Capeworld Comics

The FORBIDDEN Death Battle Prediction Blog Episode 20

 

Prediction 7

 

Red Hood vs Winter Soldier

 

 

What’s the theme? Who are these characters?

 

You know Batman and Robin, right? Everyone knows Batman and Robin! The Dynamic Duo is the most famous superhero and sidekick team on the planet. You want to know how Batman went from being the Shadow but with bat ears to a household name? He started the superhero sidekick thing. Kids got to self-insert as Dick Grayson where Batman was like the ultimate hybrid between big brother and father. Robin was the secret sauce, and soon you had all sorts of knock-off Dynamic Duos. You had the Black Terror and Tim, the Dart and Ace the Amazing Boy, and Captain America and Bucky.

 

Cap and Bucky were made to go together. Batman had a brief period where he was a loner. When Batman first appeared in Detective Comics 27 he was without Robin. As soon as he got his own mag with Batman 1 he got Robin, but Cap and Bucky debuted together in Captain America Comics 1. Before the Red Skull, before Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos, before the Invaders, before the Avengers, Cap had Bucky. 

 

Bucky was originally just a boy, an “army camp mascot,” whatever that is, who happened to walk in on Cap as he was changing from his disguise of private Steve Rogers into Captain America. Naturally, this meant Bucky had to become Cap’s partner and accompany him into battle against whatever weird psychopaths Hitler and Tojo employed for the issue to sabotage America.

 

Hey, not all origin stories can be winners.

 

Ed Brubaker would later retcon Bucky’s origin into being pretty dark. It turns out the “I caught Cap changing” thing was just something told to the newsreels. In reality, Bucky was the 16 year old orphan of a career military man that the military decided to turn into the ultimate sidekick for Captain America. Being a 16 year old in a bright, colorful costume, Bucky had a disarming appearance–which allowed him to do what he was trained to do. You see, it would look bad if Captain America did “dishonorable” fighting like sneaking up on sentries and slitting their throats or sniping targets a mile away. Enter Bucky. 

 

Brubaker’s Bucky was hardcore. Brubaker’s Bucky kept strips of C4 in his arm so that if he was ever captured he could debone his arm and escape.

 

Child abuse? Yeah probably. But don’t weep for Bucky. Weep for all the German and Japanese boys that had to grow up without fathers because of Bucky.

 

Let’s backtrack a little to the 1960’s.

 

When Cap was brought out of the continuity toybox to lead Marvel’s B-list superhero team (Fantastic Four was the A-list superhero team) the Avengers, he entered into a new paradigm for superhero stories where kid sidekicks were out and angst was in.

 

You can probably see where this is going.

 

During the closing days of WW2, Captain America and Bucky found themselves on top of an ICBM developed by Baron Heinrich Zemo, as happens to superheroes. They managed to disarm the bomb before it crossed the Atlantic and hit America, but Bucky got his sleeve caught. Cap tried to reach him, the bomb went off, and Cap got frozen in ice while Bucky was blown to bits. When Cap got revived in the sixties (or whenever due to Marvel’s “sliding timescale.” He probably thawed sometime in the 2010’s nowadays) Bucky’s death became his primary characterization. It made him leading the Avengers against Zemo’s Masters of Evil (good luck explaining how Zemo works with the sliding timescale nowadays) a personal matter and gave him angst when Rick Jones wanted to become his new sidekick.

 

Maybe DC had Cap’s angst in mind when they decided to hold a vote for whether or not Robin died in 1988. This wasn’t the first Robin. That was Dick Grayson and he got to grow up and become Nightwing, leader of the Titans. This was Jason Todd, the second Robin. Jason was to Dick what Nu 52 Billy Batson was to classic Billy Batson. He was a street urchin Batman caught trying to pry the hubcaps off the batmobile. Sensing that there was some good in Jason even if he was rough around the edges, Batman made him his second Robin.

 

What happened in 1988 was that DC got the idea to do a “Call 1-800 to vote on X” thing for publicity. They figured the fans would love to have an impact on the creative process, but they couldn’t figure out what to put to a vote. It couldn’t be something too important otherwise they ran the risk of the fans voting on something they really didn’t want to write. But it couldn’t be something too unimportant otherwise the fans wouldn’t bite. Jim Starlin came up with the idea of putting Robins’ life on the line. It was big enough of a deal to matter, but not big enough of a deal to really matter. Denny O’Neil gave the thumbs up and started writing two scripts.

