Awesome / DEATH BATTLE! (Season Ten)

"Impressive."

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• DEATH BATTLE! (Season Six)
• DEATH BATTLE! (Season Seven)
• DEATH BATTLE! (Season Eight)
• DEATH BATTLE! (Season Nine)

Ant-Man VS Atom

• The battle really shows how smart both sides are from strategic planning to on-the-fly tactics, such as Ant-Man using his ant army to disassemble Atom's Bio-Belt and Atom rearranging the atomic structure of Ant-Man's Stinger Gun to disassemble it.
• Remember how in the previous season, Scarlet Witch VS Zatanna's fight animation took perhaps the highest scale of a fight so far with universes being eclipsed? Well, it no longer has that honor, as Ant-Man and Atom's brawl ends up taking the scale even further, in particular thanks to Hank taking the fight into Overspace, a place that makes up "infinite universes, timelines, and higher dimensions" according to a black text box for it.
• While fighting on Hank's desk, Atom gets a great retort to Ant-Man's mocking analysis of his tech that shows their different ideals:
  Ant-Man: You're using pieces of a white dwarf star? (chuckles) That's cute.
  Atom: Everything we needed already existed. You just had to be smart enough to put the pieces together, "Scientist Supreme!"
• A special mention goes to Ant-Man's… well, ants. A minor advantage they may be, but they're one of the only things Ant-Man has that Atom had no direct answer for, and they are key to Ant-Man's victory, dismantling Atom's bio-belt and even dealing the (rather horrific) final blow.
  Ant-Man: Did you know that, at any given moment, there are about 2.5 million ants under your feet?
  Atom: I mean, that makes sense, but… why are you bringing that up right now?
  (Cue several dozen ants bursting out of the ground, all swarming at Atom)
• At the end of the fight, the two’s fighting in the microverse starts to damage reality, so Ant-Man destroys Atom’s belt and takes the fight to Overspace, complete with Eternity watching the fight. Afterwards, Hank delivers one hell of a Badass Boast before Atom is torn apart from the inside out by giant ants.
  Ant-Man: You have your tricks and your tools, but I created something beyond the limits of human existence. (Starts growing as his voice becomes deeper) I operate on a scale you can’t even comprehend — You can't be afraid to think big.

Skyrim VS Dark Souls

• Crossing over into Heartwarming is that Brandon Yates is sponsoring an episode, one of Death Battle's most frequent composers of the fight tracks (going back as far as Season Two) and the composer for the fight track of this very episode, Wiz and Boomstick encourage the viewers to check out Brandon's YouTube channel and Spotify for not just the official tracks but also the Fan Commissions, Remasters and original tracks he had made.
• Since there's no canon version of either character, how do Wiz and Boomstick handle their arsenals? By giving them quite literally anything and everything they can get in game, since it is possible to do so if the player puts in enough effort.
• When the Chosen Undead couner's the Dragonborn's arrow barrage with Gough's Greatbow, the Dragonborn doesn't even flinch at seeing a lance-sized arrow flying towards him, instead using Slow Time to stop the arrow just inches from his face and then instantly close the distance and impale the Chosen Undead.
• Anytime the Dragonborn landed what looked like a killing blow, a sound effect all players know Dark Souls for plays, and just like that, the Chosen Undead respawns near the First Flame, ready for more. It says a lot that the Chosen Undead doesn't go down via Hollowing from too many deaths like it was warned they could in the analysis, they just keep trying to take out Dragonborn each time.
• The Dragonborn calls the dragon Odahviing who manages to burn the Chosen Undead to death. What is his response? A single arrow through Odahviing's skull, killing him. With how the Chosen Undead casually tosses his bow after the deed is done, he presumably just saw it as a mere annoyance.
• When the Dragonborn uses Storm Call to rain down bolts of lighting, what does the Chosen Undead do? Jump up, grab two lightning bolts, and uses them as his own Lightning Spears!
• For the final phase of the fight, the Chosen Undead takes up the Moonlight Greatsword while the Dragonborn picks up the Dawnbreaker, and the two go at it in a sword fight wielding the most iconic blades of their respective games.
• What does the Chosen Undead do after being stabbed with the Dawnbreaker for the first time? He shows extreme resilience by going in to try and choke the Dragonborn to death with the undead-slaying sword through his torso, uttering his only spoken line in the entire fight.
  Chosen Undead: Prepare... to die...
• The Chosen Undead exploiting the Logical Weakness of the Dragonborn's Shouts by casting Vow of Silence.
• Near the end of the fight, the Chosen Undead attempts to turn the tides by successfully linking the First Flame and turning into a Lord of Cinder. The Dragonborn puts a stop to that immediately with three simple words. The resulting shout disintegrates the Chosen Undead, and to make sure their Resurrective Immortality doesn't kick in again, it extinguishes the First Flame.
  FUS RO DAH!
• The simple fact that both fighters, in Wiz and Boomstick's own words, are comparable to mythological beings like previous combatants Hercules and Sun Wukong. This fight was practically two gods clashing once again.
• As pointed out in the comments, paying close attention to the battle shows that the Chosen Undead, despite being at the wrong end of the power level, is actually superior to the Dragonborn in melee combat. The Dragonborn only ever gets three solid hits in, and even then he needed to use his Shouts to get in close for two of them.

