The Coming of the Superheros (RAR!)

[Formless]

We also get the Superhuman Samurai Cyber Squad for computer security, which is pretty neat.Why bother having Norton when instead you can just send in a bunch of teens to literally fight the viruses and blow them up?

Corrector Yui has the same premise-- a Magical Girl who patrols the internet! Also, Digimon.

[Majin Gojira]

Luckily this works out just fine in the Sandman mythos: gods are ultimately born of dreams, and only the Presence and his angels (like Lucifer) are more powerful than the Endless-- and possibly only in the sense that the Endless can die, and are deferential to the Presence as creator of the Universe. And the Presence isn't essential to the Sandman mythos so much as it is one of the few legacy elements of the DC universe that Neil Gaiman kept around after the first story arc. Otherwise, each Endless is omnipotent within their own domain, as long as they follow the cosmic rules that govern the Endless (which are very few in the case of Death because no one can actually kill her-- she's Death). So every God basically answers to Dream in some manner or another, since they return to his realm to die just as they were born. Gods that aren't worshipped also start to lose power, as fewer and fewer people dream of them anymore. When dreams define reality, all myths can be true without contradiction-- but not all are equally powerful.

To be perfectly honest, I'm more of the "The Angels and Yahweh are just another set of divnities aking to Odin and Hercules" mindset, but series are what they are.

Oh, right, I forgot there are two Godzillas.

Well, one should properly be called 'Zilla jr.'

Man that cartoon was great...

<Snip Super Robot Stuff>

I debated that for a while too, but I asked myself what the difference was between a power armor user and a mecha pilot and I really couldn't come up with anything substantive.

Plus there are Super Robot Pilots, like the Power Rangers, who have super powers before getting into their robots, like God Mars.

Lemme see, who counts ... I'm going to use Professor Otaku's Visual History of Mecha Anime youtube series to see what I can find. It only goes up to about 2000 right now, but that should cover things for the most part.

Day 35:
Astro-Boy (Stretching 20 minutes into the future a bit, but only because of PLUTO is it in, IMO).

Day 46
Tetsujin-28/Gigantor

Day 50
Giant Robo/Johnny Soko and his Flying Robot

Day 55
Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger, Grendizer, Mazinkaizer (and possibly others like Mazinger Zero)
Gatchaman (they are superheroes, but their vehicle is only a tricked out jet, but thematically, it's worth mentioning)/Battle of the Planets.

Day 56
Jet Jaguar (an android)
Super Robot Red Barron

Day 57
Getter Robo (and other iterations of Getter Robo)
Mechagodzilla (II and Kiryu)

Day 58
Brave Raideen (pilot has powers, and is a descendant of the Mu)
Koutetsu Jeeg/Koutetsushin Jeeg (Pilot is a transforming cyborg, who has a human form, robot form, and then turns into the robot's head!)

Day 59
Gaiking (Pilot is Psychic)
Combatler V (Pilots engage on combat outside the mechs, and have special outfits for combat) - Voltes V and Daimos follow in its wake and style, though not set as far in the future.
Yattaman (masked heroes with a robot dog, the Dodoron gang -- the proto Team Rocket, also come along)

Day 60
Daitetsujin-17 (human with remote control robot)
Ginguiser (pilots are sorcerers, which is why they can pilot the machines).
Zambot 3 (Just to note, this is the first series by Yoshiyuki "Kill 'em All" Tomino, and the first to help him earn that nickname).
Dinosaur War Izenbord -- Good lord this one's weird.

Day 61
Daitarn 3 (Pilot is basically James Bond, and then he has his pilot suit)
Toe's Spider-Man/Supaida-man (He's Spider-Man! WITH A GIANT ROBOT!) The first ZORD

Day 63
Trider G-7
Fighter Iczer-1 (A proto Nanoha, really)

Day 64
Godmars (Pilot is a psychic alien, has special pilot outfit beyond the mecha)

Day 65
(I WISH I could include Macross, but I can't!)
Acrobunch (Just noting this is not a good show)
Aura Battler Dunbine (Humans channel powers through their mechs, have 'armor' as they are knights, but it mostly takes place in a hidden magical world, but they do come to earth later)

Day 67
Video Warrior Laserion (Reverse Tron, the robot comes from a computer, which is just neat)
Giant Gorg (semi-sentient robot)
Transformers (I'm a fan of Animated as the 'best' iteration myself, aside from Beast Wars, naturally. Prime's pretty good)

Day 68
Dancougar
Blue Comet SPT Layzner (gotta love shows that assume "In 20 years, we'll be colonizing mars!" - the Main character is a humanoid alien, the mecha has high-end AI, but overall, this is actually a "Real" Robot show)
Guyver: The Bio-Boosted Armor (A biological power suit worth noting for the Kronos Corporation being one of those "We secretly control the world!" types. Also, he later gets the Guyver Gigantic armor which makes him huge!)
Assemble Insert (A teenage idol singer with super strength finds herself fighting large power armors/tiny mecha from a criminal organization. She gets power armor shaped like a leotard)

Day 69
Project A-KO ("What if the daughter totally not Superman & totally not Wonder Woman got into a tiff with the daughter of Tony Stark over an extremely oblivious crush?")

Day 70
Bubblegum Crisis (Power Armor users, just squeaks in '20 minutes in the future' but it's VERY 80s)
Robocop (DEAD OR ALIVE YOU'RE COMING WITH ME)
Dangaioh (pilots have powers outside their mechs)

Day 71
Patlabor ("This story if fiction, but in 10 years, who knows?")
Gunbuster (Relativistic Time dilation and terrifying sun-eating space monsters!)
Hades Project Zeorymer (some scary powerful stuff here)

Day 72
Ghost in the Shell (Just close enough to fit temporaly, but that can be a matter of opinion)
Mado King Granzort (THE MOON IS TERRAFORMED!)
Cybernetics Guardian (psychic powers for the human pilot, but more hulkbuster-sized power armor)

Day 73
Brave ExKaiser (First of the Brave series, very Super Heroic even without the mecha most of the time, as all the Brave series are. Alien spirits possess machinery to make the monsters)

Day 74
Brave Fighter of the Sun Fightbird (giant robot also has an android body form)
Matchless Raijin-oh (Schoolkids all working together with their giant robot to save the day -- most notable for being viciously parodied and darkly played with in the anime Bokurano)
Armored Police Metaljack (3 power armor wearing cops, and their robot dog fight crime)
Detonator Orgun (power armor of alien origin, was a test run for Tekkaman Blade, but that is too far in the future to work here)

Day 75
Brave Fighter of Legend Dagarn
Tetsujin-28-GoFX (Tetsujin gets a sequel with a "The kids of the original" spin.)
Giant Robo: The Day The Earth Stood Still (I'm including it here because of the Experts of Justice)

Day 76
Brave Express Mightgain
Nekketsu Saiko Gozaurer (a 6th-grade class battles evil!)

Day 77
Brave Police J-Decker
Genocyber (quite gory)
Magic Knight Rayearth (Magical Girls with Mecha, sent to a magic world, but they can come back with them while fighting evil)

Day 78
Brave of Gold Golden
Sailor Victory (Cute girls in Ninja Robots, unrelated to Sailor Moon)

Day 79
Brave Command Dogwan
Chojo Raideen (powered armor again)

Day 80
King of Braves GaoGaiGar (the only one people really care about, because it's AWESOME!)

Day 81
Gasiraki (magic/psychic powers are a staple of this weird one)
Neo Ranga (3 girls a bonded to an 18-meter biomechanical god monster, they 'pilot' it.)
Full Metal Panic! (juuuust squeezes in)

Day 82
Dai-Guard ("What happens when you put a real robot in a super robot setting?" this is a robot owned by an insurance company, there's a lot of paper work)

Day 83
Gear Fighter Dendoh (capturing 'data monsters' is a thing, since someone mentioned Digimon...)
Argento Soma (alien invaders spur plot)
Invincible King Trizeon

Day 85
RahXephon (a musical Evangelion which may or may not rewrite reality and delete itself)
Voice of a Distant Star

Day 91
Linebarrels of Iron (? Maybe)

Day 94
Lagrange: The Flower of Re-Ne

Day 96
Pacific Rim

Yeah, but by their very nature, the Pulp characters won't create much of a splash like the Kaiju and occult characters will. Wesley Dodds' Sandman is the sole exception due to his connection to, well, The Sandman. Those are the kinds of major events I wanted to focus on, because there was just no practical way to list all lesser known heroes while also including a complete list of important events. Dr Who has far greater implications than The Shadow, for instance, by virtue of bringing the Galifreyans into the mix. Among other things. I'm not really a fan of Dr. Who.

Thankfully, as near as I can figure offhand, the only real threat the Doctor would bring with him/her is The Master. So we're spared Daleks and Cybermen. I think.

[Formless]

I'm kind of wondering: when I did research on superhero video games, there was some suggestion that BlazBlue counts as a superhero franchise, but I'm not familiar enough with it to say for sure. That does, however, make me wonder on the status of fighting game franchises. After much contemplation on "where are all the superheroes in video games?" I'm starting to think that actually, the answer might be "fighting game characters, dummy!" The only thing is, most of them have really impenetrable (or in the case of Tekken and DOA, incredibly silly) plots. But if they counted, that brings in more Evil Corporations/organizations, since you have Kasumi's clone(s) running around trying to be a hero and evade her creators.

To be perfectly honest, I'm more of the "The Angels and Yahweh are just another set of divnities aking to Odin and Hercules" mindset, but series are what they are.

To be honest, I am too. The Lucifer comics actually showed that a Universe can exist without the Presence, because Lucifer was given one such universe to play with by The Presence; but as soon as that universe came to be, Death dropped by to pay Lucifer a visit, and explained that as she and her siblings embody concepts that are essential to existence itself, Lucifer can't actually escape Them like he can escape The Presence and all of his Judeo-Christian trappings. They exist separately from The Presence because they exist by necessity. He doesn't. The Presence, I mean, though its equally applicable to Lucifer, of course. Aaand he's more powerful than DCAU Superman.

Lemme see, who counts ... I'm going to use Professor Otaku's Visual History of Mecha Anime youtube series to see what I can find. It only goes up to about 2000 right now, but that should cover things for the most part.

