9:12 - Mistress Death vs. Franklin Richards

[UMPIRE]

SEASON 9, ROUND 12

Mistress Death

Slot: The Team's Marvel Comics Character
Season Wins: 3
Season Losses: 0
Fantasy Team Page
Read more about Mistress Death at Wikipedia
Official Site: Marvel Comics

Franklin Richards

Slot: The Team's Marvel Comics Character
Season Wins: 2
Season Losses: 1
Fantasy Team Page
Read more about Franklin Richards at Wikipedia
Official Site: Marvel Comics

Battle Terrain
Location: Los Angeles

[Peypeypeypey]

This one is really tricky because of a lack of feats both ways. Franklin's best showings involve him making Galactus his herald and going toe-to-toe with Marvel Celestials. Galactus is consistently shown to be on Galactus' level, and they address each other with respect and as siblings/family. I don't think Galactus is quite on Death's level, but he is certainly considered within her tier of power. Franklin is also within Galactus' tier of power, but he is logically substantially stronger in order to make Galactus his herald. If we were to scale him to Galactus like we scale Galactus to Silver Surfer, he would reasonably be much stronger than Death, but he was also reasonably be like Tier 1A, so that's probably not the case, and there's really no evidence that he should be interpreted as that strong. Galactus speaks to Franklin similarly to how to speaks to Death, and he even specifically says that the two of them will survive the end of the universe together. If this is interpreted literally, it could mean he will outlive even Death itself, as Galactus mentions that he will be completely alone, and it stands the reason that after all of space (Eternity) and all of life (Death) are gone, Galactus' "siblings" will no longer exist either, thus making him alone. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that Franklin can't be killed, it just implies some level of cosmic power and awareness, and biological immortality. The shortest answer is that we simply don't know what would happen if these two fought as far as I can tell. Franklin is demonstrably stronger than someone in Death's cosmic tier in the Marvel cosmic hierarchy, but death herself has also been shown to be stronger than Galactus most of the time, so all we know for sure is that they both scale above Galactus.

[Macklemore]

If Pre-Retcon Beyonder cannot wipe Death from existence, Franklin Richards for sure can't. That's all I really have to say on this matter.

[DSkillz]

As mentioned, we probably shouldn't consider Richards at the point where he made a fully-fed Galactus his herald since that would put power too high for this slot. In that case, he would likely still be in his child form, and thus may not immune to Death's touch -- or the end of the universe.

[Peypeypeypey]

17 minutes ago, DSkillz said:

As mentioned, we probably shouldn't consider Richards at the point where he made a fully-fed Galactus his herald since that would put power too high for this slot. In that case, he would likely still be in his child form, and thus may not immune to Death's touch -- or the end of the universe.

Lol that is not at all what I said. I said we wouldn't assume the difference between his power and Galactus' is the same as the difference between a Galactus' and Silver Surfer's. Franklin never dips into tier 1, so any version of him is fair game

[Peypeypeypey]

1 hour ago, Macklemore said:

If Pre-Retcon Beyonder cannot wipe Death from existence, Franklin Richards for sure can't. That's all I really have to say on this matter.

If we're talking about the same thing, this is incorrect. The Beyonder did destroy Death, but he later recreated her when he saw that she was necessary. She was completely destroyed though and was unable to come back under her own volition. 

From the Marvel Wiki: 

"Encouraged by his aide, a journalist named Dave, the Beyonder overcame his own doubts. He then obliterated Death itself from the universe, thus earning the wrath of Mephisto, the "satanic" ruler of an other-dimensional realm of the dead. The Molecule Man, however, convinced the Beyonder that existence was meaningless without death, and so the Beyonder brought Death back into existence by using his power to kill the reporter Dave, who willingly sacrificed his life."