Killua VS Misaka

• Killua catching Misaka's railgun, despite being pushed back by the attack.
• When Killua uses his Rhythm Echo to overwhelm Misaka, he only manages to get a single hit in before she realizes that it's based on sound and not sight, throwing some iron sand down and listening for a disruption.
• Misaka summoning her 6 million ton iron sand kaiju gets all the pomp and circumstance it deserves, clawing its way onto the scene and causing a blackout in the city in the process. If that weren't enough, Misaka then uses the kaiju to flick a lightning bolt clean through a skyscraper.
  Misaka: Catch this.
• However, she misses Killua, who manages to leap into the sky using the lightning bolt as a springboard and notes that Misaka is keeping the behemoth together with electromagnetism, allowing him to collapse the entire kaiju with a single mighty bolt of his own.
  Killua, thinking: She's keeping this thing together with electromagnetism...
  Killua, speaking: ...meaning it can be disrupted!
  (The image of a snake poised to strike appears behind Killua as he sends down his attack.)
• From there, Killua is free to snatch Misaka's heart right out of her chest for a gruesome finale, but there's just one issue: that wasn't Misaka. The heart collapses into a mass of iron sand that restrains Killua, and from there, it's just a simple physics calculation that allows the Level-5 Esper to line up the killshot and turn the Zoldyck prodigy into a rain of blood.
  Misaka: Distance, 35 meters. Altitude, 45... 40... now.

Stitch VS Rocket Raccoon

• A series of clever ploys by Rocket end in a nuke going off in Stitch's face, with Rocket far away from the blast zone. Too bad for him that Stitch just takes it on the nose and surfs his way to his location while riding a spaceship wing like a surfboard.
• However, Stitch says something so horrifically rude to Rocket that it makes him want to puke, and believe it or not, this almost proves to be his undoing: in response, Rocket calls down the biggest, baddest gun in his arsenal and blasts Stitch so hard that he not only makes the Nigh-Invulnerable experiment bleed, but takes off two of his arms, sending him sinking below the depths of Space Hawaii. If Stitch had been a little less lucky, Rocket could have won right there, but either way Rocket joins the ranks of losers who permanently maimed the winner.
  Rocket: I guess you could call this my Thanosbuster! It's hunting season now, Fuzzball!
• But of course, Stitch does get lucky. Using some quick thinking, some leftover shrapnel from the ship, and Rocket's dropped missile launcher, he literally rockets out of the waters on an improvised missile, weaves around another shot from the Thanosbuster, impales Rocket on his contraption, and shreds Rocket's wrist-mounted control with his teeth for good measure, leaving the not-raccoon with no other recourse than to curse his fate as he crashes into his own weapons stash.
  Stitch: Aloha!^note It also works as a Bilingual Bonus as Aloha could mean "Hello" and "Goodbye"
  (Stitch bites into Rocket's gauntlet and explodes the circuitry. Rocket mutters in irritation and tries to get it working again, only to notice too late that he's going to crash into his own arsenal.)
  Rocket: MOTHERFU-
  (Boom goes Rocket.)
• The next time drops the mother of all bombshells via one of the most anticipated matches in the history of this show. Darth Vader VS. Obito Uchiha.

Darth Vader VS Obito Uchiha

• The first minute or so of the fight sees Vader powering through everything Obito throws at him, tossing him around with the Force, deflecting his chakra rods with lazy swings of his lightsaber, just straight-up walking through a column of fire no worse for wear, crushing his Sharingan when he tried to suck Vader into the Kamui dimension, and impaling him with his lightsaber when he tries attacking his back. Obito does get some good swings in, but it's clear he's fighting uphill during this first phase of the battle.
• Credit where it's due to Obito: Despite fighting the first bout completely on the back foot and ending up impaled by the lightsaber — something Vader clearly expects to be fatal, given that he simply stops to give what would otherwise be a Pre-Mortem One-Liner — he uses the lull in the fighting to provide a bit of Casual Danger Dialogue that reveals he is far from done before using his Intangible Man powers to phase away.
  Vader: All too easy. I expected more.
  Obito: (Chuckles while impaled on the lightsaber) I won't disappoint.
• And credit to Vader immediately afterward: even with Obito's Intangible Man powers revealed and left to fight essentially a ghost, Obito only manages a single knockback blow with his fan - after Vader destroys it with his thrown lightsaber, Vader shows why he is an Implacable Man par excellance: he begins walking towards Obito at a steady pace, and doesn't slow down. Obito shoots chakra recievers and tries to blow him up with a jutsu, and Vader keeps walking. It all serves to drive home a point: this is not a fight Obito wins in the physical.
• Even when Obito summons the Ten-Tails, Vader only offers a mere "Impressive." And his response to the Ten-Tails firing the Tailed-Beast Bomb? Catch it, minimize it, and detonate it himself.
• However, the tides begin to change when Obito becomes the Ten-Tails jinchuuriki, going against Vader's lightsaber on even ground with his staff, nimbly flying around him, and even obliterating one of Vader's limbs with a Truth-Seeking Orb before smashing his helmet with his staff.
• Even bereft of his lightsaber and suffering extensive damage to his limbs, Vader doesn't go down without a fight: his last attempt at taking down Obito sees him smashing his opponent into the God Tree before manually controlling his TIE Advanced x1 with the Force, firing a hail of lasers upon the shadow leader of the Akatsuki, and pulling him into his grip and choking him himself.
• However, Obito turned out to have set up something well before Anakin could do anything about it. As he's being choked out by Vader, Obito has this to say:
  Obito: Too late.
  (Cue the Wham Shot of the God Tree blossoming, activating the Infinite Tsukuyomi)
• While the conclusion of the fight is more of a tearjerker than an awesome moment, the end result is still Obito prevailing over one of the galaxy's most skilled and accomplished Force users: something not even his old comrade Kakashi can boast.

