User blog comment:MrPacheco101/Burning Hearts of Courage! The World's Strongest Will Be Decided!: Superman & Goku/@comment-143604-20120712221406

Ah, the classic fictional battle of all fictional battles. Let's divide up these two super powers into a couple categories for ease, shall we?


 * Overall Strength- Superman is one of the strongest fictional characters ever created, of that there is no doubt to be had- his strength level has varied from writer to writer but it's usually shown that he could lift at least "1,000,000 tons, but how much more is not known exactly" and while Goku's base strength level is no where near that level during DBZ's Frieza arc as depicted here, he certainly won't be matching Superman's strength levels without using his ki energy to amplify his power. Superman's got more natural strength, and has more ridiculously over the top feats of strength, but Goku has one advantage- while both warriors hold back a lot, Superman lives in "a world made of cardboard" while Goku lives in a world where everyone and their moms can shoot lasers from their ass and fly- Superman is a lot more reserved in what he dishes out, and unless he knows exactly how strong someone is and what they'll be capable of if he doesn't end a fight fast, he won't really unleash- Goku on the other hand, will be much quicker to increase his "seriousness" levels as far as how much he'll unleash, because he fights powerful enemies like Superman all the time and is more relaxed and casual about fighting in general. I'd have to call them even on a strength analysis- Superman seems to take the advantage in raw power, but Goku is less conservative of it and more experienced in using his more of his strength than Superman. Of course- strength is meaningless if they don't have anything to back it up.
 * Overall Skill/Finesse- This is one that pretty easily goes to Goku. While Goku isn't nearly as strong as Supes is naturally, he has much better training. In fact, he does almost nothing but train when he's not saving the world from weird looking villains and gathering balls. Goku has a wider variety of skill and training, and he's got more hand-to-hand experience with people on his own skill level, as he spends a great deal of time fighting Saiyins or aliens of great power. Superman? He's nothing to scoff at that's for sure- he's recieved boxing lessons from Wildcat, he's trained with Wonder Woman, Mongul and Batman- but he's nowhere near Goku's level in training and skill. He only really gets to unleash and meet a challenge when Darkesied comes knocking, otherwise most of his "challenges" are born of him being weakened somehow first. Goku has trained in space, trained on Earth, trained with Saiyans, ect. ect. Superman doesn't have the experience or training to be anything more than raw power most of the time. There's the old saying "when all you have is a hammer"? Well Superman is basically the strongest hammer on his Earth; why train when you've got no one to train against? This problem could very well be the Kryptonians Achilles' Heel during this battle.
 * Intelligence/Tactics- Goku is kind of an idiot. That's something that is impossible to deny- he may know what he's doing in a fight, but he's all brawn and no brains. While he's pretty collected when he's actually fighting, he's never going to ever be above "average" in the brains department and usually not even there. Superman has a genius level intellect and is capable of thinking at speeds beyond human possibilty- his analytical powers far exceed most others as well, being able to operate at similar speeds and allows him to pick apart an enemy or environment without slowing down or stopping what he's doing. In short, it's an idiot with pretty good tactics in battle because it's all he knows, compared to a genius-level intellect and similar tactics. Got to give this one a hard edge to Superman.
 * Mobility and Speed- Supes is one of the fasted men on the planet- he can move at speeds well beyond the speed of light, has been shown to make it from Earth to the Moon in less than 2 minutes (though this does not mean he couldn't get their faster necesarilly) and he's been shown running comfortably at 2000 miles per second. He can move fast enough that he can appear to "blink" through or around melee attacks, allowing him to dodge at speeds his foe can't even see. Superman is also capable of flight- often flying at Mach 10 casually and is capable of reaching light speed in seconds. Goku is capable of flight that can match Superman at the least, though there are no solid numbers on Goku making these a bit hard to deal with. On the ground, Goku doesn't seem to have the same maximum speed levels as Superman, He seems to have better reflexes in hand-to-hand, no doubt born of his advanced training, but he does not possess the blink-dodges of Superman that could make hitting his foe hard for the Saiyan. There is one advantage Goku has on Supes- he can use Instant Transmission to teleport around the environment- normally a skill that could change the make-up of the match, however I don't see it being as helpful here as it would be with most normal foes. It requires a specific hand gesture and a couple of seconds to perform a teleport- which is enough time for someone like Goku to give him a decent hit, and prevents Goku from spamming the move to dodge around Superman's attacks like other teleporters we've seen before. His most likely scenario is that he's going to teleport away to charge a technique like the Spirit Bomb or a powerful Kamehameha Wave but, Superman's vision powers will allow him to spot Goku and his speed will allow him to close the distance and stop the charging. I'm giving this overall to Superman, because he's demonstrated superior movement on the ground, they seem to be even in air and I don't honestly think Instant Transmission will bee enough of a problem to tip the scales in the Saiyan's favor.
