Sentry vs Superboy Prime Review

Do my eyes deceive me? Are we finally back? Is this the return of Marvel vs DC matchups on Death Battle. Why yes it is. After a deluge of anime battles this season and last, with some exceptions, it’s nice to see the big two comic companies facing off again. Not that we haven’t had Marvel or DC characters on the show recently, but we haven’t had a proper Marvel and DC fight since Martian Manhunter vs Silver Surfer. And that was nearly three frigging years ago, Jesus Christ.

Mind you it’s understandable why they would have dialled back on them. You know how I’ve been complaining about the number of anime fights lately. Well, there was a time where Marvel vs DC had a similar problem. There were so many episodes themed around it that people eventually got sick of it. And since they’ve already done most of the major ones, I guess it makes sense to scale them back.

But they had to come back sometime, and what a fucking doozy they have for its grand return. Sentry vs Superboy Prime. The Superman with schizophrenia vs the Superman who is a toxic fanboy. We’ve already had dark Superman style characters on the show, but these two are some of the most messed up and also the most powerful.

Yeah, this debate is very interesting. These two are absurdly powerful to a point where they’re kind of impossible to kill. We’re also dealing with, oh shit, meta-narrative. Full disclosure, I fucking hate meta-narrative. Nothing sucks me out of a story more than a character being aware they’re in a story. Not that it can’t be used to tell interesting stories, but more often than not I find anything meta to be the most naval gazing pretentious bullshit out there.

However, Sentry and Prime are some of the better examples of this. Being meta-commentaries on the comic book industry and fandoms rather than just being excuses to wink at the audiences. Or at least Prime was that until more recent comics, but that’s a by-product of DC not knowing when to let things just fucking die. Not that you’re exempt from that yourself Marvel.

Point is, this could be headache inducing. But I suppose I should talk about the episode and see how it goes. But I’m going to make a change with this review. I’m not going to do the categories. Doing it that way was a little bit rigid, and I was repeating myself a little bit too much. I mean I didn’t even have much to say on most of the analysis sections, so it felt pointless.

So fuck it, we going freeform from now on. I want to start off by saying that I am conflicted on this episode. it’s not a bad episode by any means. It’s actually quite good and I think it does the characters justice. Mostly, but we’ll get to that.

I think in terms of showcasing these characters and their stories it’s fine. It’s rushed due to the fast-pacing Death Battle uses in all their recent episodes, but you get the idea of what these guys are all about at the very least. Their trauma, their dark pasts, the meta commentary they represent (ok not really for Sentry but for Prime absolutely), and for how mentally unstable they are.

So it’s good at getting you to grips with the characters. But the fast pacing also means they have to rush through a lot of the feats and explanations. To the point where they kind of misrepresent what actually happens in the comics. I mean in the case of Merged Sentry that’s just an interpretation because that form is underused, but they also say Prime could overpower the Darkest Knight which isn’t what happened. He “died” in that fight, so it’s kind of dubious to say that. I apologise Yuji v Denji haters, I now understand your gripe.

I want you to remember that because I’m coming back to it later. They also play fast and loose with the actual histories of these characters. Even I, a man with very little knowledge on these two, know the way their stories are presented isn’t entirely how they go. I get they need to keep the analysis interesting, but it also made the stories feel more scattered than they are.

Now that’s a bit of an issue I have with the episode overall. I don’t think it represented the characters as well as it could have. Now it isn’t bad for Sentry, even if in the fight it focused way more on the Void, but then there’s Superboy Prime. I’m just gonna rip this band aid off, I don’t like Superboy Prime in this episode.

My big reason being how Prime is characterised. Let me be clear here, I am not mad that he isn’t portrayed like the whiny bitch he was in Infinite Crisis. He’s not like that anymore and people usually hate it when Death Battle doesn’t reflect on how much characters have grown so I get why they wouldn’t so that. They should have done that for reasons I’ll get to, but I understand why they didn’t.

On that note I don’t hate it due to it being inaccurate. From what I can gather it is accurate to how he is portrayed in the recent run in the comics. No, I just plain hate it. There’s no deeper reasoning behind it, I just fucking hate this shit.