Phoenix VS Raven

• When Phoenix decides to send Raven to her death in the White Hot Room, Raven calls upon the power of Azarath to achieve her strongest form. While Jean calls upon her loved ones for strength, Raven gives an epic Shut Up, Hannibal! moment to Phoenix^note The reason the fight even began was because Phoenix deemed her lineage towards Trigon too dangerous and must be put out., before literally snuffing out her Phoenix flame.
  Phoenix: Scott, Charles, Everyone, give me strength!
  Raven: I am not the daughter of a demon, I am the daughter of Azarath! Azarath Metrion Zinthos!
  (Raven blast Phoenix and her flame off the face of existence, leaving behind a small ember that Raven blows out)
• The simple fact that Raven came into this fight as the underdog, given her previous fight was with Twilight Sparkle, as it was deemed she was no match for Phoenix. The host themselves acknowledged how, despite Raven's lack of notoriety, at least compared to the marvelous history of Phoenix and her power, Raven does in fact stack evenly with the infamous Phoenix force and more importantly, possess enough power to win the fight.
• With her victory over Phoenix, Raven has joined Iron Man, Doctor Doom and Shao Kahn as one of the rare few to win two separate Death Battles against different characters!
• The next time has generated a wave of hype. Guts makes his grand return to the show after a gap of 130 episodes and over eight years. And his opponent comes from a franchise that fans (and Ben) have been waiting to be on the show for years. The Black Swordsman against the Tempest King Dimitri!

Guts VS Dimitri

• The fight begins with an exchange of sword blows, spear strikes, and crossbow bolts that's only broken by Dimitri summoning a miniature thunderstorm upon Guts, but instead of getting struck, the Hundred Man Slayer instead dodges every bolt, speeds towards the Boar King, and smacks Dimitri with the flat of Dragonslayer before winding up for a punishing strike on his back, spilling first blood and making his opponent howl in pain.
• During a Blade Lock, Dimitri summons a lightning bolt that finally strikes Guts true, leaving his opponent to scream in agony as he summons spikes of ice from the earth, decisively impaling Guts.
• However, that isn't enough to put Guts down for good: as Dimitri rushes towards him, he lets loose a bunch of bomblets that stick to his armor and unleashes a blast from his prosthetic arm that sends both combatants flying.
• After the blast, there's no more holding back: Guts and Dimitri fully give into their madness and finally unleash everything they have, coming at each other at full strength and spilling blood all over the snow with Guts fully clad in the Berserker Armor and Dimitri enveloped in the glow of Awakening. However, in the end, it's Dimitri who wins this bloody exchange, first impaling the Berserker through the gut, then knocking off his helmet, and finally catapulting him into the air to finish the fight with Atrocity, diving down to the earth as he runs through Guts one last time and leaves his broken body in a pool of blood.
• But it turns out the Black Swordsman wasn't quite finished with him. His broken body grasps Dragonslayer, snaps Areadbhar in two when Dimitri attempts to block his surprise attack, and... stops. Dimitri then sees that the light of his eye has gone out, signifying that Guts has been given an extremely rare honor among Death Battle losers: dying on his own two feet in an unambiguously badass way, no humiliation involved.
• Even only armed with a broken spearhead, Dimitri still takes it upon himself to fend off the horde of demons vying for Guts's soul out of respect and empathy for his fallen foe's circumstances, and considering he's judged in the end to be freakishly powerful even compared to Guts, he just might pull it off.
  Dimitri: So we're both shackled to the dead. You foul beasts will not have his soul!
  (With a grin, Dimitri walks past Guts's body and leaps to battle the demon horde grimly laughing all the while, leaving the Black Swordsman's corpse still standing and holding Dragonslayer upright.)

Martian Manhunter VS Silver Surfer

• The presentation of the Death Battle which starts off as a black and white film noir in what looks like the office of a private detective before Silver Surfer escapes the office (which is a cubicle in outer space) before we get a title screen of the two combatants in an old-school Sci-film, Mind Over Matter.
• Martian Manhunter uses his shapeshifting powers to turn into a dragon of astronomical proportions, large enough to slice an entire planet to ribbons with a single swipe of its claws. And the Silver Surfer is still able to summon enough ice to completely freeze him solid.
• After being thrown into a star, Martian Manhunter is still able to Fight Off the Kryptonite and resist the immense heat, despite fire being his weakness. The result is that the two end up in a psychic duel in the middle of a flaming star, debating what even drives them to fight, until the Silver Surfer uses the Power Cosmic to cause a supernova which annihilates his opponent on the atomic level.

