The FORBIDDEN Death Battle Prediction Blog Episode 42

 

Prediction 21

 

Batman vs Iron Man

 

Intro

 

Well this was a frustrating fight. It’s not that its a bad fight. People have been talking about bat-armor vs Stark tech suits since Wally vs Sonic introduced the concept of using version-specific characters. It works from a thematic perspective and also from a pragmatic perspective. This fight is going to bring in clicks like Joe Biden brings in child brides.

 

The frustrating part is that we have no idea what their kits are.

 

They say on the podcast that they “get everything,” but what exactly does that mean? There’s ‘a lot of ways to interpret “get everything,” and they’ve already deconfirmed Batman getting the Mobius Chair from that one event where Johns made everyone into quasi-New Gods. Superman became a god of strength but also evil, because when hacks write Superman they can’t help but write him turning evil, Flash became a death god, Hal became a god of light but really all of reality, Captain Marvel became a god of gods, and Wonder Woman didn’t become a thing because no writer actually likes Wonder Woman, they just pretend to because its expected of them.

 

The previews are the worst previews I’ve ever seen for fighters. Yes, please tell us about their history and daily carry. I’m sure how many megatons Bruce’s Kevlar can stand up to is going to be real important in this fight. I’m surprised they didn’t talk about the durability of the mk. 1 Iron Man suit. How can we predict the winner without such crucial information?

 

When doing a fight with characters like Iron Man and Batman where specific gear is very important and their arsenals span decades, it’s extremely important to be clear just what exactly each character is getting. Remember how in Lex vs Doom Doom got his power siphon and Lex didn’t get his magic doorknob even though the cover art of the soundtrack teased it? It’s so frustrating that things have to get so confusing. I should be predicting who wins, not who-gets-what.

 

There are two ways to do “they get everything” fights. The first way is that you really mean they get everything. That means Batman has a green and yellow Sprite colored ring, is also Superman, is also Metron, and is also the Joker twice over. Iron Man gets to pilot around Ziran the Tester’s armor, is also Dr. Strange, is also the Punisher, and has the infinity gauntlet.

 

The second way is to be restrictive as possible. You say that as of the time of writing the fight, Iron Man and Batman can use whatever they can reasonably, feasibly summon to a battle. For Batman that means his best toy is the Hellbat and for Iron Man that means his best toy is…maybe this thing? This retro styled throwback is his most recent armor (We’re on mk 70! You’ve come a long way, Tony) but its questionable if its the most powerful armor he could call into action. But whatever it is, it’s not the Bleeding Edge. It got destroyed because the government said so and Marvel heroes often cuck to the government like the time they agreed to hunt down the Hulk and hand him over to the Deep State to be tortured in mason jars. I think it’s because they’re New Yorkers. New Yorkers have a predisposition for submitting to government goons going all the way back to Boss Tweed.

 

If you go a different way from these two, complications are going to have to arise. Yeah I know, both ways are already screwy, but if you deviate from them things are going to get REAL screwy.

 

So of course that’s what Death Battle is going to do.

 

Everything is kind of up in the air is what I’m saying. Who knows who’s going to get what?

 

Notes on Batman

 

Batman’s Chaos Emerald

 

 

Do you remember that time Damian Wayne died and then Batman brought him back to life with a chaos shard (emerald) he got from the Nu version of Earth 2 which was later taken by Darkseid to Apokalips because it was his to begin with and then taken by Batman so he could absorb Darkseid’s omega effect with it and use it to rewrite reality so Damian comes back to life?

 

That happened.

 

I guess they didn’t want Damian’s resurrection to be a copy of Jason’s LOL LAZARUS JUICE IN MY COFFIN but damn, talk about convoluted plots.

 

Batman’s chaos emerald would be a huge help to him in this fight. Not only does it help him get around the “my suit is eating me alive to operate” limitation, but being able to suck omega effect levels of energy would basically spell curtains for Tony. But should be be allowed to have it? He had it for one arc and used it up bringing Damian back to life. It was never seen again. But a lot of Tony’s gear is the same. The Phoenixbuster appeared for an arc, blew up, and was never seen again. The Godbuster appeared for an arc, blew up, and was never seen again. The Godkiller appeared for an arc, blew up, and was never seen again. If the rules of the fight are “they use whatever they have feasible and ready access to as of 2020, excluding calling other superheroes to save their skins” Bruce can’t have his chaos emerald, but Tony loses a lot of suits as well.

