers (when available) or figure out comparisons even when those led to what might at first have been a pretty counter-intuitive result.
The Death Battle videos themselves are always entertaining, even though they run the gamut in quality from 16-bit fighting-game images all the way to 3-D rendered dramatic productions. The latter are generally reserved for the most heavily requested and anticipated events, such as Godzilla VS Gamera, Yang VS Tifa, and…
The latter was undoubtedly the most-requested and fiercely debated matchup Wiz and Boomstick ever had to face; I suspect even they found it somewhat intimidating, because the arguments on this one have been as intense – and intractable – as any such in existence. The fans on both sides are emphatic, loud, and sometimes, well, fanatical.
It was their handling of that battle – perhaps the greatest matchup of super-powered warriors possible – and the rematch that convinced me that these guys are the ones who really "get it" – not only why so many people engage in these debates, but how to do them justice. They determined that in the end, Goku would lose both battles; but while the numbers they ran in the first battle could be argued, they ultimately recognized – and argued – that the final deciding factor wasn't going to be found in numbers, but in the narrative purpose of each of these admittedly ultimate warrior heroes.
Goku's narrative is "rising to the challenge", being beaten to rise again, to challenge himself against ever-greater opponents only to eventually find another powerful challenger. By its very nature, this implies that Goku must never reach a true ultimate and final level of power, because then his narrative would end, his purpose would be fulfilled; he would have nowhere to go.
Superman's narrative is very different; he is the God Among Mortals, the being with Powers Beyond the Lot of Mortal Men who nonetheless chooses to walk among them. He is a symbol and a representation, not just of the best that we can be, but of the best the universe can offer. By his nature his power is the ultimate, or very nearly so, and while he may lose on occasion it is rarely if ever due to his actual power failing to make the grade.
Both heroes come from universes with wildly differing powerscales and with sometimes contradictory answers to questions as to what their limits, if any are; but this decision by ScrewAttack's Wiz and Boomstick was in fact a far better answer than any that could possibly be derived from just trying to do calculations and comparisons ("Superman lifted 200 quintillion tons!" "But Goku blew up a SUN!").
Most such matchups cannot be resolved in that manner, of course – but the fact that they recognized that in this case it could, because both characters were symbols and in their own way the same type of representative of their respective universes, was true brilliance.
X VS Y. A simple concept. Not so simple to execute. Yet Wiz and Boomstick execute it flawlessly, and they've done so many – over 50 as of last count – that they've matched up an awful lot of people thus far! If you want to see fictional characters matched up, and know you're getting the fairest matchup you'll ever see, there's nothing better than Death Battle!
Your comments or questions welcomed!
You must be logged in to post a comment.