- —Tagline
Ant-Man VS Atom is the 172nd episode and Season 10 Premiere of Death Battle, featuring Ant-Man from Marvel Comics and The Atom from DC Comics in a battle between size-shifting superhero scientists. Ant-Man was voiced by Gavin Hammon and the Atom was voiced by Chris Okawa.
Interlude
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Wiz & Boomstick by Brandon Yates  
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Wiz: Ant-Man, Marvel's founding member of the Avengers.
Boomstick: The Atom, DC's legendary Mighty Mite.
Wiz: Good things come in small packages.
Boomstick: The bigger they are, the harder they fall!
Wiz: ...We're just trying to get these out of the way.
We cut to Wiz and Boomstick.
Boomstick: He's Wiz and I'm Boomstick.
Wiz: And it's our job to analyze their weapons, armor, and skills to find out who would win... a Death Battle.
Ant-Man
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Ctrl Alt Delete by Glen Gabriel Jansson 
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Wiz: Did you know that ants can lift 50 times their own body weight? That'd be like if you lifted a car straight over your head.
Boomstick: I did, thanks to my fun fact of the day calendar! Also, Hawaiian pizza was invented in Canada yesterday.
Wiz: Well, I bet your calendar didn't tell you that Doctor Henry Pym, AKA Hank, was considered a genius at a very early age. By three years old, doctors declared he was smarter than both his parents combined!
Boomstick: He eventually majored in biochemistry and became one of the most successful scientists in his field. He had big ideas about shrinking the size of cargo to reduce shipping costs. Ah, logistics.
Wiz: All of which made him a laughingstock in the scientific community and sparked a long-lasting insecurity and need to prove himself.
Boomstick: But he did it, he developed a working serum. He went from laughingstock to Christmas stocking! The much better stock, right behind bean and live.
Wiz: So naturally, he tested the serum on himself, like any self-respecting scientist would, and shrank down to the size of an ant.
Boomstick: And just when things started going south, a sweet little ant, let's call her "Ant Hathaway", swooped in and led Hank safely back to his lab where he could return to full size.
Wiz: Hank then harnessed the serum and became the superhero, Ant-Man.
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Flight of the Bumblebee by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
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Wiz: Along with his new identity came a fascination in entomology, which makes total sense, ants are fascinating!
Boomstick: Did you know that ants can talk to each other in a bunch of different ways? Through touch, sound, or even sharing information by barfing at each other.
Wiz: It's actually called trophallaxis, and they're not barfing, per se, it's more like... passing food mouth to mouth.
Boomstick: Gross! Hank figured out how to communicate with his new pets, not by barfing, but by creating a cybernetic helmet that mirrors an ant's antennae. And he's even developed genuine relationships with some ants, like Ulysses S. Ant here.
Wiz: But he didn't stop there. Hank developed a lot of amazing tech like a stinger pistol that focuses his bio-energy into a stun beam, and image-inducing camouflage to mask himself as an ant. It works so well, it fooled Reed Richards, the smartest guy on the planet!
Boomstick: He also built a suit that runs on that nifty serum he made back in his lab. It lets him shrink thanks to the newly discovered... Pym Particles! Named after himself. Ah, classic Hank.
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Blood Sweat Glory (Bed Version) by Benjamin Andrew James MacDougall 
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Wiz: And the Pym Particle is the key to unlocking the fundamental constants of the quantum mechanics at play here. They enable you to decrease the distance between atoms. However, in order to do that, he'd have to change the Bohr radius, the ratio of electron mass to the distance the electrons orbit an atom's nucleus.
Boomstick: Wh... of course! Like how when you make a bagel pizza, you can't fit the whole pizza on the bagel. Believe me, I've tried. It's too small. You just gotta put less on!
Wiz: Uh... sure, Boomstick. So, the Pym Particles are actually displacing mass to an alternate dimension in order to maintain that ratio.
Boomstick: Oh, it's like having a second bagel to put the rest of your pizza on! I get it!
Wiz: But if that were true, he shouldn't be able to punch with full-size strength if he has less mass.
Boomstick: And he's definitely lighter, 'cause otherwise he'd crush the sweet ants he rides, like Vinc-Ant van Gogh here.