 

Jim and others have claimed that Jason wasn’t popular with fans, but Jason would have lived if the voting wasn’t rigged. Jason was killed by only 72 votes. It’s an open secret that at least one guy programmed his computer to dial the thumbs down number every ninety seconds for eight hours. There were likely more. Look at public polls nowadays. There’s always a handful of dedicated trolls out to rig it for the lulz. People weren’t different back in the 80’s. If there’s a poll, people will rig it, which says some awfully uncomfortable things about the way western society runs, but lets smooth over that bitter dose of reality by talking about comic book violence, shall we?

 

Jason Todd’s death would prove to be incredibly controversial. Sales dipped. People wrote hate mail. Frank Miller called it the ugliest and most cynical thing he had ever seen in comics and Rick Veitch agreed and wrote Brat Pack as a statement against the decaying optimism of superhero comics and spiteful attitude superhero writers had for their own characters.

 

(Brat Pack is pretty good if you’re in the right mindset for it. It’s emotionally brutal and uncompromising and an indictment of how bitter old men took stories of hope made for children and turned them into stories for jaded manchildren. It’s what the neutered version of The Boys that Death Battle goes full-on Nerd Crew for pretends to be.)

 

But it’s comic books, man. No one stays dead in comic books unless they’re Uncle Ben. Your grandkids will be dead and Aunt May’s dessicated ass will still be walking around. So Jeph Loeb had the idea of bringing Jason Todd back first through hints in Hush and then properly in Under the Red Hood as a mysterious assassin. Superboy Prime, through the power of Geoff John’s rage at people correctly pointing out that Identity Crisis era DC sucked eggs, punched reality and resurrected Jason Todd in his casket. Jason dug his way out but he has brain damage. Fortunately, his muscle memory is so good that he beats the crap out of anyone that attacks him and the League of Assassins finds and ID’s him as Robin. Morrison hadn’t made Talia completely evil yet, so there’s some good in her and she uses the Lazarus pit to restore Jason’s memories. Unfortunately, anger issues are a side effect of using the Lazarus pit and Jason found out that Batman never killed the Joker to avenge him, so Jason had to go through a period where he’d try to kill Batman but never sealed the deal because deep down he still loved his Batdaddy.

 

Then Ed Brubaker had the idea of bringing back Bucky first through hints and then properly in Man out of Time as a mysterious assassin. Bucky, through the power of Marvel forever being DC’s little brother, somehow survived the explosion that was supposed to kill him minus an arm. He gets fished out by Soviets hoping that since he was Cap’s partner he might have some of that fabled super soldier serum in his blood that they could reverse-engineer, but he has brain damage. Fortunately, his muscle memory is so good that he beats the crap out of anyone that attacks him. The Soviets decide that though Bucky isn’t a superhuman, he’s still one hell of a operative, so they use Soviet superscience to turn him into a cyborg and keep him frozen when not in use so he barely ages throughout the many decades that separate WW2 and whenever Marvel decides the Marvel age is supposed to have began. Unfortunately, brainwashing is a side effect of Soviet superscience…and well, Soviet anything really…and Jason ends up trying to kill Cap in the present but can’t seal the deal because deep down he still loves his Capdaddy.

 

Does that sound familiar?

 

It should.

 

Just watch the movie version of his story. It’s better than the comic in all ways.

 

So what’s ultimately the theme here? 

 

Cap’s dead-but-got-better sidekick vs Bat’s dead-but-got-better sidekick. 

 

We’re going to see who has to die-and-get-better all over again.

 

Introduction

 

Way back in a pre-covid-19 world, I wrote at the end of my prediction for Booster Gold vs Cable that if DB ever got sick of the latest DC win streak that Ben probably had a folder marked “sidekick battle” to use as a silver bullet.

 

Going into this, I thought Bucky would stomp Jason pretty handily. I’ve always been of the camp that Captain American should have won his fight against Batman. From what I understood of the characters, Bucky was a character about on Cap’s level. He even subbed for Cap when Steve caught a bad case of comic book death. Jason on the other hand was a character a few clicks below Bruce. He was Batman but with less experience, less training, and fewer gadgets. In a long range fight, Bucky wins because he has machine guns and sniper rifles while Jason has handguns. In a close range fight, Bucky’s cyborg arm lets him dominate. It seemed pretty cut-and-dry that Bucky would win.