 * Powers- Here's where the shit starts to get real. Both of these warriors have a huge variety of powers. Superman has Heat Vision, a blast of energy that burns with the heat of a star, is strong enough to power planet-moving ion engines on his heat alone and cna be made invisible to make them subtle. His heat vision is pinpoint accurate, and can actually be used to cauterize wounds or to rewire machinery, but on the other side of the scale, it is strong enough to burn an entire army of Doomsday Clones from existance in a single blast. He has Super Breath that allows him to generate hurricane-force winds with his breath and can chill a target to freezing temperatures and make a figure solid ice. His super vision has the ability to see in X-Ray, Microscopic, Telescopic and all of the EM spectrum, in short- nothing can hide from the Man of Steel and he can use his own vision to aim at telescopic levels. Superman also has a healing factor. Goku, on the other hand, has the ability to use his Ki in so many attacks that they can't all be named here (because Japan.) but I will look at each of his powers individually that he uses the most- the Kamehameha Wave, which is a blast of energy concentrated from his hands after being charged up for a few moments and can, depending on the charge time, blast longer, farther and harder. The Spirit Bomb is a massive collection of Ki Energy in orb form that can nuke an area with destructive force, but is fairly slow and takes an incredibly long time to charge up, giving his foe time to attack and break his charge. It's also incredibly inaccurate. Goku also has Ki Blasts, which run the gammut from weak and fast to strong and slow, and can be projected from any part of the body, but primarily from the hands or fingers. In the end, I have to go with quality over quantity- Superman's precision/accuracy (McManis will eat your soul for not listing both) and superior power and speed behind his attacks will give him the edge here. While Goku is taking the time to charge up a slow beam that is often dodged by warriors under Superman's level in the anime/manga itself, Superman is nailing Goku with hyper accurate hyper-fast beams of star-level-power heat or freezing him. Goku's Spirit Bomb is nearly useless because Superman's speed and vision modes mean Goku will never have time to charge it up, and if he does, it can be dodged easily in many cases.
 * Transformations and Modes- This is separate from powers because I feel it's unfair to put the Super Saiyan mode and Kaio Ken in the same category as the Ki attacks and super powers. Goku's Super Saiyan mode is powerful, greatly enhancing his strength and power, but based on this time frame, Goku is not incredibly familiar with nor is he reliant on using it. He'll pop into Kaio-Ken before hand, and won't go SS until later on in the fight, maybe even as a last resort tactic in an attempt to repeat his last battle using it with Frieza. Kaio-Ken is a powerful mode, though overshadowed by Super Saiyan, and makes his attacks much stronger. Goku literally needs these modes to compete with the Man of Steel, but they are servicable. I actually think that Kaio-Ken will be more effective in the battle because Goku will be quicker to activate it and it scales upward, allowing him to greatly increase the power of his attacks. Super Saiyan may take to long to stand around shouting for Goku to use effectively, because all it would take is one light-speed punch to the gut and he'd be broken out of the transformation process and he'd need to get some distance to pop into SS mode.
 * Overall Deadliest Warrior- I've been thinking on this for a long time, and I've flip flopped on this paticular issue. A lot. But in the end I go with the Man of Steel here- he's smarter, his powers may not be as flashy but they're faster on the draw and more accurate and I just feel that, even with his desire to hold back, he's got more effective abilities to counter act Goku's own. Goku can't compete without using Kaio-Ken or Super Saiyan, and even then he's not strong enough to fully overcome the Superman. This is a close battle, certainly, but I give it to Superman.