 

During the same raid on Apocalypse, Batman also made  use of a mother box which Darkseid destroyed. Does he get that mother box in this fight? Because it was treated as a buff to Iron Man’s power level in JLA/Avengers.

 

I think he might get the mother box. He might not, but I think it’s way more likely than him getting the chaos emerald.

 

The Hellbat

 

 

Before we even knew who Batman was fighting, we knew about the Hellbat. This fight was probably made simply to find someone to fight the Hellbat. It’s no secret that Death Battle likes using Batman and Bat family characters, and why wouldn’t they? Batman is arguably the most popular superhero on the planet. He brings eyeballs.

 

The Hellbat makes perfect sense in-universe. Why wouldn’t Batman’s JL friends build him a really powerful suit of armor so he can keep up when it comes time to brawl? It’s sort of like the JL all pitched in to buy their slower, clumsier, sped friend a safety helmet. The problem is, it’s kind of jumping the shark. Batman’s arsenal has been growing in scope and power since the silver age. He started with batarangs and a silk rope, got a batlaser, a got glider cape, got suits of armor, got mechs, got milk, and now he has this thing. It’s high-tech, and Batman’s always been associated with high-tech, but it’s not the kind of high-tech most people think of when they Batman. They think James Bond gadgets and grapple hooks. They don’t think Star Trek.

 

The story it’s featured is…okay. It felt like a nexus of a lot of bad ideas and retreaded ideas. The Batman vs Darkseid bit felt like a retread of Final Crisis, the resurrection of Robin felt like a retread of Under the Red Hood, the drama between Bruce wanting to go to Apokalips and the League trying to stop him felt like more Nu 52 “drama era” bullshit, and the Earth-2 chaos emerald felt like an attempt to prop up flagging interest in the Nu 52 version of Earth-2.

 

It’s difficult to talk about the Hellbat because we don’t know much about it. So far, Batman’s only used it twice. He used it to rescue Damian’s remains from Apokalips and bring him back to life with a chaos emerald and again to rescue Etrigan (more specifically, Jason Blood) when he was getting his lifeforce devoured by a demon.

 

From what we saw during the Apokalips adventure, we know that the Hellbat:

 

–Is powerful enough to go through armies of parademons and justifiers.

 

–Is powerful enough to defeat Kalibak.

 

–Is some sort of weird nanotech. It’s capable of changing shape, dividing into a swarm of bats, and spawning a rain of batarangs that can take down an Apokalips army.

 

–Can do Mazinger Z’s BREASTO FIYAHHHHHH move.

 

–Can create weird Spawn tentacles that pierce Apokalips armor and drains all fluid out of the inner ear to disrupt balance.

 

–Has a stealth mode so powerful it defeated Apokalips scanners.

 

–Was overpowered by Darkseid who was literally stomping Bruce into the ground until Bruce brought the chaos emerald into play.

 

–It’s biggest weakness is that it uses Bruce’s own lifeforce as a power source…for some reason. Great job, JL, give your friend known for pushing himself well beyond his limits a suit of armor that slowly kills him the more he uses it. You guys really couldn’t hit Steel up for something? Did it have to be this way? This lifeforce drain can be mitigated by removing parts of the armor, which leaves Bruce exposed and vulnerable.

 

Seriously guys. Not even some underarmor? Get him a Rocket Red suit to wear beneath it, something more than kevlar, come on.

 

As cool as this all sounds, the Hellbat can possibly do more. Much more.

 

This is how its creation was originally described.

 

 

Seems pretty straight forward, right? All the members got together to make some really strong nano-armor. I’m not sure what the hell Aquaman blowing bubbles on it did, but apparently it was important. Chrome finish, maybe?

 

But here’s how it was described later.

