Omni-Man Vs. Bardock: Facts or Cap? Part 3 - The Verdict

 Before the Verdict

Size Calcs

When it comes to series with large-scale feats of destruction and speed, a common talking point is just how large the relevant areas are. When such information isn't clearly presented, size calcs are used to figure things out. This allows a more accurate measure can be achieved...in-theory.

In-practice, its a complete mess. Most creators don't bother to give locations specific sizes because it doesn't matter to the story they're trying to tell. Even when they do, said measurements are constantly changing due to the inherent flexibility of writing and especially illustration.

Thus, most size calcs rely on measuring pixels ratios in specific shots and applying them to others, utilizing sparse character measurements and the occasional statements on location for reference. This leads to results clearly beyond what the author and any reader is conveying and thinking of respectively. That on its own wouldn't be a deal-breaker, but the same methods can lead to completely different results depending on the panels or figures used. Even for an interpretation-heavy hobby like this, there's almost never a good way to go about this.

I've linked a few calcs that use some amount of 'size calcing', but they're fairly conservative and don't step far beyond what is clearly displayed for the given feat. This means that certain feats are harder to quantify, but this is the approach I'm most satisfied with. Again, no disrespect to people doing these, but I think the standards need to be reigned-in a bit.

Of course, real-world locations with known sizes or fictional ones with stated measurements can be factored in without such hurdles.

Kinetic Energy Calcs

"Large Planet level" proceeds to not blow up a country

This one overlaps a bit with the previous one, but not all-the-way. On the surface it makes sense to try and calculate the kinetic energy involved with certain feats. In fact, its a lot easier to do! KE = 1/2mv^2 has way less variables than what go into most size calcs. Granted, they still rely on some similar assumptions at points, but they aren't nearly as troublesome to narrow down.

Unfortunately, they still have the same problem of usually contradicting what's actually presented in the story. Just as an example, One Piece and Naruto consistently show characters moving at vastly superhuman speed without damaging the environment around them at all. This is impossible with real-world kinetic energy. And that's just from people moving around. Attacks like Tailed Beast Bombs become capable of wiping several continents off the map, despite the unrestrained Ten-Tails' power not even pulling that off.

Still, kinetic energy they do have their time-and-place. When speed is shown to increase power for the feat or narrative, they make sense barring further complications. If the final values simply don't contradict other feats, statements, etc., they will be used as a high-end.

Lifting Strength Calcs

(Credit to Hefty-Albatross4767)

The oft-forgotten stat of battleboarding, but one you still have to go over. If you think it's totally useless, read some threads and see how it can really make the difference sometimes.

It's also a square-rectangle situation; all lifting strength feats require AP (barring some super-specific powers), but not all AP feats involve lifting strength. This is especially true for ones done physically, even moreso for those involving kinetic energy. Naturally, this makes it questionable as to what values from KE and other AP calcs can reasonably be equated to this stat. When this is simply unclear, the lifting strength value will be used as a high-end.

Guidebooks

(Credit to RN10)

Like I mentioned at the beginning, secondary sources like guidebooks are being evaluated on a case-by-case basis for their claims. If what they're saying doesn't match-up with the primary material, it will be excluded. There are also some fringe cases where the accuracy of said info isn't clear-cut; we'll be going over both types now.

1. Goku's Super Kamehame Wave would have "shattered" the moon: This statement doesn't directly contradict anything, but the scale of Dragon Ball by this point was mostly below lunar levels. God does restore the moon, but this is with the Dragon Clan's unique creation magic; it doesn't scale to AP. For the moon's destruction earlier in the series, see Bardock's section later. Without clear evidence either way, this will be included as a high-end for Bardock.

2. Goku grew nearly 20x stronger since battling Vegeta: There's no clear evidence for this in the series proper, but also nothing to contradict it. Another high-end for Bardock's scaling.

3. Omni Man Stuff: ...There's so much to talk about across different sections that I'll just mention it later lol.

Omni-Man

Viltrumites and Planetary Destruction

Kicking things off with some controversy, the biggest debate regarding Invincible stats is the validity of Viltrumites being able to destroy planets, solo or otherwise. Thankfully, the individual feats and statements in-question are fairly simple to analyze, so this'll be a lightning round.

1. Nolan and his division "blew up" Unopa: Definitely the least discussed out of these feats, and for good reason. All we know is that Nolan and at least 21 other Viltrumites invaded Allen's homeworld and destroyed it. Allen's dialogue does it make pretty clear the planet was destroyed, rather than simply abandoned, but we have no frame of reference for how long or thorough this destruction was.

2. Nolan, Invincible, Thaedus and Space Racer destroy Viltrum: Should be a simple division of effort; Omni-Man gets to 1/4 planet level, right? Well, Space Racer's involvement and this panel of dialogue callsthat into question.