Uh, I'm about 12 episodes in and this is clearly a history of the entire mecha genre except sentient robots like the Transformers. He is clearly including both Super Robot series and Real Robots, and he also makes clear that while there is a connection to the Tokusatsu/Superhero genre, its still not really the same genre. He notes in the seventh episode that the two genres were most similar at the start of the 1980's, but diverge radically before the end of the decade as most of the "combining mecha" tropes were ceded entirely to Super Sentai. So I don't think you can rely on that list to supplant your own judgement on whether a show really bears enough similarities to a superhero show like Super Sentai. And there is no shame in not including a show simply because you don't know anything about it. I've had to do that constantly in this thread.

Personally, as I've made clear with Dr. Who, I think that the genre blurring that goes on with the Superhero genre ought to make us cautious. Dr. Who is usually considered a science fiction adventure series, and I feel that classifying The Doctor as a superhero is reaching. Likewise, some superheroes obviously rely on super robots since many of the tropes were codefied by Japan's take on Spider Man of all things, but equating the two things is obviously facetious. I still do not think, after watching that series, that Mazinger Z and its spinoffs qualify as a superhero franchise. It codified its own unique genre, and the overlap with superheroes is due to other series cashing in on the popularity of both Mazinger and Kamen Rider, the latter of whom is actually a superhero.

Aura Battler Dunbine (Humans channel powers through their mechs, have 'armor' as they are knights, but it mostly takes place in a hidden magical world, but they do come to earth later)

You know, funny enough, when I was looking into superhero video games, I had toyed with the possibility that the Tohou series technically qualifies. Despite the setting appearing like feudal Japan, its actually set on a sort of reservation in the present day for Youkai and people who want to live the old fashioned rustic lifestyle.

But that would almost by definition mean they have no impact on the world-- more likely, in fact, everything else would impact them.

Day 71
Patlabor ("This story if fiction, but in 10 years, who knows?")

See, from what I've heard about Patlabor, it sounds too much like a Real Robot show to me to really qualify...

Gunbuster (Relativistic Time dilation and terrifying sun-eating space monsters!)

Isn't that show literally straight up space opera AND set too far into the future to qualify, even before time dilation starts applying?

Day 72
Ghost in the Shell (Just close enough to fit temporaly, but that can be a matter of opinion)

Actually, my complaint would be more that its a police procedural crossed with cyberpunk. Its not really superhero, as the main character's abilities are not uncommon in the world she exists in. Its a subtle point, but an important one. Sometimes an extraordinary ability is a matter of perspective. Major Kusanagi's cybernetic body is literally one of the most common models on the market, and that's tied into the story's themes of identity. That kinda disqualifies her on multiple points.

Mado King Granzort (THE MOON IS TERRAFORMED!)

How does that interact with The Inhumans, who already have a base (civilization?) on the moon?

Edit:

Genocyber (quite gory)

If you're counting Genocyber, I think you just opened up the door for Lucy from Elfen Lied. I mean, they practically have the same backgrounds, the same powers, everything. YES, I WATCHED THAT EPISODE OF ANIME ABANDON.
[/edit]

Day 83
Gear Fighter Dendoh (capturing 'data monsters' is a thing, since someone mentioned Digimon...)

Ah, see, I mentioned them, but I don't know if they actually count. Corrector Yui counts, that's for sure, but any given Digimon series? Debatable. Frontier comes the closest as the human characters are Henshin heroes. But all of their adventures took place in the Digital world, and its implied their powers don't work in the Real world. Adventure? Maaaaybe, since their powers do work in our world, but the heroes only serve as catalysts for their digimon to transform-- after that, they just stand on the sidelines and provide moral support. Tamers? Oh god, horrible manmade Cthulu time, it could be possible. By the end they even do the Henshin thing like the Frontier crew. Savers? I don't know how far into the future that takes place, but otherwise it actually should from what I hear... but I kinda stopped watching after Frontier. And I barely got to see any of it because it only aired at, like, 4 or 5 in the morning here.

Maybe Applimon counts... I've actually been meaning to see it, weirdly enough. Been meaning to see what became of this franchise. It scratches a nostalgic itch for me that i have for few other things. But Digimon Tri really weirded me out right from the start given that Kari and TK are supposed to be part of Daisuki's class and neither of them notice his disappearance, let alone their other three friends who vanished with him. Cold as ice.

Day 96
Pacific Rim

See, this is a perfect example of the caution I'm talking about. I don't know enough about all of those anime even after watching that History series to argue all of your examples, but I do know enough about Pacific Rim to know its characters are disqualified. Piloting the Jaegers is literally their day job. Their skills outside of the Jaegers is nothing really special (most soldiers have that kind of training). There is no attempt in the show to depict them as super smart, just good tacticians. They fail all of your criteria except having adventures no more than twenty minutes into the future. No matter how much "personality" the mech has, it still isn't actually a character. If it was, then the Gundam would qualify, but its show is explicitly classified as being part of a different genre with completely different themes and motifs. No, the Jaeger pilots are little different from Pulp characters whose main skill was "can fly a plane." That was exciting and justification enough at the time to write stories about their adventures because aircraft were new technology at the time. But a close inspection shows that their stories were radically different from the Masked Vigilante characters from the same era; and the Science Fiction adventures of Buck Rogers and other characters like him were very different again.

[Majin Gojira]

I'm kind of wondering: when I did research on superhero video games, there was some suggestion that BlazBlue counts as a superhero franchise, but I'm not familiar enough with it to say for sure. That does, however, make me wonder on the status of fighting game franchises. After much contemplation on "where are all the superheroes in video games?" I'm starting to think that actually, the answer might be "fighting game characters, dummy!" The only thing is, most of them have really impenetrable (or in the case of Tekken and DOA, incredibly silly) plots. But if they counted, that brings in more Evil Corporations/organizations, since you have Kasumi's clone(s) running around trying to be a hero and evade her creators.

Remember the criteria, and that helps narrow things down.

Though to be fair, most good character design grants 'iconic looks'. Perhaps that was too broad.

See, from what I've heard about Patlabor, it sounds too much like a Real Robot show to me to really qualify...

To put it simply:
Noa has an extraordinary skill - she is quite a wonderful Labor pilot (a gag is made that she can't really play labor-related games because she's too used to the controls for the real thing).
She has a special labor-riding outfit, and the '98 has a design meant to look 'heroic'.
And she is within the temporal timeframe, which is roughly 50 years.

She only lacks a hero name, unless you count her callsign.

She meets 3/4 critera, which all that's needed to bring Patlabor in.

Isn't that show literally straight up space opera AND set too far into the future to qualify, even before time dilation starts applying?

It actually starts as a parody of shojo sports anime set shortly after it was released. THEN Foreverwar stuff happens.

Actually, my complaint would be more that its a police procedural crossed with cyberpunk. Its not really superhero, as the main character's abilities are not uncommon in the world she exists in. Its a subtle point, but an important one. Sometimes an extraordinary ability is a matter of perspective. Major Kusanagi's cybernetic body is literally one of the most common models on the market, and that's tied into the story's themes of identity. That kinda disqualifies her on multiple points.

Even then, the Major has hacking skills so extreme she can scare some of her co-workers, what with puppeting multiple bodies.

If I'm remembering it right.

How does that interact with The Inhumans, who already have a base (civilization?) on the moon?

Sounds like the Blue Area of the Moon expands.

If you're counting Genocyber, I think you just opened up the door for Lucy from Elfen Lied. I mean, they practically have the same backgrounds, the same powers, everything. YES, I WATCHED THAT EPISODE OF ANIME ABANDON.
[/edit]

I actually haven't seen that episode yet...

Oh lord what have I done?

Ah, see, I mentioned them, but I don't know if they actually count. Corrector Yui counts, that's for sure, but any given Digimon series? Debatable. Frontier comes the closest as the human characters are Henshin heroes. But all of their adventures took place in the Digital world, and its implied their powers don't work in the Real world. Adventure? Maaaaybe, since their powers do work in our world, but the heroes only serve as catalysts for their digimon to transform-- after that, they just stand on the sidelines and provide moral support. Tamers? Oh god, horrible manmade Cthulu time, it could be possible. By the end they even do the Henshin thing like the Frontier crew. Savers? I don't know how far into the future that takes place, but otherwise it actually should from what I hear... but I kinda stopped watching after Frontier. And I barely got to see any of it because it only aired at, like, 4 or 5 in the morning here.

Maybe Applimon counts... I've actually been meaning to see it, weirdly enough. Been meaning to see what became of this franchise. It scratches a nostalgic itch for me that i have for few other things. But Digimon Tri really weirded me out right from the start given that Kari and TK are supposed to be part of Daisuki's class and neither of them notice his disappearance, let alone their other three friends who vanished with him. Cold as ice.

Tamers, I think, would be the most seemless fit, but there is a whole Digimon Multiverse BS to worry about.

So, I think just Tamers might be enough since that is most explicitly "The Real World".

See, this is a perfect example of the caution I'm talking about. I don't know enough about all of those anime even after watching that History series to argue all of your examples, but I do know enough about Pacific Rim to know its characters are disqualified. Piloting the Jaegers is literally their day job. Their skills outside of the Jaegers is nothing really special (most soldiers have that kind of training). There is no attempt in the show to depict them as super smart, just good tacticians. They fail all of your criteria except having adventures no more than twenty minutes into the future. No matter how much "personality" the mech has, it still isn't actually a character. If it was, then the Gundam would qualify, but its show is explicitly classified as being part of a different genre with completely different themes and motifs. No, the Jaeger pilots are little different from Pulp characters whose main skill was "can fly a plane." That was exciting and justification enough at the time to write stories about their adventures because aircraft were new technology at the time. But a close inspection shows that their stories were radically different from the Masked Vigilante characters from the same era; and the Science Fiction adventures of Buck Rogers and other characters like him were very different again.

Again, run them through the criteria.

They have a power/skill: Drift Compatibility.
Special Outfits/Unique Looks
And roughly contemporary setting.

3/4.

[Majin Gojira]

Late edit: though i think my definition loosely included a base idea of heroic behavior that might just save us from Lucy...and/or genocyber.

If not, we have a threat worse than Kyubey!