We cut to Wiz.
Wiz: His mass is being replaced with massless neutrinos, but that doesn't adequately explain how he can have less mass and seemingly more mass at the same time.
We cut to Boomstick, who is suddenly wearing upside down glasses and a lab coat, which he wears throughout the rest of the episode.
Boomstick: Sure it does, Wiz! Trust Pym and his Particles! Look at the guy! He's explaining the whole thing while wearing a lab coat. What's more trustworthy than that?
Boomstick pulls out a pizza bagel from one of his lab coat's bottom pockets, with the camera zooming out to reveal the bottom of the coat is stained and has a slice of pizza in the other pocket as Wiz is left dumbfounded over what his co-host said.
Boomstick: ...You're the exception.
Wiz: You think you understand this?
Boomstick takes a bite out of his pizza.
Boomstick: (mouthful) Of course! He's small but strong, you said somethin' about a boar, so... (he swallows) I guess you wanted ham on that pizza, but I already made the pizza.
Wiz: Will you take that coat off?!
Boomstick: Nnnno.
He finishes off the pizza before we cut back to the analysis.
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Wiz: Regardless, there is virtually no limit to Hank's ability to shrink. He can go beyond subatomic down to the Underspace, a plane of existence below all realities in the Marvel universe.
Boomstick: And Hank has literally changed his biology. He's rewritten his own chemical makeup to prevent anyone else from changing his size, and he's used Pym Particles so much, he's now got an energy field around him that lets him change the size of people or objects on the fly, through touch or by straight up firing Pym Particles in the air!
Wiz: He's never shy about using them either. He eventually supplied his wife Janet van Dyne with some Pym Tech to become the Wasp, his partner in crime-fighting.
Boomstick: The two ended up rubbin' shoulders with A-listers like Thor, Iron Man, and the Hulk to take down Loki. Ant-Man and the Wasp were actually the ones that captured him and pitched the idea of forming the Avengers!
Wiz: Unfortunately, Hank's insecurities started to creep back in, and he felt that if he wanted to keep up with the big heroes, he was going to have to think bigger.
Boomstick: Enter a bunch of those Pym-powered alter egos like Yellowjacket and Giant-Man, where he can grow anywhere from 12 feet tall to so big he can enter the Overspace, the polar opposite of the Underspace.
Wiz: There he met Eternity, who called him Earth's Scientist Supreme... Something he won't let you forget.
Boomstick: Hank pushed himself to these insane heights, even though he knew the strain on his body could be fatal.
Wiz: But he simply didn't care and kept pushing himself. Thus, his greatest, and worst, creation was born: Ultron.
Boomstick: Yep. Ul-the-tin-man-tron was created by Hank, not Tony like the movies. But the mass murderbot thing turned out pretty much the same. Biiig swing and a miss there...
Wiz: The fallout from Ultron left Hank in a bad place, to say the least. His guilt made him feel like an utter failure, and that his best work was behind him. This led Hank to do... unspeakable things.
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The infamous comic panel of Hank slapping his wife Janet is shown on-screen.
Boomstick: A real low-life move! And even though poor mental health doesn't excuse this behavior, it was clear that Hank needed help; he suffered multiple mental breakdowns, endured the physical toll of the Pym Particles, and had bipolar disorder that went undiagnosed for years.
Wiz: So, Hank finally did the best thing he could: he acknowledged his problems, got the help he needed, and committed to self-improvement.
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Boomstick: And with that help, Hank slowly started making things right. He rebuilt the West Coast Avengers, gave Scott Lang his blessing to become the second Ant-Man, and finally defeated Ultron.
Wiz: He created a backdoor Trojan infiltration code to defeat Ultron that was so advanced, it went on to replicate and evolve all on its own to create a new species made up of artificial intelligence.
Boomstick: They don't call him the god of modern A.I. for nothin'. Hank has showed over and over again that he's an integral part of the Marvel universe.
Wiz: Not just by ways of his scientific contributions or victories in battle, but by proving that heroes come in all shapes and sizes.
