Young Justice Watches Death Battle
is an MST-style reaction fanfic written by Firestorm808 in which the members of the team and the Justice League (following the end of Young Justice (2010) season 1) watch and react to episodes of DEATH BATTLE!.
Contrasting most reaction fanfics for Death Battle, the author alters and re-writes the scripts for the episodes. While this is done to correct research errors he found in the original episodes, the primary reason behind it is to avoid the copyright infringement problems that most MST fics tend to suffer from.
The story currently has (disregarding the prologue) 24 episodes and three interludes so far.
Note: All SPOILERS are unmarked!!!
Young Justice Watches Death Battle provides examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion: The research for some fights is more detailed than it was in the series, often going into detail over nearly everything about the characters so that the team and League can learn as much as possible. The author also makes it a point to add calculations that weren't in the original battles for feats done by the characters, whether or not the feats were acknowledged in the canon fight.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
- In Young Justice (2010),
Word of God states that Alfred kept his relationship with Bruce strictly professional instead of becoming a Parental Substitute like his comics counterpart. Here, their relationship is similar to the comics. - Unlike the comics and the same in Young Justice (2010), Batman and Bane never fought each other as the latter never left Santa Prisca. This leads to the Young Justice and Justice League being horrified of the possibility of Bruce being permanently crippled after witnessing a clip from The Dark Knight Rises with Bane (who has the physical appearance of his Pre-Titan Arkhamverse counterpart) easily defeating Batman and doing the infamous Hoist Hero over Head Dramatic Spine Injury on him in "Batman vs Spider-Man", and Bruce grimacing such possibility while making a mental note to keep tabs on his universe's Bane.
- In Young Justice (2010),
- Adaptational Alternate Ending:
- Downplayed. In their battle, Spawn still wins, but he takes pity on Kratos and (with some coaxing from Pandora), gives him the one thing the gods couldn't: freedom from his horrid past.
- "Pikachu vs. Blanka" is the first episode to have a completely different winner, ending with Pikachu defeating Blanka, as opposed to the original where Blanka won by eating Pikachu.
- Deconstructed. Unlike the original DEATH BATTLE Season Finale, "Goku vs Superman" ends with the Saiyan warrior defeating Superman instead. However, despite Firestorm808 firmly telling the readers that he won't change his mind, the combination of
Fan-Disliked Explanation and backlash regarding the "usual debate between Goku and Superman" forces him to delete the original 25th episode and put the fic on hiatus to do "thorough research" for the revised version.
- Adaptational Badass: Thanks to the redone research, some characters have much better showings and feats compared to their original fights. Sonic (and later Metal Sonic by extension), have light-speed movement in their original first battles in the show compared to their hypersonic speeds in the canonical fights in the main series.
- Adaptational Early Appearance:
- The "Batman vs Spider-Man" Death Battle episode is watched after "TMNT Battle Royale" instead as the third to the finale of season 1.
- By the end of "Pikachu vs Blanka", Wally tried to pull out the disk to showcase "Goku vs Superman" only to be confused about finding two disks instead.
- Always Someone Better: The team and League tend to be amazed by the feats and abilities the various combatants (including their alternate counterparts) showcase and how far and away said fighters surpass them.
- A frequent occurrence is Wally bemoaning how damn near every combatant in the show that has Super-Speed is much faster than him. (Perhaps ironically, the "Wally West vs. Archie Sonic" Death Battle all but states that he has the potential to become the fastest Flash of them all.)
- The team considers Kratos, and even the League, to be stronger than Superman, though they are referring to their version (Earth-16), which hasn't displayed levels of super-strength near what Kratos has shown. That being said, with Kratos' extensive use of magical weapons, he'd certainly be a challenge.
- Alternate Self:
- The mainline comics versions of the team and League are treated as alternate counterparts to them.
- Nabu and Zatara are seen interacting with an alternate version of Dr. Fate, who is a younger Kent Nelson a la the Injustice 2 version.
- Beautiful Singing Voice: To Batman's utter horror, the "Batman vs. Spiderman" episode shows his DC Animated Universe counterpart singing jazz to rescue Wonder Woman, leading everyone to decide he's no longer allowed to skip karaoke.
- Broken Pedestal: This is the reaction of Aqualad and Wonder Woman during the "Kratos vs. Spawn" episode when they learn about the various atrocities and horrors wrought by the Olympians in the God of War series. With Aqualad being a worshiper of Poseidon and Diana adhering to the Greek pantheon, learning about the dark side of the gods hits them hard.