 

 

This seems to imply that Batman’s JL friends didn’t just combine their powers to put the suit together but that the suit can draw upon limited versions of their powers. This is givens support later on in the story when Batman shining fingers a demon using what he calls a “devastator” which is powered by a circuit stamped with a Superman and Wonder Woman logo. It’s not clear, but I think the implication is that he drew upon their strength.

 

 

Does this mean the Hellbat has little circuits printed with Aquaman logos that can give him bursts of telepathy? Does he have a speed force mode? Does he have a charge of Green Lantern energy?

 

I don’t know, but it’ll be interesting to see what Death Battle thinks.

The Final Batsuit

 

 

Ah Scott Snyder. Is there any concept you can’t ripoff and make twice as powerful, twice as dull?

 

Okay. It turns out in the DC cosmology, the Monitor and Anti-Monitor had a secret brother called the Forger whose job it was to create all the worlds of the multiverse, even the worlds of the sphere of the gods, by beating them into form on a cosmic anvil. When El Grande Madre Perpetua got out of the Source Wall because Lex gathered together all the dragon balls, the Forger was against her, and his plan to beat her was to create a universe capable of defeating her in the sixth dimension and then bring it into reality by using his anvil to copy+paste over Earth 0. Or something like that. Anyway, in his perfect reality, Batman used this suit powered by a souped-up mother box called a son box to defeat all the bad guys in the universe–but also create a universe sized police state with his Justice League buddies. Forger later gave this suit to the real Batman in the hopes that Batman would be his “knight of light,” or something like that, and open his teammates eyes to the reality that police state good, justice badong, by beating the shit out of his friends.

 

It was very anime, and very stupid.

 

Batman went along with it for awhile, because he’s a drama queen and Snyder is a hack, so he beats up the League while Forger watches, but he secretly uses the Final Batsuit to rearrange all the stars in the universe to guide Superman back from the edge of reality to Earth so he can rip-off Cell Saga and punch Forger and his cosmic anvil while ghosts of his family watch.

 

Like I said, very anime and very stupid, but Final Batsuit, yeah, that’s not going to be easy for Tony to overcome. When you can beat up the League while forming a breadcrumb trail of stars across the universe you’re a bit above Iron Man’s level, even if you bring in Iron Man’s cosmic suits.

 

So, will Bruce get the Final Batsuit?

 

Yes.

 

No.

 

Maybe.

 

I don’t know.

 

The page below occurs right before Superman’s Forger punch. It’s the last time we ever see the Final Batsuit.

 

 

And this page occurs right after the punch.

 

 

“Yeah I would have been down for the police state if Superman didn’t have the strength to crawl his zombified ass through a field of dead Supermen to the lights I hung outside of his prison-reality. But he made his constitution check so I’m team justice now.”

 

So…what happened to the Final Batsuit? Did it vanish? It was made by the Forger so maybe it vanished after he got punched into submission? But Hawkgirl and Martian Manhunter’s goblino abomination son was made by the Forger and he survived, though he hasn’t appeared since Snyder got off the book because no one wants to deal with that awful fanfiction. Did Batman pop it into the son box like how Flash stores his costumes in his ring? Is it currently hiding behind the giant penny in the Batcave?

 

Let’s be honest. I don’t know if Batman still has the Final Batsuit. You don’t know if Batman has the Final Batsuit. Scott Snyder wrote the damn thing and even he doesn’t know if Batman has the Final Batsuit because he’s not a writer, he’s four children in desperate need of Ritalin in a trenchcoat banging their action figures together while DC’s enslaved artist does his best to interpret the madness he’s witnessing.

 

Whether Death Battle uses it is anyone’s guess.

 

Notes on Iron Man

 

The Phoenixbuster

 

 

After looking up the Phoenixbuster, I got to say that I was not impressed by its performance. I know that Tony’s busters usually get busted more than they bust, but this was pretty bad even by that standard.

 

Here’s the context for the Phoenixbuster. It’s during the event Avengers vs X-Men. The X-Men want the Phoenix to come to Earth because they’re a bunch of psycho ethnostatists who want the magic space chicken to come to Earth because they think it’ll bolster the falling population numbers of their quasi-race that isn’t actually a race under any rational definitions of the word. The Avengers want to stop them because the Phoenix, you know, blows up stars and stuff, and the X-Men don’t exactly have a good history when it comes to keeping the Phoenix under control.