The Atom
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Here Comes Trouble by Terry Devine-King
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Boomstick: Ray Palmer was born your average human-sized person. He grew up in the northeast, studied physics at Ivy University, and did everything Mama and Papa Palmer told him to do... uh, probably.
Wiz: Everything was pretty typical for Ray until one fateful night, when he took a walk to take his mind off a frustrating experiment, and saw a meteor fall from the sky.
Boomstick: He ran off to the crash and found himself a life-changing piece of a white dwarf star, and immediately started messin' around with it. Who wouldn't?
Wiz: He discovered that he could focus ultraviolet rays through it and shrink inanimate objects. There was just one problem: when he shrunk things, they exploded... every time.
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Superglide by Chris Blackwell
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Boomstick: I do not see the problem. Sounds like he found a foolproof way of blowin' stuff up. Case closed!
Wiz: Ray was determined to figure out how to shrink objects without blowing them up. But first, he went on a hike with his nature club, and as a fellow scientist, I have to question his priorities.
Boomstick: But hey, it seems to work for him. I support it. Different hikes for different Mikes, am I right?
Rooster Teeth's Mike Pirtle appears on-screen as Boomstick says this, shrugging his shoulders.
Wiz: While in a cave, the ceiling suddenly collapsed, trapping everyone inside. After searching high and low for another exit, Ray found a small opening and had an idea: he could try to shrink himself down and get help, even if it meant he might explode before he got the chance.
Boomstick: But, he didn't explode... I hope this story has a happy ending, at least.
Wiz: Perplexed, Ray determined there must've been something special about him that made him uniquely immune to the explosive fate. Something super scientifically convenient that we never get any more information on.
Boomstick: So, he got to work and created himself a suit to harness the power of the white dwarf star and became... the Atom!
Wiz: Atom uses the white dwarf fragment to decrease his size while having control over his density, which makes a lot of sense considering that white dwarfs have a mass of a star, like the Sun. But their volume is more like the Earth's, making them among the densest objects in space.
Boomstick: Just a teaspoon of this stuff could weigh up to 100 tons. That's one strong spoon!
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Wiz: When Atom shrinks and shifts his weight, he's actually sending his extra mass to a dimension called the Mass-Zone.
Boomstick: Where, uh... Atom could maybe live forever! At one point, Ray's apprentice Ryan Choi was murdered by Deathstroke, but... willed some of his mass to the Mass-Zone and was able to survive in that dimension. So these guys can potentially cheat death, but would be stuck there without any outside help.
Wiz: But from one scientist to another, what's most impressive is Ray's creation of the Bio-Belt. That's what allows Atom to use the power of the white dwarf and shrink while maintaining any weight, from immaterial to his full 180 pounds. There's even been times where it stated that he was able to become almost as dense as a white dwarf star itself for a few seconds.
Boomstick: The belt is also how he can travel through phone lines or through the air on currents or light beams. Over time, Ray has spread out the white dwarf power to other parts of his suit, and now the Bio-Belt acts as a utility belt for his shrunken weapons and tech. It also prevents his size or mass from being altered by any outside forces.
Wiz: And while he can only increase his size back to his natural six feet in height, his ability to shrink is near limitless. He can travel between subatomic space to the Microverse, the foundation of all reality in the DC universe, where atoms become the size of planets.
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Boomstick: Typically, he can increase back to his normal size with such force he can smash through diamonds, so if Atom increases his size too much while still within the Microverse, he could blow up the entire fabric of reality from the inside out!
Wiz: Shrinking down to that size means that he can shrink small enough to rearrange atoms themselves.
Boomstick: Yep. Ray can take individual molecules and rapidly expand them to cook up a small nuclear blast in the palm of his hand. Oh-ho! Ray Palmer! I just got that.
We cut to Wiz and Boomstick.
Wiz: He also once disarmed a bomb by rearranging its atoms. At that size, he can move at the "velocity of light", so fast and so randomly he basically acted as a barrier between any and all possible atom combinations. But, come on. There's no scientific explanation here for him to have superhuman senses or awareness to comprehend being everywhere at the same time.
