the way I see it, Superman will win the first round, this defeat will send Goku to a higher plane of immortality, giving him the edge to beat Superman.

Source: Every season of DBZ...

also Goku's ki might be a form of magic (if only a spiritual magic), and magic is one of Superman's few weaknesses.

from the drive by



Superman has a pure heart, a spirit bomb would bounce right off of him

Yup. The spirit bomb cannot hurt superman.

*loathing*

Superman's not weak to magic. A lot of the spell-casters that he faces are ridiculously strong, and use spells on him that would normally kill a person... They can do some damage, yes, but being a Kryptonian still helps him survive.

I think the worst thing about "magic" as a Superman weakness is that it probably has found its way into explicit reference.

At the end of the day, the only reason the conversation has any reason to exist is because Superman is fundamentally a character of logic. His strengths and basic abilities are defined by the limitations of regular joes -- the measure by which he is deemed super.

Nothing about this logic addresses any kind of resistance to logic-defying techniques like "magic". It's probably a lot more reasonable to assume Superman has sought occult protections from his many mystic allies, but since so many people have spent the internet age bitching and moaning about stupid things like Superman's success rate, it's become a "weakness." Why Kryptonians would have an inherent weakness to "magic" -- I don't know. I think the most sensible point is simply that they don't have natural counter-measures, or protection.

I don't know how far references to a magic "weakness" can be found -- obviously he's been vulnerable to "magic" intereference for decades upon decades -- but it strikes me as a recent thing. If the magic he's dealing with isn't an esoteric explanation for something that intereferes with his basic logics, it shouldn't matter. A magic fireball shouldn't, without specification, do more harm than a regular fireball. Etc etc.

What does that perspective mean to Superman/Goku? I don't have a clue.
If nothing else, it takes any notion of a 'magic' handicap out of the equation. I'm sure a lot of people are going to factor it in anyway and argue in favour of it, and that's their business. To me, it's the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object. I've seen Goku fatigue, or die, a heckuva lot more often than Superman. I've seen Goku play with ki blasts like suns destroying planets, and I've seen Superman kick it with sun-eaters and gods. Brolli, Frieza, Vegeta; Doomsday, Lex Luthor, General Zod.

Whatever the verdict, it just needs to be close. A certain cultural bias seems to lean against Superman and that's about the only thing I don't want to see. If we can do without 'magic' as a weakness, that'd be even better.

The general weakness to magic is actually a misconception (although one that's so pervasive it's now practically "official" depending on the writer).

The thing about Superman is that he's not so much vulnerable to "magic" as much as he's susceptible to its conditions. A subtle but important distinction. If someone enchants a sword to be able to cut anything then it can cut Superman because Superman is "anything." But if someone uses magic to create an otherwise ordinary sword then it'll affect Superman as much as any ordinary sword would. Cast a spell to create fire that can burn Superman then the fire will burn Superman. But cast a spell that merely "creates fire" and it won't do extra damage to Superman just because it's sourced from magic. It still behaves like ordinary fire.

Cast a spell to create a stone that only Batman can lift then Batman can lift it while Superman can't. Cast a spell to turn everyone named "Clark" into a frog and Superman will turn into a frog. Of course, if you cast a spell to turn everyone named "Bruce" into a frog then Batman will turn into a frog while Superman won't. But we don't classify Batman as "weak" to magic, right?

The Death Battle doesn't make this distinction and more or less just says Superman is especially injured by Goku's power pole just because it's a magic stick. Not because it's enchanted to cause any specific injury or somehow bypass his natural durability.

They may be doing it on purpose in order to show that, even with everything stacked as much in Goku's favor as possible, Superman still wins. I'm of the opinion that the match is actually more skewed than it seems and that Goku is far outclassed in just about every category. At base shortly after the Cell saga, Goku struggles to lift 40 tons. Super Saiyan 4 is a 4000x multiplier from base. That makes Goku's max strength provably no greater than 160,000 tons. Superman is 416,250,000,000,000 times stronger than that.

It's up

@TonyTheTiger & @Mick-Lucifer... you guys are 100% right about superman's "vulnerability" to magic. I've been trying to explain just that to the nerds at my local comic shop for weeks. I will revert them to this forum next time I see them. LoL

They think that Thor can beat superman simply becuz his Lightning is magic. I argue that his lightning is still JUST lightning, but its just "magically summoned" and should affect him the same way. Magic hurts superman like it would anybody else, but superman is strong enough to withstand it. Magic doesnt 'weaken" superman the way kryptonite does, and it looks like thats how ppl have been misinterpreting it in recent years. Even in this deathbattle video, Goku's magic pole touches superman, and it looks like he was hit with kryptonite. I hate that! haha. Magic is such a cop-out.

I don't have strong feelings either way regarding the winner. However, I'm resentful they'd factor the details of DBGT into the equation. It's not in the manga; it wasn't written/animated by Akira Toriyama. I imagine DC fans would feel the same way if Death Battle incorporated elements of Superman that were only valid in one of the animated series (and not later on officially incorporated into the comics like Harley or X-23).

they explained why they included GT in one of the death battle previews. They used everything that didn't contradict the original manga.

Besides if they didn't use GT I'm sure you'd see fanboys complaining that SSJ4 Goku would have win.

That's true. Dragonball fans are a rabid group, and given the winner, I'm sorta glad they did use GT source material. I still itches at me, though.. I remember the first time I saw SSJ4 and thought to myself, "this looks like something out of a fanfiction." Everything in GT looks like hollow fanservice with no deeper reasoning beyond "wouldn't it be cool if..."

i guess since superman doesn't kill,and sayains have the ability to heal and gain massive power after being on the brink of death,goku would eventually kick supermans ass.

I knew superman would win. Lol.