It'd be pretty funny if the EMP knocked out all the androids in the area

"I have better to ask" sounds like he's dismissing the idea of wishing about Goku.

Maybe it's finally time for vegetto rampage?

ANYWAY

I have a different version of XXI's anger here. Some have posited that he's mad at himself for losing control. I think he's just pissed he's in a situation where others can demand he control himself and he has to comply, when all he wants to do is consume. And he HUNGRAY.

I understand Gast not saying anything now... He's now firmly aware of how unhinged and dangerous XXI is.

Besides being a bit shook at encountering an entity of pure malice & hunger, Gast also has to reflect on what XXI will do if he takes his restraints off. Cornering XXI comes with its own dangers.

I really like this page. Thinking about it, how hard would it be for an entity like XXI to NOT just devour whatever it wanted? To control itself? It's likely a being who devours on instinct and for the joy of it. Now he has to pretend to be something he's not, WHILE he's starving with food surrounding him.

His anger is understandable.

Only way Goku wins the final is either

A) He gets a power-up or magical protections.
B) XXI's form is incredibly draining to use. If Goku can stay away, he'll win an endurance bout for sure with his new form.

What if he needed to eat Gast for some reason?

It seems pretty clear he's mainly after the dragonballs, but could he need a certain kind of sustenance to survive? Does that form cost him to use and he was denied its replenishment? 3 Replie(s)

A few nights ago, I made the same face as the last panel when my wife caught me eating cheese out of the fridge at 2am.

He just kinda... Let that kid get absorbed again.

I'd love for there to be an uno reverse on that kid - ie Gast infused him with positive energy or some other trap.

My head canon is that the draining stuns the person, but isn't indictive of how MUCH has been drained.

So Gast was stunned/unconscious during the draining, but they couldn't come close to fully draining him.

Don't ask me how Vegeta shrugged it off. Maybe knowing it was gonna happen is enough?

There's an interesting dynamic going on here: in a mystical style 4d chess match, there's an advantage given to the one hiding his abilities the most.

Gast might end up paying for being the good guy regularly using his powers outside of his matches. If he doesn't have a decent amount hidden away, I dunno how he pulls this off.

I don't even care how this plays out. Y'all are doing a phenomenal job making this fight tense af, and I'm here for it.

I was curious how they were gonna make this fight fun. Janemba was definitely the answer, and holy hell is it delivering!

Whatever power scaling you wanna use, I disagree that Gotenks could beat Janemba. He doesn't have the temperament nor the experience to handle such a fight.

Safe to say a number of fighters at the tournament could handle Janemba once they figured out his tricks (keeping in mind he could have more than the movie showed), and Gast seems to not be struggling at all, just testing the waters. All what you'd expect for the start of a fight. 3 Replie(s)

Janemba is just so much freaking fun.

I love the depiction of IKL's mom here.

Both for not magically being a size 0 after giving birth and for having 0 tolerance for Mary Sue's nonsense right then.

It was a mini arc/side story with some relevance/interaction with the current & main timeline. I was fine with it.

Curious how Raditz & Kakarot stack up against Vegeta... He's pretty busted up and Raditz is still mystic.

Am... Am I the only one that wasn't sure it was a knee doing all that damage on the final panel?

I guess all the previous packaging primed me to see something else.

He doesn't need to be the strongest to be a player or take our XXI. Old Kai just wants strong enough of a pawn it seems, unless there's something he can bake into mystic form to protect against magic.

I'm curious to see what Old Kai's plan is... He should have one. Otherwise there's like a dozen guys he could appeal to that aren't, you know, full evil. 1 Replie(s)

Vegeta's mah boy, but it's always amazing when someone effs with him for funsies. 1 Replie(s)

I dunno about all the power comparisons (ie to Goku from DB) and logistics of mystic.

Toriyama was pretty loose in logistics... Comparing this to Gohan or Raditz's potential compared to Goku... It's DB in the end, so kinda just whatever Salagir came up with based off his own personal head canon is what we'll get.

Radditz now has enough power to effect change. He doesn't need to be the strongest to play a role, and clearly elder kai either has a role in mind or at least wants a pawn in play for when things go south.

My condolences. We Americans are familiar with the existential dread from watching one's country devolve.