- Charles Atlas Superpower: When witnessing Batman's pre-analysis in "Batman vs Spider-Man", both the Young Justice and Justice League are impressed and amazed by Bruce's peak human physical abilities; bench-pressing 1000 pounds, great aim and reflexes that are second to Green Arrow regarding accuracy (something that Oliver smugly point out), catching arrows fired from Green Arrow (much to Oliver's dismay of seeing the on-screen Batman catching his arrows), dodge bullets from multiple gunfire and attacks from speedsters, and extensive mastery of 127 martial arts.
- Composite Character: In Thor's first battle with Raiden, he's mostly based on his Earth's Mightiest Heroes version with a few elements from the comics.
- Crazy-Prepared: Ironically, despite the trope's name, Batman has Alfred psychologically evaluate him to ensure he isn't going crazy.
- Damsel in Distress: This gets lampshaded at the start of the "Zelda vs. Peach" fight. Diana never understood why this is common in Western folklore, with Clark stating that Lois doesn't really do anything to avert the stereotype.
- The Dreaded: Played for Laughs. Upon seeing an older Batman beating down a weakened Superman from Part 2 of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Clark and the Young Justice become quite nervous about ever facing Bruce.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The story starts out very much like your typical "characters react to another series" story. As it goes on, the dialogue of the episodes is altered, and more emphasis on research and reactions to the characters as both people and combatants take center stage.
- Fix Fic: The battles are altered with different dialogue and research. While not a whole lot changes, for the most part, the author does go out of his way to make corrections to where he saw mistakes in the original series. The main rule regarding these changes is that only information available at the time of the fight is used and any new details released after the fight first aired will be ignored.
- Hypocritical Humor: Despite the similarities pointed out by Superman and Green Arrow between him and Spawn, along with everyone agreeing, Bruce firmly refuses to acknowledge himself as anything like Spawn since he's a "government soldier". Upon seeing and hearing Boomstick's mention in the pre-analysis of an Alternate Self of Batman teaming up with Spawn twice, Bruce can only comment on how "insane" his alternate counterpart must be...so says the "picture perfect of mental health'' to everyone's eye-roll and Robin's snort.
- Hypocrite Has a Point: While Bruce isn't "emotionally" stable himself, his comment on his Alternate Self "insanity" does have its points given that it's the GODDAMN Batman of all his multiversal counterparts.
- "Let's Watch Our Show" Plot: While it's not exactly a straight example, it does involve the Young Justice and Justice League of Earth-16 to see other versions of themselves displayed in Death Battle.
- Lighter and Softer: Some of the battles have less gruesome bloodshed compared to the originals. "Kratos vs. Spawn" ends with Kratos being redeemed rather than impaled through the head while "Mario vs. Sonic" sees Mario being jettisoned into space in statue form rather than ripped to shreds by Sonic's spin attack.
- Other Me Annoys Me: The Young Justice and Justice League would sometimes find themselves annoyed or horrified by certain actions committed by their on-screen selves depicted in Death Battle.
- Real Men Love Jesus: Clark is a bit conflicted on the idea that Spawn was powerful enough to defeat God since he was raised in the Methodist religion.
- She Is All Grown Up: Wally and Dick both have this reaction upon seeing the adult DCAU version of Zatanna in the "Batman vs. Spider-Man" episode.Wally: Holy crap! Look at Zatanna!
- Take Over the World: During "Eggman vs. Wily", the team and Leaguers, after hearing the two combatants' goals for world domination, lampshade this trope and how every mad scientist's endgame is to rule the world in some capacity.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted with Batman. He has Alfred psychologically evaluate him and provide therapy to avoid the issues that would come with not seeing a shrink after all he's been through.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Contrasting his original rundown in Season 1 (which was just a large "The Reason You Suck" Speech and an overall Take That! to his character), Michelangelo's rundown here is far more fair to his character and goes over the benefits of his fighting style as well as the noble aspects of his personality rather than just treat him like a Butt-Monkey stoner.
- You Remind Me of X: The team and League lampshade how the combatants outside of DC are very similar to either themselves or their enemies. Green Arrow even calls Metal Sonic "Amazo 2.0" thanks to his absurd power replication abilities.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: Zatanna reacts with horror when she sees Shang Tsung's ability to steal souls, as consuming souls is considered one of the most evil forms of magic there is.
