Death Battle Prediction: Felonious Gru Vs. Megamind
Is the Matchup Good?
In another first for this blog, I can answer with a resounding yes. And boy does the show need it right now. 4 months of lackluster shonen matchups and episodes were soul-draining. We've had some rough stretches of booking for this show, but I don't think it's ever been that bad. At least, in that sense. Half of Season 7's roster being Marvel and DC was worse, but moreso holistically. No 3 match string there was quite this barren.
Gru Vs. Megamind balances a simple, easy-to-understand theme with surprising originality. We've seen a few fights with comparable pitches - Omni-Man Vs. Bardock being the most recent example - but usually the villain redemption arc starts with an antagonist, ending with a hero. Here, the villain is always our protagonist, just reframed and changing into a better person. The characters are recognizable enough to where the average viewer can quickly pick up on it, and there's some meat on the bones; casuals and Reddit folks both win.
For me, the main appeal ties into that originality aspect, but in a different way. Even a few seasons ago, you'd be hard pressed to find many movie characters, let alone animated ones. Nowadays, nearly all the combatants are returners, from returning franchises or come from material that plays it fairly straight. Gur and Megamind are comedy characters that - for once - don't rely on toon force, and aren't characters you'd associate with battleboarding discussions at all. Plus, Megamind's relevancy is largely just through memes; when this matchup first got popular, it'd been over a decade since he'd done anything. That's no exaggeration. At the same time, each has enough gadgets to make for a fun animation and a decent debate.
Comedy characters usually don't gel with the show these days, and we'll likely get some cringe dialogue. But that's a small price to pay when the battle hits everywhere else. And really, that issue has more to do with the show's writing than anything else.
What I'd Like to See
- Actually good banter and jokes; they're paramount to these characters.
- Some solid fake-out endings; at least one for Gru or Megamind and another for the minions. It'd be in the spirit of both series and add some spice.
- Gru scaling one or both of Megamind's mechs and punching his way inside admist the firefight. Great opportunity for an 'oh shit' moment like Batman Vs. Iron Man.
- A countdown climax with the Death Ray should be there, but whether it nabs the win or not, our kill needs a few extra steps. It'd be dissapointing for a fight based on gadgets otherwise.
Who Should Win?
It's a weird question given how both characters operate. Gru has a Minion army, but typically operates by himself or with just a few. Megamind sets up all his fights ahead of time, with whatever resources he thinks are necessary. Usually that means at most a dozen Brainbots, Minion, and maybe a mech if he's serious. That's excluding whatever invention he's trying out.
Needless to say, Gru's better prepared for an on-demand scuffle. Megamind's beaten physically superior opponents when bereft of his best options, but none of them had the agility and skill to pull off Matrix moves like Gru does. Hand-to-hand is no contest, and that's without taking into account the strength difference. Gru backhanded a shark - seemingly a Great White - and effectively one-shot it. Megamind doesn't even have a superhuman strength feat that's not from non-canon video games. As for speed and durability, Gru dodged missiles in slow-mo and survived a barrage of them. Megamind's best feats in the movie were surviving and outrunning the edges of explosions. Speed's fairly even, but the durability gap is major.
Here's where my job starts to get tougher. Megamind's atrocious sequel saw him dodge and survive lightning blasts, which were the fuel for a city-wide storm. If we take this literally, he blows Gru out of the water in speed and toughness. But that would require us to ignore all the other times his stats were leagues lower. A random comic has Minion dodge a meteorite, offering a bit more support for Megamind taking speed, but I'm going to DQ the lightning feats and say Gru nabs durability. He's portrayed as a physical powerhouse, so giving Megamind superior stats off some clear outliers wouldn't make sense.
Just looking at the stats, you'd be forgiven for thinking this is a blow-out. Luckily for Megamind, Gru's strength and durability don't really matter too much. Each fighter's signature weapon is an insta-kill: the Freeze Ray...freezes people, and the De-Gun has a whole host of one-shot options (dehydration, disintegration, etc.). Unfortunately for us, Death Battle is allergic to giving a starting distance for fights, so I'm going with the typical battleboarding assumption of max range both parties can hit each other.