[Formless]

To put it simply:
Noa has an extraordinary skill - she is quite a wonderful Labor pilot (a gag is made that she can't really play labor-related games because she's too used to the controls for the real thing).
She has a special labor-riding outfit, and the '98 has a design meant to look 'heroic'.
[...]

Again, run them through the criteria.

They have a power/skill: Drift Compatibility.
Special Outfits/Unique Looks

I'll take on the rest of your posts in a bit, but THIS I have to address first.

Look, just because it takes some special quality to drive a Jaeger doesn't make it "special" in any meaningful sense. "Drift compatibility" isn't a superpower, its a defect in Jaeger design to justify the teamwork element of Pacific Rim's narrative. Its not otherwise a superpower. If a character has psychic powers that allows them to pilot the mech, that's one thing because there are other uses for psychic powers. But this is more comparable to how not everyone can qualify to drive a tank or a jet fighter. Tanks are so cramped for space that there is actually a maximum height requirement for all tank operators. A six foot tall guy just can't fit properly into an Abrhams. And jet fighters pull so many G's in combat maneuvers and turns that most people will pass out under those conditions. However, while tolerance for those kinds of G-forces is an exceptional ability and skill, its literally only useful for piloting fighter jets. You only know whether you can or not when put into some kind of centrifuge or other machine used to qualify pilots.

Likewise, being an ace pilot in a Real Robot show is not the same as being a superhero. Its a different archetype, shared by characters who fly completely different but equally fantastic vehicles like space fighters. Wedge Antilles is basically the same kind of character as Noa, but he flies an X-Wing rather than a robot.

Now that brings up the question: what about characters like Batman? Why is he a superhero when he has no real powers? The answer has to do with the breadth of his skills just as much as it has to do with how ridiculously good he is at any one skill. No real life human has the time to learn all the shit he knows, and he must have some kind of exceptional mental abilities to learn and apply all of them. He's as good of a detective as Sherlock Holmes, an exceptional martial artist, he has ninja/commando training, he's in peak physical condition, he has acrobatics and parkour training, some incarnations show him with sleight of hand skills, he can fly a plane comparable to a jet fighter, helicopters, he knows about a dozen languages, he's a decent businessman at the least, he has engineering skills to build things like the batmobile and Batman Beyond suit, he's trained in forensics (including criminal psychology), and perhaps most perplexing of all, he can consistently take down most criminals without killing them. That's shit is awfully difficult for a normal martial artist to accomplish. Knowing all of that makes Batman a one man police force. And its totes unrealistic. That is what makes him a match for characters with actual superhuman powers like the rest of the Justice League. That and his decision to fight crime while wearing a bat-themed outfit. You can get away with a lot when you helped define the conventions of the genre.

I also say that yes, you are applying the "iconic look" qualification both too broadly and too narrowly when it comes to Super Robot pilots. The issue is that probably most characters in visual media follow the Limited Wardrobe trope, because it helps the audience learn to identify characters on the spot no matter the circumstances. Its especially helpful in cartooning and animation because the artists sometimes draw faces off-model without meaning to, and this helps negate that problem. Bart Simpson only seems to have one shirt, except when there is a change of season or location that's significant enough to justify having him change into something else. And yet, even then live action characters tend to stick to one iconic set of clothing too, and the writers expect (correctly) that the audience won't notice because its fiction. Hell, even some real people do it for various reasons, like my brother in law wearing black everything because he's both colorblind and dedicated to Goth fashion.

However, there seems to be something different about Superhero outfits. They are iconic not just in the figurative sense, but literally. They are meant to make the character look like an icon of something, even just the genre's conventions. For instance, Saitama's outfit is a parody of superhero outfits: normal people do not wear capes. Heroes wear capes. This becomes more obvious in those works like Heroes that deliberately eschew iconic outfits: its a deliberate stylistic choice to make the show feel grittier, even though it is fundamentally a superhero show. It actually has the subtle effect of reinforcing the power of the Iconographic costumes by saying "these superheroes are Everyman. They have noble intentions, they even have superpowers. But they don't need capes or spandex to be heroes".

Now look at the average super robot character. Of those that qualify as superheroes, they are usually deliberately channeling Super Sentai or Kamen Rider in order to lampshade their similarity to Tokusatsu characters, just like Saitama wears a cape to channel Superman. But the rest are designed to be more or less purely functional, but also unique enough that audiences don't stop to ask "hey, which show was I watching again? I can't tell". If audiences are stopping to ask that, the animators know they fucked up. Its a balancing act between personality and practicality, but not always or even usually an attempt to channel superhero convention. As for Pacific Rim, which is a live action movie, I look at those outfits and I see an attempt to make something a character piloting a Jaeger might realistically wear: its basically a suit of armor to prevent the pilots from getting hurt whenever the robot stumbles around in a fight and knocks them off balance, or in case the robot gets breached and they have to worry about shrapnel. They don't even color code the uniforms like Super Sentai does. Iron Man looks similar at first, until you realize the gold and red color scheme is supposed to look theatrical and the faceplate is reminiscent of knightly helmet updated to the modern day. (Personally, I think a Super Sentai helmet is actually more practical because it gives a much greater field of view without resorting to a HUD) A side by side comparison reveals who is the superhero, and who is the soldier in a funny outfit.

[Majin Gojira]

Likewise, being an ace pilot in a Real Robot show is not the same as being a superhero. Its a different archetype, shared by characters who fly completely different but equally fantastic vehicles like space fighters. Wedge Antilles is basically the same kind of character as Noa, but he flies an X-Wing rather than a robot.

I can seed that in the Jaeger/Labor cases, and some other Real Robot listed above.

Now that brings up the question: what about characters like Batman? Why is he a superhero when he has no real powers? The answer has to do with the breadth of his skills just as much as it has to do with how ridiculously good he is at any one skill. No real life human has the time to learn all the shit he knows, and he must have some kind of exceptional mental abilities to learn and apply all of them. He's as good of a detective as Sherlock Holmes, an exceptional martial artist, he has ninja/commando training, he's in peak physical condition, he has acrobatics and parkour training, some incarnations show him with sleight of hand skills, he can fly a plane comparable to a jet fighter, helicopters, he knows about a dozen languages, he's a decent businessman at the least, he has engineering skills to build things like the batmobile and Batman Beyond suit, he's trained in forensics (including criminal psychology), and perhaps most perplexing of all, he can consistently take down most criminals without killing them. That's shit is awfully difficult for a normal martial artist to accomplish. Knowing all of that makes Batman a one man police force. And its totes unrealistic. That is what makes him a match for characters with actual superhuman powers like the rest of the Justice League. That and his decision to fight crime while wearing a bat-themed outfit. You can get away with a lot when you helped define the conventions of the genre

Actually using Holmes as an example, he applies to quite a breadth of skills. Fencer and Boxer of high talent, master of disguise, chemist, criminologist, proto-forensic expert, knowledge of London second to none. Hell, the first story of his has Watson going through what he doesn't know as a shorter list!

And putting limits on what he does know (Like his knowledge of geology extends primarily to the muds of London and its surroundings).

It also begs the question of those such as the Punisher if they didn't already meet 3/4 criteria beyond that.

Then there are characters like Black Jack from Osamu Tezuka. A man so skilled a surgeon he ... did surgery on his intestines while surrounded by Dingos. And saved a fetal conjoined twin and gave her a body. Or there's Golgo 13, a master assassin who never misses a mark. Like, "Makes Bullseye look like a chump" never misses.

There are characters out there with skills that go to the ridiculous.

Or, to use a very silly cooking anime as an example, there's one series where someone made something so wonderful it allowed the judge to reconcile with his dead son. Or something, it's been a while and there's a lot out there.

Point is, skills beyond the ordinary is the key here. What's ordinary can be debated, but someone extremely good at one thing, like top 10, I think would count.

But you are right, I was overextending for Patlabor at least. I'm hesitant on dropping Pacific Rim, but I am not going to push hard for it.

Edit: And to further counter myself, I did use the pulral "Skills" when defining things.

I also say that yes, you are applying the "iconic look" qualification both too broadly and too narrowly when it comes to Super Robot pilots. The issue is that probably most characters in visual media follow the Limited Wardrobe trope, because it helps the audience learn to identify characters on the spot no matter the circumstances. Its especially helpful in cartooning and animation because the artists sometimes draw faces off-model without meaning to, and this helps negate that problem. Bart Simpson only seems to have one shirt, except when there is a change of season or location that's significant enough to justify having him change into something else. And yet, even then live action characters tend to stick to one iconic set of clothing too, and the writers expect (correctly) that the audience won't notice because its fiction. Hell, even some real people do it for various reasons, like my brother in law wearing black everything because he's both colorblind and dedicated to Goth fashion.

Many pilots do have special suits they wear for protection while piloting mecha, but many of them are designed to look superheroic on their own. Voltes V/COmbatler V pilots have big "V"s on their chest as prototyping for Sentai (remember, the Sentai took from the Anime first and foremost, it wasn't until the 80s that things started to become more distinct between them) and regularly have to fight outside their mechs. Kabuto Koji, the pilot of Mazinger Z, has FINS on his head for god's sake. These aren't practical, they are the shine of the knights in shining armor that superheroes tend to be.

The armor of the Aura Battler pilots probably doesn't match that level of "Shine" however.

Though to be honest, I consider the mechs themselves at times to be their 'distinctive look' (I sort of forgot that as my original justification for listing them in my followup, sorry), similar to how Iron Man's iconic look is his power armors. Though that logic would lead to the inclusion of Speed Racer/Mach-Go-Go-Go! and Thunderbirds, which I'm not totally against, but I can see why you wouldn't want to go that far.

And add to another wrinkle, "Distinctive looks" is, really, simply the hallmark of good character design. The best character design can be identified via a silhouette, after all. So that may be too broad as a definition point.

But I wanted to get Godzilla in as a Superhero, so I defined the criteria for that effect.

[Formless]

Remember the criteria, and that helps narrow things down.

Well, the 2004 version of Ninja Gaiden is part of the same universe as Dead or Alive, and while Ryu is your stereotypical Ninja, he certainly has a unique look and contemporary adventures dealing with supernatural enemies as well as interacting with the DOA stuff. I was always considering him, but the connection between the two franchises took me for a loop. Ayane shows up in one of the Ninja Gaiden games, so that does drag her family in.