After Space Racer's Infinity Ray pierces the planet, Thaedus - a brilliant scientist - states that the Viltrumites need to perfectly time their ram through its tunnel together. Additionally, a stable core could mean their death. 

Many will say this proves the Viltrumites played only a small role; a cherry on top of the Infinity Ray's power. Others will argue the opposite, citing claims that the Infinity Ray can destroy planets and stars as proof Viltrum is even tougher than both, leading to a massive Viltrumite upscale.

With just this information, the latter interpretation certainly makes more sense. Why else would the Viltrumites be needed if Space Racer could do the job solo?

Once we add in some surrounding context...things change.

First-off, we know Viltrum has 1.25x the gravity of Earth. This would necessitate it having 1.25x the mass, thus making it slightly larger than Earth. Any calculations placing its size far larger fly in the face of its stated gravity, and can be dismissed. That also renders the argument of Viltrum being star-sized impossible, so it's not like a star-busting attack would only severely weaken the planet.

Second, a planet's core is the center of its mass, working to generate the structure's gravitational field. Destabilizing a core would debiliate a planet's gravity; accomplishing this with an addition of energy would either generate more heat or leave it roughly the same. All arguments assuming that the Infinity Ray somehow cooled down the core for our trio to survive are completely illogical.

Third, Space Racer's gun is shown to destroy large objects gradually via chain-reaction. This creates a perfectly plausible explanation for why it didn't just blow-up Viltrum without the latter being massive in size. Sure, the core would have restabilized given enough time (not how actual physics works, but roll with it), but that doesn't prevent most of the planet being destroyed. It wasn't convinient for Space Racer to fire multiple shots given he was actively fighting for his life, so Viltrum has no evidence of just tanking these blasts without eventual annihilation like stars. Unfortunately for the trio, this also makes perfect division of the feat impossible, since we don't know how much work was done by all involved.

Finally, the Viltrumites were trying to fly as fast as possible for this plan to work. Considering kinetic energy is mass times velocity, whatever force they did contribute may not scale to their normal attacks to begin with.

Simply put, all the arguments for this feat being measurable fall flat upon closer examination...or do they? 

Invincible later claims he "punched right through the planet" with Nolan and Thaedus. This does imply the trio were strong enough to fly through the planet without aid of Space Racer. Considering they exited at breackneck speed while a huge chunk of debris was propelled, this could be a valid feat for kinetic energy. Of course, that proposes the planet's gravity wasn't significantly weakened, which is very likely. Still, it'll be used as a high-end for benefit of the doubt, which lands at about 1.4 Zettatons of TNT, or Small Planet level.

Lastly, some have argued that Omni-Man and numerous other characters scale to Viltrum's destruction via surviving its explosion...even though they were at the edge of the blast and still got knocked out. Not much more to be said there.

3. Thragg says the remaining 37 Viltrumites can tear the planet in-half: Thankfully, we won't need to spend much time on this last one. The statement is clearly literal given Thragg says the action would kill every lifeform on Earth; this is while some of the Viltrumites are "severely injured". Dividing this evenly nets you Class Z and Moon level for stats. Certainly impressive...but Thragg's language heavily suggests this quantity of soldiers is needed to tear the planet in-half. That could cap even Thragg himself at this level, placing weaker characters like Nolan even lower. You could argue he can do the vast majority of this himself, and just needs a few others for the final effort, but that doesn't seem likely.

Conclusion: Viltrumites can undeniably devastate planets overtime, but outright destruction is consistently the effort of many. Frankly, putting it that way is quite generous given how many are involved in 2 of these feats and all the dependent variables involved with Viltrum. Without looking at further feats, the average Viltrumite would be Moon level, with higher-tier ones like Nolan being Small Planet level as an absolute high-end.

Omni-Man's Anim(e)ated Upscale (kinda)

Omni-Man's show-exclusive feats and statements largely don't matter here, as his comics-self clearly scales far higher than the vast majority. An exception would be him claiming to have diverted a meteor the size of Texas. This was after Invincible grabbed, stopped, and redirected a much smaller one himself. It's reasonable to infer that Nolan is saying he can do the same sort of proccess on a far larger scale. Treating it this way would grant slightly lower lifting strength than Thragg's statement, but slightly higher AP, getting to Moon level+. Very consistent with the comics...but not the show. 

In this same season, Omni-Man bled to a satellite laser of Small City level power, and needed to drastically accelerate for gradual destruction of a planet. Narratively, it's more reasonable to assume he gradually redirected/destroyed the meteor before such drastic action would be neccessary. After all, the GDA is shown to detect such meteors long before they hit Earth. But this isn't certain, and since the more generous assumption does fit the comic's scaling, it will be included as a high-end.

Invincible Flight Speed Feats: To Scale or Not to Scale?