 

After doing some more research (I was never very into either Batman or Cap), I’m not as sure as I once was.

 

Did you know Jason can summon magic swords from out of his soul?

 

Because I sure didn’t.

 

Did you know Jason’s armor allowed him to survive near a nuclear explosion?

 

Because I sure didn’t.

 

Does Bucky still beat Jason? Let’s find out.

 

We’re going to do what Death Battle says they always do but never actually delivers–analyze their weapons, armor, and skills to find out who would win a death battle.

 

Weapons

 

An important question for this fight–what all do they get?

 

Given that DB has already deconfirmed Bucky getting Cap’s shield, I think it’s safe to say he won’t be getting any of the sci-fi weapons he used as “The Man on the Wall.” So Bucky won’t be getting his planet busting handguns and interplanetary sniper rifles (don’t you just love comics?). I’m not sure why people thought he’d get them in the first place. Ismahawk is doing the fight. Did they think they’d have Bucky jump out of frame and then cut to him in a spacesuit blowing up the planet?

 

By the same token, we can surmise that Jason isn’t going to get the venom he used for an arc in Red Hood and the Outlaws nor will he be getting any of the alien Tamaranean gear he borrowed from Starfire. So don’t expect Jason to run over Bucky with his spaceship (don’t you just loveee comics?).

 

But here’s the big question.

Will Jason get the All-Blade? Will Jason get his magic soul-bonded sword that he got from a group of immortal warrior monks called the All-Caste because the writers have no idea what they’re doing with the character?

 

 I don’t think so. Or to be more specific, he’ll get it but it’ll be useless for him. It was established when he first got it that the All-Blade only works against magic characters and Bucky is about as magic as Penn and Teller. That being said, Tynion, hack that he is, had Jason use the All-Blade on some robots so Death Battle might let Jason use the All-Blade on Bucky. We’ll have to see. Swan was smart enough to make Ghost Rider’s penance stare work on Lobo and not job to Lobo’s complete lack of guilt over his multiple genocides because Swan understands when writers don’t know what the hell they’re doing, so Swan might have the All-Blades fail against Bucky as they should.

 

Bucky’s Weapons

 

OTG! Bionic Arm!!!

 

Bucky’s most useful and powerful weapon by far. The Soviets created this versatile monster to replace the arm Bucky lost in the explosion that killed him before it was retconned away. They probably would have cut off Bucky’s arm if the explosion didn’t get it because this is definitely something they would have wanted their top agent to have.

 

It’s not clear what exactly it’s made out of. The one in the films was made out of titanium and then upgraded to vibranium by Shuri, and given how the comics like to synergize with the films I wouldn’t be surprised if the one in the comics is vibranium as well. But I’m honestly not sure.

 

–Superstrength 

 

The most obvious feature of Bucky’s bionic arm is that it’s vastly stronger than his flesh and blood one. He’s able to use it to break metal chains, smash through walls, flip cars, and even kill giant robots after a couple of punches. Bucky effectively has superstrength, though only in one arm. But that’s more than Jason who has superstrength in zero arms.

 

–Environment Scanner

 

That red star on the arm? That’s more than just a fancy decoration. The star can “shoot out” Superman-throwing-his-shield-in-Superman II style and scan the environment and relay the information back to Bucky’s domino mask. It’s basically a goofier version of the Batfamily’s detective vision.

 

–Electric Touch

 

Bucky’s arm can produce an electric current powerful enough to drop the Man with No Face, the Chinese version of Captain America who had enhanced strength and durability enough to be unharmed by gunfire and trade punches with Namor. This wasn’t an original feature of the arm and was an upgrade given to it by Nick Fury.

 

–EMP Touch

 

Bucky’s arm can produce a burst of EMP. He tried to use it on Iron Man once but it failed because Iron Man’s armors are EMP proof. After a couple of decades of “oh no, my transistors got fried” you tend to make contingencies. But against a gadgeteer like Jason who doesn’t explicitly use EMP hardened gear, this feature of the arm is very useful.