Prime constantly winking to the audience is just annoying. I already hate meta humour now thanks to Rick and Morty completely souring me on the concept, so this was going to have a hard time with me, but I can handle meta when done right and I don’t think this was done right.

I think it comes down to two things. One is it messes with the tone of the fight. This episode gets pretty dark, and having Prime winking at the audience makes it hard for me to take it seriously.

See the issue with being meta is it only works in two instances. As a gag or when you’re making a point on fiction itself. Being meta just for the sake of it isn’t funny or clever, it’s pretentious and annoying. This episode does portray Prime’s fourth wall breaks as more comical, but that just makes him feel like Deadpool. And we already have a Deadpool, we do not need another Deadpool.

They even ruined the “I’LL KILL YOU TO DEATH!!!” line. Come on that’s one of the great so bad it’s funny lines in comic books. It’s the edgiest cringe inducing shit possible and that’s why it’s so funny. Winking to the audience about it ruins the fun.

But I compared him to Deapool and there’s a specific reason for that. This episode reminds me a lot of Deadpool vs Deathstroke. An episode I already don’t like much now because I do not like how Deadpool is characterised on this show, but that’s another story.

It isn’t the cringy fourth wall breaks that reminded me of that episode. it’s how the fourth wall breaker steals the show so thoroughly that it feels unfair to the other combatant. Let’s be honest, Deadpool vs Deathstroke wasn’t actually Deadpool vs Deathstroke. It was Deadpool featuring Deathstroke. It focused on Deadpool so much that Deathstroke felt like an afterthought.

Sentry vs Superboy Prime isn’t nearly as bad. Sentry does get his due, or the Void does anyway but same difference, but it feels like they were more interested in Prime. The big culprit is the final part after the post-analysis where he comes in and talks to the audience. That felt completely unnecessary to me and is the kind of fourth wall breaking I really do not like. At least in other episodes they did this kind of thing it felt organic and creative, this is just them showing off.

That ending is the part that I really didn’t like. Because the actual fight animation itself is great. For the second half anyway. The first half is just standard superhero fight stuff. Not bad, but nothing that spectacular either. It’s only when the Void shows up where things pick up. They really captured his overwhelming presence and horror movie vibes he gives off.

Mind you it also makes Prime out to be the definitive hero which only makes him feel more important, but it’s fucking awesome, so I’ll let it slide. It’s some of the best animation in the series, I can’t be too hard on it.

Seriously I can’t praise the fight enough. The animation is fantastic with some truly epic moments in both scale and emotion. Seeing Void crush Prime between two planets is incredible, and we even get a visual representation pf that “Breaking the bonds of infinity” they keep bringing up. And that speech Void gives to Prime about hopelessness right before the final clash, oh it’s so fucking good.

That entire second half of the animation really elevates the rest of the animation. The first half is still good, it’s well animated, the voice acting is great, and it still has some fun moments, but that second half is just on another level. But I also think it highlights another issue with how Prime is characterised.

See, this whole fight’s theme is dark versions of Superman with messed up mental issues. That is made clear in the analysis but doesn't come across in the animation. For Sentry it absolutely does, but Prime is portrayed as more heroic, not a dark troubled former villain but just a cringy teenager making bad one-liners. We don’t see the dark Superman he’s supposed to represent.

I know it’s more accurate to his recent portrayal in the comics, but if the theme of the episode is dark supermen corrupted by their power, then you need to show both combatants as dark supermen corrupted by their power. Why even bother with the thematic fight connections if you aren’t going to use them in the actual fight you know.

Maybe the idea is his corruption is more subtle. In the recent comics there are hints that he’s a bit more callous than he lets on. That his meta-awareness makes him not care as much for the well beings of the DC universe than he lets on. You can kind of see that when he impales Sentry, the way he winks to the audience could be seen as him not caring if he kills him since none of this is real to him.

