Hiddleston Loki isn’t even the strongest Loki, he gets utterly owned in all of his appearances, which admittedly is pretty common for Loki depictions going back to the source.
In terms of story structure, I don’t think any trickster can ever be the most powerful character in any story in which they appear. Even in stories where a trickster wins, it must be by besting a more powerful opponent through cleverness or subterfuge, as this is the essence of the trickster.
@Matt Not sure where you got that source. Mythology loki has barely any appearances and most notably loses a LOT. Specifically to Thor. There’s not enough left of that mythology otherwise to say anything about Loki from the source.
He was winning a bunch as a good guy, but the narrative kinda forced him back into a villainous role. Highly recommend Journey into Mystery and Young Avengers by Kieron Gillen
That was a decade ago. Loki got a new series, Agent of Asgard, that redefined his status quo as a chaotic good genderfluid extremely bisexual trickster.
But cleverness is part of their strength. I’m not entirely sure about Coyote, but Anansi pretty much always comes out ahead. And Odysseus in the Iliad the same. (Although I suppose you could argue that the Odyssey is him getting his for beating the gods, so whichever)
And? As a baby, shitting yourself is a solid victory on all fronts.
Dang, I’m messy? Diaper takes the L because I shat on it. Parents take the L because they have to clean me, maybe twice if I’m feeling uppity. Me though? I get attention AND I get cleaned? Absolute W.
And that’s why baby me was the strongest fictional character of all time.
I mean they’d both probably lose to Saitama anyway, right? I think the point internet battle show was trying to make is that Superman has more canonical feats than Goku does mainly because he’s existed longer and been written by more than one person. But comparing the power of fictional characters is by nature a flawed argument because they each only adhere to the logic of their own universe.
It’s legally required that whenever Goku is mentioned as an example of a super strong fake person, the Forbidden Webshow must be dragged out of the depths and the sludge.
He managed to breed, didn’t he? Twice, even. Although I’m not gonna be silly and presume Chi-Chi wasn’t 200% taking the lead on that, but I’m sure Goku at least knows how to work his own schlong once the hour is upon him.
Agreed. Goku and these others may be certified bad-asses, but remember — according to the book, (1) G*d ain’t make-believe and (2) He DID destroy the world once already!
The sliding timescale may yet prove Amber’s comment accurate, though I honestly hope it doesn’t; the idea that Goku continues to push his limits and break through them despite knowing full well that there are some beings that he will never be stronger than is more appealing to me than “Goku becomes the strongestest being ever.”
Most fictional heroes can’t really be “most powerful ever” since they’re usually required to oppose other more powerful villains in order to show their heroism. Superman definitely falls into this category.
Goku’s basic approach of getting more powerful to stop new more powerful enemies means he kind of can be, though it depends on where in the cycle you catch him.
I mean, Goku’s eldest son’s other dad is technically a former God, or at least the offspring-slash-reincarnation of the evil half thereof, having re-absorbed the good half, so this checks out
In the other hand, the closest Dragon Ball gets to a capital-G God is Zeno, who’s basically a child. Might be a bad idea to follow that line of thought.
Personally, I think Kirby could destroy all of existence if it weren’t for the fact that existence contains cake and friends. The day he decides those aren’t sufficient, we will all know fear.
But yeah if they have to be human (or at least identical-to-human alien) I give the edge to the magical girls. Either Usagi or Cure Black and Cure White, whose transformation sequence generates more power than the sun and whose iconic combat style is ‘physically beat the shit out of you’. (Reducing the edge, of course, is that they can’t fight God or Goku one-on-one, as their transformation only works with the two of them together.)
And yet I kinda feel like a lot of my favorite Dragon Ball stories are the ones where he does lose. The 21st and 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai come to mind, as does Battle of Gods.
Jiren is basically Goku if Goku had zero personality. I absolutely despised Jiren in the TOP because he was so utterly boring as an antagonist. Toppa on the other hand was excellent, interesting, and with him being trained to become the next Destroyer God in his universe, and felt like a much better foil to Goku than “Big Strong Guy Who Barely Talks”
Jiren to me felt like original Broly, just a big strong wall for Goku and the Z Fighters to repeatedly throw themselves against.
Beerus is stronger than Goku (as of now). Whis is stronger than Beerus (as is his sister). The Grand Priest is stronger than all of the angels. Zeno is stronger than all of them (as is Future Zeno).
Heck, it’s possible that Vegeta is stronger than Goku now that, at least in the manga, he has essentially become a god of destruction himself. He certainly seemed to do better against Granollah than Goku did.
Btw that’s how a lot of religions spread. Babylonians were like, “oh yeah your gods totally exist, but our god Marduk beat them up”. Similar to Catholics claiming that the local heroes are saints.
Theory: although Gilgamesh would out-wrestle Arthur without breaking a sweat, Arthur doesn’t have to win, he can just absorb Gilgamesh’s stories.
Okay, off the top of my head, I know the Greeks explained away the Egyptian gods as the Olympians hiding from Typhon on animal forms.
And obviously the Jews had YHWH T-posing over the Egyptians and later Baal.
Any other mythological take-that’s between pantheons?
Sun Wukong’s origin story in the first six chapters of Journey to the West, where he becomes pentuply-immortal but then still ends up trapped under a mountain for 500 years, can basically be summed up as “yeah the Confucians and Taoists do have amazing powers, but do you know where the real cosmic power in the universe lies? BUDDHISM.”
(As an aside, I heartily recommend watching Red’s ongoing summary-series of Journey to the West over at OSP–especially for you Dragon Ball fans out there. I mean, Son Goku is literally the translated-into-Japanese name of Sun Wukong! Plus the series really is amazing. :P)
Fate also decided that Florence Nightengale should be able to fight demigods, that franchise is clearly not a good indicator of historically accurate power levels.
Becky’s definitely heard it before, we’ve seen it onscreen and a point she brought up about Dina in relation to Joyce’s atheism is that Dina is very open about her perspective to Becky.
Yeah, the thing about the Becky-Joyce Religious-Off is that Becky doesn’t have any issues with atheism. She just has a problem with *Joyce* being an atheist, with a mix of legitimate grievances (feeling like Joyce was mocking her behind her back) and less legitimate grievances (she’s just super-averse to change in the people she has grown emotionally-dependent on.)
In retrospect, Becky’s first reaction to HOMPK! is kinda foreshadowing for this. (https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-11/04-hompk/fowl/). Dina changed something small about her dinosaur roleplay to make it more scientific accurate, and Becky conceptualized it as “so that’s… different about you now” with what seems to be discomfort. Dina reassured her that it’s her same dedication to fact and paleontological evidence manifesting in a new way but… I think it’s notable that Becky’s first reaction to Change in the folks that she love is unease.
It can be interesting, but every variant of DBZ power-scaling has already been beaten into a mush by now. “Who’d win in Dragon Ball?” Goku, for fuck’s sake, it’s always Goku.
Am guessing that Bobby Flay would slay the Salamander, imma go with Bobby for the win. Although Alton would probably be best to teach Bender to mix drinks.
On the other hand Borodin just rage-quit/changed forms and has yet to reveal himself in his ascended form. He may be the most powerful.
I mean that episode concluded with the professor saying that the
“secret ingredient” Bender was cooking with was: “ordinary water, laced with only a few spoonfuls of LSD” giving me the impression that Bender still couldn’t cook, he was just drugging the judges.