(Credit to Scru Face Is LIT for the thumbnail)

We've got a whole host of feats to tackle here...but luckily for us, we've already discussed much of the relevant information. Remember that theory about how Omni-Man and other Viltrumites fly? Well, it's the crux of this issue. If they truly do exploit subspace for constant acceleration, then that means two things:

1. Their max flight speed is technically Infinite

2. Their travel speed feats are Inapplicable to their true physical speed. 

Assuming both are true, the fastest Invincible feat you could reasonably attribute to mid-combat reflexes would be the titular Mark Grayson flying to the moon while fighting Allen. This places Omni-Man at Relativistic, but is that his limit?

Well, it's important to note that this is contingent on an in-universe theory only mentioned in a guidebook. But even assuming Viltrumites simply move that fast, we'd need evidence for their reflexes scaling to their (now limited) max speed. There are three arguments for this being the case, so let's go over them.

1. While flying from Earth to Talescria in a few days, Allen reacts to and dodges a Viltrumite warship: Initially, this seems like a solid argument, but there are a few problems. One, Allen believes the ship didn't notice him, yet it had already deccelerated. Two, Allen's speed is hard to quantify in this scene; we know Invincible characters don't always travel at a fixed rate (both in the show and comic continuities). Three, Allen's own flight is done with Smart Atoms.

2. Conquest intercepts a Coalition of Planets warship: Pretty similar to Allen's feat, though without the first problem. Despite that advantage, the other two remain; for this to be a valid display of reflexes, the warship's flight speed must be comparable to Viltrumite travel speed. That simply isn't the case; Mark can outpace a different ship stated to be faster than any other in the Coalition's supply. Yes, this particular one was destroyed before that, but the Coalition has at least several more. You could also argue Nolan's son Oliver seeing a nearby planet as a blur means he couldn't react to the ship's movement. While slower than adult, non-hybrid Viltrumites, Oliver can keep-up with them in fights.

3. Allen's reflexes are stated as directly proportional to his flight speed: This is definitely the most convincing argument, but it has one big issue. The statement claiming this is following up a claim about his flight speed in the atmosphere, directly mentioning how this velocity is lower than what he'd attain in space. Nearly all impressive flight speed feats discussed here are done in space, creating a solid counterargument. Still, this statement could be interpreted as proof for the opposite.

So where does that leave us? I'm going to say these feats count as a high-end...but only for travel speed with flight. With only one debatably valid argument to them scaling more broadly for stats, there's just too much evidence to the contrary. Still, the Graviton atom theory is...well, a theory, so they aren't totally invalid. The most impressive of these is Omni-Man taking a week to reach Thraxa, which is "a couple galaxies away, uh, give or take". Assuming it's in the closest galaxy to our Milky Way - Triangulum - gets us 130,793,652 times lightspeed, well-into Massively FTL+.

As a side-note, this discussion also impacts Nolan's destruction of the Flaxan homeworld and black hole feats. If you believe the Graviton Atom theory, these feats are entirely Inapplicable, as Nolan would continously build kinetic energy to pull them off. Otherwise, they're valid for strength, but not combat speed; there's no proof his flight speed in the scene scales that way, since he's just moving in a straight line.

Miscellaneous Feats

"Well, There's a Catch: a major plot point in Invincible involves the Coalition of Planets admitting that their weapons cannot hurt Viltrumites" 🗣️

1. Omnipotus claims to have devastated a solar system and destroyed his home unvierse: The former was done via a chain reaction of exponential destruction, so it can't be scaled back to him. The latter has no timeframe. Omnipotus is also a reality-warper, calling into question if both feats were even done physically. It's clear his power can infinitely grow, but we never have confirmation he reached literal Infinite strength in the story. Even if he did, it would be a gigantic outlier for...literally every character who scales to/above him.

2. Thragg and Mark flew so fast stars seeemed like a blur: In a vaccum, this would sound very impressive, but the stars are simply blurred due to perspective. It's similar to how your surroundings blur when running relatively fast. Remember, the two were fighting in close proximity to other combatants, and there's no indication they traveled any significant distance.

3. Universa travelled across the observable universe in a day: Okay, Death Battle said this...and there's literally zero indication this happened. Idk what more to say.

3. So, when The Coalition of Planets' ship's cannon obliterated this gigantic solar disk it proved just how tough the Viltrumites really are: Okay, let's get this over with. If you somehow don't know, there's a moment in the comics where a large metal disk blocks the sunlight to a planet, and a Coalition ship destroys it with a laser. Why does this (not actually) matter? Because Thaedus only states they have a list of weapons/people that can hurt Viltrumites after the Coalition accquires resources outlined in Nolan's books.

On its own, this...doesn't prove anything. Viltrumites could simply be too fast for the ship's firepower. However, Conquest destroyed this same ship later. Since the vehicle can withstand its own firepower, Nolan scales to-

Where is the evidence for the laser actually impacting the ship? News-flash, Death Battle: that's not how lasers work. Can the Death Star survive planet-level attacks because it fires one?