Bill Cipher VS Discord

• While definitely nightmarish, the fact that Bill managed to conquer Equestria as well as he did says a lot about how dangerously powerful he is, with Celestia and Luna and even the Mane Six being implied to not stand a chance as all of them were rendered mere decorations for his base.
• Discord pulling a Demonic Possession on Bill Cipher and then torching the mindscape in a direct reference to Bill's canon death. Discord's fourth-wall-breaking allows him to bypass the "Warriors can only know of each other if they do know each other in canon in both official universes." rule with ease, and he abuses this advantage with gusto. In response to this, Bill decides to take the kid gloves off, and reaches into his mindscape through his own eye to grab Discord's spirit. Special mention goes to his soul self outright punching Discord into his physical self's hand, almost mirroring his own defeat by Stanley's hands in the show as if to spite Discord's attempt to recreate his end.
  Discord: We may be evenly matched, Bill, but I've seen your show, my two-dimensional nuisance. And I know how you die...
  Bill: OHH... YOU THINK WE'RE EQUALS! THAT YOU'RE SAFE IN HERE, YOU LOW-EFFORT CLOWN?! I'M AN ALL... SEEING... GOD!!!
• The ending: After a failed attempt at recreating Bill's canon death and his spirit being slowly destroyed, Discord faces his death with dignity, but not without one final "fuck you" to Bill by kicking them both out of Equestria, ending Weirdmageddon and saving Fluttershy and the rest of Equestria, laughing even as Bill finished him off. Discord may have lost Death Battle, but he won the war.
  Discord: Well, hehehe... heh, it was worth a try... but still! I'm surprised you don't recognize...
  (The illusion of Canterlot shatters to show Bill is trapped in the Nightmare Realm again.)
  Discord: ...your old home.
  Bill: No... NO! No... No! No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-Noooooooooo!
  Discord: Oh Bill. AAAH HA HA HAAAAAAAAH!!
• True to Discord's character, much like Deadpool and Pinkie, Discord managed to do something more impressive than beating Bill: refuse to play the show's game. Rather than fighting to actually win the Death Battle (which would've been a nice bonus), he was fighting to win the plot of their battle from the very beginning. Even better, Discord did it by doing the same thing that resulted in Bill's canon defeat: exploiting his tunnel vision and performing a self-sacrifice. Both of Bill's defeats came about due to him not expecting his adversary to prioritize protecting the ones they love. Stan refused to make a deal with Bill to save himself from getting his own mind erased and took Bill with him. Likewise, Discord lures Bill back into the Nightmare Realm, undoing the latter's conquering of Equestria as the former planned from the very beginning, costing Bill his Weirdmageddon. When Discord said he saw how Bill died, the latter expected him to try to kill him with that knowledge, when in truth, Discord planned to use it to become the real winner. One of the info panels even states that like with Cosmos, Discord likely can never be destroyed for good as long as chaos exists and will eventually reform regardless, pretty much meaning that Bill winning the fight was rendered completely pointless. The best part is that one can actually pick the exact moment Discord pulled the wool over Bill's eye: when they emerged from the handpuppet universe through Discord's powers rather than random changes (as had been happening) or Bill's power. From there, the dimensional tear is almost always offscreen, but the brief glimpses in the background show it to be blue instead of the Nightmare Realm’s red from the beginning.
• And on top of all that, Discord came rather close to winning the actual Death Battle as well. Bill was glitching out in the exact same way he was when he was dying in the Gravity Falls Finale before he yanked Discord out of his mindscape. Discord's carefree Smug Super nature, amplified by the fact that he had effectively already won, and that his death wouldn't stick anyway were likely the only reason that Bill managed to drag him out fast enough to avoid being destroyed.
• To add to the glory of it all, consider that the last episode had Martian Manhunter and Silver Surfer both realize that something is compelling them to try and kill each other even though neither of them want to, ending with the winner devastated at killing a great man for no good reason. Having Discord screw over a monster like Bill and ensuring said monster is left with no one to be pissed at other than the two guys who pitted them against each other and let Bill conquer Equestria in the first place, despite dying as a result (even if he'll come back eventually), it wouldn't be too far-fetched to say that Discord avenged them as well.
• In spite of Discord screwing him out of conquering Equestria and sealing him back in the Nightmare Realm, Bill calms down and takes it in stride, stating it doesn't matter and then promptly asking the viewer(s) to make a deal with him... which then leads to a subtle moment of awesome for the audience. At the end, Bill is screaming at the co-hosts and threatening them to "let [him] out" of the Realm. This implies that he has found no one to make a deal with him and set him free. Whether it was thanks to the rundown detailing Bill's abilities and many, many crimes, the sacrifice Discord made to save his home and loved ones touching the hearts of those watching, or Boomstick's own "public service announcement" warning against it, it's clear no one is dumb enough to fall for a Deal with Bill Cipher, and he can't do a damn thing about it other than petulantly demand Wiz and Boomstick to let him out themselves; which, considering he was already knocked out of a possessed Wiz in the show by Boomstick, is rather unlikely. Ultimately, it means that besides removing Discord from the picture — for what will likely only be a short while regardless — Bill ends up being the only Death Battle winner to completely and utterly lose in every single way.
  Bill Cipher: (furiously screaming) LET ME OUT, OR I'LL EAT YOUR DREAMS!

Cole MacGrath VS Alex Mercer

• A heavy emphasis is placed on the combatant's respective skills in parkour, letting the both of them leap and dodge around the city with agility that would make Spider-Man jealous.
• The actual battle is beautiful, with the camera angles, dialog, and scope coming off as the final battle of a superhero movie.
• After grabbing Cole and launching him into a nearby building, Alex unleashes his Tendril Barrage Devastator. Cole's response? Use the tendrils as a grind rail, before launching a blast that consumes Alex in a cloud of smoke. What follows is the two of them battling all over the city, fitting the free roaming style of their games.
• Midway through the fight, Alex uses his tendrils to hurl two helicopters at Cole in order to crush him, following it up with a semitruck. Cole's response? Use the first helicopter as a springboard, leap through the blades of the second helicopter, before activating his Ionic Storm to catch the truck in a tornado. Alex is undeterred by this, using his stealth skills to tackle Cole in the middle of the Ionic Storm to gruesomely injure the Conduit.
• As Alex has Cole pinned against an electrical tower, he attempts to convince Cole to join him in taking over and usurping mankind. Cole in return, tells Alex to shove it, before summoning a bolt of lightning to strike the tower as a lightning rod, then absorbs the charge from the tower to force Alex off of him. Cole activates his Gigawatt Blades, and in response, Alex assumes his armored form, before the two charge in.
  Alex: So much power... And yet you waste it on these vermin! You and I can change this world for the better!
  Cole: The only vermin I see here... is YOU!
• What follows is a straight-up slugfest on the roof, as both Cole and Alex hammer at each other, culminating in Alex stopping Cole's charge cold, before launching the both of them into the sky in a single bound.
• As the two are launched into the clouds, Alex proceeds to impale Cole through the chest with his blade, aiming to consume the Conduit and take all of his powers completely. Alex's tendrils surround Cole, nearly consuming him completely... only for Cole to go into Karmic Overload. In an instant, all of Alex's tendrils and armor disappear, and Cole grabs him by the front of his jacket, proceeding to absorb all of Mercer's bioelectricity, before he then uses the Thunder Drop to smash Alex into the city like an electrified meteor. When the dust settles, the Saint of New Marais is left standing with the last bit of Alex's biomass in his hand, before obliterating it and dropping a Bond One-Liner to end all Bond One-Liners.
  Alex: You don't want to give me your power! AHAHAHAHAHAH! FINE! I'll just take it!
  (Cole is wrapped in tendrils before he enters Karmic Overload and destroys them all and Mercer's Armor.)
  Cole: Good idea.
  (Cole proceeds to drain Alex of all his bioenergy, before vaporizing him with the Thunder Drop)
  Cole: This world sure isn't perfect... but it's a lot better without you in it, asshole.
• It is also stated that had they used Evil Cole, things would had gotten much worse for Alex. So basically, even when Cole is effectively handicapped due to this being Good Cole, he still manages to win the fight.