 

–Remote Operation

 

Yes, Bucky’s arm can come off and move around. It can even flop around and punch people and sneak through buildings. Does anyone remember Stubbs the Zombie?

 

 It’s goofy until you suddenly find yourself flanked by Soviet Thing (as in Addams family, not Ben Grimm) an Soviet Punisher. Bucky can turn any fight into a 2v1 just by taking his arm off. 

 

Bucky can mentally control his arm through a “cyber-link,” which is more or less telepathy. When you’re doing Soviet superscience, you gotta put in the ESP somewhere. Through his cyber-link, Bucky can even operate his arm outside his field of vision.

 

Sniper Rifle

 

–Bucky’s first act in comics was to snipe the Red Skull through bulletproof (okay, bullet resistant) glass which was defeated by the high velocity of Bucky’s rounds.

 

–Bucky was already the best sniper in his division (a military unit comprising 10,000-25,000 men) when he was a teenager. As a grown man, he’s skilled enough to drop 12 armored targets by shooting them in vulnerable spots and did it so fast that none of them realized what was happening.

 

–Black Widow is capable of comfortably sniping from three miles away. As her teacher, Bucky should be able to do the same. The longest sniper shot IRL was done a little over two miles.

 

Rifle and Handgun

 

–Bucky uses a variety of handguns and rifles to kill people. He’s come a long way from M1 carbines.

 

–Bucky once used a handgun that fired explosive rounds. It’s conceivable that this ammo could be fired from his other weapons.

 

–Bucky’s handgun has a palm scanner. If anyone but Bucky (or come to think of it, Bucky with gloves on) tries to use his handgun it explodes. He once killed a man by throwing his handgun so that the palm scanner hit his face, so Bucky can use his handgun like a grenade. It’s conceivable similar palm scanners exist in his rifles.

 

Missile Launcher

 

–May or may not be counted as standard equipment.

 

–It’s a missile launcher. It can launch missiles.

 

–These missiles were powerful enough to down a Crimson Dynamo, the Soviet version of Iron Man who comes in almost nearly as many versions as Iron Man and has had wayyyy more pilots than Iron Man. Anyone remember the time a kid remote controlled one? That version got a heroclix.

 

–You might find it amusing that Winter Soldier took down Soviet Iron Man, but when you think about it Soviet superheroes fight each other a lot less than American superheroes. Fighting is pretty much how American superheroes say hello to each other in Marvel. Meanwhile, when’s the last time the Soviet Super-Soldiers had a Civil War?

 

Grenades

 

–What gadgeteer superhero is complete without trick grenades?

 

–Bucky can use your standard smoke grenades for concealment.

 

–He’s also got gas grenades strong enough to stun a gorilla soldier (don’t you just love comics?) long enough for the killshot.

 

–Strangely, I don’t think he’s ever used standard grenades.

 

Listening Device

 

–Your standard spy gadget. It’s a little gun with a radar dish on the end that allows Bucky to listen through walls at great distance. In theory, this would help Bucky locate Jason over a distance but it’s worth noting that Jason once pulled the “Batman vanishes from Superman” thing on Supergirl. Even with her hearing, she couldn’t find him somehow.

 

Laser Jammer

 

–When faced with one of those “a bunch of lasers in the way like brambles” security systems, Bucky used this device to turn them off somehow. You might wonder what the use of something like this would be in his fight, but Jason does have lasers built into his armor.

 

Hologram Device

 

–You think this is the real Bucky? It is.

 

–Total Recall is pure kino.

 

–Bucky once used this to distract “capekiller” goons back when HAMMER was a thing by creating an image of, of all people, Wolverine.

 

Jason’s Weapons

 

Dual Handguns

 

–Jason’s bread and butter.

 

–Wasn’t it a shame you couldn’t really use them in Injustice 2?

 

–Jason claims they’re some of the most powerful handguns ever made by man.

 

–They’re capable of punching through Deathstroke’s armor. Deathstroke sometimes uses promethium and nth metal armors, but not always. During DCyou, which was when Jason shot him full of holes, there was no indication he was wearing anything nth metal or promethium. Still, Jason’s handguns pack quite a lot of power.

 

–If Death Battle decides Jason’s handguns went through nth metal, Bucky is in serious trouble.

 

The All-Blade

 

–What’s the first thing you think about when you think “The Red Hood?” Was it “Magic soul-bonded blades?”