This is somewhat irrelevant, because the Beyonder is so powerful that neither combatant would last a second against him. However, it does show that Death can be destroyed in the Marvel Universe

Also, there are win conditions that don't involve killing Death. Franklin didn't kill Galactus, who is almost an equal force to Death, in order to subjugate him, but he still managed to defeat him. Honestly, in my eyes, if Death if after you and you manage to survive, I consider that a win in literally any scenario, but even so, I think Franklin Richards has other win conditions. The Cancerverse, which was reference in an earlier thread, features a version of Death who is soundly defeated by The Many-Angled Ones and needs help to defeat them. She in neutralized by a sacrificial ritual I believe, which admittedly Franklin probably can't do, but it shows that her power has definite limits and that a powerful enough being has defeated her in the past, even if they didn't kill her. 

I can't say whether or not Franklin is on the level of the Many-Angled Ones, and he's definitely no Beyonder, but he is incredibly powerful and I believe has more demonstrable feats than Death does. As a child, he nullifies a Celestial's attack. As an adult, multiple Celetials fused into a Super Celestial and One-shot Galactus, but Franklin was pretty much completely unharmed by the same attack. The attack did seem to hurt him, but again, that same attack one shot and killed Galactus, who is on the same tier of Cosmic being as Death. The fact that he could survive that attack is stronger than any attack anyone has actually shown by Death. 

This leads naturally into my next point: Franklin has also demonstrated control over life and death. When Galactus got killed in the above scan, he resurrected him. Again, this a being on Death's level, and Franklin not only made him his subject, he also was strong enough to resurrect him. After this, Galactus gets up and destroys most of the Celestials, implying that he's actually even more powerful now. Franklin kills the last Celestial, and then, again, I think the words spoken after are important. Galactus says he was afraid of being alone after the universe ended, not that he was afraid of just having his siblings or anything. He was going to be alone, but is now confident that Franklin Richards will be there with him, after the death and destruction of all of space and time, presumably including Death itself. The more I research this, the more I think Franklin should definitely win

[DSkillz]

17 hours ago, Peypeypeypey said:

He was going to be alone, but is now confident that Franklin Richards will be there with him, after the death and destruction of all of space and time, presumably including Death itself.

Regardless of what the dialogue says, I don't think I buy that.

Death and her siblings are just as big of an aspect of the 616 Multiverse as Galactus, so it stands to reason that at least she would survive its destruction right along with them. Besides, unless Death of Death deems otherwise, Mistress Death will be around as long as there's life to claim in the multiverse (which includes Galactus and Franklin), so there's a likelihood Death survive the end and recreation of the universe to claim Franklin at some point.

[comic_book_fan]

iam not sure about this one  in the history of the marvel universe franklin and galactus  lived into the recent soft  reboot and franklin became galactus  

but they never brought that  into  the  new canon and the only mention of them is from  the one below all who states he killed them  but he is also a big liar

so we don't know  for sure what happened to adult franklin and that version of galactus . there has to be a galactus   or else the universe will end permanently 

but franklin isn't held to that 

[Magnamax]

37 minutes ago, DSkillz said:

Regardless of what the dialogue says, I don't think I buy that.

Death and her siblings are just as big of an aspect of the 616 Multiverse as Galactus, so it stands to reason that at least she would survive its destruction right along with them. Besides, unless Death of Death deems otherwise, Mistress Death will be around as long as there's life to claim in the multiverse (which includes Galactus and Franklin), so there's a likelihood Death survive the end and recreation of the universe to claim Franklin at some point.

I mean, it’s what the source material literally says, so I don’t know why it wouldn’t be true.

 

Galactus is the oldest thing in the marvel universe, this has always been a constant, so I disagree that Death is just as big of aspect within the universe. Galactus is buddies with eternity, so I think he is a “bigger aspect” of the universe. Death has been wiped out of the universe on different occasions and ignores beings of higher or lesser power than her. The actual fight comes down to the fact that I could see Franklin overpowering Death, where Death almost never takes action and I don’t believe had the capability of wanting to take out Franklin.

[Peypeypeypey]

7 hours ago, DSkillz said:

Regardless of what the dialogue says, I don't think I buy that.