Frieza VS Megatron

• At the very start of the fight, Frieza demands Megatron surrender Cybertron to him. When he refuses, Frieza forms a Death Ball to destroy the planet, which Megatron reflects right back at him, destroying Frieza's entire fleet while the tyrant doesn't even bother trying to get out of the way. Frieza emerges from the smoke in his final form and completely unscathed, being more annoyed than anything else.
  Frieza: Pity, I’ll have to construct a new mothership from your corpse!
• Megatron effortlessly reflecting Frieza's Death Ball had the tyrant skip his second and third form and jump straight to his final form. Sure, Frieza has two super modes to draw on later, but making him take the fight so seriously out of the gate is no small feat for Megatron.
• At one point, Frieza manages to trap Megatron in a ki sphere and proceeds to slam the Deception leader into Cybertron which leads to a massive explosion visible from space. And as the smoke clears, Frieza tries to find his prey... Only for Megatron, now in tank-form, to emerge from the smoke and snipe the emperor with a full-power blast, knocking him into space. Frieza's response? Bust out the Golden form and show no mercy.
• Golden Frieza's Transformation Sequence itself is an awesome moment, lasting a good twenty seconds as Frieza poses grandiosely, all while Ominous Latin Chanting goes off in the background.
• After Golden Frieza conjures a planet-busting Death Ball to throw at Cybertron, Megatron meets him by firing his fusion cannon at the ground to propel himself close enough to beam struggle with it, cackling with glee as he does so. Golden Frieza breaks it by using his telekinesis to slam Cybertron into him and seal the planet's fate.
• At the end of the fight, Frieza prepares to finish off Megatron, smiting down his attempt to strike with his eye lasers with his own. However, Megatron still has one final trump card in his corner: The ability to channel Antimatter, and in a split second Megatron realizes he needs to switch up his tactic: Frieza has shown himself capable of transforming to more powerful forms throughout the fight, and Megatron knows he will need Frieza to have no surprises left for him when he unleashes his final trump card - how does he ensure Frieza is coming at him with everything he has despite being more than a match at the current state of battle? By making Frieza angry. Megatron proceeds to utterly wound the alien tyrant's ego, reminding him that a victory in this battle has cost him the reason he came here to start with and every ship and soldier in the force he brought with him to Cybertron. It gets the intended result, Frieza unleashes everything he has - and just like that, Megatron's trap has caught Frieza hook, line, and sinker.
  Megatron: (as antimatter begins to course from his body) Behold, the mighty Lord Frieza, ruler of a dying planet, my planet. Where is your army? Where is your ship? So powerful, and yet you will wander the depths of space for eternity, all because of me! What a fool.
  Frieza: (transforms into Black Frieza, now going through an enraged Villainous Breakdown) You despicable cretinous worm! I'll torture you until your screams can be heard in the vacuum of space!
  Megatron: Die a fool's death.
  (As Black Frieza charges in to finish off Megatron, he suddenly finds himself being surrounded and blasted with antimatter, the tyrant screaming in agony as he's fully consumed in a massive eruption of antimatter)
• But just when it seems Megatron has completely annihilated his opponent, he's cut in half by a Death Saucer from Frieza, who's also missing half his body plus an arm, but is still alive and done playing around. Megatron makes one final attack, only for Frieza to fire a trio of Death Saucers at him, which don't just decapitate Megatron, but keep going and slice Cybertron itself in half and accelerate the planet's destruction to an immediate explosion. Frieza emerges from the ensuing explosion and makes it clear that he isn't going to repeat the same mistake he made of leaving some Saiyans alive with the remaining Cybertronians... but the fact that just one nearly killed him at his full power makes it clear he didn't learn from the right mistake.
  Frieza: Cybertronians... Must... kill them all...
• Worth noting: despite being outclassed in terms of raw power in nearly every way, it's still concluded that Megatron could have actually beaten Frieza in several scenarios thanks to being just that much more skilled, experienced, and intelligent than Frieza is, along with having the antimatter that potentially could have killed the tyrant. This is reflected in the animation, as Megatron is shown outwitting or coming out Frieza's better in actual skill repeatedly throughout the battle to gain the upperhand.
• What could follow a fight between two of fiction's most iconic galactic conquerors? Well, a fight between the two iconic anime demon-hunters of the modern age and one of the most requested matchups of not just the show, but an endless debate within many anime communities. Gojo vs Makima.