Further looking back over the Tekken roster doesn't bring up any character who seems to sufficiently meet the criteria-- or at least, none who meet the criteria of being "heroic" at any rate.

Actually, my initial impression that the Fighting Game genre might be where the Superheroes went in video games doesn't appear to be panning out like I hoped. The fact everyone seems to want to shoehorn some kind of tournament into the story arc somehow kind of keeps most of them out of the running. I did find out what makes BlazBlue so impenetrable, though-- apparently the story is perfectly coherent, and most of it isn't translated. You know, that old problem.

Even then, the Major has hacking skills so extreme she can scare some of her co-workers, what with puppeting multiple bodies.

If I'm remembering it right.

Are you thinking the movie, the manga, or the anime?

And no, I'm not talking about the American movie starring She Who Shall Not Be Named.

I actually haven't seen that episode yet...

Oh lord what have I done?

So, here's Genocyber in a nutshell: its Elfen Lied crossed with Akira with sort-of mecha action, and the director of the anime decided to fuck with the source material by taking the human element that is so crucial to tolerating the gore and body horror of those other two anime, and throwing it into a wood chipper. Basically the guy was going through a mysanthropic phase, because he later worked on Full Metal Alchemist, and that wasn't nearly such a bad adaptation of the manga. The main characters in the anime are recognizably prototypes to Lucy's split personalities: you have a wild child who never speaks (except the one time) with psychic powers she mostly uses for harmless things. However, she's powerful enough to nuke a city with her telekinesis when she loses it. Her sister is a cyborg with the same psychic powers, but less powerful, and she's a fucking psycho who gets tortured by her father. Their father is a scientist who experimented on them in the name of creating super soldiers, and he needs the psycho sister to retrieve the mute sister after she somehow manages to escape his lab. Meanwhile there are cyborg bounty hunters sent by his financiers also hunting the wild child who eventually kill the scientist for reasons. So yeah. Its basically Elfen Lied, only more horrible and without any of the commentary on the nature of prejudice (such as it was in EL). And in the manga, the characters weren't like this. The scientist genuinely cared for his daughters. The mute sister isn't mute. The psychopathic sister isn't a psycho and is in a wheelchair rather than being a cyborg. Apparently its unfinished and just as gory, and TVTropes says its basically a long torture session for the two main protagonists, but it doesn't hate humanity... as much as the anime? I guess?

Its probably for the best it was left unfinished. It reads like one of those horror manga that exists just to give the artist an excuse to draw realistic gore.

Tamers, I think, would be the most seemless fit, but there is a whole Digimon Multiverse BS to worry about.

So, I think just Tamers might be enough since that is most explicitly "The Real World".

Well, given the "Digital world/Real world" divide that defines the franchise, a bit of Multiverse shenanigans is almost impossible to avoid. But its not unique, either, since DC and Marvel also have multiverses. We don't have to interact with all that, though.

Late edit: though i think my definition loosely included a base idea of heroic behavior that might just save us from Lucy...and/or genocyber.

If not, we have a threat worse than Kyubey!

Genocyber, yeah, I don't think anyone in it qualifies as a hero. At best you have dead people, people who are about to die, people who deserve to die, and Gynocyber itself. You can kind of understand why the titular monster wants everyone dead, though that doesn't equate to heroism.

Lucy comes a bit closer, but only by margins that make her an anti-villain. She's not doing anything particularly heroic so much as seeking one person's forgiveness the entire time, and trying to stay out of the custody of the really evil people of the world. If she were included, it would have to be the Anime version even though its incomplete, because the Manga version is not only less well known but also kinda crap. Like, the opposite of Genocyber. The art in the early chapters looks like ass, and the writing in the later chapters goes off the rails into insanity and even more gore. I always felt like the writer watched the anime and then asked how he could one-up it in all ways rather than just writing a good conclusion to the story. I'm consistently impressed it got an anime at all, really, let alone that the director managed to salvage the story by forgetting so much of the unnecessary plot elements. The manga being unfinished at the time probably helped. And the fact she definitely has no intention of turning humanity into a race of mutants and will kill anyone who suggests it to her also helps.

But I wanted to get Godzilla in as a Superhero, so I defined the criteria for that effect.

Ah, of course, that explains a lot.

[GuppyShark]

This thread is interesting, but trying to shoehorn in non-superhero genres hasn't been helpful. There's more than enough insanity in that genre alone, no need to further weigh it down. By the criteria as written Robin of Locksley qualifies (Extroardinary archer, special outfit of green tights, Robin Hood as a superhero name).

[Jub]

How does that interact with The Inhumans, who already have a base (civilization?) on the moon?

Sounds like the Blue Area of the Moon expands.

Don't forget the ruins of the Moon Kingdom from Sailor Moon.

Speaking of Sailor Moon, are we getting her most iconic form from early in the series, Eternal Sailor Moon from towards the end of the series, or full on Neo-Queen Serenity who's effectively the ruler of Earth? Given the amount of time travel, reincarnation, and other such nonsense in Sailor Moon we could easily end up with all 3 of her Sailor Soldier forms and Neo-Queen Serenity as distinct heroes.

Assuming we only get one and are supposed to take the character at their best, I think we get Neo-Queen Serenity even though this means she's no longer a Sailor Scout and can't transform into Sailor Moon. It's the rare case where the retired hero is more powerful than they were when they wore a costume. This also makes her the ruler of Earth and sets into motion the creation of Crystal Tokyo and the drastic lifespan extensions that will affect most of the planet by the 30th century.

That might toss a pretty large wrench into things, especially for the Madoka team.

[Jub]

Tackling this in its own post to finally put in my take on the Gohan Dragonball universe thing.

Okay: The Who. Since this isn't about Goku's life, but Gohan, this severely curtails who shows up. At the minimum, it cuts Tien, Chaotzu, and Yamcha.

First. We're pulling characters from Super which was the last time Gohan wore the Great Saiyaman outfit, even pulling from the strictest list of supporting characters from Gohan's perspective that means we're bringing in the following:

Family:
-Goku
-Chi-chi
-Goten
-Videl
-Hercule
-Majin Buu (Adopted by Hercule)

Mentors:
-Piccolo
-The Kais (He was trained by Elder Kai)
-Mr. Popo
-Beerus
-Whis

Equipment Designer:
-Bulma

Friends and Allies:
-Vegeta
-Krillin
-Master Roshi

Other Allies:
-Korin
-Kami
-Dende

Debatable Additions:
-Android 17
-Android 18
-Tien
-Jaco...

So yeah, because the DBZ team is so interconnected he actually brings in everybody except Yamcha, Chiaotzu, Yajirobi and the debatable list who he did fight alongside in the tournament of power but who might fall into the category of Goku's allies and not his even if they did fight an important battle side by side.

However, this might actually not matter and the whole universe might just come in anyway.

I say this because I'd argue that the Z Fighters all meet your superhero criteria.

1) They're all extraordinary.

2) While Tien does open up a martial arts school and ki manipulation is known about among certain martial arts circles the group actually goes out of their way to hide their abilities. They don't primarily do so via alter egos as most superheroes would but instead by using Hercule Satan as a lightning rod and letting him take all the credit. That counts in my book.

3) They do have outfits specifically for fighting super-powered foes.

4) With or without Dragonball Evolution as a thing, they live in a near future setting.

Well, not as strong as you think. While symbolically, Goku is meant to "Burst through limits", and symbolically, Superman is meant to be basically limitless "The man who won't fail you."

With a Cap on Superman, we have a Cap on Goku.

That doesn't matter though. Unlike Superman who's had many authors tell his story which leads to outlier examples of power to be pruned, Goku is written by one man and shown to constantly attain power beyond what even the gods think he can manage. The quest for ever more power is also central to Goku's character so even if he gets brought in by Gohan putting a hard cap on him breaks his character and thus simple cannot be allowed.

The fact is that Superman's can do anything the plot requires him to is unwritten meta-rule and general genre cliche while Goku's is an active part of his story. Goku will push up the power level cap (or push down the others if you insist on such a cap) because doing so is central to his character and power set.

And that leaves us with a Goku<Superman.

At least in terms of raw power.

Again, no. We know that in canon Goku's Super Saiyan forms multiply his base power as do techniques such as the Kaio-ken and thanks to official sources we even know the exact ratio of that multiplication and can peg known feats of strength to those specific power levels.

For example, we know that Piccolo was able to destroy the Moon shortly after the start of DBZ and that his power level at the time was ~1,500 while channeled into a Special Beam Cannon.

We know that Vegeta, a planet with ten times more surface gravity than Earth, can be destroyed by a base form Frieza who has a power level of 530,000.

We know that when he first goes Super Saiyan Goku has a transformed power level of 150,000,000. We also know that his Super Saiyan form raises his power by 50x which means at that stage his base power level is an astounding 3,000,000. He doesn't need tricks to be a base form planet buster from the moment he first goes Super Saiyan onward.

This means that even in a capped world where Goku can no longer gain power he's at Supe's level in base form. He just rarely fights in the form because the threats he faces are simply unimaginably powerful universe level threats. Even the much-mocked laser pistol kill from Resurrection of F came when he was exhausted after fighting with Golden Frieza so the hurr-durr laser gun kills Goku is a non-starter unless you can find somebody to exhaust him first and good luck with that.

You see, Goku isn't just strong, stamina is his trump card. Each transformation replenishes his stamina to an extent as seen in basically every one of his fights. For specific instances here's a good one: In the tournament of power, it only takes a few minutes of rest for him to go from barely able to stand to able to transform into a Super Saiyan and fight again. Not to mention that even if we're assuming that Gohan brings him in and we don't just get every single Z-fighter he'll bring Korin and the senzu beans along so he might literally have an extra life in his back pocket.

The short of it is Goku would operate on the Wonder Woman tier of "Better fighter, but less raw stats" as it were.