Death and her siblings are just as big of an aspect of the 616 Multiverse as Galactus, so it stands to reason that at least she would survive its destruction right along with them. Besides, unless Death of Death deems otherwise, Mistress Death will be around as long as there's life to claim in the multiverse (which includes Galactus and Franklin), so there's a likelihood Death survive the end and recreation of the universe to claim Franklin at some point.

I mean, you can "not buy it," but that's what the comic says, and it's consistent with Galactus as a character. Galactus is older than Death. He's the oldest living being in the 616 universe, and the sole survivor of the last universe cycle. You have shown 0 feats for Death that put her anywhere near Franklin, and haven't really posited any win conditions for Death. There have been two instances of Death being destroyed that I have already mentioned, and again, Franklin is stronger than Galactus, who you yourself just said is as big of an aspect in the Marvel universe as Death. 

The last point is simply incorrect. Galactus survived the destruction of the sixth incarnation of the universe, while whatever cosmic beings existed in that universe did not. There is precedent for that just simply being untrue

[Fox]

I do not see immortality listed as a power for Franklin in Vs Battle Wiki.

In his picture he just looks like an old hippie.  So, presumably, he ages and eventually dies.  Seems like, in the end, Death wins.

[Peypeypeypey]

6 minutes ago, Fox said:

I do not see immortality listed as a power for Franklin in Vs Battle Wiki.

In his picture he just looks like an old hippie.  So, presumably, he ages and eventually dies.  Seems like, in the end, Death wins.

It's not on the Vs. Battle Wiki, but it is on the Wikipedia entry for him. The scan I linked above (here) heavily implies that he's immortal and will outlive the universe, Death included. Galactus (who is the oldest being in the 616 Marvel universe, even older than Death), mentions that he was scared of being alone again, as in, as he was before the current universe, but he no longer is because when this universe ends, he will have Franklin. That's an immortal being directly stating Franklin Richards will outlive the end of the universe billions of years in the future and be alive with him, so it seems unreasonable to say that just because Immortality isn't listed on the Vs. Battles Wiki he loses

[Macklemore]

1 hour ago, Peypeypeypey said:

 Galactus (who is the oldest being in the 616 Marvel universe, even older than Death),

I don't know if Abstracts work like that. Galactus was saved by the Phoenix Force when he was Galan back in the previous universe, so maybe he means he's just the oldest non-Abstract being. Which checks out, cause in the same story it's heavily implied that Franklin will be the Galactus of the next universe if I recall correctly.

[Peypeypeypey]

13 minutes ago, Macklemore said:

I don't know if Abstracts work like that. Galactus was saved by the Phoenix Force when he was Galan back in the previous universe, so maybe he means he's just the oldest non-Abstract being. Which checks out, cause in the same story it's heavily implied that Franklin will be the Galactus of the next universe if I recall correctly.

This is admittedly a little speculative and somewhat confusing, but Galactus is consistently listed as being older than Death, which is the important question here. From Marvel's official page on Galactus' history:

"With the next Big Bang, the Cosmic Egg matter exploded outwards, eventually condensing into stars and planets. The future Galactus and his starship were re-created simultaneously with the embodiments of Eternity and Death, though he drifted inert for billions of years while new life began to populate the universe."

While you could therefore say that the entity "Galactus" is as old as Mistress Death, the being "Galan" who would become Galactus is confirmed to be older than Mistress Death in this sentence. My interpretation, which is backed up by the above quote and the existence of the Cancerverse, is that each universe has its own version of Abstracts like Death. Therefore, if Franklin Richards does become the next Galactus in the next iteration of the universe, as the comic implies he would, then he will have outlived the 7th incarnation of 616's Universe, and therefore outlived that version of Death. Therefore, he should beat Mistress Death

EDIT: To clarify, the character here is "Mistress Death," not just "Death" in the Marvel Universe. It is specifically referring to the version of Death that 616 Marvel's Thanos is obsessed with. If Franklin survives the end of the universe and survives until the next iteration of the universe, Death still be re-created into a new entity, and therefore, in my estimation, the entity "Mistress Death" will have failed to kill Franklin Richards