Boomstick: Nah, it makes total sense! If you're small enough, you can fit in almost everything, everywhere, all at once! Like how you can fit an entire pizza into a calzone, and then you have a whole pizza everywhere inside the calzone. Man, I get it. Science is pizza!
Wiz is utterly baffled over Boomstick's simple logic.
Wiz: NO! Science is all I have, why are you doing this to me?!
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Symphony No. 40 in G Minor by Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart
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We cut back to the analysis.
Boomstick: On top of all of Ray's amazing inventions and abilities, he's also got some more classic weapons like a laser blaster, and a freakin' sword he used to fight a giant crocodile!... Relative to his size.
Wiz: That was when Ray was believed to be dead but was actually just stuck at six inches tall and stranded in the Amazon rainforest, where he encountered an alien race known as the Katarthans.
Boomstick: And get this: he ended up leading a rebellion against their tyrant king, and became the ruler of all the Kardashians!
Wiz: And his heroism didn't stop there. The Atom was a very well-respected hero, and was even asked to join the Justice League of America shortly after it was formed.
Boomstick: He fought alongside Batman and his best bud Hawkman. And you don't fight with those guys without pickin' up a thing or two.
Wiz: Impressive combat skills aside, Atom's greatest contribution to the legendary team was always his incredible mind.
Boomstick: He once created Kryptonite inside of Superman by realizing that if he gathered up enough Kryptonian protons, they would eventually become radioactive.
Wiz: While stranded in Limbo, Atom realized that if the Flash sped up the rate of a nuclear reaction stellar evolution to exhaust its core, they could turn a fire demon into a black hole, and use it as a wormhole to get back to Earth.
Boomstick: He's a brilliant, hard-working, and determined scientist that never stops working on a problem until he's found a solution. I mean, if I figured out how to blow stuff up as well as he did, I would have stopped right there. I'm the hero that blows stuff up! Wouldn't even need to change my name.
Wiz: Ray Palmer lived the dream, going from research scientist to legendary superhero. He picked up the pieces presented to him and built something greater than the sum of its parts.
Boomstick: Who knew this tiny titan with massive brains would have just as much brawn to back it up?
Prelude
Wiz: Alright, the combatants are set. We've run the data through all possibilities.
Boomstick: IT'S TIME FOR A DEATH BATTLEEE!!!
Death Battle
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Not Actual Size by Therewolf Media
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Doctor Hank Pym is seen in his lab writing on paper at his desk. He notices that his Newton's cradle shook a little, with its spheres swinging and bumping faster than usual. Knowing someone is in the area, he calls them out as he works.
Hank: You should pick on someone your own size... Relatively speaking.
The Atom makes his presence known, enlarging himself in front of Pym's desk and holding a miniature car. He expresses curious fascination to the fellow scientist.
Atom: How did you do this? It's laced with a particle I've never seen before.
Hank: They're called Pym Particles.
Hank suddenly gets up, taking off and tossing away his lab coat whilst bumping back his roller chair, revealing his Ant-Man suit.
Ant-Man: And I'm Hank Pym, Scientist Supreme. You should have knocked.
Irritated with the intruder, he materializes his cybernetic helmet over his head, while the Atom realizes that he instigated a battle and tosses the shrunken car aside. He clashes punches with Ant-Man, both immediately shrinking in size as they do so. They briefly grapple fists before Ant-Man kicks the Atom away, leaving both to land on Hank's desk.
The Atom quickly closes the ironically-long distance before throwing a dense punch onto Ant-Man's face, knocking him away into a dipping bird, the pointed end of which begins to fall down towards him. Ant-Man makes an exaggerated scream about the idea of being impaled by a toy before quickly rolling out of the way.
The fight is taken to the Newton's cradle, a further shrunken Ant-Man hiding by one of the spheres as Atom goes to investigate. Ant-Man enlarges himself slightly for a sneak attack, but the Atom turns and does not budge from the punch, prompting Ant-Man to jump away before getting smacked. The two circle around the cradle, bantering as they do.
Ant-Man: You're using... pieces of a white dwarf star? Heh. That's cute.
Atom: Everything we needed already existed. You just needed to be smart enough to put the pieces together, Scientist Supreme!
