Capeworld Comics

The FORBIDDEN Death Battle Prediction Blog Episode 39

 

Prediction 18

 

Po vs Iron Fist

 

Ah. there’s hope for this season yet! This is the kind of fight I’ve been dying to see from DB. I’ve said it for a long time–Marvel’s library of characters has a lot of potential outside being fed to DC or anime girls. Not only does Marvel have a huge cast of characters across several genres, but their power levels cover a wider range than DC.

 

Here’s to the possibility of Deathlok vs Robcop, Rom vs Tekkaman Blade, Darkhawk vs Guyver, and Devil Dinosaur and Moonboy vs Spear and Fang.

 

Shake that IP farm and use what falls out.

Give It To Me Straight And Simple, Who Wins?

 

 

Po.

 

When I first heard about the fight I thought “Well Iron Fist is going to win. He downed a helicarrier once by punching it’s flight deck. I don’t think Kung-Fu Panda has anything like that. I remembered the second movie where him flipping around cannonballs was treated as a big deal.”

 

Turns out Po’s done a lot more in the cartoon. Did you know there was a Kung-Fu Panda cartoon? I sure didn’t. But in it, he’s stated to be more powerful than a character who made a shield out of chi that intercepted a meteor headed to the planet.

 

Chicxulub>>>Helicarrier.

 

Give It To Me With More Information and Factoids

 

 

Okay. In terms of speed, Danny probably has the edge. He’s capable of catching bullets. I’m not sure if he can do it with his teeth, but he can catch them. Po caught cannonballs, but I’m not sure how they’re going to figure that. If they go by what’s on the screen, they aren’t that fast, but if they look up cannonball speeds and pretend the balls are actually that fast and measure Po’s reactions who knows what number they’ll come up with. But I’m sure they’ll find a panel with Danny dancing with Spidey or Daredevil or Cap and cook him up enough speed to get the edge on Po. And Danny might take the edge in experience since he’s been doing this since stuff since Enter the Dragon was playing in theaters. Even when you factor in Marvel’s weirdo sliding timeline time-compression stuff where everything in canon has (somehow) taken place over like, a decade, Danny should have had more active years and more opponents than Po.

 

But the power gap is just too much for Danny to surmount.

 

Danny’s finisher move, the Iron Fist, which is hard for him to spam because it drains his chi, is his iron fist, which strikes LIKE A THING ONTO IRON, which is comic book speak for “mostly it breaks doors and walls….but sometimes it hits with the force of a nuke. It’s been explicitly compared to a hydrogen bomb and it has the feats to back up the comparison. He’s used it to sink ships, a helicarrier, and to knock the crap out of Luke Cage who once tanked a nuke.

 

But that’s nothing compared to Po scaling past a guy that created a chi shield out in space to stop a meteor threatening the Earth.

 

And then there are Po’s chi abilities. He and Danny have similar ones that cancel out. Both can use chi to fire waves of energy, both can use chi to heal themselves, both can use chi to pull off nerve strikes, and both can use chi to scramble and unscramble minds. But Po has some finisher moves that Danny doesn’t have answers for while the “flow” power Po got in the second movie is a great counter for the iron fist. What better way to counter a powerful, direct chi attack than a power that redirects chi? Po judo’s Danny’s iron fist to the side and counters his head off.

 

Po can wuxi finger hold Danny into the spirit realm, he can send him into the spirit realm by shooting him with a blast of chi, he overload Danny with his dragon warrior chi like he did to the bad guy of the third movie, and he can hit Danny with the silken moon touch, basically his version of the iron fist which places all his chi into a finger. Danny’s one win condition is to have DB scale the iron fist past a meteor and get a solid, clean hit on Po which isn’t going to be easy since Po can flow the attack away from him. Meanwhile, Po has several win conditions and Danny doesn’t have a ready answer to any of them.

 

True, there was one Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu (does anyone else miss Curtis Magazines like I do?) issue where a reality altering spell leaves Danny intangible like a ghost and he wills himself back to corporeal form using his chi to cross the dimensional gap, but I don’t think that would let him escape the spirit realm. He was still on Earth when he was effected. He wasn’t sent to another plane of reality, he was just a ghost. Danny was once sent to a magical plane of reality by Agamotto (yeah, the same guy involved with Dr. Strange’s Eye of Agamotto, long story) in New Avengers, he was stuck and needed Agamotto to get him out. That’s more comparable to what getting sent to Kung-Fu Panda’s shadow realm is like.

 

Po also has two abilities that help hammer down his win–he can fly and he can copy moves. The longer the fight goes on, the more of Danny’s tech Po masters and the more the fight goes in Po’s favor. If Danny wiffs the iron fist against Po, that’s it, he’s going to fight someone that can can use his ultimate move and more. And flight might not sound like an impressive power, but think about it. Flight is one of the best abilities you can have when your opponent is grounded. Flight means Po can dictate the tempo of the fight. He can decide when to engage Danny and when to hang back and charge up his chi. It’s a huge advantage.

 

Po is just too much for Danny. He’s got too much chi, too many finishing moves, and too many powers Danny doesn’t have. Danny can hang with Po for a little while, but when it comes time for them both to bring out their chi construct dragons, Po’s is going to be stronger than all of China’s chi including the chi of the turtle that blocked a meteor–which brings up another point in Po’s favor. Danny isn’t the strongest immortal weapon. Prince of Orphans and Fat Cobra go way above him. He isn’t even the strongest Iron Fist. There have been others in his legacy that go beyond him. But Po is the dragon warrior. He is the tip-top of his world’s power level pyramid. He is his world’s kwisatz haderach. Danny is a master, but Po is THE master.

 

But Otto, Danny Once Punched Hercules In The Face!

 

 

Look, I know you’re reading this G1. I know you hate-follow me. Free advice–Danny is at a certain superhero power level. That level rhymes with “beat.”

 

Don’t make the same mistake you did thinking scaling wank would save Venom and Hulk. It didn’t save them, and it’s not going to save Danny. His iron fist is not going to get ranked at twelve zillion universes because he knocked out a drunk Hercules with it or shredded a robot Thor made to kill Bill Foster and then get shredded again and again by superheroes above D-list.

 

Danny is a Spider-Man level character with a powerful finishing move that frags other street level characters if it connects–but only if it connects. He’s even admitted he can’t beat Spider-Man. And don’t bring up that page where Norman Osborn simulates Iron Fist killing Spidey 97% of the time. It’s a sim by Norman Osborne, the guy who talks to himself and still can’t 1v1 Pete even after putting in obsessive amounts of prep work. In actual non-computer sim encounters with Spidey, Danny doesn’t win. He lost their fight in MTU 31.

 

Danny is Spidey level. He’s street level. He’s not Thor level. But by all means, wank him to Thor level. I love it when you guys feed me easy wins.