No. Just no. Goku can already match Superman in feats of speed and strength even in a capped world but he can also sense energy, teleport, heal himself from death (DBS when he revives himself after letting Hit kill him), use telekinesis, rapidly adapt to enemy fighting styles (he figured out Hit's Time Skip attack within minutes of first facing it and learned the Kamehameha from seeing it performed once), the Mafuba technique, the solar flare technique, plus the obvious transformations and energy blasts. On top of that, if he wanted to learn them (and could find a teacher) he has the capability of busting out things like split form, growing multiple limbs, and shapeshifting as all of those things just require ki control and training in the DBZ universe. Plus he knows the fusion dance and I assume that technique would break the power cap by its very nature. Then he brings another uncapped ability, the Spirit Bomb which gathers energy from others into an attack, so even in a capped world, he has a Supes buster of an attack.

it's easy to under-rate Goku as some braindead fool who only wins because he's absurdly strong and only getting stronger, but he's a savant when it comes to anything martial arts related. He's also pure of motive enough to win over the Flying Nimbus and gain favor with nobles such as the Ox King, King Yenma, King Kai and others he meets along the way.

Also, how do you deal with the fact that the Z-fighters attacks specifically allow them to gather power? Even a simple Kamehameha allows Goku to send multiple times his own power at people if he charges it for a bit. Techniques like the Special Beam Cannon or the Destructo Disk do this to an even greater degree. Could a power capped Goku just focus on learning a technique more efficient than his normal mainstays to break the cap that way or does he no longer need them as a basic flick of the wrist ki blast is already capped at being a potential extinction level event?

What about it? You can still total a planet without blowing it to smithereens. What makes them so dangerous is that if they do not focus a blast, it can be as bad as a bad asteroid impact (Probably not KT Boundary, but close enough for it to not matter).

And Frieza? Adapted, he would send a ball of energy into the core of a planet, destroy the core, and through that, cause the planet to blow itself apart.

Hell, it better explains what happened on Namek.

And other planet busters would be along those lines.

Except that Frieza also destroyed Vegeta without resorting to the technique used on Namek. He did that with a giant energy ball with absolutely zero subtly or technique involved. Impressive considering that Vegeta was a super-Earth with 10x the Earth's surface gravity... Not to mention that we've seen low PL characters (Jackie Chun with a base PL of under 200 and Piccolo with a PL of approx. 1,500) in Dragonball vaporize the Moon on a whim. These are the pipsqueaks on the DBZ universe too...

If we ignore your power cap as the means to exclude some really wonky superman stuff, stuff no modern writer would ever include in a story, DBZ is simply the strongest fighting franchise around and unlike with Supes' crazy feats, everything the Z-fighters have ever done comes from a single comic run.

TLDR; Any DBZ fighter, but especially Goku, breaks power caps as a plot element unlike Superman who does it due to meta-genre rules and even if we're dealing with a capped power universe Goku has more tricks and ways to get around the cap than most other heroes have.

[Formless]

This thread is interesting, but trying to shoehorn in non-superhero genres hasn't been helpful. There's more than enough insanity in that genre alone, no need to further weigh it down. By the criteria as written Robin of Locksley qualifies (Extroardinary archer, special outfit of green tights, Robin Hood as a superhero name).

I mean, you're right... but it really just goes to show how versatile the Superhero genre is, that literally anything becomes part of it so long as the main protagonist fulfills the archetype. You're also somewhat wrong, in that Robin Hood fails to qualify on just one criteria: his adventures took place hundreds of years ago rather than in the present or near future. That's actually one of the most important criteria, in that a hero can fail any of the other three and still be a superhero, but if their adventures took place in the past or in a medieval setting, the storyjust gets labeled Fantasy.

It also goes to show that a simple set of criteria may not be entirely possible for defining all superheroes and seperating them from non-superheroes. Robin Hood isn't a superhero, but he serves as the template for a number of other characters who traditionally are counted, such as Green Arrow. Green Arrow is a contemporary character, so his actions and preference for a bow is more out of the norm. On the other hand, Korra from The Last Airbender franchise would also qualify except for the sole fact that she lives in a constructed world just like most other High Fantasy characters. Its complicated.

I think its almost easier to tell if a character is a superhero by looking at the tradition of storytelling and whether they connect to it or not rather than trying to fit all of them into a predefined mold. After all, the original Green Lantern was a fantasy character, but starting with Hal Jordan they did a 180 and switched the comic to be Science Fiction. But both are superheroes because of tradition. The TV show Heroes is a similar story. The creators of the show drew direct inspiration from comic book superheroes, and they made a deliberate choice on what conventions to ignore. Hence it is a superhero show by default. Sherlock Holmes on the other hand doesn't really fit the tradition, IMO, because while he is an influence on Batman, Holmes himself defined a completely different genre: the Whodunnit or Murder Mystery genre, which in turn lead to both Film Noir and Police Procedurals. But Batman is one of only a couple of Superheroes that pays homage to Holmes. Most do not.

Fortunately, Holmes doesn't really matter to the scenario. But Godzilla on the other hand... that's opening Pandora's Box right there. Monster movies are their own distinct genre going back all the way to King Kong, but they don't appear to have anything to do with Superheroes except as a kind of villain they sometimes fight. Plus, Godzilla is one of those franchises that doesn't have a set timeline or canon, almost every film is technically a reboot!

Speaking of Sailor Moon, are we getting her most iconic form from early in the series, Eternal Sailor Moon from towards the end of the series, or full on Neo-Queen Serenity who's effectively the ruler of Earth? Given the amount of time travel, reincarnation, and other such nonsense in Sailor Moon we could easily end up with all 3 of her Sailor Soldier forms and Neo-Queen Serenity as distinct heroes.

Assuming we only get one and are supposed to take the character at their best, I think we get Neo-Queen Serenity even though this means she's no longer a Sailor Scout and can't transform into Sailor Moon. It's the rare case where the retired hero is more powerful than they were when they wore a costume. This also makes her the ruler of Earth and sets into motion the creation of Crystal Tokyo and the drastic lifespan extensions that will affect most of the planet by the 30th century.

That might toss a pretty large wrench into things, especially for the Madoka team.

I... don't think that's what he meant when he said that the "best" version of the character appears. That would be like saying the "best" version of Superman is Superman Prime. But Maijin Gojira clearly said DCAU Superman was the "best" version, and the cap on how powerful a character can be when they appear (though not IMO a peak they cannot surpass with time). So rather than interpreting it as "the character at their best" he means "the version of the character that fans consider the most well written". I know, its vague and more than a little subjective, but the existence of adaptations, spinoffs, and reboots does make it necessary.

Alternatively, no, if you consider the "best" version of Sailor Moon to be the Neo-Queen, the Madoka team would get Madoka as a literal god or even Homura's final transformation... and that clearly violates the intentions of the power cap.

IMO, as someone who knows little about Sailor Moon, I would say the most iconic version of the character by far is Usagi when she was just a Sailor Scout, as that is what she is during the middle of her journey and not the end of it. That's the version of the character the audience spent the most time with. Time travel and all that certain leads to causality issues... but hey, other characters can time travel as well (e.g. The Flash), so that was always going to be a problem.

Power level problems due to a character growing over time seem to be less of an issue with American superheroes because their stories seem to assume they are as powerful in the beginning as they ever will be; while the Japanese superheroes tend to grow more powerful with training, experience, and character growth due to plot. Goku is a classic example, but even in Power Rangers the plot often leads them to obtaining more effective equipment (new Zords and so on) to fight their current enemies. I don't think this is a problem, but the character should probably appear as they are either at the beginning or middle of the journey, especially if they are part of a never-ending franchise like Dragon Ball. I don't object to Goku being in the RAR, but what transformations he has depends entirely on which story arc you pull him from; Goku during the Cell Saga has way more options than during the Saiyan Saga.

[Jub]

I... don't think that's what he meant when he said that the "best" version of the character appears. That would be like saying the "best" version of Superman is Superman Prime. But Maijin Gojira clearly said DCAU Superman was the "best" version, and the cap on how powerful a character can be when they appear (though not IMO a peak they cannot surpass with time). So rather than interpreting it as "the character at their best" he means "the version of the character that fans consider the most well written". I know, its vague and more than a little subjective, but the existence of adaptations, spinoffs, and reboots does make it necessary.

That gets a bit harder when looking outside of American comics as most other characters will come from a more unified source. Plus, for something like Sailor Moon or Dragon Ball who's perspective do we look at when we say 'best' western or Japanese arc for those characters? Often views differ drastically between North America and Japan on things like favorite character and favorite arc.

Alternatively, no, if you consider the "best" version of Sailor Moon to be the Neo-Queen, the Madoka team would get Madoka as a literal god or even Homura's final transformation... and that clearly violates the intentions of the power cap.

They have to merge with a timeline where Sailor Moon has already been established in that case and if they can violate the power cap everybody else wold as well. Heck, it's possible that we could find a way to wiggle one Haruhi Suzumiya in as a super to counter that nonsense.

IMO, as someone who knows little about Sailor Moon, I would say the most iconic version of the character by far is Usagi when she was just a Sailor Scout, as that is what she is during the middle of her journey and not the end of it. That's the version of the character the audience spent the most time with. Time travel and all that certain leads to causality issues... but hey, other characters can time travel as well (e.g. The Flash), so that was always going to be a problem.

That would probably bring in her second form after it was decoupled from her needing the Holy Grail to obtain it as that takes place close to the middle of the series. It's less iconic to people who only ever caught a few episodes back in the 90's but presents a good mid point for Usagi as a character in terms of personal growth and power.

Power level problems due to a character growing over time seem to be less of an issue with American superheroes because their stories seem to assume they are as powerful in the beginning as they ever will be; while the Japanese superheroes tend to grow more powerful with training, experience, and character growth due to plot. Goku is a classic example, but even in Power Rangers the plot often leads them to obtaining more effective equipment (new Zords and so on) to fight their current enemies. I don't think this is a problem, but the character should probably appear as they are either at the beginning or middle of the journey, especially if they are part of a never-ending franchise like Dragon Ball. I don't object to Goku being in the RAR, but what transformations he has depends entirely on which story arc you pull him from; Goku during the Cell Saga has way more options than during the Saiyan Saga.

Goku's journey is hardly over as of Super but some fans would probably argue that Z had stronger arcs while others would argue that the series lost its way after the the time skip that started what us gaijin call DBZ. In this case, if we're using the Great Saiyaman loophole we'd have to choose from either post Cell Saga Z or Dragon Ball Super in or after the Future Trunks Saga either of which set them right at the power level cap.