 

–Due to a retcon, in addition to training with shady wetwork characters to learn how to kill after waking up, Jason also trained with a group of near-immortal warrior monks called the All-Caste. They gave him the All-Blade, which in function is more like All-Blades. When Jason materializes the All-Blade from his soul, it takes the form of two blades that he dual wields. Jason really likes dual wielding.

 

–The All-Blade is incredibly powerful and capable of harming magical beings that are otherwise impervious to conventional weaponry.

 

–It’s bonded to Jason’s soul and he can summon it whenever he likes.

 

–It probably won’t work on Bucky because Bucky isn’t magical. Not working against anything mundane was an explicit rule concerning the weapon.

 

The Red Hood

 

–Why don’t more gadgeteer superheroes wear helmets? They’re not just practical. They look really cool.

 

–Jason’s hood comes with its own air supply which cancels out Bucky’s gas grenades.

 

–Jason’s hood has night vision.

 

–As far as I can tell, Jason’s hood doesn’t have any sort of detective vision mode that’ll let him see through walls. But given that he’s a member of the Batfamily, it’s conceivable he has something like that.

 

Electrified Armor

 

–Another fairly common Batfamily trick. Jason’s armor can project an electric current to fry anyone that touches him. This more or less cancels out the electric shock attack from Bucky’s arm.

 

Arm-mounted Laser

 

–Essentially an arm-mounted version of the batlasers the Batfamily sometimes use to quickly cut through metal. It might be canceled out by Bucky’s laser jammer.

 

Glider Wings

 

–Exactly what they sound like. It’s not flight, but it’s something.

 

Swords

 

–Jason has normal swords in addition to the soul-bonded crap.

 

–They’re sharp enough to hack off a piece of Deathstroke’s armor.

 

Grenades

 

–Amusingly, unlike Bucky, Jason uses the standard exploding kind of grenades but none of the special gas and smoke kind. You’d think it would be the other way around.

 

Japanese Military Grade Cyber Armor Arm Blades

 

–You’ve underestimated the power of Japanese technology, you evil bitch!

 

–If you didn’t catch that reference, you need to watch more OVAs from the 90’s.

 

–Jason can sprout blades from his arms like a discount Guyver.

 

–These are military grade as opposed to the non-military grade Japanese cyber armor arm blades.

 

Armor

 

Jason has the edge here, and it’s not just because he’s smart enough to wear a helmet. You’d think a WW2 vet like Bucky would know the importance of protecting his noggin. Those GIs wore M1s for a good reason. But no. Bucky’s fine just going into battle with a domino mask.

 

Jason’s armor is almost like power armor in how it functions. It allows him to endure not just bullets but an RPG to his face. His greatest durability feat involves him blowing up a submarine trying to smuggle nuclear weapons into Miami. Jason breaking out of the hull would be impressive on its own as it shows his armor protects him from suddenly going into pressures that should at the very least give him the bends if not outright crush him, but the nukes on the sub go off and the blast hits him. Now we can’t really be sure how far away he was from the nukes, but he was close enough to be buffeted by the blast.

 

If you remember my Thundarr the Barbarian vs Crystalis battle, you’ll know that explosions are deadlier in the water than on the ground. Remember the balloons. That’s what Jason’s armor somehow protected him from.

 

Here’s the video if you don’t want to look through Thundarr vs Crystalis to find it:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4DnuQOtA8E&ab_channel=MarkRober

 

By comparison, Bucky’s own armor is a joke. It’s bulletproof and grenade proof, but it’s never withstood an underwater explosion on the level of what Jason faced.

 

True, Bucky did survive a beating by Sin who had a magic hammer and was likely close to Thor’s level, but he nearly died. He had to undergo emergency surgery and would have died if Nick Fury didn’t give him the last of the infinity formula, the plot device invented to explain how he was able to fight in WW2 and still do spy stuff in the present. If you needed emergency surgery and an immortality drug to survive, it’s not really a durability feat.

 

Skills

 

Here is where Bucky really has an edge against Jason.

 

In terms of combat experience, Bucky wins. He was slitting throats with his ka-bar while Jason was learning the ropes from Batman. He served as the USSR’s secret weapon for decades while Jason was in the ground. When Bucky was revived, he went on to be Captain America. When Jason was revived, he went on to be a poseur. 