 

You know what’s weird? Mutants count for like, 0.00000000001 percent of the universes population, and yet they’re responsible for more than fifty percent of the space crimes. Jean Grey was a mutant. Thanos was a mutant. The Kree’s Supreme Intelligence was a mutant. I’m just saying it’s weird…

 

So the Phoenix is getting close to Earth. It’s close to the moon. Hank Pym and Tony put together the Phoenixbuster, which is basically a big space gun with arms and legs attached to it so Tony can claim it’s an Iron Man suit. They hope that the big disruptor gun will destroy the Phoenix, and when Tony hits the Phoenix with the disruptor it vanishes and for a second it looks like it worked.

 

But then in an instant the Avengers find out the Phoenix hasn’t been destroyed but split into five parts which bond to Cyclop’s sentai team, the Phoenix Five, and they and the Phoenix proceed to take out the Avengers and go to Earth. Whoops!

 

It’s not exactly clear what happened to the Phoenixbuster after the Phoenix busted the Avengers. Since the Avengers got BTFO with a wave of Scott’s hand, I’m assuming they also took down the Phoenixbuster on their way to Earth, but maybe they just Tony go while he floated there helpless and confused. Either way, the Phoenixbuster has never been seen again in the world of comics.

 

I don’t put much stock in the Phoenixbuster winning the fight for Tony. It split the Phoenix into five. So it’ll what, split the Hellbat into five? it can already form into and back from a cloud of bats. Getting split isn’t going to do a thing to it.

 

The Godkiller

 

 

Oh sweet God, what did I just read?

 

I used to think DC was in a bad spot when it came from writers. Bendis, Snyder, I’m sorry I called you guys the worst comic writers of all time. I was wrong. Jason Aaron is the king of modern comic book trash. Hell, he goes beyond king. He’s the god.

 

Jack Kirby is rolling over so fast in his grave you could use him to power one of those gizmos he had Thing carry around for Mr. Fantastic.

 

Okay. Maybe you’ve heard about the Celestials, the big (in several senses of the word) space gods who came to Earth in pre-history and conducted genetic experiments on Moon Boy’s people to create the lineages of man, mutant, eternal, and deviant as part of a big science experiment? They’re so powerful they get to be included in group meetings of abstracts. They’re so powerful that when they came to judge the moral development of humanity, the gods stood against them, and the gods lost. Odin in the Destroyer armor amped by the other skyfathers couldn’t stop them. He couldn’t even slow them down. It was only by the intervention of the matriarch goddesses who showed the Celestials the nobility of the human race that mankind was spared.

 

Aaron retconned things so that the Celestials didn’t come to Earth to experiment. Instead, one of them caught the Celestial Coof, crashed on the planet, died, and then bug creatures spawned from his vomit that eventually became bug monsters which became…humans and mutants and deviants and eternals…somehowwwwww….

 

And all the full disclosure the Celestials did for the Eternals through Ajaks, through their ultimatum to the skyfathers, I guess that was just a lie. Turns out everything came from a Celestial with the Celestial Coof buried in the Earth. All that stuff about the baby Celestial growing inside the planet and the Celestials using the human lineages as antibodies to protect it? All that stuff about humanity being a big Space Odyssey? Yeah I guess we can throw that all in the trash. It didn’t happen. Instead the Celestials watch over Earth because somehow humanity is like, a cure for the virus because it was made of dead Celestial goo, and human thoughts hurt it?

 

It’s so stupid, it’s so, so stupid.

 

You think the Watcher or Kree or the Shi’Ar would have mentioned that the biggest race in the universe is dying of a zombie virus. “Oh yeah. Did you know the Celestials are all dying form a zombie virus that’s been spreading through them and only them for aeons? Weird, huh?” You think Galactus would have noticed a giant dead alien leaking black zombie goo into the planet he keeps trying to eat.

 

You think Marvel would have editors.