Atom goes a distance before jumping back to the cradle, punching it with enough force to sever the swinging spheres, one of which chases Ant-Man briefly before he looks back to see it about to collide with him. The camera suddenly cuts to show an outer view of the desk, making it appear as though the spheres bumped into an invisible force.
Ant-Man suddenly enlarges himself and reacts to Atom growing in size, punching him away, who inadvertently shrinks back down on the floor from the attack as Ant-Man stomps on him. Atom however uses his dwarf-star strength to trip Ant-Man, forcing him to shrink back down. The shrunken Ant-Man lands on the ground by the miniature car, brushing dust off his arm before lecturing the Atom.
Ant-Man: Did you know that at any given moment, there are about 2.5 million ants under your feet?
Atom: I mean, that makes sense, but... why are you bringing that up right now?
The larger-than-life ground then begins to shake as numerous purple ants burst from below, much to Atom's annoyance. As Ant-Man activates another device, the ants all charge at the Atom, who pulls out and enlarges his Katarthan sword, using it to hack and slash at the incoming insects, up until they begin to dogpile him.
An irritated Atom quickly counters by enlarging himself to curb stomp the ants. Ant-Man however is back to full size by his computer setup.
Ant-Man: Took you long enough.
He tosses Pym Particles towards Atom, who braces himself, but finds himself unaffected, which Ant-Man isn't too surprised with.
Ant-Man: Ooookay. Let's try this!
Instead, he tosses Pym Particles past Ray onto the car, making it grow in size and collide with the Atom. He shrinks himself down to the molecular level and searches for his opponent, unaware that he is running on his Bio-Belt with an ant.
Ant-Man: I'll hack his belt. You lay low and let me know what you find.
Ant-thony: (in ant speak) Yas Queen.
As Ant-thony goes on ahead, a shadow overlaps Ant-Man and he finds himself grabbed by Atom, realizing what he was doing.
Atom: Nice try.
He tosses him away, but Ant-Man manages to hitch a ride on another ant with wings. Atom pulls out his laser blaster and tries to gun Ant-Man and his pet down, who counters with shots from his stinger pistol. The Atom shrinks further and dodges the laser fire before running up the barrel of the gun.
Atom: If I search every electron path in his gun and study their probability wave functions... I just... might be able to...!
He messes with the electrons of the gun, causing it to break apart in Ant-Man's hands. Hank proceeds to shrink further down into...
THE MICROVERSE
... where he promptly gets a miniature nuclear blast greeting from the Atom, knocking him back. He grows before trying to grab Atom, who does not budge and tosses him over his shoulders before growing more.
Ant-Man follows suite, and the two exchange a few punches as they continue growing, which ends with Ant-Man knocking Atom away with a hook to the chest. The Atom suddenly begins to show a pained reaction, causing reality around them to crack apart, which Hank takes note of.
Ant-Man: What's happening? He must be reaching his limit. If we don't get out of here quick, he's gonna destroy all of reality. Now, my pets!
Several of his ants appear from within Atom's Bio-Belt and bite it, causing it to break apart, destroying it and stopping reality from breaking. A growing-in-size Ant-Man begins to tower menacingly over the Atom, having overpowered him.
Ant-Man: You have your tricks and your tools, but I created something beyond the limits of human existence! I operate on a scale you can't even comprehennddd...
As he continues to grow, he reaches his hand out towards Atom, covering the screen as his words slow down and echo just as the screen to fade out. It then lights up again to show Atom floating unconsciously in...
OVERSPACE
Atom awakens, and opening his eyes, is left in awe over Eternity, the cosmic entity he floats before.
Atom: Eh...? Huh...? How...?
Ant-Man suddenly enlarges next to him, now with his Giant-Man helmet on.
Ant-Man: You can't be afraid to think big.
Atom then notices something morbid is going on with him, and giant ants begin to tear him apart from the inside out, starting from the mouth, to his back, and his shoulders, his chest, and then everywhere else, causing him to combust in an explosion of ants as his dying screams echo through the Overspace. Ant-Man shrinks away out of the scene, leaving some of his ants to traverse the atomic trails of the Overspace.