Gojo VS Makima

• The fact that, for the first time ever, this match up was so mechanically unusual that Wiz and Boomstick had to introduce special rules just for this fight. Not even Bill vs Discord, a fight between two all powerful Reality Warpers could claim that.
  • More specifically, they added a rule stating that Curses and Devils would be treated as the same, and due to this, as revealed at the end of the fight, one of the reasons for Gojo's victory was because Makima couldn't actually control him because she didn't view Gojo as inferior to her. Not only is that some serious Villain Respect, but it also shows how powerful Makima's mind control would have been otherwise, since Gojo's birth shifting the power balance between humans and Curses wouldn't normally apply to Devils like her, and there probably wouldn't even be a fight in the first place.
• Gojo rips through Makima's Devils and Fiends like so much cannon fodder, but in all the excitement, he pulls in Makima with Blue, which prompts the Control Devil to point at him and blast a hole in him with Bang, setting off a chain of shots that reduces the strongest sorcerer to a bloodied, one-legged mess bound by one of her chains, becoming one of the only people who's made the normally invincible Gojo fear for his life, even for a brief moment.
  • Furthermore, even after being hit by 4 of Makima's Bangs, Gojo is still able to laugh slightly. He's not the strongest sorcerer in his home series for nothing.
• However, Gojo ends up paying her back in full, using his brain refresh and the Reversed Curse Technique to break free of Makima's Control and heal his bullet wounds before momentarily reducing her to a charred cadaver while frying her remaining devils by expanding the range of Limitless. After growing his leg back, Gojo immediately hits her with Domain Expansion: Unlimited Void. Even as she readies another Bang, Makima is a hair too slow and can only stare in shock as an immeasurable quantity of stimuli continuously fries her brain while Gojo charges up Hollow Purple, leading to the Honored One completely wiping out the Horseman of Control and ending her reign of terror.
  Gojo: Should I bark too? (eyes glow) And I'm getting really tired of your pets. [...] Throughout Heaven and Earth, I alone am the honored one.
  • Gojo even manages to do what no one in Makima's home series ever managed to do: cause her to lose her composure, screaming in terror as Hollow Purple annihilates her.

Scooby-Doo VS Courage

• Courage lives up to his name by casually ripping himself in half to dodge a laser beam. Remember, Courage feels all the pain he experiences, and yet he willingly subjects himself to the unimaginable pain of bisection without hesitation.
• Midway through the fight, Scooby duplicates himself, puts on two dresses, and proceeds to put on a perfect Zobrinsky Triangle with an unwilling Courage that cracks the hosts' monitor and makes their eyes burn. And in the aftermath of this feat of cosmic destruction, Courage is just left slightly singed, laughing it off.
• In the fight's climax, after taking Computer's advice to use bones to win the fight, Courage decides to use the Dark Matter Meteor to summon the God Bone... but instead of using it to hypnotize Scooby, he decides to slam it into him and the Mystery Van.
  Computer: All dogs love their bones, don't they?
  Courage: Uh-huh! Uh-huh!
• However, this then leads into Scooby devouring an entire Mystery Van's worth of Scooby Snacks AND the God Bone. Repeat: Many dogs died to the God Bone's addictive taste, and even Courage struggled to escape it, but Scooby Doo hopped up on Scooby Snacks ate it like an after-dinner mint.
• Eating the God Bone results in Scooby Doo growing into a planet-dwarfing titan. And in a shot straight out of Asura's Wrath, the Great Dane sends his fist driving down towards Courage... who in response screams so loud it shatters the giant Scooby. And even that isn't enough to kill him, as Scooby comes crashing down like a meteor, slamming straight into Courage... with both coming out scathed, but still alive. It should be mentioned that Courage's scream doesn't just shatter the massive Scooby, but also momentarily drowns out the background music of the fight itself.
  Scooby: (readying his planet punch) SCOOBY-DOOBY-DOOOOO!!!
• Surprisingly, the fight ends in a draw. Thanks to their crossover, both Scooby and Courage were ruled as equals outside of their strategies, with both being able to counter each other's trump cards indefinitely. Wiz and Boomstick end up accepting the outcome since while neither could kill the other, Scooby and Courage did provide someone else far more deserving to take their place... Eustace Bagge. What really cements this however, is that unlike Chuck Norris Vs. Segata Sanshiro or Deadpool vs Pinkie Pie, this was NOT a joke battle, with the result coming from both combatants having just the right amount of feats and tools to completely match the other blow for blow.
• Much like the reactions to Gojo vs. Makima's announcement, what could be the best idea for a fight following up animation's most popular cowardly canines? A fight between two of televisions most popular time-travelers, and another one of the communities most wanted matchups. Rick Sanchez up against The Doctor!