[GuppyShark]

You're also somewhat wrong, in that Robin Hood fails to qualify on just one criteria: his adventures took place hundreds of years ago rather than in the present or near future. That's actually one of the most important criteria, in that a hero can fail any of the other three and still be a superhero, but if their adventures took place in the past or in a medieval setting, the storyjust gets labeled Fantasy.

When I wrote my post, I went back to the OP to confirm the rules. You only need 3/4 criteria, so he's in. Otherwise I would have thought of someone else.

[Formless]

When I wrote my post, I went back to the OP to confirm the rules. You only need 3/4 criteria, so he's in. Otherwise I would have thought of someone else.

Well, that doesn't appear to be how Maijin Gojira has been playing it, since he quashed the original version of the Guardians of the Galaxy for being too far into the future. He seems to be treating that one like a hard qualifier if the character's adventures are separated in time by centuries. Just saying, not my RAR, but I can see the logic in that.

That gets a bit harder when looking outside of American comics as most other characters will come from a more unified source.

That's not entirely true. Light Novels and manga are often adapted into anime and vice-verse, and with adaptation comes changes to the source material. This is quite visible in Dragon Ball, for instance, where many differences exist between the manga and anime (e.g. the famous "Its over 9000!" line was a change; Goku's original Power Level was merely 5000, noticeably lower than Vegeta who was, IIRC, 7000). Some Toku series also get manga adaptations, like Kamen Rider, and the difference between live action and hand drawn comics means the action sequences can contain serious differences. So no, the only real difference East VS West is that manga are less likely to be outright rebooted than comics are in the States. But anime do get reboots from time to time, like Dragon Ball Kai, Sailor Moon Crystal, and the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime.

Plus, for something like Sailor Moon or Dragon Ball who's perspective do we look at when we say 'best' western or Japanese arc for those characters? Often views differ drastically between North America and Japan on things like favorite character and favorite arc.

Oh, I don't disagree-- its absolutely subjective, and I know many people who have read it will say the Dragon Ball manga is better than the anime. Hell, I know people who will reflexively say a manga is always better than its anime adaptation for some unholy reason. That's why I've mostly avoided talking about specific heroes, as that sidesteps the issue entirely. Whether Goku is super powerful is, to me, less interesting than whether Tien brings along his martial arts school where Ki techniques are taught, as that would cause Ki based martial arts to spread to the rest of the world and help people who aren't born with mutant genes, mage genes, alien blood, money for cybernetics, etc. to have a chance in a post-superhero world.

They have to merge with a timeline where Sailor Moon has already been established in that case and if they can violate the power cap everybody else wold as well. Heck, it's possible that we could find a way to wiggle one Haruhi Suzumiya in as a super to counter that nonsense.

The timeline places their appearance a month after the appearance of Sailor Moon, so there is that. The thing is, I agree the cap should be there in the beginning, I just don't think it needs to be a "forever" kind of thing given how important continued character growth is to so many Japanese hero narratives. And hell, a few American superhero narratives, for that matter, like Tony Stark's constant upgrading of the suit or the X-Men's school for gifted mutants literally being a school. For Mutants.

[Majin Gojira]

Again, no. We know that in canon Goku's Super Saiyan forms multiply his base power as do techniques such as the Kaio-ken and thanks to official sources we even know the exact ratio of that multiplication and can peg known feats of strength to those specific power levels.

Power Levels Are Bullshit

The only reason they were introduced was to be discredited and shown to be flawed and useless.

Dragon Ball, as a rule, runs fast and loose with solid meanings on top of that, so don't expect a straightforward adaptation even in this.

Speaking of Sailor Moon, are we getting her most iconic form from early in the series, Eternal Sailor Moon from towards the end of the series, or full on Neo-Queen Serenity who's effectively the ruler of Earth? Given the amount of time travel, reincarnation, and other such nonsense in Sailor Moon we could easily end up with all 3 of her Sailor Soldier forms and Neo-Queen Serenity as distinct heroes.

Assuming we only get one and are supposed to take the character at their best, I think we get Neo-Queen Serenity even though this means she's no longer a Sailor Scout and can't transform into Sailor Moon. It's the rare case where the retired hero is more powerful than they were when they wore a costume. This also makes her the ruler of Earth and sets into motion the creation of Crystal Tokyo and the drastic lifespan extensions that will affect most of the planet by the 30th century.

That might toss a pretty large wrench into things, especially for the Madoka team.

I... don't think that's what he meant when he said that the "best" version of the character appears. That would be like saying the "best" version of Superman is Superman Prime. But Maijin Gojira clearly said DCAU Superman was the "best" version, and the cap on how powerful a character can be when they appear (though not IMO a peak they cannot surpass with time). So rather than interpreting it as "the character at their best" he means "the version of the character that fans consider the most well written". I know, its vague and more than a little subjective, but the existence of adaptations, spinoffs, and reboots does make it necessary.

Alternatively, no, if you consider the "best" version of Sailor Moon to be the Neo-Queen, the Madoka team would get Madoka as a literal god or even Homura's final transformation... and that clearly violates the intentions of the power cap.

IMO, as someone who knows little about Sailor Moon, I would say the most iconic version of the character by far is Usagi when she was just a Sailor Scout, as that is what she is during the middle of her journey and not the end of it. That's the version of the character the audience spent the most time with. Time travel and all that certain leads to causality issues... but hey, other characters can time travel as well (e.g. The Flash), so that was always going to be a problem.

Pretty much. It's not about power, it's about quality of character.

Like, when presented with the Brave and the Bold and Animated Series versions of Batman, the first is clearly the most powerful of them (What with the Transformable Batmobile/Bat-Mecha), but Animated Series covers the best aspects of his character.

Aside from building a huge family as being the crowning centerpiece of his overall character arc -- WHY HASN'T THAT BEEN DONE YET?!

Oh, right, because it would actually give him closure.

So yeah, it's about who they are as people and how they relate to others, not "When they are their strongest".

For characters from other countries or ones that have only had one writer, imagine them being incorporated into the best of the best adaptations of superhero comic form. Streamlined, punched up, slightly modernized, etc.

When I wrote my post, I went back to the OP to confirm the rules. You only need 3/4 criteria, so he's in. Otherwise I would have thought of someone else.

Well, that doesn't appear to be how Maijin Gojira has been playing it, since he quashed the original version of the Guardians of the Galaxy for being too far into the future. He seems to be treating that one like a hard qualifier if the character's adventures are separated in time by centuries. Just saying, not my RAR, but I can see the logic in that.

The only reason I'm a bit harder with that 4th rule is rather simple: If a character is in the distant future or distant past, what's the point of how they are affecting things now since, by and large, they don't affect things long term in their own universes? Especially with the future stuff.

I mean, sure, Time Travel Shenanigans could bring them here, but those are relatively uncommon.

Except for the Legion of Superheroes. Because the Legion hates us all.

That gets a bit harder when looking outside of American comics as most other characters will come from a more unified source.

That's not entirely true. Light Novels and manga are often adapted into anime and vice-verse, and with adaptation comes changes to the source material. This is quite visible in Dragon Ball, for instance, where many differences exist between the manga and anime (e.g. the famous "Its over 9000!" line was a change; Goku's original Power Level was merely 5000, noticeably lower than Vegeta who was, IIRC, 7000). Some Toku series also get manga adaptations, like Kamen Rider, and the difference between live action and hand drawn comics means the action sequences can contain serious differences. So no, the only real difference East VS West is that manga are less likely to be outright rebooted than comics are in the States. But anime do get reboots from time to time, like Dragon Ball Kai, Sailor Moon Crystal, and the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime.

Also, Dragon Ball has several live-action movies made in Hong Kong.

Why am I mentioning this? Because I don't want ot suffer alone!

Plus, for something like Sailor Moon or Dragon Ball who's perspective do we look at when we say 'best' western or Japanese arc for those characters? Often views differ drastically between North America and Japan on things like favorite character and favorite arc.

Oh, I don't disagree-- its absolutely subjective, and I know many people who have read it will say the Dragon Ball manga is better than the anime. Hell, I know people who will reflexively say a manga is always better than its anime adaptation for some unholy reason. That's why I've mostly avoided talking about specific heroes, as that sidesteps the issue entirely. Whether Goku is super powerful is, to me, less interesting than whether Tien brings along his martial arts school where Ki techniques are taught, as that would cause Ki based martial arts to spread to the rest of the world and help people who aren't born with mutant genes, mage genes, alien blood, money for cybernetics, etc. to have a chance in a post-superhero world.

Oh! I actually have a stupid mixed world concept for this:

It's a skill that can be taught, but it does require some genetic foundation to get the maximum effect. That way, you can have a character like Batman, Shang-Chi, Lady Shiva, Cassandra Cain, and so on can go and train really hard, mastering the Martial Arts, but be flying around throwing fireballs 'n shit.

And then there's Iron Fist, who gets his Chi from a Dragon.

You could even think of it as an expression of the Meta/X-Gene if you like.

They have to merge with a timeline where Sailor Moon has already been established in that case and if they can violate the power cap everybody else wold as well. Heck, it's possible that we could find a way to wiggle one Haruhi Suzumiya in as a super to counter that nonsense.

The timeline places their appearance a month after the appearance of Sailor Moon, so there is that. The thing is, I agree the cap should be there in the beginning, I just don't think it needs to be a "forever" kind of thing given how important continued character growth is to so many Japanese hero narratives. And hell, a few American superhero narratives, for that matter, like Tony Stark's constant upgrading of the suit or the X-Men's school for gifted mutants literally being a school. For Mutants.

And, of course, the World of Cardboard speech.

I think you are right, characters can improve over time, but keep in mind how they would start. In short, characters are generally much weaker than their comic counterparts.

Or, if you really want to twist it in your head. Imagine the character appearing as a guest star in an episode of insert appropriate series here generally taken as a good adaptation of western comic books.

Like, Dragon Ball Z and Superman the Animated Series or X-Men the Animated Series and My Hero Academia.

Or, in another way, how Insert well-regarded writer here would write them in a western style. Sort of like the Cyborg 009 comic by F.J. Desanto and Marcus To.

Yes, that is a real thing. And it's a pretty decent read.

Or, to use a Japanese example, Astro-Boy to Pluto.

[Jub]

Power Levels Are Bullshit

The only reason they were introduced was to be discredited and shown to be flawed and useless.