[Macklemore]

6 minutes ago, Peypeypeypey said:

This is admittedly a little speculative and somewhat confusing, but Galactus is consistently listed as being older than Death, which is the important question here. From Marvel's official page on Galactus' history:

"With the next Big Bang, the Cosmic Egg matter exploded outwards, eventually condensing into stars and planets. The future Galactus and his starship were re-created simultaneously with the embodiments of Eternity and Death, though he drifted inert for billions of years while new life began to populate the universe."

While you could therefore say that the entity "Galactus" is as old as Mistress Death, the being "Galan" who would become Galactus is confirmed to be older than Mistress Death in this sentence. My interpretation, which is backed up by the above quote and the existence of the Cancerverse, is that each universe has its own version of Abstracts like Death. Therefore, if Franklin Richards does become the next Galactus in the next iteration of the universe, as the comic implies he would, then he will have outlived the 7th incarnation of 616's Universe, and therefore outlived that version of Death. Therefore, he should beat Mistress Death

EDIT: To clarify, the character here is "Mistress Death," not just "Death" in the Marvel Universe. It is specifically referring to the version of Death that 616 Marvel's Thanos is obsessed with. If Franklin survives the end of the universe and survives until the next iteration of the universe, Death still be re-created into a new entity, and therefore, in my estimation, the entity "Mistress Death" will have failed to kill Franklin Richards

Yeah, but what I'm saying is that Galan survived due to the fact that he somehow managed to merge with an abstract entity, which saved both him and the entity (which if I remember correctly was the Phoenix Force) from coming to their natural end with the end of the universe itself. Right now, even if we take everything that happens in the comic as correct, there's no reason to believe that Franklin could survive the natural destruction of the universe on it's own cause everything we know from Galactus's own survival is that he needed to merge with an abstract. It's up to you to prove that Franklin is an exception to this rule, as when Galactus is telling Franklin this tidbit of information the assumption is that they'd merge just like Galan did with the Phoenix Force. Of course, I could be misremembering this grossly, so if I am feel free to call me out.

[Magnamax]

Marvel cosmic power scaling is really iffy, and I feel I don’t have a great understanding of it, but I also don’t have a good understanding of how Death wins this. Death can be overpowered and at least temporarily knocked out, which I think constitutes a win here: 

 

Has this version of Franklin Richards ever been overpowered and killed? And does Death have the power to do so?

[Peypeypeypey]

5 minutes ago, Macklemore said:

It's up to you to prove that Franklin is an exception to this rule, as when Galactus is telling Franklin this tidbit of information the assumption is that they'd merge just like Galan did with the Phoenix Force. Of course, I could be misremembering this grossly, so if I am feel free to call me out.

I understand now. Okay, fair enough

5 minutes ago, Macklemore said:

Yeah, but what I'm saying is that Galan survived due to the fact that he somehow managed to merge with an abstract entity, which saved both him and the entity (which if I remember correctly was the Phoenix Force) from coming to their natural end with the end of the universe itself. Right now, even if we take everything that happens in the comic as correct, there's no reason to believe that Franklin could survive the natural destruction of the universe on it's own cause everything we know from Galactus's own survival is that he needed to merge with an abstract.

I actually think there are several reasons to assume Franklin himself is a strong enough entity to survive the death of the universe. For one, he is demonstrably stronger than Galactus, who has many times matched power with the Phoenix Force. He's also demonstrated some cosmic level of control over both universes and death, having revived Galactus and created an entire universe when Onslaught killed his parents and many other heroes and resurrected those heroes in that universe. This shows universal levels of control over death and universal creation, clearly demonstrating that Franklin, even as a child, is strong enough to impact the two key factors in him surviving the death of the universe on a universal scale. Also, Galactus would be a willing being with whom he could merge, given the end of the universe, and their combined power would definitely be greater than Galan's power merged with the Phoenix Force's. 