Rick Sanchez VS The Doctor

• Rick's Crow Sword versus The Doctor's spoon. The spoon wins.
  The Doctor: Alright, fine. Queensberry rules? A bit of Venusian karate?
  Rick: (pulls out his crow sword) Keep quipping, asshole. Maybe you'll find a good joke on the ground next to your teeth.
  The Doctor: (smirking and pulls out a spoon) En garde!
• While traveling through different dimensions via Rick's portal gun, Rick and The Doctor find themselves surrounded by Weeping Angels. Rather than give his opponent actual useful information about them, The Doctor gives the opposite of his famous "don't blink" advice and instead tells Rick to blink rapidly because the Weeping Angels are scared of rapid movement. Rick does so and is quickly surrounded. By the time he realizes he's been played The Doctor has already left him to his fate.
• Rick's scheme to get the upper hand counts as well; after distracting The Doctor with decoy Ricks vandalizing the TARDIS, he places a portal on his back and comes out of it to finally land true hits on the Time Lord.
• However, that only leads into The Doctor getting the final laugh, ripping into Rick's outlook as Regeneration begins. And to avoid any issues, he uses the Sonic Screwdriver to put Rick's laser gun out of commission.
  The Doctor: I know your type. The nihilist know-it-all. But through all this wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey rubbish, there's one thing you never quite understood. I'm The Doctor. And I don't wanna go.
  • The final sentence doesn't sound like much in a vacuum, but two of The Doctor's regenerations have a "Facing the Bullets" One-Liner about "letting go" of their former bodies and personalities. In addition, regenerations in the New Series are usually accompanied by an immense, devastating outpouring of temporal energies that completely destroy their surroundings^note At one point, the Doctor obliterated a warship with said energy, and struggling against this regeneration only prolongs this temporal devastation. In other words: by saying he "doesn't wanna go" The Doctor reveals he is fully intent on weaponizing his Resurrective Immortality. As well as being an amazing mythology gag to the last line said by the Tenth Doctor before he turned into the Eleventh.
  • As the Sonic Screwdriver makes Rick's laser gun explode it also causes his portal gun to misfire - seemingly at random. It is only on a rewatch that this comes in as a bit of Xanatos Speed Chess: The Doctor knows he has the corresponding portal on his back, and this new portal is set up in such a way that it has a nigh-unobstructed view of the entire TARDIS's interior. Meaning the Doctor, with his laser-dodging ability, is now in a perfect position to direct any laser-speed shot In the Back right back at his attacker.
• The killing blow. After Rick shoots his DNA into The Doctor, chestbursting out of him mid-regeneration, he grabs the D-Mat gun and fires - but even with both his hearts shot, a giant hole in his chest where Rick burst from, and mid-regeneration, The Doctor manages to turn around and use the portal from the misfiring portal gun to redirect the shot towards Rick, erasing the rival time traveler from history in a true display of McCoy-esque Xanatos Speed Chess. As Rick now never existed, every injury that the Doctor sustained from the battle no longer exists either, leaving him back with Morty in the space cruiser no worse for wear and without having needed to regenerate at all. As far as anyone but The Doctor is concerned in-universe, this battle never happened.
• What makes the Doctor's win even more impressive is that technically, it's the very first pacifistic victory. While he was willing to offer a traditional spar ("Queensbury rules? A bit of Venusian karate?"), he spent the majority of the fight either defending himself or running away. He technically didn't even land the killing blow since he simply redirects Rick's shot from the D-Mat gun back onto him. To put it simply, The Doctor essentially won without so much as throwing a single punch.
• Whether persisting as a ghost or preemptively storing a holographic AI inside the space cruiser, Rick has managed to cheat his way out of being retroactively erased from time. So long as his mind persists, he can direct someone (probably Morty) to build him a new body to inhabit.
• The next time for this one? It seems that we'll be taking a trip to the past in order to settle an age old rivalry for the third time: It's Goku Vs. Superman 3.

Goku vs Superman (2023)

• At the beginning of the fight, the relationship is made clear; Goku in his Super Saiyan form is tossing Superman around, asking if he's really okay with holding back. Superman's response as he launches himself into the fight again? Yes, he absolutely is, and if Goku wants more out of him, the onus will be on Goku to necessitate it.
  Goku: You're holding back! Give it your all! (...) No regrets!
  Superman: I'm doing just fine.
• As the battle goes into space, Goku lands a beautiful three-inch punch after a narrow dodge - showing that with his martial arts skill, any opening is exploitable. Despite being a punch of mere inches, the force blow is enough to send Superman flying a long way.
• Goku follows it up with a flurry of Ki-blasts, which Superman begins deflecting like they were nothing but beachballs being launched at him... Then we see what just one of those ki blasts can do when it is accidentally deflected into the moon, and the moon immediately becomes past-tense. These two are now so powerful that they are casually using and deflecting attacks with the power to blow up celestial bodies by accident.
• With Goku confirming his intent to undo the damage of the fight, Superman decides to stop holding back: With lightning coursing around him and a fist so highly tensed that it's practically vibrating, he begins hitting Goku so hard that we see flashes of other versions of the pair fighting with every blow he lands. ^note The first blow sees Super Saiyan 4 Goku fighting Electric Superman, two 90s versions of our heroes that has divided their fanbases. The second blow shows Goku Black fighting Ultraman, evil versions of our heroes. The final blow shows Xenoverse Goku fighting Superman's Cosmic Robot, multiversal variations of our heroes.
• Just how impossible is Superman's strength? After he stops holding back it takes him just three blows and a wall-toss to knock Goku out of his Super Saiyan forms. Just four impacts from Kal-El leaves the Saiyan running on fumes and (ultra) instincts.
• At one point in the fight, Superman's heat vision cleanly cleaves the tops off of an entire mountain range.
• Credit to Ultra Instinct: It puts Superman on the back foot. This is a technique which will push Goku's body past its limit if it is required to dodge, and while there is no doubt Ultra Instinct is pushing Goku harder than he ever has... it's working. He's doing Punch Catches, dodging or parrying each of Superman's blows, and exploiting openings with such speed it occasionally looks like Superman is standing still. Throughout the entire time Goku is in Ultra Instinct, Superman never manages to land an unblocked hit (though the one he does land sends Goku flying in the aerial equivalent of a Knockback Slide), all the while taking several of Goku's. This relentless assault leaves Superman with no option but to use the Super Flare just to get some breathing room.
  • This one bears special mention, as the Super Flare was brought up in their last fight — and treated with the same level of importance as Goku's God Ki — but never actually used in the animation. Here, Goku puts Clark on the back foot enough to the point he's forced to use it.
• For the finale:
  • Superman, feeling the drain of the Super Flare and faced with Goku in his Ultra Instinct, decides that he needs to supercharge himself. With distance bought by the Super Flare, he flies into space and practically plays 'connect the dots' with every single yellow star in the inner galaxy to power up, looping around back to into Earth's sun for a double-dip and emerging out of it in a shining gold color, practically resembling Superman One-Million Prime as he charges in to finish the fight.
  • Goku, watching the aura of yellow sunlight charging towards Earth, doesn't back down - excited that his opponent is finally pushing himself beyond his limits, he fires a massive Kamehameha with a width the size of a continent right at Superman.
    Goku: (With a beaming smile on his face) Finally!
  • Superman uses his heat vision to part the Kamehameha as he flies right through it, and this forces Goku into using the Kaio-Ken, the sheer power of which causes the Earth to explode... From the recoil alone!
  • Despite his heat vision being overpowered, Superman is undaunted and continues to power through the Kamehameha, and - sensing the incoming danger - Goku's Ultra Instinct aura forms around him to do a gigantic Punch Parry with the incoming Superman. The forces of the clash causes the whole universe to disappear, and as everything lights up within the void of the universe... It's revealed through the new halo over Goku's head that Superman has won yet again, though Clark does admit that he "almost had him" and happily accepts a potential future sparring match with Goku, capping things off with a respectful fist-bump between Kryptonian and Saiyan.
  Superman: Almost had me, there! That was actually pretty fun.
  Goku: (chuckles) Yeah, it sure was. But I'll be stronger next time!
  Superman: I look forward to it!
  Goku: (as they look out at various alternate universes of themselves battling, Goku offers a fistbump) Let's go again.
  Superman: (returns it) You're on!
• At the start of the post-fight analysis, Boomstick ends up pointing out that if Goku was fighting any other individual version of Clark aside from the main version that he was up against for the episode, the Earth-raised Super Saiyan would have been victorious; which not only shows how insane the main Superman is at present, but also how much Goku has improved since their infamous rematch in Season 2. In particular, in both the original Goku Vs Superman and the rematch, Superman was noted to effectively dominate every physical category. Now? While Clark is still deemed to be much stronger than Goku is at this point, and with counters to most of his arsenal, Goku was actually deemed Clark's equal in speed, and his superior in combat skill. Shown by Goku managing to parry and dodge Superman's rush early on – which the Kryptonian silently acknowledges during the exchange – and exploit an opening for a punishing counter during their fight in the upper atmosphere.
• With this fight, Superman becomes the very first DEATH BATTLE! combatant to have won three whole matches without a loss!
• In the first battle, Superman saw Goku as a nuisance at best and a menace at worst. Come the third battle, however, and he's really come to respect Goku; happy to go along with his fight-happy antics.
• The mere fact the the fight is not a Curb-Stomp Battle, unlike what the last two fights seemed to imply. Goku may have been outmatched in strength and durability, but having the same speed and superior fighting skills means that he actually had a chance this time.
• When going over how hotly-debated the Goku vs. Superman debate is in general near the end, what are the video snippets shown to emphasize the sheer popularity of the matchup? The Epic Rap Battles of History episode for Goku vs. Superman, the other big Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny on YouTube.
• The next time? The number one most requested match in DEATH BATTLE! history, Galactus vs Unicron! In time for Christmas too!!

