Death Battle

Pitting pop culture's deadliest characters in a duel to the death! Experts Wiz and Boomstick analyze each fighter's weapons, armor, and skills... and then the battle begins! Who will win? Who will die?

—Tagline

Death Battle (stylized as DEATH BATTLE!) is a popular web series created by Ben Singer and presented by ScrewAttack. The show pits two or more fictional characters from different medias such as movies, comics, manga, television programs, literature, video games, advertisements, public service announcements, and even mythology and create a simulated battle to the death. The characters are analyzed with their respective powers, strengths, and weaknesses, to determine a winner.

The show's first season has 25 episodes. The first 18 episodes were featured exclusively on ScrewAttack's YouTube account, and starting with episode 19 the series is now posted to the redesigned Screwattack.com, with a delayed posting of past fights to their YouTube page.

Season 2 premiered on May 31, 2013, more than four months after the first season finale. The season ended on December 15, 2015, with a total of 32 episodes for the season, bringing the total number of DEATH BATTLE! episodes to 57.

Season 3 premiered on March 16, 2016 in order to focus on finding more staff to expand their series. The season ended on December 21st, 2016, with a total of 14 episodes for the season, the shortest season so far, bringing the total number of DEATH BATTLE! episodes to 71.

Season 4 premiered on February 1, 2017 with the first fight revealed in January 2017. The season ended on December 20th, 2017 with a total of 16 episodes, bringing the total number of DEATH BATTLE! episodes to 87.

Season 5 premiered on February 7, 2018. The season ended on December 19th, 2018 with a total of 16 episodes, bringing the total number of DEATH BATTLE! episodes to 103.

On February 4, 2019, ScrewAttack announced that they changed the name of the channel to keep up with the YouTube landscape.

Season 6 premiered on February 6, 2019. The season ended on December 18th, 2019 with a total of 16 episodes, bringing the total number of DEATH BATTLE! episodes to 119.

Season 7 premiered on January 26, 2020. The season ended on December 28, 2020 with a total 20 episodes, bringing the total number of DEATH BATTLE! episodes to 139.

Season 8 premiered on March 7th, 2021. The season ended on December 19, 2021 with a total of 16 episodes, bringing the total number of DEATH BATTLE! episodes to 155. As the special 10th anniversary season, every matchup has the theme of having a certain history with the show, such as matchups certain crew members really wanted (e.g. Shadow VS Ryuko), "legacy" matchups that have been popular for a long time (e.g. DIO VS Alucard), matchups that feature characters who have direct history with the show (e.g. Yoda VS King Mickey), or matchups crew members have joked about (e.g. Macho Man VS Kool-Aid Man).

Season 9 premiered in March 28, 2022. The season currently only has 7 episodes.

Format Overview

The idea of the show is to pit two or more fictional characters and pit them against each other in a simulated "death battle". Before the start of the battle, an analysis of the character's powers are listed together with their other stats such as strengths, weaknesses, physicality (weight, height, age, intellect), and weapons. This is done by extensive research of each of the characters, and taking notes from calculating the power of various abilities, official websites, and franchise encyclopedias. All other traits will be represented with accuracy based on the character's canon universes. If a character has multiple versions, said character (such as Link) will be composited throughout all forms of media unless a certain version is too deviant from the main source (for example, Sonic the Hedgehog and Archie Sonic are considered two different characters). After studying the characters, a conclusion is made to who is the winner and the reason they are triumphant. This is shown in the form of a simulated battle in either 2D sprites, 3D CGI, hand-drawn animation, or live action. Many combatants are voiced by YouTube personalities such as MasakoX and ItsJustSomeRandomGuy or professional voice actors such as Kira Buckland and Nicholas Andrew Louie.

Because the show is entitled "DEATH BATTLE!" and its idea is to create a virtual "fight to the death", characters in the virtual simulation kill their opponents, even though many of them are canonically averse to killing (such as Batman, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Steven Universe, and Rebecca Black). These are made as a "what if" scenario for entertainment purposes, and does not go against the accuracy of the analysis of the respective winner.

Scheduling

Prior to Season 7, ScrewAttack typically released a new episode three weeks after the current episode. In the first two weeks, they release a preview of a combatant analysis, primarily about their background, and in the third week the episode is released at around 12:00 PM CST.

Starting with Season 7, Death Battles have gone from one every 3 weeks to every 2 weeks. The schedule is similar to the old one with teasers of the two combatants being released the Monday and Wednesday before the episode is released before releasing the episode the following Sunday for First Members and the day after for everyone. In the middle of the season, the show will generally take a short break, with DBX taking its place for an unspecified amount of weeks before Death Battle's return.

Merchandise

In order to promote DEATH BATTLE!, ScrewAttack has released merchandise, primarily T-Shirts to help spread the word about the show. Due to merging with Rooster Teeth and its family, most T-Shirts are available on the Rooster Teeth store.