So yeah, lucky me: I don't have to bother arguing about the 5 million calcs for this thing because it doesn't scale to anyone.

Tech Jacket Stuff

(Credit to Comics Hub)

Another Image Comics series and its titular protagonist, Tech Jacket (Zack Thompson) is one of their many Marvel and DC bootlegs. No offense to his fans, but seriously, his name might as well be Cyan Bug.

The series is shown to be in the same universe as Invincible's main one, with Zack getting a crossover as part of the Image-wide Invincible War and later appearing in Invincible proper. Working with the Coalition of Planets during the Battle of Viltrum, he's clearly less impressive than the top Viltrumites like Nolan, leaving to them upscale Zack's showing. But is this of note? Well, we have a few brief things to look at.

Tech Jacket's most impressive direct feat is him lifting a Kresh totally not the Kree spaceship into orbit, then throwing it into the sun. Considering the speed involved, this would get up to Class Z and Continental+. Decent support for Thragg's statement, but nothing crazy. But what about the explosion of this ship on the sun? It gets far higher...but scaling it to Zack is illogical. If he threw the ship hard enough to cause that explosion...well, why didn't it explode the second he threw it? Realistically, it just exploded on its own.

After the Battle of Viltrum, the capabilities of Zack's suit are stated to increase by 1,000%. Notably, the capabilities in-question are never stated to directly correlate with stats, but it isn't a crazy conclusion to make. You may have seen people say this means Viltrumites who grew stronger after Viltrum's destruction got 10x more powerful. The evidence for this is...nonexistent. Regular Viltrumites were already a tough challenge for Tech Jacket, let alone high-tier ones. 

Nonetheless, you could argue characters like Nolan as scaling 10x above the spaceship toss. Higher-ends of said feat combined with a 10x multiplier place his lifting strength at Class Y (yes, that's somehow above Class Z). Whether Omni-Man actually scales to this is uncertain. Zack fights with the Coalition later, but after Nolan's death. Considering the gap apparent earlier, this will be left as a high-end for Nolan's lifting strength.

Lastly, Zack goes on to fight Null and The Immune System...and is basically helpless against both. He gets stomped by the former and needed a giant robot fusion to fight the latter, which doesn't scale to his base suit's statistics. Like the sun disk, no further discussion is need on those characters; if Tech Jacket doesn't scale to them, neither does Nolan. 

Bardock

Can Saiyans Breathe in Space?

("All in his mind?")

An infamous conversation in the Dragon Ball community - even outside of powerscaling - is if Saiyans can breathe in space. This should be a very obvious no: Freeza points out that Goku as the planet they're fighting on is about to be destroyed. He doesn't know Goku personally for more than a few minutes, so this would have to be based on his knowledge of the Saiyans. None managed to fly off Planet Vegeta on their own before it exploded, and them being able to fly through space calls into question the point of Attack Balls.

If we're looking at the original manga, our answer is an obvious no. In the anime, all the evidence clearly indicating no remains, but is paired with Bardock seemingly flying into space and talking just fine. You could argue this is just the upper atmosphere, but then Vegeta inarguably talks in space later. Then again, Goku wears a spacesuit while travelling through space...but then Goku and Beerus seemingly go into space, which could have been the exposphere...it's a mess.

Ultimately, your mileage will vary here. Both conclusions will be adressed in the Verdict.

Does Bardock Scale to Freeza?

He got no-diffed by him. Stop arguing this, no amount of "he didn't disintegrate instantly" should convince you when cinematic timing exists. Does the farmer with shotgun Raditz killed scale to Saiyans because he didn't disintegrate when they fought?

old bald guy fires a laser or something idk

Another notorious talking point to discuss is the validity of the moon's destruction pre-Z. Old Heavenly Martial Arts Master's Kamehame Wave clearly destroys it. We'll discuss kinetic energy calcs later, but even just obliterating the moon is clearly ridiculous, and would place many stronger characters well-into the destruction of planets before any such celestial bodies are destroyed in-series. But is this consistent?

To put it bluntly, no. While Piccolo later destroying the moon may seem to add consistency, this was after 3 years of training after already surpassing the Turtle Hermit. But the real devil in the details is with...well, Piccolo. His prior reincarnation - who was significantly weaker - had to shave off part of his lifespan to fully destroy a city. The Turtle Hermit felt the only way to defeat this Piccolo was with a sealing technique, not even bothering to fight head-on. This lines up leagues better with destructive feats shown at this point of the story and up to the Saiyans' arrival. The second Piccolo pulls off a similar destructive blast, and while clearly more powerful, it doesn't even destroy an island.

As for speed...I'll save that for the next entry.

Young hungry guy climbs a rock or something idk

Another moon-related feat to look at, this time for speed. The Staff that Obeys One's Will went from the moon-and-back in about 20 seconds, placing it at roughly 13% lightspeed. That's pretty similar to the moon-busting Kamehame Wave's speed, so it's not some totally isolated feat. With characters like Piccolo later reacting to this weapon, they should be at a similar level.