Also, thanks for the 1hr clarification! At least our thrice-a-week Dragonball escapism remains rational and understandable! 1 Replie(s)

Huh! I'm really enjoying this little side story. Interesting introduction and some fairly heavy tie-ins with current events.

Hahahah sorry Radditz it's gonna take a bit longer after elder kai got distracted with his first view of booba in 75 million years.

Even knowing it's a trap, ya can't help but envy Daryun a bit.

At some point there should be greater allowances for creative license, and imo a good spot for that is some of the smaller details contained within the movies.

Again imo, Gohan having a suicidal moment (or at least supreme feeling of helplessness) doesn't detract from his character in the Future movie. If anything, it adds to it since he overcame it, especially since he finds hope in the one he sacrifices himself for.

So much justification of bad behavior in here. Forget "free products should be criticized too," and other such nonsense... At the end of the day, the artists and writers are people too. You're not criticizing some mega corporation, you're going straight up to the artist & writer and telling them their work sucks.

Have some basic human decency and maybe DON'T go straight up to creators and tell them every time you think their work is subpar. It's unnecessarily nasty. Some of y'all forgot the lessons you learned in kindergarten and it shows. 2 Replie(s)

Good change. Creative license used properly, imo, and Roshi went out like a boss.

Also, dunno what people are bellyaching about with Gohan's doubts and self pity. Doubts, especially self doubts, are pretty core to his character, and very normal for kids his age.

The only thing that kept lifting him up were the people around him, and they did it constantly. With all of them dead (and he probably blames himself for that too), I could easily see him spiralling into depression. Maybe not the hero story you want, but it IS real.

I dunno... It's pretty on par for Yamcha to save who he can in front of him and not think about the repercussions.

Edit: I agree with you that killing the thing was a questionable decision btw. Just think it's in character for Yamcha to do it lol.

Ok for real how long can this thing hold a time freeze against so many? I'm still questioning how much Yamcha needs to beat it or just keep it busy long enough to have the effect drop.

Hey, I'm all for redemption arcs, but these two didn't just commit genocide, they reveled in it. They took their time hunting humans and doing whatever the wanted.

It's very on brand for them to resent Yamcha and everything he stands for. 1 Replie(s)

They're the cutest little murderbots and I'm here for it.

Hahahahha holy shit this is a million times better than if they joined forces.

Absolutely loving the chaotic energy these two bring. It's so on brand for them.

I mean you're entitled to your opinion, but it's just that: your opinion. Not fact.

All of the fusions (not DBM) we've seen have been absurdly arrogant, imo. And that's hardly a hot take... I'd wager the vast majority agree with that statement. Personally, I think it's a writing device to balance out the absurd power: their cockiness is their only real weakness.

DBM Vegetto is no exception. Not only does he look down on literally everyone, but he's getting more and more antagonistic with every blow to his pride. I kinda like it personally... It's a recurring theme in DBM to explore nuance instead of just "pure good and pure evil," and it's fun seeing characters like Bra & Vegetto struggle mentally and emotionally with having so much power. Moreso, so much of their identity revolves around their power; any time their power is threatened or made irrelevant, they don't have any other aspects of their personality or life to fall back on. 1 Replie(s)

Drew: agreed on Vegetto being mostly out of this battle (I could see him taking an ugly kill shot at the end, mostly forgotten and pissed about that fact.)

Whether he survives & feels all of this or is already dead could change him though. It'd honestly be worse if he lived through the indignity and loss of more pride again than if he died straight out, imo.

Hmmm... Whether 16 can take I'K'L' out might not matter in the end. Simply stalling him a bit should do. This thing is a few mins old, so it probably doesn't have a good grasp on how long its powers last.

Also, even if that really is Vegetto and he's cut off at the waist, he might be able to survive that for a while. The dude was turned into candy and still knocked buu around... He might be as hard to kill as Frieza was, who survived similar damage and then some. 1 Replie(s)

The mutual respect is just so amazing here. It's rare to see Vegeta give a compliment, so that really sealed it.

I don't really get the complaints about Vegetto, saying he's out of character.