Previously Dina seemed to think Joyce was a religious influence for Becky so im curious about her reaction to Becky’s continued belief in religion without having Joyce to blame for it.
Yeah, I thought Dina might have gotten what Joyce was inferring there too but then she was extra confused when Becky and Joyce started bickering about going to church making it seem like she was still in the dark. Maybe it’s a set up for a second reveal.
How come nobody ever does this argument in reverse? Why is saying “the christian god is real and the only one” not disrespecting everyone who isn’t a christian?
Presumably for the same reason that whenever a life-long *insert religion here* does something truly shitty while clearly stating they are doing so for religious reasons, it’s immediately explained to us that they’re not a real *insert flavor of religionist here*.
Faith as a concept is treated as an innately positive thing, in that a lack of it has to be explained by something with the undercurrent of if said atheist was not failed in some way then they’d definitely still be a theist, like a normal person.
Subscribing to a particular adherence to the divine necessitates that you at the very least put said divine above another. This is fine on a micro scale but on a macro scale in a culturally Christian country like the US, well, it ain’t.
When I say “micro scale” I mean more that two dudes who think the other is wrong about the origin of life, the universe and everything can’t hurt each other by doing so. However, that changes in contexts where one of those dudes is part of a larger institution that holds more cultural sway than the other.
As Spencer pointed out, I’m saying that they don’t say that because a christian says “god is real”, but if anyone says “god isn’t real” in the vicinity of anything alive everyone is all “HOW DARE YOU BE SO DISRESPECTFUL TO THE POOR WIDDLE CHRISTIANS?!”, even though when a christian says “god is real” they are ALSO saying “no other gods are real”, but that’s apparently a-OK.
Perhaps because we tend to be happy when that’s all they’re saying. Or doing.
Since it’s far too often been much worse.
Personally, as long as they’re talking about their beliefs or among themselves, I don’t really care – even if they don’t phrase it as just a belief. And I return the favor – I don’t seek out religious people to tell them God isn’t real. Of course, when they do start pushing it on others, then it’s a different story and that’s far too common.
We come again to the disappointing conclusion that the biggest lifehack is to actively be as much of an asshole as possible, so that when you dial it down to less-than-total assholery you just get all the cookies for being great.
I don’t keep up with any DC comics, so are Kryptonians all about the same as Superman, or does he have a Unique Protagonist Edge over the rest of ’em? Like, if Bob Krypton comes to Earth and vores enough sun-juice, is that gonna make an even match?
now, i haven’t read every DC comic but i’d have to say the edge superman has over other kryptonians – in most main continuities – is the fact that generally hes the only full kryptonian raised on earth from infancy to adulthood, which means he has had a lifetime of experience with how to use his powers with precision and control that no other kryptonian would have.
the only other full kryptonian that has been raised on earth is supergirl, and she’s usually like at least 10 years old if not already a teenager when she comes to earth by the time ya boy clark’s already all grown up… so, yeah, even if bob krypton comes to earth and slurps up enough sun juice that doesn’t mean he has precision or control over his powers that would be comparable to soup nor would he fully know how to use them the way he’d want to or the way soup can. i imagine it’d be like trying to fight an overpowered toddler while you are also yourself overpowered but not a toddler….?
It would be incredibly hilarious for Superman to knock over a four-year-old and then spend an entire storyline being disproportionately upset as a consequence.
A Saitama mention was disappointingly far down this comments thread… So thank you for mentioning him.
I’d say that, canonically in his own universe, Saitama is the most powerful being. If anyone’s come up in One Punch Man that surpasses him, I haven’t heard of it.
Saitama isn’t on the Goku or Superman power scale. He’s on the Bugs Bunny scale. He’s however strong he has to be for it to be funny when the bad guy dies.
I don’t know about that. He got punched to the moon by a Lord Boros (an alient) once, making a huge crater, then he leaped back to earth, disturbing said crater. Then he punched into the Boros’ own supreme attack, killing him and making a bidirectional shockwave that spread 1/3rd of the way around earth.
Saitama’s problem is that he’s stronger than everyone he fights, but can’t always tell just how close the stronger ones are. The ones a great deal weaker than him, he can tell and go easy on, but the ones who aren’t – he can’t tell.
So yeah, he’s canonically the strongest person in that universe. The force he can exert is on the planetary damage scale.
I don’t keep up with Squirrel Girl that much, but has she ever lost simply because she was in a situation where her losing was actually funnier? I mean, Bugs Bunny did that with the tortoise.
This is one of the only ones I’ve ever laughed at. I mean, not that I don’t like the comic, just, it’s not really “laugh out loud” funny. But “I think that’s Goku” is comedy gold.
inb4 people interpret this strip as an instance of Dina being ‘disrespectful’ of Becky’s believes, or ‘passive aggressive’ towards them, for her merely describing Becky’s god as a fictional character.
She is literally trying to cater to Becky’s beliefs and hangups, no matter how irrational or odd she may think they are, because she loves Becky. She does not herself have to believe Becky’s god is real, actually, and so long as she does not believe that, as far as she is concerned, god is a fictional character. But it is a fictional character that holds great importance to Becky, and that is what actually matters to Dina. Which is like one of the sweetest things ever, and it makes me mad when people somehow try to twist this into being bad somehow.
Some religious people will interpret any expression of not believing in their beliefs as ‘disrespectful’ towards them. Even though, to people who aren’t a member of their religion, their god is a fictional character.
My half Angel half demon orphan prince with prophecy power sleeping within who graduate military academy in young age OC (do not steal) can handle both Big G.
Ps Shaggy also can defeat Goku but maybe depends who won initiative roll
Dina’s taking the complexity of her relationship with Becky so well, at a point I don’t know if she’s more mature than I suppose or if her partner is very unfair with her…
Becky’s definitely being a little unfair to Dina with her weird hangups and expectations, but Dina seems to take it more as a challenge than an affront, so I don’t see much problem if it doesn’t escalate.
I know less about Dragon Ball than about religion, but I think I’d prefer the Dragon Ball comments since at least with that everyone agrees that the characters are fictional.
Dina calling God “the most all poweful fictional character” reminds me of the time I was introduced to the argument that God must exist because he is all-powerful, and a being that exists is, by definition, more powerful than one that doesn’t.
This is, apparently, a serious argument proposed by theologians, which I, a common or garden idiot, was immediately able to reducto ad absurdum by suggesting that Batman must exist because he’s the World’s Greatest Detective and…
Another counter to the ontological argument is to use the example of handicaps. Who is better at running: someone who can run 100m in 8 seconds, or someone who can do it with one leg bound up behind their back?
Similarly, which is the greater god: one exists and that created the universe, or one that can created universe but never existed in the first place? The never-existed god is greater therefore god doesn’t exist. q.e.d.
The biggest problem with the ontological argument rests on it’s most basic misunderstanding. It’s trying to apply a spectrum of degrees of power or perfectness or whatever to a binary yes/no situation. Things either exist or they don’t. There is no ‘degrees of existence.’ You either exist or you don’t. You are pregnant or you’re not. Etc.