Galactus vs Unicron

• The battle begins with Earth's destruction. Not as an ambush a la Beerus vs Galaxia, not as sustenance, but as a mere stone that Unicron decided to smash over Galactus's head. That is the emphasis on the scale at work here.
• The sheer escalating scale of the battle between two reality-warping, planet-eating, cosmos-breaking beings transcends most other Death Battles. They start off hitting or throwing planets at each other, then entire stars, then entire galaxies - with each of them tough enough to completely ignore the impact of it all - and they scale their bodies to planetary, stellar, and galactic proportions while at it. The powers they unleash literally quakes the universe they are in, and thanks to the Ultimate Nullifier the climax of the battle involves nothing short of the destruction/(re)creation of the entire MULTIVERSE.
• After Unicron is cut in half, his spark is seen leaving, escaping into the depths of space. As Galactus taunts his opponent for fleeing the battle, Unicron reveals that's not what he's doing as he begins to vacuum up solar systems to fuel himself.
  Galactus: Fleeing so readily, Unicron?
  Unicron: No, Devourer. Transforming!
• At one point, the two titans begin delivering their monologues in poetry, specifically in Shakespearian Iambic Pentameter, matching each other both physically and mentally while creating a sense of epic scope never before explored in Death Battle.
  Unicron: BEG NOT FOR MERCY. BEHOLD BLACKENED SKIES. AGAINST MINE CHAOS, EVEN GODS WILL DIE.
  Galactus: GALACTUS MEETS YOUR CHALLENGE, HEARS YOUR CALL. THIS WORLD, WE'LL BRING DESTRUCTION TO IT ALL.
  Unicron: THE END, DESTRUCTION, PURE FINALITY. IN FIRST AND LAST, TRUE IMMORTALITY.
  Galactus: [Pulling out the Ultimate Nullifier] I HAVE NO PATIENCE LEFT. RETURN THY DREAMS. ENTER THE VOID, WHERE NONE MAY HEAR YOUR SCREAMS.
  [Unicron possesses the Ultimate Nullifier]
  Galactus: YOU KNOW NOT THE POWER WHICH YOU COMMAND.
  Unicron: OF COURSE I DO. YOUR DEATH, I THUS DEMAND.
• At the very end of the fight Unicron turns the Ultimate Nullifier against Galactus and fires it, seemingly erasing the Devourer of Worlds from existence… only for Galactus to emerge from his pocket dimension, his size dwarfing Unicron. He then proceeds to feed on the Chaos Bringer, absorbing him until there is nothing left. All while Unicron could do nothing but scream in agony until his death.
  Galactus: I'VE SEEN YOUR POWER, BRINGER OF CHAOS, YET BY MY VIGOR THOU HAST MUCH NEED. WITNESS THE LAST FATE THAT AWAITS YOU THUS, FOR ALMIGHTY GALACTUS MUST NOW FEED!
• Special mentions have to go to the animators for making Unicron's bulky G1 design, which in almost all of his previous appearances in past Transformers media is depicted as slow and ungainly, look just as dynamic and agile as the comparatively minuscule Optimus Prime and Megatron. Additionally, most instances of anime dub-style purple prose tend to take away from the story and action, but the delivery of Galactus and Unicron's lines combined with the presentation of the whole fight makes it instead an elevating element for the entire package.

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