1) the fusions have always been extremely flawed, self-absorbed characters.
2) Vegetto is a giant diva. Part of what he's pissed about here is how much praise Goku & Vegeta are getting. If he snaps, half of it will be the toddler in him screaming, "look at meeee!" He simply can't handle not being the star 100% of the time, and he keeps getting sidelined by beings he views as inferior. 1 Replie(s)

I don't see why he can't enter that state before the round starts.

One of the biggest benefits of the state is it wastes virtually no power, so in theory, he could walk around like that if he was willing to concentrate the whole time.

Also, it's a new state for him. With more mastery he can probably enter it a lot faster. 1 Replie(s)

Ok let's not get crazy here. This fight made it VERY clear that they're equals and anyone could have taken this one.

It's not like Goku is at some insurmountable level that Vegeta can't reach. 1 Replie(s)

Dammit Goku.

He looks like he's somehow tapping back into the calm state they both did at the start of the battle. While in the middle of being overpowered by a beam.

Feeling Goku man...

Hot damn the panelling is just fantastic here.

Asura is a master at using page real estate.

Loving the feeling of this, and the art as always!

To the peeps finding it boring, manga can feel that way if you read it as it releases, but it usually reads pretty well if you consume it all in a sitting. Peeps complained about the Bra stuff constantly and I find it pretty enjoyable to look at/read now.

My boys are too exhausted to combo. They put their everything into a huge hit and can't keep swinging.

Should be wrapping up pretty shortly now.

I dunno why this keeps getting compared to SSJ3.

This seems more like a level beyond mystic form, ie Gohans level. Gohan doesn't really know wtf he's doing with mystic, he just has it. These two know it inside and out, having both developed it on their own internally.

Gohan doesn't seem to have nearly as good of ki control, meaning these two can use everything they have explosively, without having to waste/expend so much energy on the transformation itself.

They're essentially using their ki as massive stat boosts now, and judging by their actions here, they can shuffle around those stats as needed (ie channel it into a huge boost in speed/reaction time, then channel it into raw power output). Since they're wasting so little power, those stat boosts are insanely higher than they would be even in SSJ3 form.

I think it's important to note that they're both fully capable of SSJ3, but they're channeling all that energy into this other form that's insanely more efficient, which means all that power is being properly spent as the user intends it. There's parallels to Super, with Vegeta's recent speech about meditating and why Jiren was so much stronger than them. 1 Replie(s)

You guys are straight up masters at playing with us lol.

There's so much going on here that theories can fly and STILL be wrong. I'm looking at Pan and I can't tell if the fight slowed down or she picked something up watching them the first time, and as Gohan's daughter.

Agree with this.

We're seeing some highly technical and mind-games kinda stuff. Question is whether Vegeta's tactical brain can get a KO on Goku at this point.

Vegeta is clever enough to think a few moves ahead and hide attacks within each other, but will it be enough? Goku knows what Vegeta is about, after all.

Asura going hard af as usual!

He's just so amazingly talented and I feel lucky to be able to catch a new piece of DBZ art every few days.

Holy crap!

I hadn't considered how devious a surprise attack would be from an opponent that looks defeated, when used on a guy who spent literal decades judging opponents by what he senses of their energy.

Vegeta could really catch Goku completely off guard here.

Gorgeous as usual!

You can tell the dude is just on an entirely different level art-wise when someone critiques the "fist-to-face ratio" and you're skeptical of the criticism so you line up your fist on your own face and say... "Huh? Looks perfect!" 2 Replie(s)

I've been suspicious of just that for some time, and this fight solidified it for me. Gogeta would stomp.

I think the thing that might get at Vegetto the most is realizing that eventually they wouldn't even have to merge to take him out. He lost something when he fused, and got complacent. That arrogance built into fusions has a huge side effect on the long term, since it squashes the desire for constant self improvement.

Can we take a moment and appreciate the sheer capability of these two? They haven't fought in this form before so they're learning as they go, and likely better fighters on this page than they were 5 pages ago.

If I were Vegetto, I wouldn't be upset by what they accomplished, I'd be upset because of their ability to continue to grow. He's a warrior at heart, and watching these two (who literally embody what he used to be) grow not just before the fight but during it before his eyes... That's gotta hit him hard in the pride.

Seeing this fight must make him realize how much he's stagnated, and how much of himself he's lost along the way because he hasn't felt the need/drive to seriously push himself. 1 Replie(s)

Goku stealing moves again!