The first one, known as DEATH BATTLE! T-Shirt, is a black T-Shirt with the logo in the center, with blood splatters behind the logo to illustrate the bloody motif of the show. To promote it, ScrewAttack released a joke episode known as DEATH BATTLE! vs The World, in which the T-Shirt was analyzed and was put in a fight with all T-Shirts, but emerged victorious.
The second shirt, known as ScrewAttack Classic DEATH BATTLE! Logo Tee, features a grey T-Shirt with the grey logo in the centered. This shirt greatly resembles the first one, albeit the blood splatters. This shirt has frequently been worn by DEATH BATTLE! staff members at ScrewAttack.
The third one, known as First Fallen, is so far the most graphically designed T-Shirt. Unlike the previous two, the DEATH BATTLE! logo is moved to the bottom, with the entire center of the shirt showing 60 skulls. As the name of the shirt implies, the skulls represent the first 60 DEATH BATTLE! combatants who lost (and were subsequently killed), with each skull showing some iconic trait of the character (Boba Fett with half of his helmet, Goku with his hair, and Goomba and Koopa's skulls being shaped to resemble them as opposed to standard human skulls).
The fourth one, known as ScrewAttack DEATH BATTLE! Logo Tee, is similar to the original DEATH BATTLE! T-shirt, but features the new logo instead.
The fifth one is a plain red shirt with Wiz's line at the start of every DEATH BATTLE!; "Weapon & Armor & Skills & DEATH BATTLE".
To celebrate their voice roles in DEATH BATTLE!, voice actor and director Marissa Lenti released a limited edition holographic poster featuring Bayonetta and Renamon. This makes both characters the first combatants in DEATH BATTLE! history to receive an official poster and piece of merchandise with heavily accurate and faithful artwork of them.

Rules

Combatants have no prior knowledge of each other unless specified.
To ensure a fair fight, any specific moral restraints from killing are removed from combatants. All other traits are considered.
A combatant's maximum personal potential is examined unless specified otherwise. Factors unrelated to combatants cannot end the battle.
Unless specified, all official material related to a character is applied unless found contradictory to the primary source material.

Episodes

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Battle Royale

Danny Phantom VS American Dragon Jake Long

There are currently four confirmed match-ups.

Galactus VS Unicron was confirmed at a panel at MAGfest panel.
Ruby VS Maka was confirmed at ConBravo 2016.
Wiz VS Boomstick as the finale of DEATH BATTLE!, also confirmed at ConBravo 2016.
Mickey VS Bugs was confirmed in DEATH BATTLE Cast Episode #217.

Animators

Death Battle Animators
Sprite	Zack Watkins • Luis Cruz • S.K. Alam • Gus Espinal • Kervin Alcindor • Benny Landa • Min Kim • Neil Robertson • John Mitchell • Joshua Wright • Anh Thu Duong • Dyrique Hallman • OriginTheHero • Pierre McCauley • notoriouskog • Brandon Bent • CrazyChrisTyler • Jamix007
3D	Torrian Crawford • Jerome Rogers-Blake • Kristina Christofferson • David Fischer • Alex Carriles • Erika Soosaar • Nano Afrane • Vincent Cappelluti • Andrea Caprotti • Alyssa Lisiecki • Megan Pellino • Will Sherburne • DevilArtemis • David Herbert • David Roldan • Adele Kraus • Christina Ausmus • Matt Drury • Nicole LaCroix • Hannah McCravy • Joe Vick • Hannah Novotny • Peter Dang • Josh Omelas • Andrea Ratsos • Melanie Stern • Vito Ferber • Xander Farrell • Jose Rodriguez • Plake Snissken
2D	Blind Ferret (Nancy Choquette, Natasha Artemenova, Julie Savard, Eugen Balan) • Luis Cruz • Chris Bak • William Ball • Jordan Battle • Gil Calceta • Susie Combs • Abby Duel • Tanya Fetzer • Andrew Lhotsky • Quinn Weston
Live-Action	Ismahawk
Former	Ben Singer • Jordan Lange • Mali De'lisser • Eric Marte • Jawuan Hobbs • Aquila Harukaze • Donald Gagnon • Shaq Focus • Larry Hall • Da Vaughn Henderson Jr. • Chris Bastin

Gallery

Trivia

It's been stated that the series had been heavily inspired by the VS Battle Series and Deadliest Warrior.
- However, as the former show actually didn't put fighters against each other, Ben Singer decided to do an actual series with fully animated fight sequences.
The original series' name was going to be Who Would Win?, and the original first episode (done completely by Ben Singer) even used that title.
- However, it was later changed to the current name along with Chad James joining the show.
At RTX 2019, Death Battle: The Game, a card-and-dice game themed around the show featuring parodies of official combatants, was revealed to the public and became regularly available in the Rooster Teeth Store later in the same year.
Season 2 is the longest season, containing 32 episodes.
Season 3 is the shortest season, containing 14 episodes.
Season 5 is the first season to have a live-action battle.
Season 5 is the first season not to feature a Joke battle.
Currently, each season in Combatants by Series has featured at least one combatant from Marvel Comics and DC Comics.
Currently, each season in Combatants by Company has featured at least one combatant from Disney, Nintendo, Capcom, Warner Bros. Discovery, Hitotsubashi Group, and Sega
Season 7 is the first season where every fight has voice actors.
- It is also the first season not to have any aftermaths.