Mine’s slightly different. I want a recovering fundie girlfriend who gets seduced by the dark, depraved and kinky things I do to her. “Welcome to the dark side, baby… Nowhere else shall temptation hurt so good!” 😉
Dragonball is superior to Dragonball Z. there I said it. I was lucky to get to se dragonBall as a Kid and DBZ as a teenager because I got to watch each show when it perfectly hit the demographic I was part of.
DBZ is the coolest when you watch it as a teenager. When you get older, it is still nice to watch, but you appreciate Dragonball more.
Sorry, this comment was almost completely irrelevant to the comic.
I absolutely agree. People tend to forget Dragonball Z’s roots as a comedy, so it’s weird to see Goku so serious when fighting Vegeta considering that as a boy, he put a rabbit that could turn people into carrots on the moon to make mochi.
Totally agree, Dragon Ball is primarily an adventure comedy with fun fights here and there. Dragon Ball Z on the other is like a Tournament Arc stretched through the WHOLE Damn series.
I remember watching the early Dragonball episodes with my son, I thought it was pretty funny. Caught some episodes many years later, I can’t remember, it was probably Dragonball Z, and I hardly recognized it, and thought it wasn’t nearly as good.
That’s an interesting discussion. I think in the comments there’s been a perception of Dina as being more passive and innocent in their relationship (I might have been projecting). Here she is active, not only in the sexual aspects of their relationship, but also in her fighting back against Becky’s religious upbringing. She’s also making assumptions about what Becky wants sexually vs what Becky says she wants. That “she really wants this despite claiming otherwise”. She’s probably correct, but it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out or if it’s even an issue.
She may have only figured that out after her recent talk with Joe about “sometimes when somebody says they don’t want to talk about, maybe they want you to make them talk about it.”
you’re right that they’re weirdly more equal in how they view the other. Based on how the comic is building and how important belief is to becky, your point about how equal they are has me thinking maybe Dina also values her views on beliefs in close relationships more than she’s let on. Im in neither of their corners belief wise(though the way Becky talks about faith in a more personal way almost to a non Christian degree I might be closer to her, cause that’s she’s almost in agnostic territory) so I struggle to guess what happens but it’ll be interesting to see how the dynamic plays out
My Dragon Ball hot take is that Cell Saga is the worst part of all of Dragon Ball and it constantly gets lionized because Gohan wins the final battle, and we like this because it kind of resembles a passing of the torch moment even though Gohan sucks as the protagonist for this kind of story.
A proper Gohan-led series would be Way of the Househusband with superpowers.
Cell Saga was a fucking mess, I don’t Get It with the incessant Gohan-shilling, and the fandom’s obsession with that single moment at the end has poisoned the well for any decent discussion of the story.
On the other hand, everything with Krillin and Best Lady Android 18 was really cool. I really enjoyed watching that part of the show. Toriyama’s unpleasable editor (or whatever he was) is partly to blame for how much of a cluster duck it turned out to be, of course.
Dragon Ball boomers who caught it back in the late 90s are convinced they’re watching some epic martial arts drama and not a series where Goku and Vegeta play rock paper scissors to choose who gets to fight the unstoppable death god from the yawning abyss of time who exploded the entire Earth after killing every single inhabitant one by one. This is why “Goku’s a bad dad lol” eventually went from a recurring fandom joke to an attempt at serious analysis of how Goku is being problematic for giving Cell a Senzu Bean.
It’s a measure of Dragon Ball’s worth entirely down to who’s got the biggest power level and ignores the infectiously likeable cast members and their bombastic character interactions, because we’re all still 12 years old and measure the worth of storytelling on who can win in a fight. This was then hilariously literalized in Super when Future Trunks came back, saw that Gohan was a wimp now, and then started crying because everyone he knows and loves is dead while Gohan is working his dream job and spending time with his wife and daughter.
My take? Just have Gohan be Great Saiyaman all the time. That new Gohan movie coming out soon should, exclusively, end with him, Videl and Pan becoming the Great Saiyafamily.
I have to say, Goku giving Cell a lima bean is the funniest fucking part of the entire Cell Saga, because at that point Gohan is basically just Anime Milhouse and everyone is looking at Goku like “What the hell are you doing, you lunatic?”. If people want a 300% Serious fighting show, they should look for something else.
A friend of mine once described it as “Dragonball discourse is a rejection of subtext so powerful that it leads to rejection of text outright.” and it was the most real thing ever said about the series.
Goku fought Winnie the Fucking Pooh and people got mad because he wasn’t another human with pointy hair that they could smugly slap some rocket-science math formula onto.
I don’t know how true it is, but I remember reading that the whole passing of the torch feel was due to it being originally intended to actually be a passing of the torch, and that Gohan was actually meant to become the main protagonist from then onward. According to what I read, the idea was eventually scrapped, and Goku did Goku things and continues doing Goku things instead.
It was the idea, yeah. The problem is that Gohan’s most important moment established that he hates fighting, and now he’s the main character of a story about exciting death battles. For Gohan to be the lead of Dragon Ball would mean Dragon Ball itself would have to change.
(and it should have, because Gohan in High School and being the Great Saiyaman was radical)
Goku is, innately, the best protagonist for Dragon Ball because he works on a level where his rampaging idiocy will drive him to fool around looking for a cool fight, and then things get dire so he takes it seriously. This was further enhanced come Super, where he gets a buddy act with Vegeta where Vegeta starts by being pragmatic and proactive until things get serious, whereupon he starts huffing and whining that he doesn’t want to use the magical fusion earrings to immediately smoke the new villain because now he looks stupid.
I greatly enjoy the entire Android/Cell saga storyline right up to the Cell games part. Up until then it was a fun story with constantly shifting and increasing stakes. Then the tournament arc starts and it just turns into yet anouther boring fight where nothing of relevance happens for entire episodes at a time.
Was the Cell Games even a tournament? It was just Cell wanting to fight Goku, and at some point he makes those goofy baby Cells to beat up the others. He made a ring, but I don’t think a tournament consists of one fight, seven dudes getting beat up in the stands, and the floor exploding.
It was supposed to be a tournament, to give everyone an excuse to show up and not interfere in the fight. It wasn’t executed well, which is why everything falls apart there.
I’ve been saying i want a SoL Gohan spin off for years now and way of the house husband is one of my favorite manga, you don’t know how badly i want this thing you have proposed
I got real attached real fast to Love After World Domination for this reason. It’s a manga about a Sentai team leader going out with one of the bosses of a supervillain organization, so the two have to keep their relationship a secret and only get to see each other when they have toyetic superhero battles so they sneak off and hang out.
I get why plenty of fans are happy that Dragonball is still going in some form, but ending it at the conclusion of the Cell Saga would have been poetry. It was the last time many of the original cast members felt relevant, the villain was a product of the old Red Ribbon Army, the character arcs for Gohan, Piccolo, and Vegeta all wrapped up nicely, and sending Goku to heaven with the conclusion of the series would have been fitting, if a little on-the-nose.
Going through the comments and seeing all of the “Goku’s not the most powerful fictional being, it’s ___”, people keep forgetting the true strongest character in fiction: Popeye.
Not all the time. Popeye’s pretty strong as it is, but spinach is what lets him do the real crazy stuff, like punching someone so hard they circle the globe.
Dina’s kink finally revealed! Shockingly believable. More power to her. I hope she succeeds in dethroning God; or at least pushing them aside a bit. Becky deserves to have her shackles at least loosened, if not broken.