Stole this one from Frieza, from their prelim fights on Namek.

Finally! A realistic depiction of what it would be like to watch a DB fight!

Hearing Trunks be like, "wow how messed up are these universes" when he comes from a literal apocalypse is amusing.

This Vegeta is kinda a dick.

To be fair, I'd probably have the same temperament if I achieved as much as he did and still had to babysit those two morons all the time.

Bulma staying behind makes plenty of sense to me.

Why would she want to go? To see all the people who are dead in her world? A Vegeta she couldn't be with?

It fits her to move on and move forward. 1 Replie(s)

It looks like there's a Angel (DBS) behind one of the speech bubbles too. Definitely looks like their garb, although a little too thicc for Whis. 1 Replie(s)

In most cases I'd be totally fine with that, but this seems outside her wheelhouse.

Maybe I was just hopeful to see some growth and flaws in Bra, and seeing her get another upgrade (calmly analyzing like a vet of Vegeta, Piccolo, or Gast's level) instead is disappointing.

I hate jumping on the anti-bra bandwagon though, so it's more of an eyeroll for me here. Kinda a neat interaction doing a "battle" this way, but I would have preferred seeing it with two old war vets and not a hot-tempered kid who's experienced a lot of emotional stress that same day. 1 Replie(s)

I'm usually not firmly in the "Bra sucks" camp, but her calmly analyzing things is putting her more and more firmly into Mary Sue territory for me.

It feels out of character for her to not only recover so well from the guilt over slaughtering her friends and family (and pan's well-timed shade), but also to calmly analyze. It's not something a teen should be able to do, especially an impulsive one. She's not seasoned enough a fighter to mentally & emotionally adjust to the hits she's taken and calmly focus on the fight in front of her, imo. 3 Replie(s)

Was trying to think of what this reminded me of.

Kirito from SAO abridged. The arena battle fight when he imagined how he'd beat heathcliff.

Note: he's assuming her heart is in this. She's still hella shook.

I don't think her reactions will be near as crisp. She doesn't trust herself or her powers ATM, by all appearances.

The sheer savagery of Pan is delectable. It's not the comment itself, but the timing of doing it to Bra right before she steps into the ring.

She knew that'd throw off whatever mental work Bra did pre-fight, and totally got into her head. Now Bra looks like a distracted, terrified, whipped puppy, which is no way to enter a battle.

It's vicious as hell and I'm here for it. Pan definitely agrees with some people here saying Bra didn't pay enough yet, and Pan found the perfect moment to do something about that.

Love that Bardock, with all his precognition, is too blind to realize he falls into the "weak" category here.

I didn't expect to enjoy this, and figured it would be filler until we got back to the main story.

Instead I fell in love with it, mostly because of the art style. Kudos and thanks for the amazing mini comic!!

Creating an entire planet but still having enough problems that it has a protected species on it is so very on brand for Buu. Since, you know, he could magically fix it if he wanted.

He's basically the architect from Matrix 2 at this point, creating imperfect worlds to see what happens.

This is a nice little moment. Very cool.

I've never been so happy that Buu doesn't have junk.

Some of y'all should try to relax and enjoy the story more. It's beautifully done and I'm in no rush to see how this concludes.

So I was rereading the chapters leading into this to refresh myself on them and one throwaway comment stands out: Vegetto asking Piccolo if there were sensus left, piccolo saying no, and Vegetto saying he'd make do.

Worth noting since Buu might feel a lot better fighting Vegetto after making everyone burn through the sensus that are his only sustenance.

Kudos on the delivery of the last two panels! Good stuff!

Maybe Grand Kai was planning on using Zen Buu to help counter Ol' Smokey? 1 Replie(s)

Buu losing in the tournament doesn't mean we won't see him or this battle in the future, without the rules. I was disappointed when I read this page too though lol.

Thinking back, DBZ tournaments tend to fall apart anyways.

Loving this!

Peeps seem to forget that DB is more than just nonstop fighting.

Man, the humor here is better than DBZ/DBS humor.

Kudos, loved the last two pages! Very on-brand! 1 Replie(s)

Vegeta, done right.

Also, pretty sure Vegetto just doesn't want an overnight delay in the bouts. If I'm reading it correctly...