I think I should also clarify something: If this fight were to drag out into eternity, literally lasting until the universe ends, it's mostly speculation whether or not Franklin would survive. I think there's enough evidence to argue that he would, given what Galactus implies and his own universal creation feats, and while Galactus doesn't mention them merging in order to survive the Death of the universe, that is a perfectly valid interpretation. However, as I mentioned before, this is somewhat moot because the question isn't "will Franklin eventually die?" The question is "Can Mistress Death the character kill Franklin in this scenario, or will Franklin be able to survive her attack?" There have been many times in the past where voters have voted based on what the likely win conditions of the fight would be for the given contestants. In this scenario, if Death were trying to kill Franklin, and was unable to, I find it unreasonable that she gets to win by a technicality of "he will eventually die." 

And again, no one has listed any feats for Death that put her anywhere near Franklin's level of power, really. The Cancerverse is a very specific example, and even then, I've seen no evidence that the Galactus Engine is as powerful as a living, empowered Galactus. Franklin, at the very least, has feats against beings that were strong enough to kill Galactus, who is universally seen as Death's equal. Could he kill Death? Probably not. Could he defeat her? Going by feats, I would argue absolutely. He would certainly survive her going by any feats that have been mentioned, and I fail to see how that isn't a win in anyone's book

[Fox]

9 hours ago, Peypeypeypey said:

And again, no one has listed any feats for Death that put her anywhere near Franklin's level of power, really.

OT, but yes - we are limited by what the writers of comic books actually write.  And there's not a lot of material to work with regarding the Death character in the Marvel cannon, presumably.

Death from D.C./Vertigo is a character with a number of appearances and feats.  Tier 1A, unlike Marvel's.

[Peypeypeypey]

1 hour ago, Fox said:

OT, but yes - we are limited by what the writers of comic books actually write.  And there's not a lot of material to work with regarding the Death character in the Marvel cannon, presumably.

Death from D.C./Vertigo is a character with a number of appearances and feats.  Tier 1A, unlike Marvel's.

I agree that there's a lack of feats, but that's exactly the problem. I think Mistress Death is a frustrating pick because she's going to win a lot just because of what she is and not because she has any real showings, which isn't how I like to argue these matches. To each their own obviously, and I'm not trying to say that anyone who picks an abstract character is cheating or anything like that, because they're clearly not, it's just really hard to make a concrete argument against (or really even for) an entity that does so little, so it often feels like the characters are being judged based on what they might be capable of instead of what they can actually do

[DSkillz]

^Heh, imagine trying to argue for her in some of these match-ups. 

But yeah, it may be too late to bring this up, but Death has survived the end of her universe before, by being in another dimension at the time. Perhaps she could survive this universal end that way and come back for Franklin. Remember that it's only implied that Frank's immortal, but not stated outright.

[Peypeypeypey]

7 minutes ago, DSkillz said:

^Heh, imagine trying to argue for her in some of these match-ups. 

But yeah, it may be too late to bring this up, but Death has survived the end of her universe before, by being in another dimension at the time. Perhaps she could survive this universal end that way and come back for Franklin. Remember that it's only implied that Frank's immortal, but not stated outright.

There are a few problems with this line of logic:

1. We're not entirely sure what the logistics of this move are. Seemingly, Adam Warlock was the one who rescued Death, as Thanos consumed all the other universal abstracts
2. This story is non-canon as hell and really doesn't make any sense, from a characterization standpoint and just a general power scaling standpoint
3. Even if we take the feat at face value, and we ignore the fact that the story it comes from really makes no sense, Death still wouldn't have a win condition. It just means she might be able to survive the end of the universe. Again, I've listed 3 separate times where Death has been defeated, and Franklin should be able to replicate them (except for the Beyonder one) but Death really has no feats on his level

[UMPIRE]

Match Final Results

Mistress Death: 6
Franklin Richards: 3

[DSkillz]

Wow, a lot of folks must've voted early.