At least, in-theory. Problem is, this feat is inconsistent with almost all others pre-Z. For starters, it being faster than the Kamehame Wave makes no sense narratively given the Ki behind it was leaps-and-bounds ahead of Goku's at the time. 

Of course, you could argue that just further proves said moon-bust is an outlier, but then there's a faster Goku only barely dodging a Ki blast from the reincarnated Piccolo; both were faster than the original. Said attack reached the ocean at High Hypersonic speeds, and is a far more direct display of reflexes than the pole's off-screen extension.

Most importantly of all is the feat making little sense to begin with. Goku being able to precisely aim his staff to the moon, carry himself and others at intense speed without worrying about heat from re-entry - or the vaccum of space - is just highly illogical. This feat has too many gaping holes in it to be usable.

Did Kid Goku Dodge the Solar Fist?

Yeah...but not in the way phrasing it that way suggests. Goku dodged the move as it was used, not while light beams were heading towards him. If he was that fast, why bother getting the sunglasses to avoid being blinded?

Garlic Jr.'s Big Hole (pause)

(credit to meme.ig)

In the first Dragon Ball Z movie, Garlic Jr. (as opposed to Garlic Senior) creates a portal to another dimension: the Dead Zone. Not important for scaling...at first glance. There's a decent argument to be made that this gateway was actually a small black hole. 

Garlic Jr. himself claims that light can't escape it, which is reiterated in guidebooks. In several video games, Garlic Jr. summoning it is referred to as "Black Hole Wave". Most convincingly, Daizenshuu 6 straight-up says its "a type of black hole". Since Garlic Jr. utilizes his own Ki output to create the Dead Zone, this would be a Large Planet level feat. Additionally, Gohan's power lets him withstand the Dead Zone's gravitational force, requiring Class P lifting strength.

The arguments against the Dead Zone being a black hole aren't complex. We know the Dead Zone is a sort of alternate dimension, so light not being able to escape doesn't prove its a black hole. The same goes for a technique name in the video games, which are hardly part of the actual story. Daizenshuu 6 only states its "a type of black hole", meaning it could simply have some of the same properties. This last argument lines up with what we see: a black hole of that size would easily destroy the Earth, yet it only gradually destroys an (admittedly very large) castle. There's also no distortion of the surrounding view, which would happen if light was being sucked in.

That last point is most damnning to Garlic Jr.'s case, but you can poke similar holes in concrete parts of Dragon Ball's world. Characters have been stated to move faster than light without warping space around them, for instance. I think there's enough evidence in-favor of the black hole theory for it to be a reasonable high-end.

Before anyone asks, no, one guidebook calling it a "hyperspace" does not make Garlic Jr. 5D. Even if that weren't obvious hyperbole, it'd be a massive outlier for early Z characters.

Vegeta's Planet Bust(s): The Original Anime Upscale

Exclusive to the anime is an episode where Vegeta and Nappa travel to a planet, save its people from tyranny...then kill them all with a planteary explosion. Vegeta does this effortlessly. Obviously a Planet level feat, regardless of KE.

However, this is a bit inconsistent to his later fight with Goku. Like in the manga, he powers-up for a blast that threatens the Earth, either razing its surface or completely destroying it depending on interpretation. That calls into question the validity of this feat. You could argue Vegeta didn't actually need to use his full power for Earth's destruction, and was just taking precautions against Goku. On its own, you can argue this either way.

King Vegeta Waving His Hand Like He Just Didn't Care

(Credit to Kai on TikTok, but this is two-pronged cope)

Here's another anime-only scene for 'ya. King Vegeta waves his hand while on a conquered planet, leading to a flash of light. Then we zoom out to see 3 planets detonate one-by-one. Most interpret this as him destroying the planets with this hand-raise. Again, even without kinetic energy factored in, this is at least Planet level...if you believe that's what actually happened.

For one, the explosions happen individually; in short succession, but not at the same time. That would potentially knock the previous result down to Small Planet level+ (assuming the planets were Mercury-sized, though this is a low-end). Furthermore, the cut to a shot of these planets makes it questionable if Vegeta truly did this casually. 

Most concerning of all is the logistics: why would he blow-up these planets while still on them? The Saiyans conquer planets to sell them, and obviously don't stay on exploding ones. With the follow-up shot being a clearly symbolic image of the King and Prince among blue fire, this whole scene could just be a metaphor for their planetary conquest (which is literally what's being narrated).

With that said, it does line-up fairly well with the stronger Prince's casual planet-bust later. So while I'm inclined to rule against this feat, it (and the other Vegeta's) will be left as high-ends for Bardock's scaling.