“Who would win in a fight?…It’s so simple. Anyone should know this. The person who will win in a fight is the person that the script writer wants to win!
“These are fictitious characters. The writer can do whatever he wants with them. So asking those bonehead questions!” – Stan Lee
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Some articles posit Zeno (either or both) to be the strongest, with the ability to erase the universe w/o breaking a sweat, but sure, Goku’s cool too
also there is a VERY large fanbase who would have Loki in that spot, bc Hiddleston
Hiddleston Loki isn’t even the strongest Loki, he gets utterly owned in all of his appearances, which admittedly is pretty common for Loki depictions going back to the source.
In terms of story structure, I don’t think any trickster can ever be the most powerful character in any story in which they appear. Even in stories where a trickster wins, it must be by besting a more powerful opponent through cleverness or subterfuge, as this is the essence of the trickster.
That’s all true, but also Loki is generally not a trickster who wins
Marvel Loki doesn’t win, but before he sides with the giants mythology Loki gets some solid wins in.
He’s still more Daffy Duck than Bugs Bunny.
“DUCK Szeasonth!”
Actually Tweety Bird might be a better example, Bugs actually lost a few.
Then again, what do you expect from opera? A happy ending?
@Matt Not sure where you got that source. Mythology loki has barely any appearances and most notably loses a LOT. Specifically to Thor. There’s not enough left of that mythology otherwise to say anything about Loki from the source.
He was winning a bunch as a good guy, but the narrative kinda forced him back into a villainous role. Highly recommend Journey into Mystery and Young Avengers by Kieron Gillen
That was a decade ago. Loki got a new series, Agent of Asgard, that redefined his status quo as a chaotic good genderfluid extremely bisexual trickster.
What about Coyote in Gunnerkrig Court?
Looney Tunes has a clever Coyote, too.
He loses. A LOT.
Interesting case, since he actually claims to be imaginary.
Very much a case of shadowboxing.
Coyote seems pretty jacked, power-wise.
But cleverness is part of their strength. I’m not entirely sure about Coyote, but Anansi pretty much always comes out ahead. And Odysseus in the Iliad the same. (Although I suppose you could argue that the Odyssey is him getting his for beating the gods, so whichever)
I can’t believe I forgot to bring up Q the first time round.
There’s now the tv show Loki that shows Loki getting his ass kicked repeatedly by other forms of Loki.
Loki does win a bunch, just usually when he’s cleaning up the Aesir’s mess
Loki: The solution to, and cause of, all of the Æsir’s problems.
Zeno can only erase half of all existence at a time, and then half of what is left, and then
..Candlejack?
No, just a sailor tying his boat up on pier A and pier 3 at the same time.
In Death Battle, Superman beats Goku, and Popeye beats Saitama. American Characters were powerful in the 30s and 40s. There was a war on, after all.
Popeye vs. Saitama was one of the best they’ve ever done. Possibly even THE best.
Such an INVIGORATING challenge, isn’t it Dina?
To use BRAIN POWER, to use the power of SCIENCE to best that which grips so many minds!!!
So SALUBRIOUS! So EXHILARATING! So SCINTILLATING!!!
~~~OH YEEEAAAH!!!!~~~
👾👾😈😈😈😈👾👾
🌩️🌩️🧠🧠🧠 Seriously, get excited everyone!!! 🧠🧠🧠🌩️🌩️
😆😆😆😆😆😆
*plays “Kakarot vs. Broly” on Hacked Muzak*
speak for yourself, extrovert
Extrovert? I wish 😅
Actually Death Battle would have you believe that’s Superman. But a brags a brag.
Death Battle can fuck right off. Their arguments suck and they have no seat at the grown-up table.
I agree that they suck but they were absolutely right about this one thing
People make jokes on Twitter about weird capitalist shit all the time and end up being right. Death Battle is even less valid than that.
Definitely not. We’re talking divine power here and Superman’s lost fights with a rich dude in a silly robot suit
Goku’s lost fights with a 100% normal lady who changes her personality when she sneezes.
Then Goku also loses
And when you were a baby you shat yourself on the daily. What’s your point?
Lost a whole sentence there somehow.
I was gonna add, Goku was like 10 at the time, so it’s weird to bring that up when 99% of the time, people are talking about Adult Goku.
And? As a baby, shitting yourself is a solid victory on all fronts.
Dang, I’m messy? Diaper takes the L because I shat on it. Parents take the L because they have to clean me, maybe twice if I’m feeling uppity. Me though? I get attention AND I get cleaned? Absolute W.
And that’s why baby me was the strongest fictional character of all time.
Goku lost to Yamcha as a child.
YAMCHA.
I mean they’d both probably lose to Saitama anyway, right? I think the point internet battle show was trying to make is that Superman has more canonical feats than Goku does mainly because he’s existed longer and been written by more than one person. But comparing the power of fictional characters is by nature a flawed argument because they each only adhere to the logic of their own universe.
Divine power means nothing. Superman beaten loads of gods
OK but Ki probably counts as magic, which means it can hurt superman.
I fucking knew someone was going to start with this.
It’s legally required that whenever Goku is mentioned as an example of a super strong fake person, the Forbidden Webshow must be dragged out of the depths and the sludge.
Joyce needs to get in on this conversation. Though someone will need to explain who Goku is to her first.
Better idea, introduce Joyce to magical girl anime.
Think it’s about time, Schpoon 😉
Looking forward to the Joyce weeb arc.
*fingers crossed* “please let Joyce get into Magical Girl cosplay”
oh, you kkk
She should read Ouran High School Host Club.
Something tells me Becky knows about Goku.
😆 Oh yeah I made a SUPER SAIYAN JOYCE a while back!!! 😆
https://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/thewellerman/super-saiyan-joyce
I mean, I’m pretty sure Chichi’s the one who does the seducing in that marriage, so I think that’d still be a one up on Goku.
I wouldn’t really put Goku as a sexual-aware ref here
He managed to breed, didn’t he? Twice, even. Although I’m not gonna be silly and presume Chi-Chi wasn’t 200% taking the lead on that, but I’m sure Goku at least knows how to work his own schlong once the hour is upon him.
I mean, Galasso managed to breed, so being sexually aware isn’t really a requirement.
I don’t wanna live in a world where Goku doesn’t understand how his own cock works. That is not a reality I can accept.
Goku: Cock. I know what ‘Cock’ is! You can eat a ‘Cock’ right?
Gohan: Facepalms so hard he gives himself a black eye:
All I’m saiyan is, YHWH been real quiet since this comic dropped
Agreed. Goku and these others may be certified bad-asses, but remember — according to the book, (1) G*d ain’t make-believe and (2) He DID destroy the world once already!
Meh. He made it wet for a bit. A chunk of space rock did far more for far longer, and according to YHWH’s book, that weren’t even his work.
I guess He finally gave up on the Enterprise reboot.
That diminishes the all-powerful claim.
Something something free will something something.
“I will attack and dethrone God” – Dina
So much this.
The sliding timescale may yet prove Amber’s comment accurate, though I honestly hope it doesn’t; the idea that Goku continues to push his limits and break through them despite knowing full well that there are some beings that he will never be stronger than is more appealing to me than “Goku becomes the strongestest being ever.”
