Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|''"Can a [[Laser Blade|lightsaber]] cut through [[Superman]]?"''|[[Google]] autocomplete (There's also "Can a lightsaber cut through [[X-Men|adamantium]]?")}}

 

 

It's a recurring obsession of fans, the question of "Who would win in a fight?". Fans will reason it out, argue it out, come up with incredibly thorough theories about how and why and where, and [[My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad|eventually resort to name-calling]] and [[Godwin's Law|comparing their opponents to Nazis]].

 

'''Other similar debates include:'''

 

The trope is named for the song and flash animation "[[Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny (song)|The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny]]" by Lemon Demon, in which nearly every famous fictional character, pop culture icon and historical personage ''ever'' come together for the sole purpose of knocking the living crap out of each other.

 

 

Usually settled with [[Popularity Power]]. See also [[Fan Wank]] and [[Evasive Fight Thread Episode]]. If it's actually canon then it's a [[Massive Multiplayer Crossover]]. Compare [[Character Tiers]]. Contrast [[Story-Breaker Team-Up]]. If you were looking for the song, [[Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny (song)|go here]].

* Spike Tv's ''[[Deadliest Warrior]]'', which explores "history's greatest killing machines", look at their historic backgrounds and the science behind their equipment and fighting styles, and pair them off in a one-on-one computer simulated fight. Showdowns include "Gladiator vs. Apache", "Ninja vs. Spartan", "Taliban vs. IRA", "Yakuza vs. Mafia", and "William Wallace vs. Shaka Zulu".

* History Channel's ''Jurassic Fight Club'', similar to ''Deadliest Warrior'' in that it uses best available knowledge to establish the abilities, strengths, and weaknesses of the animals, then CGIs the actual fights. Match-ups include Allosaurus vs. Ceratosaurus; Mega-Lion vs. the Short-Faced Bear; and Megalodon vs. Brygmophyseter, the "biting sperm whale".

* Animal Planet had a short lived series ''Animal Face Off'', which was basically ''Jurassic Fight Club'' done with living species that plausibly might confront one another in the wild.

 

* ''[[Will It Blend]]'': Anything, at all, versus a Blend-Tec blender.

** Another card game ''Who Would Win?'', which is [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]]. Two players each get a random character, and then an event. Argue why your character would win. Santa Claus vs. Genghis Khan in synchronized swimming? Babar vs. Einstein in ping pong?

* ''[[Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus]]''.

** ... [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LpjxWF7C6E Vs. R. Lee Ermey.] {{spoiler|With a cameo from [[Billy Mays]].}}

* The web site [http://www.grudge-match.com/ WWWF Grudge Match].

** [http://www.electricferret.com/cbub/ The comic book universe battles], who WWWF users saw as a friendly rival.

* the Race Of Champions (ROC), an annual event which involves taking the best racing drivers from their repsective fields and different nationalities, putting two of them into 100% indentical cars and having them race head to head on a very short twisty track for 2 laps.

* ''[[Tales From the Pit]]'' exposes "Who Would Win" as a favorite conversational topic of the ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' R&D team. Pairings include [[RoboCop]] vs. [[The Terminator]] and [[My Little Pony]] vs. the [[Transformers]].

* The children's book "Shark vs. Train", which takes the more common sense approach, with hilarious results (it matters, for instance, whether the competition is under water, or involves trying to sell lemonade.)

* In 1953's ''Jungle Drums'', a wilderness-adventure film crew stages a fight between a tiger and a lion.

* The entire gag underlying ''[[Bambi Meets Godzilla]]''.

 

 

* Batman and Dracula: Red Rain finally put to rest an age-old debate: The Dark Knight or the Prince of Darkness? Dracula and Batman fight over Gotham City to find out who the true master of fear and deception is.

** Similarly, [[The Batman vs. Dracula]].

** Dracula vs. Superman also happened. By hypnotizing Lois Dracula actually gained the upper hand and succeeded in drinking Superman's blood (Assume that as a magical creature Superman is vulnerable to that). However, Superman is solar powered, and seconds after drinking his blood well... [[Your Head Asplode|imagine eating a grenade]].

*** Which is technically inaccurate, since Stoker's Dracula wasn't destroyed by sunlight, just weakened.

* One of the best was ''[[Justice League of America|JLA]]''/''[[The Avengers (Comic Book)|Avengers]]'', written by [[Kurt Busiek]]. Highlights include:

** Batman and Captain America facing off until they realize that they're equally matched and that someone is pulling both teams' chains. Then they leave to find out who. [[Memetic Badass|At this point you realize there's nothing the]] [[Big Bad]] [[Memetic Badass|can do, as he's screwed]].

*** Writers are notoriously loathe to decide the Batman vs. Captain America contest. Not only here, but in the Batman/Captain America crossover by [[John Byrne]], the two team up instead of fight. (They were also the 1940s incarnations of the respective characters.) And in the aforementioned ''DC vs. Marvel'', they're about to team up again when Cap is temporarily immobilized by a river of sewage, giving Batman a technical victory.

* The latest one in comic books is ''[[Avengers vs. X-Men]]''. There's even a tie-in miniseries devoted purely to one-on-one, "Who would win?" matches.

* The ''[[Doctor Who]]'' original series episode "The Mind Robber" eventually, through convoluted means, features a sword fight that involved Cyrano de Bergerac, D'Artagnan, Blackbeard, and Sir Lancelot.

** And "Doomsday" brings the fight people had been wanting for ''decades''; Daleks vs Cybermen.

* [[MUGEN]] is a custom [[Fighting Game]] system which allows characters from different fighting games to battle aginast each other. It's gotten popular on [[YouTube]], especially Perfect Cell vs. Dio Brando, where Dio wins using his famous steam roller attack.

* ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy]]'' does this for the various heroes and villains of multiple ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' titles. [[Final Fantasy VII|Cloud]] vs. [[Final Fantasy IX|Zidane]], [[Final Fantasy IV|Cecil]] vs. [[Final Fantasy X|Tidus]], [[Final Fantasy VII|Sephiroth]] vs. [[Final Fantasy VI|Kefka]], [[Final Fantasy X|Jecht]] vs. [[Final Fantasy IX|Kuja]]... the possibilities abound.

* Spoofed in a recurring ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' sketch in which George Wendt leads a cadre of football fans who speculate on the scores of hypothetical games pitting the Chicago Bears against other teams, with the Bears facing increasingly unlikely handicaps, such as being shrunk to the size of midgets. (Hint: Da Bears win.)

** Alternatively, The Detroit Red Wings vs. the Swedish Olympic team. Almost half the roster is the same.

* Kristofer Straub, the author of ''[[Starslip Crisis]]'', has challenged ''all sci-fi [[Web Comics]]'' to enter their respective ships in ''The Alterverse War'', where they will battle each other.

* Despite some fora now trying to crack down on the "X vs. Y -- who would win?" threads, they're impossible to avoid on ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' and ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX|GX]]'' sites. The common opponents are of course Yugi vs. Judai, Mai vs. Asuka, and Kaiba vs. Kaiser.

** Of course, ''GX'' tried to satisfy that first one with Judai dueling against Yugi's deck (stolen by a fellow student adept at copying other duelists), and barely won. However, it was pointed out that, since this was just an imitator, it doesn't necessarily make him better.

*** {{spoiler|The final GX episode had an actual Yugi/Judai duel. It's implied that Yugi won, though we don't see the end results of the Osiris/Neos clash.}}

* Movies like ''[[Alien (franchise)|Alien]] Vs. [[Predator]]'', ''[[King Kong]] vs. [[Godzilla]]'', and ''[[A Nightmare on Elm Street|Freddy]] vs. [[Friday the 13th (film)|Jason]]'' cater to this. The latter, interestingly, was originally going to be called ''Freddy vs. Jason vs. [[Evil Dead|Ash]]'', but Sam Raimi wouldn't let them use his character unless he won, and the makers didn't want too clear-cut a victor. In the end, Raimi approved of a comic version of the story.

** One review of ''Alien vs. Predator'' opened by mentioning the latter two "vs." movies, then, struggling for [[Rule of Three|a third example]], adding, "and... um... ''[[Lassie (TV series)|Lassie]] vs. [[Flipper]]''?"

* The original series of ''[[Star Trek]]'' had an episode in which aliens set up an Ultimate Showdown: Kirk, Spock, Abraham Lincoln, and Surak versus Colonel Green, Kahless, Zora, and [[Genghis Khan]].

** As well in the movie [[Star Trek]] Generations, Kirk meets Picard. And the fans went nuts..

* Generally agreed to be what makes ''[[Soul Calibur]] 3'' and 4's Create-A-Soul feature so much fun.

* In an episode of ''[[Angel]]'', Wesley walks into Angel's office to discover that Angel and Spike have been arguing vehemently over who would win if astronauts and cavemen got into a fight. Unfortunately, [[Tear Jerker|the events of the episode]] prevent them from reaching a conclusion...although Whedon's [[Dysfunction Junction|general storytelling method]] and some dialogue in the episode hints on where his money, though not his heart, is: cavemen, i.e. [[Crapsack World|humanity's barbarousness and savagery can and do defeat reason or higher ideals]].

* This was the whole concept of ''[[King of Fighters]]''. People from ''Fatal Fury'' fighting against ''Art of Fighting'' characters.

** And [[Capcom vs. Whatever]] games.

* Done in-verse with the ''[[NCIS]]'' team. They like to discuss [[Badass|Gibbs]] vs. all comers. They pretty much decide that the best fight would be Gibbs vs Gibbs.

* In a short story from the ''Wolf & Raven'' anthology for [[Shadowrun]], it's revealed that professional baseball in the Sixth World has become an exercise in this trope, with skillwired players' performance being dictated by software that makes them play exactly like historical star players. Thus, each season sees matchups like Babe Ruth vs. Mark McGuire, or even Babe Ruth from 1923 vs. Babe Ruth from 1927.

* The ''[[Family Guy]] vs. [[American Dad]]'' web fighting game in promotion of the series' DVD releases; [[Street Fighter|Ryu]] is the game's boss.

* Alonso Quijano and his friends [[Those Two Guys|the curate and the barber]] were [[Fan Boy|victims of this phenomenon]]… Keep in mind this book was written [[Older Than Steam|more than four hundred years ago!]] At chapter I Part I we learn that:

{{quote|''" Many an argument did he have with the curate of his village (a learned man, and a graduate of Siguenza) as to which had been the better knight, [[Weird Al Effect|Palmerin of England]] or [[Incorruptible Pure Pureness|Amadis of Gaul]]. [[Unpleasable Fanbase|Master Nicholas, the village barber, however, used to say that neither of them came up to]] [[Dark Horse Victory|the Knight of Phoebus]], and that if there was any that could compare with him it was [[Ensemble Darkhorse|Don Galaor, the brother of Amadis of Gaul]], because he had a spirit that was equal to every occasion, and was no finikin knight, [[Never Live It Down|nor lachrymose like his brother]], while in the matter of valour he was not a whit behind him."''}}

{{quote|'''Willis:''' I'll get back to you on this.}}

* [[Those Two Guys|21 and 24]] on [[The Venture Brothers]] often get into arguments about hypothetical fights such as Champ vs. Nessie or [[Crosses the Line Twice|Lizzie Borden vs. Anne Frank]].

 

 

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Crossover Index]]