(Death Battle also tried to argue he had help with this...idk why lol)

hairy guy dodges rocks or something idk

(Credit to ScreenRant...what? They cooked on this one)

Last on our list is yet another anime-only scene. While travelling on a spaceship to Planet Namek, Goku reacts to and dodges meteors heading towards him. These clearly travel at a rate comparable to his ride, so the first thing to tackle is just how fast that vehicle was. Thankfully, this is fairly easy to figure out. 

God's spaceship (yes, God has a spaceship in Dragon Ball) would have taken a month to reach Namek, but Goku's spaceship did so in just 6 days. That's a speed difference of roughly 5x; impressive, given God's ride went from Earth to Jupiter in just 58 seconds. The average distance between Earth and Jupiter is 484 million miles, getting us a velocity of ~45 times lightspeed. With our multiplier for Goku's spaceship, this gets to a ridiculous 223.7 times lightspeed, comfortably Massively FTL.

There exists a "high-end" taking this map of the Dragon Ball macrocosm literally, but said diagram clearly isn't to scale. For instance, the King of World's miniature planet takes up a decent chunk of the mortal universe, despite said planetoid being shorter than a city block in diameter.

As for the consistency of our real number...well, there isn't much to go off of. Most combative characters scale either far below or above this Goku in-universe. There are much faster speed feats later in the series, but this only lends credence to those arguments, not the other way around. 

The closest relevant speed feat to this one is Piccolo blasting the moon at 54% lightspeed. This Goku could speedblitz that Piccolo, but the gap isn't that big. Piccolo could somewhat react to Nappa, who wasn't totally blitzed by Goku at his best (albeit at over 8,000, rather than 10,000+). The same could be said for when Goku fought Vegeta; he was slower, but not to the point he couldn't fight back. With the Kaioken x3's speed boost, Goku actually held the advantage there. That would place his speed at 1.62 times FTL, and this was with a power level of over 32,000.

Based on what little evidence we have, I'm going to leave this feat as a high-end for Bardock. It's not crazy to argue, but does seem like a stretch.

Fanart

(By Carbonated Jem)

(By Yu Narukami)

(By Kaiser: Nostalgia's Awakened Seeker)

Okay, no more sun disk jokes. I'm serious.

The Verdict

One last twist to shake up the formula: for any category-based verdicts this series looks at, I'll be using the same ones. Don't worry, this is just for fun as a framing device: the outcome will include everything else of note too. For this one, we've got to look at Speed, Strength, Versatility, Experience, and Stamina.

Speed

At a glance, Omni-Man looks like the runaway favorite for this category. Not only does he have a lot more quantifiable speed feats, but the guy flew past 2 galaxies in a week! Even Bardock's absolute-best speed scaling doesn't stack up to that...when ignoring context. This is only Nolan's travel speed, potentially via exploiting the weirdness of Graviton Atoms. Sure, that could make his top flight speed Infinite, but that can't be achieved mid-fight unless he's already far faster than his opponent normally. Even if you don't buy the Guidebook's theory, Nolan would still need continuous acceleration to reach his peak of Massively FTL+.

It can't be denied that Omni-Man has the edge in travel speed, but this is only so relevant in a one-on-one fight, especially with his need to build-up velocity for that advantage. To decide a winner, we have to look at combat speed.

The fastest feat in Invincible we can reliably use here is the titular character flying to the moon in seconds. Him and Allen fight while this is happening, so its fair-game, placing Nolan's reflexes at about 34.3% lightspeed. Of course, Mark wasn't even close to his dad's level of speed at this point. In their brutal fight (read: one-sided beating) on Earth, Nolan moved faster than he could react on several occasions. Even after Mark gained way more experience with his powers and pushed them past previous limits, Nolan was still comprable. But without any more impressive speed feats to go off of, we can't place either above Relativistic speed mid-fight.

How does this stack up to Bardock? Its certainly more impressive than any of the Saiyan's personal feats, but like with Omni-Man, the meat of this topic comes down to scaling. Bardock's power level being near 10,000 places him well-above Piccolo's Ki blast reaching the moon in seconds; 54.3% lightspeed. That's about 1.6x faster than Invincible's trip to the moon, but still slower than Nappa. Why's that important? Because Goku completely outsped Nappa, moving faster than he could see. This is almost identical to the upscaling Nolan has over Mark's feat, ensuring its a non-factor in this comparison.

There's also the matter of Goku's trip to Namek, where he reacts to asteroids moving at comparable speed to his ship. This clocks in at 223.7x faster than light, and nearly 412x faster than Mark's best speed feat. However, the consistency of this is pretty questionable, and it's even more dubious whether Bardock even scales to Goku at this time. This will only impact high-ends for both characters, but you can't deny it further cements Bardock taking the edge here.

