Capeworld Comics

The FORBIDDEN Death Battle Prediction Blog Episode 10

 

Original Fight 6

 

Superman vs Goku (Baby Edition)

 

Oh yes. We’re doing this.

 

The game of “Superman vs Goku” comes down to how you stack up the fighters. Goku the Blue and Goku the White beat DCAU Superman who has a hard time fighting Livewire. All-Star Superman beats Dragon Ball Goku. Modern comics Superman beats whatever color Goku happens to be now.

 

During one of the many, many Superman vs Goku threads on /co/, an anon asked a brilliant question: “What would happen if you had baby Goku and baby Superman fight each other?”

 

We’re not talking about Superbaby vs pre-Dragon Ball Goku under the care of Grandpa Gohan. We’re taking the Saiyan pod and Jor-El’s rocket land next to each other in a field and the two infants tumble out and fight.

 

It’s so stupid, so funny, and so genius that I must cover it.

 

It is the ultimate exhaustion of Superman vs Goku arguments and I love it.

 

The answer to who wins is rather open-and-shut, but probably not in the way you think. You’re probably thinking baby Goku wins because he can turn into a giant monkey-monster by looking at the moon while baby Superman hasn’t had time to absorb sunlight.

 

Huh. Isn’t that an interesting twist to the theme of this fight? Baby Goku is powered by the moon and baby Superman is powered by the sun.

 

It makes thematic sense. Goku is a reflection of Superman and the moon reflects the light of the sun while producing no light of its own.

 

Yeah, I went there. 

 

Now you’re probably thinking “Oh. So Superman wins. Is it because he ramps up really, really fast under yellow sunlight?”

 

No.

 

It’s because he gets his superpowers well before he lands on Earth.

 

Let me explain.

 

Otto Explains

 

Back in Superman 106, you had a story called Superman’s First Exploit. I say “you had a story” rather than “the story was” because back then you got several complete stories in one comic. It wasn’t like nowadays where it takes several months or even years for some prima-donna writer to tell his magnum opus about how Juggalo Batman from the Depressoverse outwits all the heroes until they pull a plot device out of their asses to win and claim victory amid a graveyard of dead worlds and broken lives.

 

Why yes, I am older than the hills. But I’m younger than the mountains.

 

Superman’s First Exploit opens with Dr. Reese Kearns, disgraced and discredited for making a doomsday meteor panic years ago, asking Superman exactly when and where he landed on Earth. Superman doesn’t want anything to do with a discredited scientist asking about his personal life (can you blame him? He’s got a bad history with discredited scientists from Ultra to Luthor) and flies away. Later, Superman finds Dr. Kearns at the Daily Planet giving Perry White the idea to host a contest–the person who can name Superman’s earliest super-feat wins.

 

Why did Dr. Kearns start the contest? Superman thinks it’s so he can estimate where his rocket came down and use that information to go after his secret identity. But the truth is stranger still!

 

Superman’s First Exploit features the kind of imaginative, fun storytelling that made Superman an American icon. It’s a far cry from modern Superman stories where he’s either the writer’s tortured therapy tool or a stuffed shirt spewing vapid homilies about truth and love even while he sends his only son off in space under the guidance of his recently mindbroken father who tried to destroy the Earth.

 

I highly recommend reading it. Forget my stupid summary below, go on and read it. Read it and the other two stories in Superman 106. One of them features Lex Luthor’s first power armor!

 

But if you really just want to know why baby Superman beats baby Goku in a fight, read below.

 

Superman vets a series of stories about his earliest feat and finds that Mrs. Morris of Smallville appears to have the earliest one. She remembers how baby Superman once pulled up a street light because he wanted to touch the lamp at the top.

 

But Dr. Kearns urges Superman to think back further. He knows Superman can because total recall was one of Superman’s powers that got lost after Man of Steel (The Byrne one, not the Snyder one, but isn’t it eerie how the two worst things to ever happen to Superman were both called Man of Steel?). So Superman concentrates, thinks back, and remembers that his first feat was accomplished well before he touched down on Earth.

 

He remembers that while he was in the rocket, a very bright comet passed nearby (its called a meteor in the story, but comets aren’t meteors until they burn up in the atmosphere). Fascinated, baby Superman popped the door of the rocket and jumped to the comet where he found the glow was caused by a giant crystal insect. The insect tries to attack the strange alien thing that just landed on its comet, but Superbaby is indestructible and sends the insect flying back to Crystallium with a bop of his mighty baby-fist. 

 

With the cool glow gone, Superbaby has no reason to stay on the comet, so he jumps back to the rocket. 

 

Superman states that this is undoubtedly his earliest superfeat, though he hadn’t recalled it until now (because he doesn’t like thinking all the way back to Krypton exploding), and Dr. Kearns explains that this is exactly what he figured. When he caused a panic by saying that a meteor was going to flatten Metropolis, he was talking about the meteor Superbaby kicked away by jumping off it. Superbaby ended up saving Metropolis years before he ever moved to the city. That’s a nice “gotcha” question of Superman trivia–what city did Superman save first, Smallville or Metropolis?

 

 Dr. Kearns declines the prize money saying that all he wanted was to restore his reputation which Superman gladly helps him do.

 

So let’s return to the fight.

 

Superman was Super before he ever touched Earth. Baby Goku on the other hand, was vulnerable enough to fall down and hurt his head which gave him amnesia about his Saiyan heritage and made him good instead of evil (that’s the actual explanation for Goku not being like other Saiyans). Even if they fought at night and Goku went Kong mode, he would be battered around by baby Superman’s speed. Baby Superman would turn Goku into his giant teddy bear and then build a crib in the Grand Canyon because that’s how the Golden Age rolls.