Results
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Not Actual Size by Therewolf Media
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Wiz: Ant-Man and Atom both had many answers to each other's abilities and arsenals. Both were able to store various weapons at a shrunken state, both were trained in Judo, and they both could obviously keep up with each other's ability to shrink at will.
Boomstick: Though there was one small thing Atom couldn't answer to: the ants! Hank's bond with his pets lent him some small advantages and Ray just didn't have enough anti-ant tools in his Bio-Belt.
Wiz: But in Atom's defense, the fact that he could punch with a fist packed with all of his mass meant that a close-up fight while small would leave Hank with few options since he can only punch with his normal human strength.
Boomstick: Even still, all Ant-Man would need to do is keep his "dist-ants" with the help of his insect "confid-ants" and devise another plan of "ant-tack", something Hank has no shortage of.
Wiz: For instance, Ant-Man could alter Atom's size thanks to the Pym Particle field he generates. Hank would just need to stall long enough to remove or disable Atom's Bio-Belt and he's had no trouble hacking enemy tech in the past.
Boomstick: But even with the Bio-Belt busted, it wouldn't stop Atom's ability to shrink since the white dwarf power is contained throughout his suit. Destroying the belt only meant that Ant-Man could alter Atom's size.
Wiz: Whereas Hank has literally rewritten his own biology to prevent outside size alteration. And while Atom's abilities are definitely impressive, they are limited, and Ant-Man's simply aren't, at least by comparison. Hank could always match Ray's size or just take the fight to the Overspace where he would have the edge, both physically and mentally.
Boomstick: The Overspace can mess with the human mind, but we've seen that Hank can handle it.
We cut to Wiz and Boomstick.
Wiz: But if the Scientist Supreme is really so smart, why didn't he just immediately go up Atom's butt and blow him up from the inside?
Boomstick: Eugh! What's wrong with you, Wiz? Aren't you a fellow man of science?
Wiz: (saddened) This is the meanest thing you've ever done to me...
Boomstick: Atom sized up Ant-Man, but in the end, he was the one who had to say... "Uncle".
We cut to the "Winner" card.
Wiz: The winner is Ant-Man.
Comparison
Ant-Man
- + Smarter
- + Stronger & more durable
- + Powers come from his body naturally
- + Much larger arsenal
- ≥ Can arguably shrink smaller, at worst stalemates
- = Similar in speed
Atom
- + Can control the density of his size
- + Can affect the probability of some of Hank's weapons
- - Cannot grow larger than his natural height
- - Bio-Belt is susceptible to hacking
- ≤ Less examples of shrinking to sizes Hank has attained
- = Similar in speed
Original Track
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Not Actual Size by Therewolf Media
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Composition
The track for this fight is "Not Actual Size" by Therewolf Media. It is a dramatic orchestra track blended with the style of '60s rock, primarily being a rendition of the Ant-Man theme from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as well as the theme song for Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes when the fight goes down to the molecular level. It also contains the same tune to the flight of the bumble-bee towards the end to signify the insect-like theme of the fight and Atom's brutal end.
Title
The title references the disclaimer seen in numerous advertisements that depict products bigger than how they are in real life, reflecting on the size-changing abilities both combatants possess.
Cover Art
The cover art done by John Mitchell depicts an atom with a red silhouette of Ant-Man's helmet in the center of it. Behind the cover art are progressively smaller copies of itself to emulate a growing/shrinking effect.
Trivia
Production
- The core connections between Ant-Man and the Atom are that they are both comic book superheroes and genius scientists with the ability to both shrink to sub-atomic sizes and grow to ludicrously large sizes, being able to do so thanks to a natural material they discovered (Pym Particles and a white dwarf star fragment, respectively), which they then incorporated into technology they invented (a suit and the Bio-Belt, respectively). In addition:
- Both have explored tiny universes hidden within our own, both of which being their series' respective versions of the Microverse.
- Both of their size-altering abilities work via shifting their mass between themselves and an alternate dimension (Kosmos and the Mass Zone, respectively).
- Both are known for being heavily obsessed with their own work, to the point that their relationships with their wives had been strained to the point of causing them to divorce (Janet van Dyne and Jean Loring, respectively).