Speed

Still, this advantage is hardly massive with more reliable estimates, especially with Omni-Man's travel speed still outpacing Bardock's best. It shouldn't be surprising that the biggest factor to this fight is

Strength

Let's address the obvious: Omni-Man's direct displays here dwarf any of Bardock's. Bardock can plow through a horde of people, but Nolan is entirely unharmed by that sort of thing. Even Great Ape isn't that dissimilar to giant monsters he's fought and beaten in the past, whereas Bardock has no equivalent to Nolan surviving that sattelite laser. But as should be obvious by now, scaling is a big part of both series, so we've got more to discuss for the real answer.

Viltrumites are incredibly powerful: before fighting his father Mark was already strong enough to create huge craters on the moon. After extensive training he withstood a bomb that could have caused the largest solar flare in history. This latter feat is Multi-Continental, and the minimum for a Viltrumite's power.

Thragg states that 37 of them (himself included) can tear the Earth in-half, and this is while some are severely injured. Assuming they all put in a similar amount of effort, each would essentially be lifting 68.9 quintillion Tons, and be dishing out 32.8 Exatons of TNT. That's enough to destroy our entire moon!

Of course, the division of effort almost certainly wasn't even. Aside from the badly wounded Viltrumites, we know they aren't all equal in strength; Thragg in particular is way above the rest. That calls into question how valid the scaling is here...for ordinary Viltrumites. Nolan fought Thragg and made him bleed on two seperate occassions, so top-tiers like them would scale anyway.

As should be clear from BTV, that isn't the ceiling for Invincible's top-tiers. Omni-Man said he could divert a meteor the size of Texas, which could reach 392 Exatons of TNT. Similarly, he, Mark and Thaedus flew through Viltrum. While the planet's destruction can't be scaled to them, you could argue its huge loss of debris just prior was fully attributable to them; that gets to 1.3 Zettatons of TNT. These arguments are shaky, but do have some real evidence too. Combined, we get a clear range for Omni-Man's strength: Moon level with certainty, and at most Small Planet level.

Shifting gears to Bardock, the simplest comparison to make is lifting strength. Bardock is far above Tao's might and Piccolo's telekinesis throwing a pillar and pyramid into the sky respectively, and Gohan (maybe) resisting a black hole's gravity. But even being generous to get Bardock past about 5.3 billion Tons (coming from the non-KE version of Piccolo's feat), he'd only get to 1.1 trillion Tons in this category. Nothing to scoff at, but over 62 million times lower than Nolan's lifting strength.

But this is only particularly useful if the Emperor also packs AP and durability to compete, so how about Bardock's own? Well, our baseline is Piccolo (for the third time now! Hopefully he gets a free sundae) blowing up the moon. Shock of all shocks, that's Moon level, even without factoring in kinetic energy or how thorough this destruction was. By comparison, Thragg potentially caps at that tier, placing Nolan even weaker. After all, when Thragg got serious, he impaled Nolan with a single punch.

So despite the scaling seeming similar, Bardock is leagues above Piccolo, whose likely above Thragg, who can deal massive damage to Omni-Man with just one punch.

But what about higher-ends? Well, Garlic Jr. created the Dead Zone's portal by powering-up, which was potentially a black hole, placing him at Large Planet level. That's obviously far above Nolan's best, but let's put the numbers into perspective. Garlic Jr's feat is worth nearly 432.3 Ronnatons of TNT. What's a Ronnaton? Oh, just 1,000,000 Zettatons...each, placing Bardock's highest-end 432,300,000x greater.

On its own, this feat would be a huge outlier for Bardock's power, but it has more support than you'd think. Remember, King Vegeta potentially destroyed at least one planet by himself - maybe even 3 - and his son blew up a planet and moon with just two fingers. Bardock would scale to both these feats with Great Ape, and arguably downscales them normally. Sure, they have holes to poke in them, but so do both of Omni-Man's greatest feats.

So while Nolan's lifting strength advantage could let him gain an advantage when grappling, brute force and durability are handily in Bardock's favor no matter what. Not by enough to where Omni-Man can't hurt him or anything, but even a single blow from Bardock will potentially do lethal damage. The low-class warrior takes strength!

Strength

Still, numbers aren't everything. Let's see if Nolan can turn things around with

Versatility

Viltrumites and Saiyans are largely defined by the classic flying brick toolkit: superhuman stats and flight, with the oft-included super senses and gradual power growth as well. But there are some more unique advantages on each side.

Omni-Man's can be defined by one word: survivability. Not only is his stamina basically limitless by virtue of Smart Atoms, but he's fought fine with an eye popped out the skull! He should be comparable to other Viltrumites in pain tolerance too; that means fighting with all his skin burnt off or with intestines ripped-out are no big deal. Bardock can take a beating, but we know normal amounts of bleeding take their toll on his fighting ability. Plus, the Ki reserves he relies on for superhuman stats are finite, and will deplete much faster when consistently used.