Dragon Ball, as a rule, runs fast and loose with solid meanings on top of that, so don't expect a straightforward adaptation even in this.

That's completely untrue the only reason they were dropped was that Toriyama realized he inflated the numbers too quickly and that going past Namek with them would quickly mean those numbers inflating to ridiculous levels. Those numbers are canon and useful for determining the boost given by something like a Kaio Ken or Super Saiyan form. Your insistence otherwise doesn't change a damned thing.

A translated quote from an interview with Toriyama taken from Kanzenshuu.

"How was the scouter born?

I thought that if strength and enemy position were shown through numbers, then it would be easy to understand for both the enemy characters and the readers."

In a later interview also from Kanzenshuu he did go on to say this:

"My number-one goal in coming up with it was because, if an opponent's strength could be seen as a number, it would be very easy for the readers to understand when I put it in the comic. However, I could foresee that it'd be an inconvenience for me down the line, because if you knew a concrete number, then you could tell who would win or lose, so with regards to Goku & co., I decided that [their power] would change due to "Ki" and couldn't be adequately measured."

So that explains why he eventually did get rid of PL. It doesn't say that the Power Levels we did see were worthless only that they don't always tell the entire story.

Pretty much. It's not about power, it's about quality of character.

Like, when presented with the Brave and the Bold and Animated Series versions of Batman, the first is clearly the most powerful of them (What with the Transformable Batmobile/Bat-Mecha), but Animated Series covers the best aspects of his character.

Who decided this? I know a lot of 90's kids love TAS to a great degree but I've seen people cite their favorite versions of Batman as being from specific comics or animated feature films.

For characters from other countries or ones that have only had one writer, imagine them being incorporated into the best of the best adaptations of superhero comic form. Streamlined, punched up, slightly modernized, etc.

No, fuck that noise. Western comics aren't some ideal to aspire to and there's no reason to punch up or streamline a character from a manga or anime just because they don't follow comic conventions. Superheros aren't just from a specific type of western media.

And, of course, the World of Cardboard speech.

I think you are right, characters can improve over time, but keep in mind how they would start. In short, characters are generally much weaker than their comic counterparts.

Or, if you really want to twist it in your head. Imagine the character appearing as a guest star in an episode of insert appropriate series here generally taken as a good adaptation of western comic books.

Why should we follow that abritrary rule and more to the point why is Superman at a very specific power level your benchmark for how strong a hero can be while staying interesting? You seem to be stacking this aginst non-western hell non-North America heroes.

Like, Dragon Ball Z and Superman the Animated Series or X-Men the Animated Series and My Hero Academia.

Or, in another way, how Insert well-regarded writer here would write them in a western style. Sort of like the Cyborg 009 comic by F.J. Desanto and Marcus To.

Yes, that is a real thing. And it's a pretty decent read.

I enjoy characters from manga more than I've ever enjoyed a comic book character so why should I have to westernize them? So what if Goku or Saitama is stronger than Superman neither of those two share his values or his desire to fight crime. They'll simply take care of the big save the world events and let him deal with areas more within his values and capabilities.

On a less power scaling focused side, why can't Japanese or Russian or African heroes have different styles, ability sets, and growth curves than those from North America? None of these universes are designed to fit together, though DC and Marvel's main lines probably mesh fairly well, so let them all breath and stop trying to place arbitrary rules on power levels and styles of hero.

EDIT: I added Toriyama quotes about power levels. It also turns out my memory as to his reason for removing them was false, though the PLs are bullshit line from DBZ Abridged is also just plain false and the VegetaEX line of "The entire point of introducing them was to show how unreliable and meaningless they were." has been, in his own words taken out of context.

[FaxModem1]

In addition to the characters from Hero, there's also the nutcase Freakazoid, the Mystery Men, etc.

What happens when weird things that are offshoots start to appear? Like Spiderpig for example? What about the X-Babies?
Just how far does this rabbit hole go?

[Majin Gojira]

That's completely untrue the only reason they were dropped was that Toriyama realized he inflated the numbers too quickly and that going past Namek with them would quickly mean those numbers inflating to ridiculous levels. Those numbers are canon and useful for determining the boost given by something like a Kaio Ken or Super Saiyan form. Your insistence otherwise doesn't change a damned thing.

I'm of the "Death of the Author" school of literary thought. And what's put on the page is the guys relying on scouters end up repeatedly underestimating their foes to their detriment.

Who decided this? I know a lot of 90's kids love TAS to a great degree but I've seen people cite their favorite versions of Batman as being from specific comics or animated feature films.

I limited myself to two examples to make the point. I love both series, but you cannot deny that BTAS has better critical acclaim.

No, fuck that noise. Western comics aren't some ideal to aspire to and there's no reason to punch up or streamline a character from a manga or anime just because they don't follow comic conventions. Superheros aren't just from a specific type of western media.

Dude, if anything, I'm hyping up the Animated and Film adaptations of note, not 'Western Comics' as a whole.

Hell, I later brought up Pluto, a manga adaptation of another manga.

But this only really applies to powers, because, again, the key here is the personalities provide the overall most beloved source material.

Why should we follow that abritrary rule and more to the point why is Superman at a very specific power level your benchmark for how strong a hero can be while staying interesting? You seem to be stacking this aginst non-western hell non-North America heroes.

I set that rules to avoid the supreme bullshit comics can get up to. This isn't holding back Goku and friends, it's about holding back things FAR worse than him.

I mean, one time, Hank Pym grew so big he punched Eternity in the Face. Eternity, the physical embodiment of the Entire Marvel Universe. He grew so big that he became literally size of the universe. And then he punched it in the face. That is some supreme bullshit right there.

Edit: Again, Hank Pym! He's nowhere near the 'strongest' anything! Yet, he did that!

I wanted to avoid that!

So, I set something akin to TAS Superman as a Cap. Continent-lifting, and still ridiculous, but not "Seal tears in reality with static electricity" Bullshit. Or "Stop catch thousands of pieces of a shattered god hurtling in from the edges of the universe within the space of 5 seconds". Or "Recreating the Big Bang". Or...

The Getter Emperor. A.K.A. Gurren Lagann before Gurren Lagann.

Also, I'm a fan of Gurren Lagann. You assume, and only make an Ass of U to Me.

I enjoy characters from manga more than I've ever enjoyed a comic book character so why should I have to westernize them? So what if Goku or Saitama is stronger than Superman neither of those two share his values or his desire to fight crime. They'll simply take care of the big save the world events and let him deal with areas more within his values and capabilities.

A few reasons.

1) ]Death Battle. To quote their comparison: "Holy Shit! Not Even Close!"
2) He is the first true "Superhero" to the point where he helps define the language around it. Sort of like how the Original Gundam is generally OP in games it shows up in, despite there being so many better mechs in the Gundam franchise alone it's ridiculous, it's a seed to seniority.
3) I wanted to give Goku a goal to work towards in this world. He's at his best when he strives. All thing Strive, man. Don't deny him of his striving. Striving, to me, is part of what makes him and other shonen characters interesting. Hell, it's KEY to them. Without that, they aren't really shonen.
4) Honestly, Saitama's probably the "strongest" of the three. If only because I'm sure part of his powers, given he is a gag character, would keep him in his frustrating limbo of One Punching. Somehow.

On a less power scaling focused side, why can't Japanese or Russian or African heroes have different styles, ability sets, and growth curves than those from North America? None of these universes are designed to fit together, though DC and Marvel's main lines probably mesh fairly well, so let them all breath and stop trying to place arbitrary rules on power levels and styles of hero.

The fuck do you get 'styles' from? The only key differences, beyond the more general cultural ones, between western and eastern comics are:

1) The Art of Intervals.
2) Superhero stories in the west are drawn from detective fiction. Superhero stories in the east are drawn from sports fiction.

That's it. There really aren't any other major differences.

Everything else is superficial.

And if you don't know what either of those mean ... I suggest picking up Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics" for the first one.

I only used that as an example to understand the 'power limiter'. Not the personality or style of the character. Who they are, why they do what they do, how they do what they do, that should port over no problem.

[Majin Gojira]

In addition to the characters from Hero, there's also the nutcase Freakazoid, the Mystery Men, etc.

What happens when weird things that are offshoots start to appear? Like Spiderpig for example? What about the X-Babies?
Just how far does this rabbit hole go?

Freakazoid and Mystery Men are pretty kosher, but I think we'll have to draw a line at Funny Animals.

This is a deep rabbit hole, but not that deep

As to the X-Babies ... When you get down to it, they are just alternate versions of different characters, and since we're snagging "Only the best" as it were, they can be swept aside.

[FaxModem1]

In addition to the characters from Hero, there's also the nutcase Freakazoid, the Mystery Men, etc.

What happens when weird things that are offshoots start to appear? Like Spiderpig for example? What about the X-Babies?
Just how far does this rabbit hole go?

Freakazoid and Mystery Men are pretty kosher, but I think we'll have to draw a line at Funny Animals.

This is a deep rabbit hole, but not that deep

As to the X-Babies ... When you get down to it, they are just alternate versions of different characters, and since we're snagging "Only the best" as it were, they can be swept aside.

In that case, I foresee Justice doing a big recruitment drive with the League, to try and get as many DC/Marvel/whatever heroes wearing League rings in time for his plans.

A lot of heroes would agree with consolidation, and I'm curious if Thom and the Dark Hero can stop that many brainwashed heroes.

[Jub]

I'm of the "Death of the Author" school of literary thought. And what's put on the page is the guys relying on scouters end up repeatedly underestimating their foes to their detriment.

Then you have even less of a leg to stand on. The guys with the Scouters underestimated the Z-Fighters because they hadn't encountered people who could suppress their power levels before. Most of their foes tended to be either straight forward types who couldn't or didn't bother to do this or foes that were weak enough that this never bit them in the ass. You can't just say that because the bad guys with Scouters lost that PL was BS, that's not only disrespecting the author but flies in the face of what we see on screen.

I limited myself to two examples to make the point. I love both series, but you cannot deny that BTAS has better critical acclaim.

And?

Dude, if anything, I'm hyping up the Animated and Film adaptations of note, not 'Western Comics' as a whole.

You specifically said to imagine characters being streamlined and given a western comic style 'punching up' so don't try to backtrack on this.