 

In terms of combat skill, they’re about even. Jason learned what he admitted was a very incomplete fighting style from Bruce that he later improved upon. Bruce taught him how to fight, but he purposefully omitted killing techniques. When Jason dug himself out of his grave, he had to retrain under shady black ops types to learn how to kill. But Bucky was already a master of homicide when he was a kid.  When the US military turned Bucky into a combat machine at age 16, he was taught how to kill by the best men the US military could recruit–the same exact people that trained Captain America as a matter of fact. And Bucky got to put this training into practice garroting sentries throughout the war. As the Winter Soldier, he got decades more experience doing wetwork for the USSR. Then he worked with SHIELD and had a stint as Captain America. Jason isn’t a slouch in combat, but he’s typically more of a team fighter than Bucky. This might sound odd given that Jason is the bad boy Robin, but he likes working with a team far more often than Bucky. Even the Arkham Knight version surrounded himself with goons. Maybe it’s Jason’s abandonment issues? But then again, who wouldn’t want to be on teams that have babes like Starfire and Artemis?

 

If it wasn’t for the stupid retcon where Jason got to train with a three thousand year old monk, Bucky would have the edge in combat skills.I think Jason’s brief esoteric training evens things up between him and Bucky.

 

In terms of stealth and assassination, Bucky curbstomps Jason. Bucky might well be the best assassin on 616’s Earth. He’s so good that he trained Black Widow whose entire “superpower” is being an assassin. Jason was taught how to be stealthy by one of the stealthiest characters of his Earth. Bucky taught how to be stealthy to one of the stealthiest characters of his Earth. 

Bucky has been stalking and sneaking for more years than Jason’s been alive. Jason just cannot compare, and his personality doesn’t lend itself well to stealth. Jason can be stealthy when he wants to be, he’s snuck up on Supergirl and Deathstroke, but more often than not he prefers shock and awe with a side of quips.

 

When you combine Bucky’s skill with his arm’s ability to scan the environment while frying any detective vision Jason has with EMP there’s no question–If there’s a break in the fighting where they lose track of each other, Bucky will get the drop on Jason when they meet up again.

 

Bucky’s Speed

 

This is something that needs to be addressed that doesn’t quite fit in the weapons/armor/tactics trinity. Bucky is really, really fast.

 

I bet you never thought you’d see a fight where the DC character didn’t have the speed advantage! Well, here you go.

 

Bucky once dodged electricity from a goon with one of those shock-gloves that shows up a lot in superhero fiction, and you know how Death Battle feels about characters that dodge totally-as-fast-as-real-electricity-guys electricity. But electricity wank aside, Bucky also saved an assasination target from a sniper’s bullet by throwing his shield (he was Captain America at the time) so that it intercepted the bullet. That’s pretty crazy even by the standards of comic book humans. You can’t even argue that he just saw someone aiming a sniper rifle and threw his shield. If he didn’t time it exactly right his shield would have passed over the target and he would have gotten JFK’d. Bucky had to react to the bullet as it was fired and then throw his shield fast enough to block the bullet. There’s really no other way the feat as depicted works.

 

Ways the Fight Could Go

 

Keeping the fight at mid-range is Jason’s best bet. If Bucky gets too far away, he blows Jason away with a sniper rifle. If Bucky gets too close, Jason gets his ass beat by the Bionic Commando arm and his gear fried by the EMP touch. But if Jason keeps the fight at mid-range, he can match explosive round machine gun fire with his souped-up pistols. With Jason’s armor being more durable, there’s a chance he could overwhelm Bucky and ventilate him. But Bucky will close the gap, and he will tag Jason with the EMP. Once that happens, Jason can either continue in a hand-to-hand fight he’ll eventually lose or retreat and gain distance. Once distance is established, Bucky has a huge advantage. His environet-analyzing HUD will work while Jason’s won’t and his greater stealth skills means he’ll get the first strike on Jason when they engage again.

 

It’s a close fight, way closer than I thought it would be. But in the end, a metal hand is going to crush a metal helmet.

 

…Well, probably not literally. I mean, those costumes are probably really expensive. But you get the idea. Great to see Ismahawk return! When do we get Elektra vs Catwoman in live-action?