Gru's acrobatics mean he's better suited to evade and land a killing blow, but Megamind's De-Gun is more versatile and generally effective. The sequels gave it a rapid-fire mode (albeit one that's finnicky) and some invisible AoE. When combined with its greater range, I'd say Megamind's got the better odds of gunning Gru down first. But you could absolutely argue it the other way.
But Who Will Win?
Take nearly everything I said and throw it out the window, and not just for the usual stat bloat we'll see. The real hurdle for my prediction is trying to figure-out how this fight will even be set-up.
The last few seasons have increasingly seen the rules made unclear and often perfunctory. I'm fine with bending the stipulations every now-and-then. Like pro wrestling, occasionally giving the audience some unique, spicy set-ups builds more interest; when done well, you get some all-time fights. But the pendulum has swung way too far in the rule-breaking direction. It's getting to late-stage WCW levels. Just look at Cell Vs. Metal Sonic, where clearly non-canon material that contradicted the stories of both characters was allowed, and Metal Sonic got the Chaos Emeralds despite never using them (Classic Metal Sonic was retconned to be from a different dimension).
We know from the previews that Gru and Megamind are likely getting their armies and some big gun equipment. But how much? Are they including game-only shit? What about the Despicable Me commerical where the Minions split the fucking moon? Does Megamind get Metro Man's powers on-top of his Metro Man suit? Who the hell knows how far apart they start?
Yeah, that last one's par for the course, but it matters even more in an army battle.
You get the picture. It's an already close battle made even tougher to call by how vague the circumstances even are. I really have to make two sets of predictions here: what the rules are, and then who wins under them.
Let's start with the first. I'm not expecting any clear guidelines to be given in the episode proper, but the closest comparison we can make is Bowser Vs. Eggman. That one...actually had rules given before the episode.
As for range...who the hell knows.
So what does that leave us with? Well, they both get a ton more insta-kill options, but Megamind's generally have more AoE. Gru's got 10,400 Minions - maybe with a few more added later - but Megamind's got nearly 100,000 Brainbots. You could say the average Minion is more combat-effective, but they can't protect Gru nearly as well. Megamind's Brainbots bailed him out repeatedly versus Tighten, and can hide his trump cards until it's too late.
The Minions are more independent thinkers, making it more probable they use multiple weapons at-once. That could be huge, but they're also dumb as bricks, so I don't see DB ruling them as more effective than Megamind's resources.
For Gru to win, he and the Minions need a big stat advantage. Everyone's getting placed at "dodged a laser" tier, so speed's a wash. Strength and durability will largely be merged like usual (which mostly makes sense for the record, but it's weirder here), and I do think Gru will have the advantage. Megamind and most of his machines cap at around low-nuke level; Gru himself can be easily wanked to hydrogen bomb level.
Problem is, Death Battle loves to favor bigger numbers regardless of context. And Megamind's strongest weapons are legitimately at country-busting power, while reaching dozens of miles for AoE. That's more than enough to wipe-out Gru's whole army in one-go...sound familiar?
Sure, Gru has his own mega-laser to do the same, but it isn't nearly as powerful or wide-ranging. Megamind has three.
So yeah, put me down for Megamind on both accounts. His tech is just too versatile, wide-ranging and powerful. If Gru was smarter, I could see this going similar to Rick Vs. The Doctor, but that ain't the case.
Category Predictions
Physical Stats: Gru
Intelligence: Megamind
Weapons: Megamind
Minions: Tie
Trump Cards: Megamind
Final Thoughts
This episode's been a long-time coming, longer than you might think. It had a decent following since 2010, which rapidly grew after Megamind's Internet renaissance (of debatable quality). You had people conspiracy posting it'd be in season 9 off one scene in Scarlet Witch Vs. Zatanna. It got in the Tournament of Champions Quarterfinals and the Kickstarter to boot. In a legitimately classy move, DB confirmed it despite the goal not being met.
For once, I'm mostly with the fanbase here. I hope this is a slam dunk, and not just because the show needs one. It'd just be nice to see after how long it's been anticipated; the matchup deserves it.
At the very least, we've gotten a good debate out of it. Hopefully the high views on the previews translate to good reception...and not the episode getting copyright-striked.
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