Most fictional heroes can’t really be “most powerful ever” since they’re usually required to oppose other more powerful villains in order to show their heroism. Superman definitely falls into this category.
Goku’s basic approach of getting more powerful to stop new more powerful enemies means he kind of can be, though it depends on where in the cycle you catch him.
But could Goku seduce God?
(yes)
I mean, Goku’s eldest son’s other dad is technically a former God, or at least the offspring-slash-reincarnation of the evil half thereof, having re-absorbed the good half, so this checks out
In the other hand, the closest Dragon Ball gets to a capital-G God is Zeno, who’s basically a child. Might be a bad idea to follow that line of thought.
And even then, the Angels can’t be destroyed by Zeno, so even Zeno has their limits.
I mean, he did seduce Princess Snake.
Or was that the other way around?
She hit on him a few times and then tried to vore him, but he didn’t know anything was going on at the time because she put food in front of him.
LOVE your new avatar Taffy!!!
Dina has brain power, the ULTIMATE power!!! 🌩️ 🧠 🌩️ 🥰
I vote the Beyonder
john constantine would own the beyonder so, so hard.
Your comment intrigues me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. Back up your assertion.
“Go, Dina. Teach a dinosaur to ride a ball.”
Fucking PERFECT bruh!!! 😆
*plays “CHA-LA HEAD CHA-LA” by Hironobu Kageyama*
I thought the internet determined Sailor Moon the victor here.
Personally, I think Kirby could destroy all of existence if it weren’t for the fact that existence contains cake and friends. The day he decides those aren’t sufficient, we will all know fear.
But yeah if they have to be human (or at least identical-to-human alien) I give the edge to the magical girls. Either Usagi or Cure Black and Cure White, whose transformation sequence generates more power than the sun and whose iconic combat style is ‘physically beat the shit out of you’. (Reducing the edge, of course, is that they can’t fight God or Goku one-on-one, as their transformation only works with the two of them together.)
…huh. That’s pretty much the exact same reason why Beerus hasn’t destroyed Earth, isn’t it.
I love when a cosmic super-killer is in a story and the reason they don’t fuck with Earth boils down to “But have you tried Chinese food?”.
Reference any arguments as to why alien intelligence would destroy earth, I find this the most reassuring argument in our favour.
Our governments may be populated by worthless scumbag war profiteers, but we make a mean spag bol.
Goku is too unbeatable to be interesting.
I don’t think the point of Dragon Ball is for Goku to lose.
And yet I kinda feel like a lot of my favorite Dragon Ball stories are the ones where he does lose. The 21st and 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai come to mind, as does Battle of Gods.
Does the Tournament of Power count? He DID eliminate himself to take out Jiren as part of a team effort to save his universe.
Jiren is basically Goku if Goku had zero personality. I absolutely despised Jiren in the TOP because he was so utterly boring as an antagonist. Toppa on the other hand was excellent, interesting, and with him being trained to become the next Destroyer God in his universe, and felt like a much better foil to Goku than “Big Strong Guy Who Barely Talks”
Jiren to me felt like original Broly, just a big strong wall for Goku and the Z Fighters to repeatedly throw themselves against.
Jiren’s Broly except he’s defeated by making friends.
This was before they canonized Broly and then defeated him by making friends.
Goku hasn’t beaten the final boss of a story arc by himself since Freeza.
He’s still like, god level and boring to watch. Then again i still want my spin off SoL series about highschool Gohan and papa Vegeta
Beerus is stronger than Goku (as of now). Whis is stronger than Beerus (as is his sister). The Grand Priest is stronger than all of the angels. Zeno is stronger than all of them (as is Future Zeno).
Heck, it’s possible that Vegeta is stronger than Goku now that, at least in the manga, he has essentially become a god of destruction himself. He certainly seemed to do better against Granollah than Goku did.
Hey, start nerdy talk; expect nerdy responses.
He’s certainly stronger if you slap Bulma.
The real question is what was power scaling like before the internet? Imagine some university professor being like:
Fuck you! Gilgamesh would kick King Arthur’s ass!
And another professor being like:
Hello! Did you forget about Avalon? No weapon can hurt him remember!
and the first professor was like:
Gilgamesh could fight barehanded!
And so on.
I majored in Religions. While I didn’t witness professors joining in, I can confirm that the students had these discussions.
Btw that’s how a lot of religions spread. Babylonians were like, “oh yeah your gods totally exist, but our god Marduk beat them up”. Similar to Catholics claiming that the local heroes are saints.
Theory: although Gilgamesh would out-wrestle Arthur without breaking a sweat, Arthur doesn’t have to win, he can just absorb Gilgamesh’s stories.
Oh, Gilgamesh could take out Arthur easy, but he would never touch Lancelot, much less Percival.
What if Gilgamesh did a double-team thing with Enkidu to beat the others?
Okay, off the top of my head, I know the Greeks explained away the Egyptian gods as the Olympians hiding from Typhon on animal forms.
And obviously the Jews had YHWH T-posing over the Egyptians and later Baal.
Any other mythological take-that’s between pantheons?
Sun Wukong’s origin story in the first six chapters of Journey to the West, where he becomes pentuply-immortal but then still ends up trapped under a mountain for 500 years, can basically be summed up as “yeah the Confucians and Taoists do have amazing powers, but do you know where the real cosmic power in the universe lies? BUDDHISM.”
(As an aside, I heartily recommend watching Red’s ongoing summary-series of Journey to the West over at OSP–especially for you Dragon Ball fans out there. I mean, Son Goku is literally the translated-into-Japanese name of Sun Wukong! Plus the series really is amazing. :P)
I mean, Fate/whatever exists as a franchise. Current power levels have Orion near the top, with Ishtar, Arjuna and Miyamoto Musashi nearby.
Fate also decided that Florence Nightengale should be able to fight demigods, that franchise is clearly not a good indicator of historically accurate power levels.
Have you fought Florence Nightingale? If you haven’t experienced her fury, you have no room to talk:P
Also, “accurate power levels”? Lol.
“battles that actually happened in the history of Japan”
arthur was a beta cuck. FACT
Eternals suggests that this could actually be a canon matchup in the MCU.
I wonder how often Dina refers to God as a “fictional character” around Becky.
Becky’s definitely heard it before, we’ve seen it onscreen and a point she brought up about Dina in relation to Joyce’s atheism is that Dina is very open about her perspective to Becky.
Yeah, the thing about the Becky-Joyce Religious-Off is that Becky doesn’t have any issues with atheism. She just has a problem with *Joyce* being an atheist, with a mix of legitimate grievances (feeling like Joyce was mocking her behind her back) and less legitimate grievances (she’s just super-averse to change in the people she has grown emotionally-dependent on.)
In retrospect, Becky’s first reaction to HOMPK! is kinda foreshadowing for this. (https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-11/04-hompk/fowl/). Dina changed something small about her dinosaur roleplay to make it more scientific accurate, and Becky conceptualized it as “so that’s… different about you now” with what seems to be discomfort. Dina reassured her that it’s her same dedication to fact and paleontological evidence manifesting in a new way but… I think it’s notable that Becky’s first reaction to Change in the folks that she love is unease.
Oh, good, power-level discourse.
It’s always fresh and it’s never exhausting!
“Who would win” is a very interesting and very important question to be asking and it never turns into tedious bullshit.