But this only really applies to powers, because, again, the key here is the personalities provide the overall most beloved source material.

Why do we need their powers to be capped, streamlined, or otherwise altered from their source material?

I set that rules to avoid the supreme bullshit comics can get up to. This isn't holding back Goku and friends, it's about holding back things FAR worse than him.

I mean, one time, Hank Pym grew so big he punched Eternity in the Face. Eternity, the physical embodiment of the Entire Marvel Universe. He grew so big that he became literally size of the universe. And then he punched it in the face. That is some supreme bullshit right there.

Edit: Again, Hank Pym! He's nowhere near the 'strongest' anything! Yet, he did that!

Okay, what were the circumstances around him having done that? Is it a one-off effect that can be explained away or does he have some other reason why he doesn't bust that level of power out more often?

So, I set something akin to TAS Superman as a Cap. Continent-lifting, and still ridiculous, but not "Seal tears in reality with static electricity" Bullshit. Or "Stop catch thousands of pieces of a shattered god hurtling in from the edges of the universe within the space of 5 seconds". Or "Recreating the Big Bang". Or...

Most of these feats are one-off shows of power usually with some special circumstance required to bring them about. If a character is naturally just that crazy OP, that's them let the chips fall where they may in the regard. There's no need to arbitrarily nerf out otherwise interesting abilities or power scale differences just because you find the edge cases too outlandish.

1) ]Death Battle. To quote their comparison: "Holy Shit! Not Even Close!" [/url]

So some poorly researched shit that doesn't properly scale Goku's strength...

2) He is the first true "Superhero" to the point where he helps define the language around it. Sort of like how the Original Gundam is generally OP in games it shows up in, despite there being so many better mechs in the Gundam franchise alone it's ridiculous, it's a seed to seniority.

That's a terrible reason both in this RAR and in those games. Genres grow and change over time and by your logic, we should be using leaps tall buildings Superman as our benchmark instead of his current incarnations which are barely the same character.

3) I wanted to give Goku a goal to work towards in this world. He's at his best when he strives. All thing Strive, man. Don't deny him of his striving. Striving, to me, is part of what makes him and other shonen characters interesting. Hell, it's KEY to them. Without that, they aren't really shonen.

There are things stronger than Goku in comics, let him fight those instead of capping everybody.

4) Honestly, Saitama's probably the "strongest" of the three. If only because I'm sure part of his powers, given he is a gag character, would keep him in his frustrating limbo of One Punching. Somehow.

Nope, we use his displayed on screen feats to power scale him and as a smaller fish in a now suddenly vast pond he finally gets his wish and can move on as a character. Isn't character growth something you said you wanted?

I only used that as an example to understand the 'power limiter'. Not the personality or style of the character. Who they are, why they do what they do, how they do what they do, that should port over no problem.

You literally said "magine them being incorporated into the best of the best adaptations of superhero comic form. Streamlined, punched up, slightly modernized, etc." and then went on to say "Imagine the character appearing as a guest star". Those quotes, taken with your apparent inability to accept that Superman isn't the be all and end all of heroes in the modern day it seems like you have a bias towards capital-c Comic Books and have set this rar up to ensure the supremacy of those characters.

-----

On a lighter note, we do get the Mask both the magical artifact and the character in this universe. Depending on if a different name and tone make it count as a distinct character we may also get Masque and his mask as well.

[Majin Gojira]

Then you have even less of a leg to stand on. The guys with the Scouters underestimated the Z-Fighters because they hadn't encountered people who could suppress their power levels before. Most of their foes tended to be either straight forward types who couldn't or didn't bother to do this or foes that were weak enough that this never bit them in the ass. You can't just say that because the bad guys with Scouters lost that PL was BS, that's not only disrespecting the author but flies in the face of what we see on screen.

Actually, they can both lower and raise their overall chi/ki. The Sayjans hadn't encountered people who could raise it by and large (though Vegeta had).

If you're going to be pedantic, might as well be accurate.

And?

It's not about the strongest.

Why do we need their powers to be capped, streamlined, or otherwise altered from their source material?

Mostly?

So nukes are still viable

And, again, PYM! PUNCHING! ETERNITY!

There's insane, over the top, no-limits bullshit rife throughout comics and I wanted to avoid it as best as I could.

Okay, what were the circumstances around him having done that? Is it a one-off effect that can be explained away or does he have some other reason why he doesn't bust that level of power out more often?

"But that didn't really count!"

Even the threat of being able to recreate the circumstances is enough for me to not even risk dealing with it. I set up the scenario to avoid it.

Most of these feats are one-off shows of power usually with some special circumstance required to bring them about.

And those that aren't?

I'd rather be safe than sorry.

And listen, if all you're going to do is argue against the parameters set, then make your own goddamn thread where you set the parameters.

So some poorly researched shit that doesn't properly scale Goku's strength...

Hey, remember that time Roshi blew up the moon? Remember he has a "Power level" of 139/180?

Or how about the time in Super when Goku was shot with a hand-held laser weapon and almost died -- and Frieza made fun of him for being felled by something so weak as a hand-held laser!?

Dragon Ball is not consistent enough with Power Levels to have any real value to them, as far as I'm concerned.

That's a terrible reason both in this RAR and in those games. Genres grow and change over time and by your logic, we should be using leaps tall buildings Superman as our benchmark instead of his current incarnations which are barely the same character.

Thank goodness the example of Goku wasn't in the original rar! It was me trying to grapple with Dragon Ball's ridiculousness.

Besides, Superman, especially in animated form, is well known enough to be a very easy point of reference for everyone.

There are things stronger than Goku in comics, let him fight those instead of capping everybody.

The majority of those things don't punch. Fighting them wouldn't be as fun for anyone, not Goku, nor 'readers' as it were.

Of course, now I'm picturing Goku trying to punch Death of the Endless.

Nope, we use his displayed on screen feats to power scale him and as a smaller fish in a now suddenly vast pond he finally gets his wish and can move on as a character. Isn't character growth something you said you wanted?

I wanted Goku to grow because he is a shoenen character, and that is something that defines the 'battle' series stories.

Similarly, Saitama is a gag character and if he loses his joke, it robs him of something fundamental about his character. And the outline was all about being true to the fundamentals of who these characters are.

Remember: Don't mistake "Best" for "Strongest".

To put it another way: Who they are and how the character 'works' invokes DIscworldian Narrative Causality at least in their inception.

Besides, what part of "We're shifting things to a lower overall power scale" makes you think we can do our usual analysis routine?

You literally said "Imagine them being incorporated into the best of the best adaptations of superhero comic form. Streamlined, punched up, slightly modernized, etc." and then went on to say "Imagine the character appearing as a guest star". Those quotes, taken with your apparent inability to accept that Superman isn't the be all and end all of heroes in the modern day it seems like you have a bias towards capital-c Comic Books and have set this rar up to ensure the supremacy of those characters.

Clearly, you missed my meaning. You seem to be missing the forest for the trees with this whole discussion.

Either that or I'm being super unclear about things in followup posts, which is entirely on the table as far as ideas on what's happening go.

Let me try explaining this again.

When characters in western media are adapted, they often have their powers tuned down, to be more 'realistic' or 'grounded' in western media. To save our sanity in dealing with the utterly ridiculous bullshit American comics get up to, I chose to implement that as a metafictional limiter onto the scenario.

I then put in a comment about Superman being stronger than Goku, and you went apeshit.

If you'll excuse the pun.

And I walked it back in the spirit of reconciliation. What more do you want?

On a lighter note, we do get the Mask both the magical artifact and the character in this universe. Depending on if a different name and tone make it count as a distinct character we may also get Masque and his mask as well.

Sounds like Thor has another reason to be mad at Loki!

[Formless]

Those numbers are canon and useful for determining the boost given by something like a Kaio Ken or Super Saiyan form. Your insistence otherwise doesn't change a damned thing.

Answer me this then: what does a power level of "1" mean? What does a power level of "5000" mean? What does a Power Level of "9000" mean? What are any of these numbers actually referring to? Watts? Joules?

Its a trick question, of course. We don't know, and the strangeness of Power Levels only ever increasing during a fight and never decreasing like they would if characters were actually expending energy makes it dubious that's even how the system works. In fact, there obviously is no system. Its all made up, and the only numbers we have are numbers Akira Toryama made up for the story, then promptly forgot about after the Cell Saga when they ceased being functional even for narrative purposes. That means we literally cannot make meaningful statements about a character's Power Level, as the numbers lack any empirical value. Meaning we can't know what Superman's Power Level is, so we can't compare him to Goku on those terms; nor any other character, for that matter, even in Dragonball itself once Power Levels stopped being referred to.

So yes, DBZA's assessment that Power Levels are bullshit is quite apt, and I think this is by design, since the characters stress repeatedly that no matter what the numbers are it didn't reflect an accurate picture of who was most likely to win a fight. As Bardok says in Xenoverse 2 on the matter, "If you put all your trust in numbers, you really are dumber than I thought!" And yes, punching machines like they used before the World Martial Arts tournament to measure the pressure generated by someone's punch are real, and a much better way of determining someone's striking power. But likewise, there really is more to fighting than generating power, and the UFC still has contestants get into a ring to settle the matter properly. Besides, that's what entertains crowds.

[Majin Gojira]

In addition to the characters from Hero, there's also the nutcase Freakazoid, the Mystery Men, etc.

What happens when weird things that are offshoots start to appear? Like Spiderpig for example? What about the X-Babies?
Just how far does this rabbit hole go?

Freakazoid and Mystery Men are pretty kosher, but I think we'll have to draw a line at Funny Animals.

This is a deep rabbit hole, but not that deep

As to the X-Babies ... When you get down to it, they are just alternate versions of different characters, and since we're snagging "Only the best" as it were, they can be swept aside.

In that case, I foresee Justice doing a big recruitment drive with the League, to try and get as many DC/Marvel/whatever heroes wearing League rings in time for his plans.

A lot of heroes would agree with consolidation, and I'm curious if Thom and the Dark Hero can stop that many brainwashed heroes.

Man, I need to watch Mystery Men...

This is a good hurdle to solve. He'll definitely have more, but there will also be folks like Batman who just refuse outright.

So, they may have more help too.

But man, the collateral damage will definitely be up!