- Both were commended and given ranks by cosmic powers (Eternity named Ant-Man the "Earth's Scientist Supreme" due to his intelligence and Atom was made a member of the Indigo Tribe due to his compassion).
- Both would ultimately end up going missing, leaving their superhero titles to other people who would act as their successors (Scott Lang and Ryan Choi, respectively).
- Eternity's design in the fight seems to be based more on their MCU design than their comic one.
- This is the first episode since She-Ra VS Wonder Woman to have a blooper reel.
- The YouTube version of this episode lacks the "Who wins?" in the tagline of the description, unlike the Rooster Teeth version.
- Strangely, this episode did not receive a YouTube Short dedicating it to being the next episode released, likely due to not receiving a Next Time teaser at the end of Gogeta VS Vegito and being the Season Premiere.
- This makes it the first episode since Black Adam VS Apocalypse whose Next Time trailer wasn't reuploaded as a YouTube Short, with the next three being Frieza VS Megatron, Rick Sanchez VS The Doctor, and Goku VS Superman (2023).
- This episode makes cameo appearances in future episodes:
- In Martian Manhunter VS Silver Surfer, a photo of the Atom's death can be seen amongst the photos on John Jones' desk.
- In Gojo VS Makima, a shot of the Atom's death briefly flashes on-screen alongside other cameo appearances as Makima gets caught in Gojo's Unlimited Void.
- In Rick Sanchez VS The Doctor, the Atom's death can be seen playing on the "Ants In My Guts Palmer" arcade cabinet in the Blips and Chitz that Rick Sanchez and the Doctor wound up in partway through their fight.
- At the beginning of the season, a teaser trailer was released which included multiple (albeit redundant, considering this episode was revealed in the very same trailer) hints for this episode:
- Footage of ants in the "FIGHTS IN DEATH BATTLE HISTORY" text, naturally hinting toward Ant-Man.
- A Gravity Falls-inspired zodiac wheel with 16 symbols on it, each representing and hinting toward an episode in the season. After the release of the Season Finale, the Death Battle YouTube channel began revealing the answers to the zodiac wheel by posting the answers in pinned comments under the symbols' respective episodes. This episode was revealed to be represented by the atom symbol.[1] This is simply because of the combatants' abilities to shrink to sub-atomic sizes, as well as it being an obvious reference to the Atom.
Easter Eggs
- Boomstick refers to some ants in Ant-Man's analysis by pun-based names of famous real-world people, namely Anne Hathaway, Ulysses S. Grant, and Vincent van Gogh.
- The "Ulysses S. Ant" pun in particular is likely a reference to Ulysses S. Gr-ant from Ant-Man and the Wasp.
- Boomstick name-drops Everything Everywhere All at Once during the cutaway in Atom's analysis when responding to Wiz's confusion on how Ray has superhuman awareness.
- The way Hank gets hit by the Newton's cradle sphere before suddenly cutting to an outer view of the desk to show it appearing to hit nothing might be a reference to a scene in the first Ant-Man movie, in which Yellowjacket is hit by a Thomas the Tank Engine toy in a similar fashion.
- The ant that Hank speaks to on Atom's Bio-Belt is revealed to be named "Ant-thony" through subtitles, referencing the same name that Scott Lang gave one of his ants in the first Ant-Man movie.
- Ant-thony responds to Hank's command with "Yas Queen", not only referencing the memetic slang, but also being a nod to how leaders of ant colonies are known as "Queen ants", which technically makes Hank the "queen" of his ants.
- The locations of the Microverse and Overspace being presented in big bold letters may be inspired by how various MCU movies reveal specific locations with similar texts.
- Hank's speech to Atom right before he sends them to Overspace is based on similar dialogue from when he brought Absorbing Man to Overspace in this panel.
- At the end of the post-analysis, Wiz directly questions why Ant-Man didn't go up Atom's butt to blow him up from the inside, a direct reference to the infamously popular "Thanus" joke, meme, and theory proposing that Ant-Man would defeat Thanos by doing the same method.