It can be interesting, but every variant of DBZ power-scaling has already been beaten into a mush by now. “Who’d win in Dragon Ball?” Goku, for fuck’s sake, it’s always Goku.
I like who would win debates when they’re not about fighting but about other skills. Like, here’s one:
Who would do a better job teaching Bender from Futurama to cook? Shirou Emiya from Fate/Stay Night or Yukihira Soma from Food Wars?
On one hand it’s fairly clear that Soma is the better chef, on the other hand Shirou’s calmer personality probably lends itself better to teaching.
I don’t know either of those cooks. Which one would offer to let him mix various types of booze together instead?
I mean, probably Soma. I feel like Shirou’s too responsible to do that, while Soma tends to act much more animey.
Am guessing that Bobby Flay would slay the Salamander, imma go with Bobby for the win. Although Alton would probably be best to teach Bender to mix drinks.
On the other hand Borodin just rage-quit/changed forms and has yet to reveal himself in his ascended form. He may be the most powerful.
Bender already knows how to cook, there was a whole episode of Futurama about it
Both I and Usain Bolt can run. But which of us has a coach teaching us how to run better?
I mean that episode concluded with the professor saying that the
“secret ingredient” Bender was cooking with was: “ordinary water, laced with only a few spoonfuls of LSD” giving me the impression that Bender still couldn’t cook, he was just drugging the judges.
Previously Dina seemed to think Joyce was a religious influence for Becky so im curious about her reaction to Becky’s continued belief in religion without having Joyce to blame for it.
I’m still not sure if Dina is aware that Joyce is an atheist now.
I don’t think she is, Becky is still trying to get Joyce to believe again so she probably hasn’t let Dina know anything changed.
Joyce did say something about not having a soul, which some thing Dina picked up on, but it’s not clear yet.
Yeah, I thought Dina might have gotten what Joyce was inferring there too but then she was extra confused when Becky and Joyce started bickering about going to church making it seem like she was still in the dark. Maybe it’s a set up for a second reveal.
Feels kinda like Dina’s both respecting and disrespecting Becky like this.
She’s really more disrespecting Becky’s religion, here. I’m sure the Church can handle that.
How come nobody ever does this argument in reverse? Why is saying “the christian god is real and the only one” not disrespecting everyone who isn’t a christian?
Presumably for the same reason that whenever a life-long *insert religion here* does something truly shitty while clearly stating they are doing so for religious reasons, it’s immediately explained to us that they’re not a real *insert flavor of religionist here*.
God I love this line so much.
It’s barely even a defense, it’s just schoolkids passing the blame on who farted and hid all the erasers.
I didn’t do it. It must have been Milu.
hey! ok maybe i farted, but i didn’t touch the erasers!
That was me, I got hungy
Faith as a concept is treated as an innately positive thing, in that a lack of it has to be explained by something with the undercurrent of if said atheist was not failed in some way then they’d definitely still be a theist, like a normal person.
Subscribing to a particular adherence to the divine necessitates that you at the very least put said divine above another. This is fine on a micro scale but on a macro scale in a culturally Christian country like the US, well, it ain’t.
It’s perfectly fine as long as it doesn’t lead to a abusive behaviors.
When I say “micro scale” I mean more that two dudes who think the other is wrong about the origin of life, the universe and everything can’t hurt each other by doing so. However, that changes in contexts where one of those dudes is part of a larger institution that holds more cultural sway than the other.
I mean…people do that? In this comment section?
…What?
You’re saying you’ve never, ever heard someone complain about Christians being pushy, obnoxious, and arrogant. Ever?
He’s asking why it’s disrespectful to refer to God as fictional, but not insisting on his existence.
As Spencer pointed out, I’m saying that they don’t say that because a christian says “god is real”, but if anyone says “god isn’t real” in the vicinity of anything alive everyone is all “HOW DARE YOU BE SO DISRESPECTFUL TO THE POOR WIDDLE CHRISTIANS?!”, even though when a christian says “god is real” they are ALSO saying “no other gods are real”, but that’s apparently a-OK.
@Yumi: If they do, I missed it.
I think it pretty definitely is, but in my experience it doesn’t seem to register as such very often.
Perhaps because we tend to be happy when that’s all they’re saying. Or doing.
Since it’s far too often been much worse.
Personally, as long as they’re talking about their beliefs or among themselves, I don’t really care – even if they don’t phrase it as just a belief. And I return the favor – I don’t seek out religious people to tell them God isn’t real. Of course, when they do start pushing it on others, then it’s a different story and that’s far too common.
We come again to the disappointing conclusion that the biggest lifehack is to actively be as much of an asshole as possible, so that when you dial it down to less-than-total assholery you just get all the cookies for being great.
Only if you’re privileged enough to get away with it.
Goku? Nah, that’d be Superman or Saitama you’re thinking of Amber.
But can Superman defeat himself?
Yes, actually. He has in fact fought and beaten other Kryptonians.
I don’t keep up with any DC comics, so are Kryptonians all about the same as Superman, or does he have a Unique Protagonist Edge over the rest of ’em? Like, if Bob Krypton comes to Earth and vores enough sun-juice, is that gonna make an even match?
now, i haven’t read every DC comic but i’d have to say the edge superman has over other kryptonians – in most main continuities – is the fact that generally hes the only full kryptonian raised on earth from infancy to adulthood, which means he has had a lifetime of experience with how to use his powers with precision and control that no other kryptonian would have.
the only other full kryptonian that has been raised on earth is supergirl, and she’s usually like at least 10 years old if not already a teenager when she comes to earth by the time ya boy clark’s already all grown up… so, yeah, even if bob krypton comes to earth and slurps up enough sun juice that doesn’t mean he has precision or control over his powers that would be comparable to soup nor would he fully know how to use them the way he’d want to or the way soup can. i imagine it’d be like trying to fight an overpowered toddler while you are also yourself overpowered but not a toddler….?
Well now the question is, can Superman defeat a toddler?
physically, sure. but emotionally? imagine the toll.
It would be incredibly hilarious for Superman to knock over a four-year-old and then spend an entire storyline being disproportionately upset as a consequence.
Also some of the New God’s if I’m remembering correctly.
I miss Jack Kirby.
A Saitama mention was disappointingly far down this comments thread… So thank you for mentioning him.
I’d say that, canonically in his own universe, Saitama is the most powerful being. If anyone’s come up in One Punch Man that surpasses him, I haven’t heard of it.
Saitama isn’t on the Goku or Superman power scale. He’s on the Bugs Bunny scale. He’s however strong he has to be for it to be funny when the bad guy dies.
I don’t know about that. He got punched to the moon by a Lord Boros (an alient) once, making a huge crater, then he leaped back to earth, disturbing said crater. Then he punched into the Boros’ own supreme attack, killing him and making a bidirectional shockwave that spread 1/3rd of the way around earth.
Saitama’s problem is that he’s stronger than everyone he fights, but can’t always tell just how close the stronger ones are. The ones a great deal weaker than him, he can tell and go easy on, but the ones who aren’t – he can’t tell.
So yeah, he’s canonically the strongest person in that universe. The force he can exert is on the planetary damage scale.
Dina would no diff solo stomp Goku
… squirrel girl.
She’s unbeatable. She’s the unbeatable squirrel girl.