But it’s a little too subtle to the point where it’s easy to miss, and since Prime is constantly breaking the fourth wall it is entirely likely that I’m over thinking things and this isn’t actually the case. In fact one of Prime’s fourth wall breaks even makes fun of Sentry for being a dark Superman clone. Meaning they took the entire theme of the fucking fight and turned it into a joke. Do you see the problem with being meta now.

You can kind of see my confliction right. I love some parts of the episode. I would even say the good parts are among the best in the series. It’s just that there’s a lot of things I don’t like that compound on top of each other that get in the way of that. Stuff that isn’t just minor nitpicks but fundamental problems that kind of go against the core of the episode. I can forgive a minor hiccup or mistake, but when the theme of the episode is botched that’s much harder to forgive.

But I will say the ending to the fight is about as perfect as you could get. Even if Bob lost, he still got a happy ending which was really wholesome and fit with Prime’s character development. I like it when the loser still gets a win in some way. Plus it was probably for the best it ended this way. Having a teenager murder a guy with mental illness would not have been the best look.

As for the result, I’m fine with it. It was always going to come down to the retcon punch, which I don’t like as an idea but it’s in the comics so it ain’t Death Battle’s fault, and it is the more believable win con in a stupidly complex debate. I’m ok with that, what I’m not ok with is saying Prime was stronger.

The entire waiting season I heard the stats were tied and based on what I could figure out I believe that. Prime is stronger with direct feats, but Sentry can scale to people who can get him to similar levels. But Death Battle tried to argue that Sentry was weaker by saying he didn’t scale fully to Molecule Man while Prime scaled fully to the Darkest Knight, even though he lost that fight.

Never mind Sentry stalemated a fully fed Galactus who, as Death Battle have themselves said, can destroy Marvel’s multiverse as a side effect of his battles. Funny how they didn’t bring that up here isn’t it. Alright, I’m not going to accuse Death Battle of being biased because that’s silly. Obviously, they aren’t and every episode is a separate entity that won’t always mention things from previous episodes. It can be annoying as a longtime watcher, but it is what it is.

No, I think this issue is because of the damn categories. This is the episode where I have finally turned on these things. I get why the categories exist. It’s to make it easier for casual viewers to understand the debate. I get that, but the problem is when you have categories that turn the debate into a point system, it means you have to have definitive winners in those categories to make the point total add up to a winner.

You can have ties in categories, as shown in Dante vs Clive for example, but only if you still give the winner more categories overall. This is why they gave Prime Strength when it should be a tie, it’s to give him a clearer point advantage. This not only leads to some questionable decisions, this is far from the only example of this, it also makes the debate seem more rigid and less interesting.

The categories are a crutch, and like any crutch they help to a degree but only hold you pack from what you can truly do on your own. I’m not saying get rid of them entirely since some debates do benefit from them, but you don’t have to use them for everything. Hell in super close debates like this where it comes down to a single factor they’re fucking pointless. So maybe dial back on them a bit please.

I feel like I’m an outsider on this episode. I see a lot of people calling this peak and a potential top ten contender for the show, and I get that. There is some phenomenal stuff here worthy of every praise it gets. The fight animation is brilliant, the ending in particular is fucking spectacular, and the analysis is great despite the fast pacing.

But between not liking Superboy Prime’s characterisation and feeling the episode didn’t utilise the theme of the matchup very well, I can’t say I agree with it being peak. Good? Absolutely, but I had too many personal gripes to call it anything more than that.

I wanted to like this episode more, and to be fair I did like it better on a rewatch which is a good sign, but when an episode leans into elements you don’t like then obviously it’s not going to appeal to you as much. It happens unfortunately. But I will still say this was a very entertaining episode, and a good return for Marvel vs DC. Here’s hoping we don’t have to wait three years for the next one.

That’s going wrap up another Death Battle review. No score this time, or ever again since I’m stopping those too. I never liked doing that anyway and find scoring in reviews retarded, so fuck it I’m axing it. Next time we return to Death Battle will be for an episode that I’m sure everyone is looking forward too and is in no way already massively controversial and hated. Yeah, it’s going to be interesting.