There's also the matter of Nolan holding his breath for 2 weeks straight. This is a non-issue if Bardock can breathe in space, but assuming he can't, Bardock doesn't have any direct counter to his opponent just flying away and waiting things out. Even aside from Bardock's limited stamina, Saiyans live similarly long to humans, just in their prime for longer. Viltrumites age slower overtime, and Nolan's visually in his middle-ages. Since he's already lived for over 2 millennia, just leaving Bardock to die of natural causes is a legitimate win-con. That age was spent fighting to, and Nolan's used the knowledge he gained across the universe to best other opponents of similar years. Bardock's a skilled fighter, but nowhere near that level.

As a side note, Nolan could use his earpiece to send telepathic messages to Bardock. Not a major factor, but it'd certainly throw off the Father of Goku™️for a bit. The same goes for the latter's future sight. Bardock can't change whatever he sees, so all it will do is briefly leave him open in some scenarios.

By comparison, Bardock's boons are almost entirely related to offense. His scouter will detect Nolan's Ki, ensuring Bardock knows the Viltrumite's strength and where he's at. Unless Nolan gets rid of it, trying to escape and outlast Bardock is basically impossible. Speaking of Ki, Bardock can use it to fire energy blasts and create shockwaves at any time. Surprisingly, Nolan's never fought anyone on his level with such spammable ranged attacks. The shockwaves in particular almost entirely render his lifting strength moot; Bardock would just blow him away like he did to Freeza's goons. Sure, Nolan wouldn't have any issues with Ki's heat, but the concussive force could do massive damage to his body at a rapid-pace.

Then there's Great Ape, which boosts Bardock's power 10x over and grants beams straight from the gullet. Sounds great, but it can only be used under the light of a full moon. So 29-ish days out of a month, it's a non-factor. What isn't is Bardock's tail, which could definitely screw him over here. Grabbing it has rendered Saiyans helpless against otherwise outclassed opponents before.

Just one problem: Nolan has no way of knowing this. Why would he try and grab a tail wrapped around Bardock's body instead of, you know, punching him? On the off-chance he does, Bardock could just as easily blast him away in most cases.

In-practice, Nolan's only consistent advantage here is endurance, and it is a big one. But it's not enough to outweigh Bardock's Ki controlling the pace of this fight and wearing him down.

Versatility

Unlike Death Battle, you don't win on points here. We still have to talk about Experience and Stamin-

Wait. I just talked about those.

Uhh...

Experience

Stamina

Conclusion

Omni-Man

Advantages

• Smarter, and thousands of years more experienced
• Far greater endurance and limitless stamina
• Can throw-off Bardock via telepathy
• Laughably higher travel speed and lifting strength...
• Can outlive Bardock and potentially survive in space way longer...
• JK Simmons
• Invincible Seasons 1 and 2
• At least tried to redeem himself?
• Permanently ruined Homelander's credibility...

Cancels Out

• Super-senses and power growth
• Genocidal dickwads

Disadvantages

• Either slightly or vastly slower in combat speed
• Way weaker no-matter what end you use
• Can't match Bardock's range or AoE with Ki
• ...but both can't really be abused here
• ...if he could escape mid-fight, which Bardock's speed, scouter and Ki won't let happen
• Invincible Seasons 3 and 4
• ...but didn't get a win on here when Homelander did 💀

Bardock

Advantages

• Slightly or immensely faster
• Far stronger and tougher, especially with high-ends
• Ki lets him dictate the fight's tempo and dominate at range
• Scouter fully ensures Nolan can't fly away to win the long-game
• Masako Nozawa and Sonny Strait
• Seriously, Strait's vocal-range is crazy
• His special is better than all of Invincible (no glaze)

Cancels Out

• Super-senses and power growth
• Smurfing their second most-popular opponent (please stop saying Vader beats Nolan)

Disadvantages

• Can't compete in lifting strength, experience or stamina, which do give Nolan win-cons
• Limited Ki reserves
• Could be thrown off by divination
• Combined with telepathy, Bardock will probably think he's tripping balls
• Episode of Bardock
• Dragon Ball Minus
• Dragon Ball Super
• Would say this word-for-word

Putting it all together, this fight isn't the totally one-sided beatdown you might have heard of, but it is very clear-cut. Omni-Man's advantages are legitimately useful, and can certainly give him the win in a few cases, but they're all things Bardock has clear answers for. Things like the scouter and Ki wouldn't mean much on their own given Nolan's stamina and nigh-immortality, but with superior speed where it counts, there's little chance Nolan can escape to win the war of attrition.

And really, he likely wouldn't know that's his victory route until it's too late. Like Bardock, his usual approach is a head-on slugfest. Despite packing a major lifting strength advantage and Bardock's biggest weakness abusable by that disparity, Bardock's raw power and durability are just too high. Nolan needs everything to go right for a victory, whereas his opponent just needs a clean hit or two.

Try as he Viltru-might, The Great Nolan just couldn't Ape his competition. The winner is Bardock!