She’s the most powerful.
My favourite power: the power to win as long as it’s funny.
I don’t keep up with Squirrel Girl that much, but has she ever lost simply because she was in a situation where her losing was actually funnier? I mean, Bugs Bunny did that with the tortoise.
was waiting to see if there would be a squirrel girl mention.
This is one of the only ones I’ve ever laughed at. I mean, not that I don’t like the comic, just, it’s not really “laugh out loud” funny. But “I think that’s Goku” is comedy gold.
Dina, everybody loves a good challenge.
FUCK YEAH!!!
🌩️ 🧠 😈 Especially a challenge of BRAIN POWER!!! 😈 🧠 🌩️
inb4 people interpret this strip as an instance of Dina being ‘disrespectful’ of Becky’s believes, or ‘passive aggressive’ towards them, for her merely describing Becky’s god as a fictional character.
She is literally trying to cater to Becky’s beliefs and hangups, no matter how irrational or odd she may think they are, because she loves Becky. She does not herself have to believe Becky’s god is real, actually, and so long as she does not believe that, as far as she is concerned, god is a fictional character. But it is a fictional character that holds great importance to Becky, and that is what actually matters to Dina. Which is like one of the sweetest things ever, and it makes me mad when people somehow try to twist this into being bad somehow.
Speaking of catering to Becky, this might not be all in the service of religion…
She might not have a chastity belt on, but she might as well.
Who knows? Maybe she really ENJOYS teasing and denial 🤣
And that would mean that Dina is unwittingly a chastity mistress 😗
Some religious people will interpret any expression of not believing in their beliefs as ‘disrespectful’ towards them. Even though, to people who aren’t a member of their religion, their god is a fictional character.
Too late – check 7 comment threads up.
My half Angel half demon orphan prince with prophecy power sleeping within who graduate military academy in young age OC (do not steal) can handle both Big G.
Ps Shaggy also can defeat Goku but maybe depends who won initiative roll
His name is the Cheese, and he can kick your butt.
Nah, the Cheese is just indeterminate advanced technology.
Dina can beat Goku
Just don’t accidentally challenge TFS Mr. Popo. That is not a fight you can win.
Dina’s taking the complexity of her relationship with Becky so well, at a point I don’t know if she’s more mature than I suppose or if her partner is very unfair with her…
Becky’s definitely being a little unfair to Dina with her weird hangups and expectations, but Dina seems to take it more as a challenge than an affront, so I don’t see much problem if it doesn’t escalate.
It took me way to long to connect ‚fictional Character reasons‘ with god. I though she was being meta
start training now, Dina
beating Goku ain’t gonna be a walk in the park
“What is 12*23?”
GOKU FORFEITED!
Huh, being befuddled by a wall of Dragon Ball comments is pretty similar to being befuddled by a wall of religion comments. Interesting.
The main difference is that Dragon Ball hasn’t caused any wars or been used as an excuse to kill anybody.
Yet…
I know less about Dragon Ball than about religion, but I think I’d prefer the Dragon Ball comments since at least with that everyone agrees that the characters are fictional.
Nonsense.
Dr. Manhattan.
didn’t that dude get teabagged by the world’s smartest microbe?
Just want to know what their death-match records against trucks are. Are they even as good as 2 wins and no losses? Then they’re posers.
Squirrel Girl would beat Goku’s sorry ass. I will not elaborate.
Neither would Marvel, since it would be off camera.
Tho’ really Goku, maybe Squirrel Girl could handle on-camera.
So essentially Dina is just teasing Becky Because she wants to be teased.
Nice to see that Dina is having fun. But it’s hard to understand is Becky is having fun too or not.
Yet…
Dina calling God “the most all poweful fictional character” reminds me of the time I was introduced to the argument that God must exist because he is all-powerful, and a being that exists is, by definition, more powerful than one that doesn’t.
This is, apparently, a serious argument proposed by theologians, which I, a common or garden idiot, was immediately able to reducto ad absurdum by suggesting that Batman must exist because he’s the World’s Greatest Detective and…
Another counter to the ontological argument is to use the example of handicaps. Who is better at running: someone who can run 100m in 8 seconds, or someone who can do it with one leg bound up behind their back?
Similarly, which is the greater god: one exists and that created the universe, or one that can created universe but never existed in the first place? The never-existed god is greater therefore god doesn’t exist. q.e.d.
The biggest problem with the ontological argument rests on it’s most basic misunderstanding. It’s trying to apply a spectrum of degrees of power or perfectness or whatever to a binary yes/no situation. Things either exist or they don’t. There is no ‘degrees of existence.’ You either exist or you don’t. You are pregnant or you’re not. Etc.
If you give him enough time to prepare, Batman is the most powerful fictional character.
Granted, I’m not sure how much time he’d need to prepare to defeat God, or Goku. But he could.
It’s every atheists dream to defeat God so your recovering fundie girlfriend will let you step on her.
Mine’s slightly different. I want a recovering fundie girlfriend who gets seduced by the dark, depraved and kinky things I do to her. “Welcome to the dark side, baby… Nowhere else shall temptation hurt so good!” 😉
Reminds me of a Johnny Bravo quote: “Mama warned me about women like you. I was hopin’ she was right!”
Dragonball is superior to Dragonball Z. there I said it. I was lucky to get to se dragonBall as a Kid and DBZ as a teenager because I got to watch each show when it perfectly hit the demographic I was part of.
DBZ is the coolest when you watch it as a teenager. When you get older, it is still nice to watch, but you appreciate Dragonball more.
Sorry, this comment was almost completely irrelevant to the comic.
Hard agree. Ive rewatched Dragonball a bunch but find dbz basically unwatchable now
I absolutely agree. People tend to forget Dragonball Z’s roots as a comedy, so it’s weird to see Goku so serious when fighting Vegeta considering that as a boy, he put a rabbit that could turn people into carrots on the moon to make mochi.
Totally agree, Dragon Ball is primarily an adventure comedy with fun fights here and there. Dragon Ball Z on the other is like a Tournament Arc stretched through the WHOLE Damn series.
I have to admit, when I was a teen I was so much more stoked for Slayers and Magic Knight Rayearth running around the same time slot as DBZ.
DBZA is better than both don’t @ me
I remember watching the early Dragonball episodes with my son, I thought it was pretty funny. Caught some episodes many years later, I can’t remember, it was probably Dragonball Z, and I hardly recognized it, and thought it wasn’t nearly as good.
That’s an interesting discussion. I think in the comments there’s been a perception of Dina as being more passive and innocent in their relationship (I might have been projecting). Here she is active, not only in the sexual aspects of their relationship, but also in her fighting back against Becky’s religious upbringing. She’s also making assumptions about what Becky wants sexually vs what Becky says she wants. That “she really wants this despite claiming otherwise”. She’s probably correct, but it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out or if it’s even an issue.
I’m pretty sure Becky has more or less explicitly said that she wants exactly what Dina is describing.
She may have only figured that out after her recent talk with Joe about “sometimes when somebody says they don’t want to talk about, maybe they want you to make them talk about it.”