 

But lets talk about the Godkiller, or more specifically the Godkiller mk 2. It only showed up for this one scene in Aaron’s Avengers run where the Avengers fight off a pack of zombie Celestials that kill the other Celestials by giving them the Celestial Coof.

 

Their leader is called Callus the Void. He wears a hoodie. He uses a scythe as a weapon.

 

This is why people don’t read modern comics.

 

Should we wank the Godkiller to Celestial level? I wouldn’t. It’s stated in the comic that megatons could get through the armor of the zombie Celestials.

 

 

We’re a longggg way from when the Celestials used to be able to stand up to Odin. Did that fight even happen? I honestly don’t know. Aaron’s retconned so much stuff that I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if we were in a “Beyonder vs pre-retcon Beyonder” situation. But let’s say Callus is legit on the level of Arisham the Judge (the red one with the glowing circuitry finger) and that it wasn’t just because of a virus that Callus’ crew was able to kill him and the other Celestials. I still wouldn’t put the Godkiller on the level of a Celestial.

 

You see that first? That starts Iron Man’s engagement with Callus. He’s already not being very impressive since Robbie Ghost Rider is helping him by possessing a dead Celestial…even though he gets his powers from his dead uncle and not the spirit of vengeance and shouldn’t be able to do that.

 

Fucking Aaron.

 

Here’s the next part of the fight.

 

 

He shoots a ray that does nothing and then loses a hand.

 

The Iron Man armor made out of Red Ronin from Earth-X lasted longer against Celestials.

 

Remember that one? The one that shot Iron Man armors? That one was neat.

 

So after losing a hand Tony says fuck it and decides to try a suicide attack on Callus the Edgelord. He’s not sure if it’ll destroy him, but he hopes it will. But Callus’ zombie henchmen grab him. Tony blows himself up anyway but ejects (so why all the drama about him acting like he’s Chiaotzu a page earlier?). It didn’t seem like he got the zombies holding him. He calls his explosion fireworks, and he was hoping to take out just 1 with the full blast, not several taking portions each.

 

 

So yeah. The Godkiller should be called the Godbuster, because it has the typical effectiveness of his busters.

 

So Who Wins?

 

 

I kept going back and forth on this one, but after a final review through the suits…I got to give it to Batman.

 

This isn’t a call I make with a lot of confidence. Tony could very well win and I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.

 

Alright here’s the thing, in terms of raw physical power the Hellbat is tougher than anything Tony’s got. The devastator punch combo took out a demon that beat Etrigan and was in the process of sucking his power dry when Batman showed up, and Etrigan is worth at least 1/5th of a DC universe given that one Dr. Fate feat, and likely much more given the context of the feat. Batman also raided Apocalypse and took down Glorious Godfrey, armies of justifiers and parademons, and Kalibak. Yeah, Kalibak is a the designated “dumb muscle that gets punched out by the heroes” character, but he’s got some good feats. Orion himself has said that he’s his equal in strength, and the Hellbat wasted him in a page after it took down several armies.

 

What’s Tony got? Losing to Celestials. Losing to Thor. Losing to Hulk. Losing to the Phoenix. The buster suits have horrible track records. If we want to make this a comparison of “strongest character they actually beat,” it becomes Kalibak and Etrigan against Terrax, who Tony recently beat, and I’d but Kalibak and Etrigan wayyyyyy above the Volnutt of Galactus’ heralds. If we want to make this a comparison of “strongest character that beat them  up,” it becomes Darkseid vs a jumped-up Celestial with space covid. I give Darkseid, and thus Batman, the advantage again.

 

Let’s talk about a few more advantages and disadvantages. After raw power, the Hellbat’s biggest advantage is its stealth mode. It’s good enough to fool New Gods, and going by the preview Death Battle seems to agree its good enough to fool Tony’s sensors, so Tony’s going to fight someone faster than he is (remember how fast they calced Darkseid?) who he can’t track. That’s going to be hard to deal with, especially with Bruce being a master of the stealth takedown. It’s next advantage is its ability to recover by transforming into a bat swarm and remerging. This is mostly a counter to the Phoenixbuster. The Phoenixbuster’s one and only trick was to blast the Phoenix with a disrupter weapon that didn’t harm the Phoenix but split it into the Phoenix Five who proceeded to defeat the Avengers and Tony in a single panel. If Tony hits Bruce with the disruptor, he won’t kill him, he’ll have five bat swarms to deal with that will quickly merge back onto Bruce.