- The killing blow was initially planned to be directly based on the meme and would have had the winner go up the loser's butt and expand, but due to not wanting to do that specifically, they changed it to have the ants expand from the inside instead, though how exactly they entered the Atom's body is up to interpretation.[2]
- Funnily enough, Luis Cruz would later post a video on Twitter that depicts Ant-Man doing this very joke on Atom a few hours after the episode's release.
Errors
- While the matchup specifically uses Hank Pym as Ant-Man, images and clips of Scott Lang as Ant-Man are often used to represent Hank in multiple parts of the episode, including the thumbnails for both the episode and Ant-Man's analysis preview, the episode's reveal trailer, the interlude, and the prelude before the fight.
- Additionally, one of the clips for Atom in the prelude showed footage of Ryan Choi as Atom from Injustice 2, though everything else presented was still Ray.
- This is the fourth episode where at least one of the thumbnails features the wrong combatant, after Green Arrow VS Hawkeye, Leonardo VS Red Ranger Jason, and Batman VS Iron Man.
- In Ant-Man's "Arsenal" slide, "camouflage" is misspelled as "camoflauge".
- One of the pop-up boxes describing the Overspace in Ant-Man's analysis misspells "showing" as "showng".
- The blue pen that Ant-Man was writing with suddenly disappears in between shots before he prepares for the battle.
- Hank's claim that there are 2.5 million ants in a person's general area at any moment is not exactly true. While there are sources that state that there are 2.5 million ants for every human,[3] this does not correlate with the number of ants actually around each human.
- Despite Ant-Man's ants shattering it in the Microverse, Atom's Bio-Belt is still seen intact when the fight transitions to Overspace, only disappearing right before he explodes.
- Atom is verbally given the advantage in strength (with Wiz saying that Hank could only punch with his "normal human strength") during the post-analysis, while the "Comparison" slide says that Hank had the strength advantage, potentially referencing the Hercules pop-up from his own analysis. Why the verdict gives two different answers for who's stronger is unclear.
Other
- This is the 27th Marvel VS DC-themed episode, after Rogue VS Wonder Woman, Batman VS Spider-Man, Batman VS Captain America, Deadpool VS Deathstroke, Iron Man VS Lex Luthor, Green Arrow VS Hawkeye, Flash VS Quicksilver, Hulk VS Doomsday, Venom VS Bane, Thor VS Wonder Woman, Batman Beyond VS Spider-Man 2099, Black Panther VS Batman, Doctor Strange VS Doctor Fate, Nightwing VS Daredevil, Thanos VS Darkseid, Aquaman VS Namor, Captain Marvel VS Shazam, Ghost Rider VS Lobo, Miles Morales VS Static, Cable VS Booster Gold, Winter Soldier VS Red Hood, Batgirl VS Spider-Gwen, Lex Luthor VS Doctor Doom, Batman VS Iron Man, Scarlet Witch VS Zatanna, and Black Adam VS Apocalypse, and with the next two being Phoenix VS Raven and Martian Manhunter VS Silver Surfer.
- This is the 14th time that the Marvel character wins, after Rogue VS Wonder Woman, Batman VS Spider-Man, Deadpool VS Deathstroke, Iron Man VS Lex Luthor, Green Arrow VS Hawkeye, Venom VS Bane, Black Panther VS Batman, Ghost Rider VS Lobo, Winter Soldier VS Red Hood, Batgirl VS Spider-Gwen, Lex Luthor VS Doctor Doom, Batman VS Iron Man, and Black Adam VS Apocalypse, and with the next one being Martian Manhunter VS Silver Surfer.
- This the fourth Marvel VS DC-themed Season Premiere, after Black Panther VS Batman, Aquaman VS Namor, and Miles Morales VS Static.
- This is the sixth episode in which Wiz comments on the results of the fight before Boomstick, after Fox McCloud VS Bucky O'Hare, Boba Fett VS Samus Aran (2015), Donkey Kong VS Knuckles, Flash VS Sonic, and Excalibur VS Raiden, and with the next six being Killua VS Misaka, Scooby-Doo VS Courage the Cowardly Dog, Galactus VS Unicron, Bowser VS Eggman, Simon the Digger VS Kyle Rayner, and Wile E. Coyote VS Tom Cat.