Oh my gosh you’re so right! That makes so much sense with this Dina’s acting! No wonder she’s being more forward.
you’re right that they’re weirdly more equal in how they view the other. Based on how the comic is building and how important belief is to becky, your point about how equal they are has me thinking maybe Dina also values her views on beliefs in close relationships more than she’s let on. Im in neither of their corners belief wise(though the way Becky talks about faith in a more personal way almost to a non Christian degree I might be closer to her, cause that’s she’s almost in agnostic territory) so I struggle to guess what happens but it’ll be interesting to see how the dynamic plays out
Amber’s forgetting about Shaggy.
My Dragon Ball hot take is that Cell Saga is the worst part of all of Dragon Ball and it constantly gets lionized because Gohan wins the final battle, and we like this because it kind of resembles a passing of the torch moment even though Gohan sucks as the protagonist for this kind of story.
A proper Gohan-led series would be Way of the Househusband with superpowers.
Cell Saga was a fucking mess, I don’t Get It with the incessant Gohan-shilling, and the fandom’s obsession with that single moment at the end has poisoned the well for any decent discussion of the story.
On the other hand, everything with Krillin and
Best LadyAndroid 18 was really cool. I really enjoyed watching that part of the show. Toriyama’s unpleasable editor (or whatever he was) is partly to blame for how much of a cluster duck it turned out to be, of course.Dragon Ball boomers who caught it back in the late 90s are convinced they’re watching some epic martial arts drama and not a series where Goku and Vegeta play rock paper scissors to choose who gets to fight the unstoppable death god from the yawning abyss of time who exploded the entire Earth after killing every single inhabitant one by one. This is why “Goku’s a bad dad lol” eventually went from a recurring fandom joke to an attempt at serious analysis of how Goku is being problematic for giving Cell a Senzu Bean.
It’s a measure of Dragon Ball’s worth entirely down to who’s got the biggest power level and ignores the infectiously likeable cast members and their bombastic character interactions, because we’re all still 12 years old and measure the worth of storytelling on who can win in a fight. This was then hilariously literalized in Super when Future Trunks came back, saw that Gohan was a wimp now, and then started crying because everyone he knows and loves is dead while Gohan is working his dream job and spending time with his wife and daughter.
My take? Just have Gohan be Great Saiyaman all the time. That new Gohan movie coming out soon should, exclusively, end with him, Videl and Pan becoming the Great Saiyafamily.
I have to say, Goku giving Cell a lima bean is the funniest fucking part of the entire Cell Saga, because at that point Gohan is basically just Anime Milhouse and everyone is looking at Goku like “What the hell are you doing, you lunatic?”. If people want a 300% Serious fighting show, they should look for something else.
A friend of mine once described it as “Dragonball discourse is a rejection of subtext so powerful that it leads to rejection of text outright.” and it was the most real thing ever said about the series.
Goku fought Winnie the Fucking Pooh and people got mad because he wasn’t another human with pointy hair that they could smugly slap some rocket-science math formula onto.
I don’t know how true it is, but I remember reading that the whole passing of the torch feel was due to it being originally intended to actually be a passing of the torch, and that Gohan was actually meant to become the main protagonist from then onward. According to what I read, the idea was eventually scrapped, and Goku did Goku things and continues doing Goku things instead.
It was the idea, yeah. The problem is that Gohan’s most important moment established that he hates fighting, and now he’s the main character of a story about exciting death battles. For Gohan to be the lead of Dragon Ball would mean Dragon Ball itself would have to change.
(and it should have, because Gohan in High School and being the Great Saiyaman was radical)
Goku is, innately, the best protagonist for Dragon Ball because he works on a level where his rampaging idiocy will drive him to fool around looking for a cool fight, and then things get dire so he takes it seriously. This was further enhanced come Super, where he gets a buddy act with Vegeta where Vegeta starts by being pragmatic and proactive until things get serious, whereupon he starts huffing and whining that he doesn’t want to use the magical fusion earrings to immediately smoke the new villain because now he looks stupid.
what I remember about the Cell saga:
Vegeta going “Oh my Pride!” and ruining EVERYTHING for EVERYONE
Vegeta making things worse was like the majority of dragon ball z and it was completely in character and I love it
I greatly enjoy the entire Android/Cell saga storyline right up to the Cell games part. Up until then it was a fun story with constantly shifting and increasing stakes. Then the tournament arc starts and it just turns into yet anouther boring fight where nothing of relevance happens for entire episodes at a time.
Was the Cell Games even a tournament? It was just Cell wanting to fight Goku, and at some point he makes those goofy baby Cells to beat up the others. He made a ring, but I don’t think a tournament consists of one fight, seven dudes getting beat up in the stands, and the floor exploding.
It was supposed to be a tournament, to give everyone an excuse to show up and not interfere in the fight. It wasn’t executed well, which is why everything falls apart there.
I’ve been saying i want a SoL Gohan spin off for years now and way of the house husband is one of my favorite manga, you don’t know how badly i want this thing you have proposed
Superhero SoL Romcoms are best in life.
I got real attached real fast to Love After World Domination for this reason. It’s a manga about a Sentai team leader going out with one of the bosses of a supervillain organization, so the two have to keep their relationship a secret and only get to see each other when they have toyetic superhero battles so they sneak off and hang out.
Also the Sentai dude is a total himbo. It rules.
Well i needed a new thing to distract myself from actually doing student things, thanks
I get why plenty of fans are happy that Dragonball is still going in some form, but ending it at the conclusion of the Cell Saga would have been poetry. It was the last time many of the original cast members felt relevant, the villain was a product of the old Red Ribbon Army, the character arcs for Gohan, Piccolo, and Vegeta all wrapped up nicely, and sending Goku to heaven with the conclusion of the series would have been fitting, if a little on-the-nose.
Going through the comments and seeing all of the “Goku’s not the most powerful fictional being, it’s ___”, people keep forgetting the true strongest character in fiction: Popeye.
THIS!
But Popeye needs spinach to do his thing.
Shaggy just is.
Not all the time. Popeye’s pretty strong as it is, but spinach is what lets him do the real crazy stuff, like punching someone so hard they circle the globe.
Go Dina! That’s a challenge for you!
So, what you’re telling me is…
Becky’s an Edger.
God power scaling discussion sucks so bad
Hulk, Breaker of Worlds?
I hereby nominate Dina for Humanity’s Most All-powerful Fictional Character.
I believe you will find that the actual most powerful character in fictional history is in fact Mr. Rogers in a blood stained sweater.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrzKT-dFUjE&ab_channel=CheesyPotatoson
Wasn’t Mr Rogers real though?
Dina’s kink finally revealed! Shockingly believable. More power to her. I hope she succeeds in dethroning God; or at least pushing them aside a bit. Becky deserves to have her shackles at least loosened, if not broken.
Yeah, after all Becky’s been through, she AT LEAST deserves to let herself rub one out on her own. 😊
And Dina gets a cool challenge too!!! 🧠
It’s a win win!!!! 😁
“Who would win in a fight?…It’s so simple. Anyone should know this. The person who will win in a fight is the person that the script writer wants to win!
“These are fictitious characters. The writer can do whatever he wants with them. So asking those bonehead questions!” – Stan Lee
I don’t think it’s Goku anymore.
So Dina aims to become…
STRONGER THAN GOD.
To paraphrase Jesse Pinkman…
SCIENCE, [PERCUSSIVE INSTRUMENT]!
Meanwhile, on some site where people post fanfiction… Dina seduces then rejects a Mary Sue.
Testing