 

The big disadvantage Bruce has going into this fight, and what’s probably going to result in his downfall if he does lose, is that the Hellbat sucks his vitality. He’s up against Iron Man, and while Death Battle has never stressed Iron Man or War Machine’s ability to drain energy, it’s a very common move among those kitted out in Stark tech. Since Bruce’s battery is tied to his vitality (ironically, a limitation that used to plague Iron Man all the time in the silver age), anyone that drains the Hellbat’s battery is going to drain him, right? Imagine an army of Iron Man suits ganging up to suck the Hellbat dry. I think they could do it if they managed to pin Bruce down. They wouldn’t have to overpower the Hellbat, just drain enough so that Bruce starts having heart failure. The problem with that scenario is that the Hellbat is incredibly elusive, and its batarang storm ability allows it to handle crowds of enemies. Still, if Tony pins down Bruce with several armors, that’s it for him, his battery and heart are getting drained.

 

I’m not sure if Death Battle is going to extrapolate League-based abilities for the Hellbat based on the devastator punch, but if they do it further increases Bruce’s odds. Imagine everything Bruce has going for him but now he’s got Aquaman telepathy and access to the Speed Force.

 

So yeah. I think Batman is going to win this one, but it’ll be close. Who do I want to win? Iron Man. Tony’s been fighting other guys in armor for years. God, the first time was what, Crimson Dynamo back in the sixties? Tony was winning power armor fights since before Watergate. That’s his thing. Batman outdoing Tony in his element because of a power-up he got in 2014 just feels wrong.

 

Notes On The Preview

 

 

Well, first thing I want to say is that their model for the Watchtower is weird. It’s closet to the JLU version, and its insides are very JLU, but the outside has some differences. I don’t know if they cut corners or if they tried to make their own version or if they’re referencing a version I’m not familiar with, but it just bothers me.

 

Secondly, props for the opening. I love it when they have good pre-fight banter. I love that we have more kindling for the “Batfamily vs Marvel multiverse war” fan theory I started. Oh Tony, destroying the Watchtower isn’t going to bring Miles back. His remains are being kept in the Batcave, not the Watchtower.

 

I like to think the Avengers kept sending guys to where they think the headquarters of the guy autopsying Miles is. “He wasn’t at the safehouse with the guy in the red mask? Damn! He’s got to be kept at the satellite!”

 

Animation wise, I’m a little disappointed. The repulsor effects don’t look so hot. It looked less like Tony shot at Batman and more he shot at the ground next to Batman. I wish they didn’t just lift Tony’s sprite from MvC. In a fight where both characters have dozens of armors, I feel like they should’ve made more of an effort to showcase them. Using his MvC sprite, which represents a very specific armor from the 90’s that’s considered nowhere near Tony’s top armors, isn’t the right move. And going directly from normal Batman to Hellbat isn’t the right move either.

 

Why go directly to Hellbat? There’s plenty of armors they could have gone through before getting to it. This is a battle between arguably the two most popular superheroes on the planet. I think they can splurge a little with the budget. Where’s the Thrasher armor? The Fenris armor? Or how about the Insider armor with its speed force mode? I just expected more.

 

What disappointed me the most is the music. There’s only a little of it in the preview but I didn’t like it. Some dude screeching out lines like he’s going through puberty does not a good listening experience make.

 

UPDATE: Thank you to the anon who pointed out that at the start of the fight, Tony doesn’t actually shoot a repulsor at Bats. He aims the repulsor and then Bats blows up the batarang he placed under the console. That’s a load off my mind. And here I was thinking that Batman pulled out a Chekhov’s gun. I was wondering if it wasn’t some sort of obscure uber-batarang that destroyed metal or something that Bruce was placing as part of a bat-plan.