Forget Vegeta, check Cell out. He's literally sweating. Vegeta managed to bait Cell into expending a ton of energy so far, for relatively little expenditure himself.

Dude truly is tactically gifted. He's exploiting Cell's tendency to constantly show off. 1 Replie(s)

It's pretty on brand for Cell to underestimate his opponent, especially ones he's already trounced like Vegeta. I think he expected an easy win here, one he could kill with style instead of taking it seriously.

This was Vegeta telling Cell he has to take it seriously.

Clone/Jr Cells all dead... Back to 1v1!

Holy shit the Vegeta fan in me needs this so bad right now.

Poor Piccolo...all he is is a thankless clothes beam.

If it ends here, it'll be a little sad since we miss out on Uub's magic or Goku's "surprise."

The Vegeta fan in me would be ok with Goku losing and him winning though... What a nice breath of fresh air that'd be after how dirty Vegeta's been done in Super. 1 Replie(s)

I don't think there was anything smart or planned about Uub's attack here. He's just attacking as fast as he can, trying to take out Goku before his body gives out.

Honestly Uub's kind of an idiot in combat. He just blindly charges forward.

Uub isn't doing enough damage, doesn't have enough of a level gap, and doesn't have enough stamina to wear Goku down. Yeah, he's able to keep Goku off balance with combo attacks like this, but unless he's got more up his sleeves he's not gonna close this out in time.

It's just not enough of a power advantage to compensate for the massive disadvantage.

Hahaha loving all the people seeing the Bleach parallel. First thing I thought of too.

For the peeps thinking this has to be a fast fight, I disagree. They can both power down by quite a lot and still slug it out, and that STILL leaves Goku the space to have cards up his sleeve for the next round (assuming he wins, which I think he will since Uub had to pull out his trump card so fast... again, assuming it's his last card)

There's a lot of different places a fight like this can go, and it can last for a long time given the DB universe.

Super freaking hyped for this fight. Heard these fights were gonna last a decent bit, so while I can't wait to see Vegeta's fight, it's hard to complain when this one looks and feels so great.

Point is he shouldn't have to. Not gonna get into a huge discussion about it, just offering the counterpoint that he's an amazingly talented artist that should be celebrated, not made fun of. 1 Replie(s)

Torsogate is the biggest scandal since Obama wore a brown suit.

No wonder content creators avoid comment sections. You'd never dream of saying these "critiques" to his face, but by the power of internet anonymity, some of you seem to have no problem "critiquing" one of the greatest DB artists of all time, who does his work for free. Unreal. 1 Replie(s)

Lol at Vegeta going back in time 20 years to revisit a trauma point. Also, people are neglecting my favorite Piccolo move of all time: the slight uncrossing of the arms. Just... Chefs kiss

Also also, dunno what people are going on about with the torso crap. Uub wears his pants like his sensei, who also looks absurd.

How demoralizing is it to hit your opponent with your best shot and his reaction is "ouch"

We're just getting started and I already want a post-coital cigarette, and I don't even smoke.

Watching Radditz get his mystic boost is kinda weird. He has a fraction of Gohan's potential, so not really sure where they're going with him besides as the world's most unexpected sucker punch. 1 Replie(s)

Actually it's kinda brilliant. Ginyu isn't the type to care about ruling, so both brothers stand to gain a lot here.

Plus posturing is second nature to them. 1 Replie(s)

This is the right amount of fight-happy Goku that DBS never seemed to get right.

Looking forward to this!!

Guys! Guys! It's happening!!!

To be fair, this wouldn't have turned out any differently if Broly didn't drop it.

Oh I totally agree, I just don't get why people expect so much more than what DBM is.

This fanfic is largely about the what-ifs of the ultimate tournament, pitting every db character ever against each other. It does that spectacularly, and then some, so I don't get why peeps are whining because Broly is dominating some matchups.

Peeps should leave their book critiques at the door and just enjoy DBM for what it is: a fun ride with some absolutely spectacular scenes and art.

This isn't any more ridiculous than canon DB/DBZ/DBGT/DBS.

Dunno why peeps are expecting a fanfic to be superior to the writing that it's based off of. 4 Replie(s)

Interesting concept. I wonder if higher levels of sapience and less insanity brings with it feelings mortality that interfere with his regeneration. 2 Replie(s)