User blog:Salnax/Death Battle Trends and "Bias"

With the criticism aimed at Screwattack for their possible biases towards and against certain characters and series, I felt that it was time to take a look at their results as a group. At very least, this can point out recurring patterns.

I will be examining X factors for the various combatants: Media, Series, Company, Region, and Other Factors. Within each category, the focus will be on characters who have different factors. For example, while Mega Man vs Astro Boy will be noted for having two competing mediums and franchises, the fact that they're both Japanese creations means that they will not be considered for the "Region" category.

Note that this blog is being written as of Episode 66, Tracer vs Scout. The two "rematch" episodes are being overlooked, since they have similar results to the originals.

Media
Death Battle combatants can theoretically come from any media, but a vast majority of combatants thus far come from a three distinct kinds of media: Anime/Manga, Comic Books, Film, and (most notably) video games. Though there are a few exceptions, such as Harry Potter, Star Wars characters, and various cartoon characters, but these are too rare to seriously investigate.


 * Anime/Manga - 6 wins, 3 defeats
 * Comic Books - 5 wins, 3 defeats
 * Video Games - 4 wins, 10 defeats

It should be immediately clear that it sucks to be a video game character fighting against comic and anime characters on Death Battle. Though there are cases where video game characters win (Fox McCloud, Kirby, Raiden, etc), these are notably outnumbered by battles where they fall before characters from Anime and Comics (Kratos, Shadow, Charizard, Dan Hibiki, Mega Man, Tifa Lockhart, Sweet Tooth, etc).

Series
Ten series/franchises have made three or more appearences on Death Battle against characters from other series. They are listed below.
 * Dragon Ball - 2 wins, 2 losses
 * DC - 4 wins, 5 losses
 * Marvel - 7 wins, 4 losses
 * Mario - 3 wins, 3 losses
 * Sonic - 2 wins, 3 losses, 1 other
 * Legend of Zelda - 2 wins, 1 loss
 * Street Fighter - 3 wins, 5 losses
 * Mortal Kombat - 3 wins, 3 losses
 * Killer Instinct - 2 wins, 1 loss
 * Star Wars - 1 win, 2 defeats

The main series that stand out here are Marvel for its victories and Street Fighter for its losses. Where the other eight series have imbalances of one more victory or defeat at most, Street Fighter has a high loss rate, while Marvel wins nearly twice as often as it loses. Street Fighter's imbalance can be attributed to the rivalry between that series and Mortal Kombat. Three of those five losses are against MK fighters.

Likewise, seven of Marvel's eleven fights have been against DC characters, of which they've won five. If these are disregarded, Marvel has a record of two wins (Thor and Doctor Doom) and two defeats (Wolverine and Beast).

The reason behind Mortal Kombat's advantages over Street Fighter is simple enough. Mortal Kombat takes place in a setting where fighters such as gods and demons from various realms do battle with one another. Street Fighter has a core conflict surrounding a powerful crime syndicate. The difference of scale is clear.

Marvel's advantage over DC is less clear, seeing how both franchises feature similarly larger than life characters. Honestly, both franchises cover the full scale. If anything, the biggest powerhouses of both series have been largely untapped as of Episode 66. Even casual planet busters (Goku and whatnot) are insignificant compared to Galactus, Thanos and Doctor Strange (Marvel) or Darkseid, Spectre, and Trigon (DC).

My best guess is that the specific Marvel vs DC matches are based on attempts to find equivalent characters where they may not exist, at least for the public. Batman lacks an obvious popular Marvel equivalent (nobody knows who Moon Knight is), so he got pitted against Spider-Man as the closest option easily available. Iron Man and Lex Luthor are both mad geniuses with loads of money and power armor, so they are pitted against each other... even though one of them has far more experience as a fighter than the other. It sometimes works the other way around (RIP Quicksilver), but these matches of "similar" characters have seemed to favor Marvel.

Conclusion

 * There is a clear trend/bias where video game characters have a disadvantage against counterparts from other media.
 * Street Fighter has a clear disadvantage against Mortal Kombat
 * Marvel has a clear advantage over DC.