Bob vs Black Mage (Bob & George vs 8-Bit Theater) VS Prediction Blog

 

“All you wounded, those of you who can, pick yourselves off the ground! Hurry back! Tell your leader you need more men!” 

Bob, the fiery supervillain traveling the mega-multiverse from Bob and George
Black Mage, the wizard with final fantasies of genocide from 8-Bit Theater

Webcomics that act as retellings of your favorite video games have been around the internet for decades now, as it is a good way for fans to show their enjoyment of a game’s world while putting their own spin on it. And sometimes they’re not even done by people who have to draw, as you can simply grab some of their in-game sprites online and edit them a bit to make what’s known as a sprite comic. These two hail from some of the earliest examples of both, which inspired a slew of imitators and had their impact on the early fandom of their original series with their interpretations of their source material. 

Beyond those meta points, these two are some of their comic’s biggest villains, despite the fact they also happen to be one of the protagonists, and they tend to end up causing plenty of mass destruction because they like causing it. Because of this, their universes tend to place them into uncomfortable situations quite a bit, to the point where it wouldn’t be wholly inaccurate to suggest their worlds are literally built to make them suffer. And in spite of their attempts to take down the gods of their worlds due to this, they ultimately would end up just about where they started their adventures from, being stuck with a naive goody two shoes they hate the guts of. 

So, in this battle between the old guard of internet culture, will Bob burn this magical menace to the ground, or will Black Mage show him the true unbridled power of chaos? Let’s see.

Before We Begin

First off, I do not claim ownership of either of these comics, all credit goes to David Anez and Brian Clevinger. I am simply acting as a fan who enjoyed both comics a lot when I was younger and want to celebrate their works. 

Due to both of these series' status as unofficial fan works, this will not include any feats or scaling from the canon Mega Man or Final Fantasy series, as most of the canon characters that show up within the comics are pretty loose interpretations of their original counterparts. Otherwise, everything within their comics will be on the table, along with supporting material from other stuff like creator’s commentary, animations, guest comics, and brief crossovers with other obscure web media.

I will also add a disclaimer that I have some unavoidable gaps in my research. On the Bob and George side, the archive site has a few bits which seem to be lost to time, mainly in regards to the bonus panel “quips” which would start from here, and while there are some potentially interesting bits from those to bring up for VS (at least from what I remember from browsing them years ago), given at the time I’ve written this I have no way to show them, this will unfortunately have to be left unexplored. The site also no longer has the Cataclysm animations, but I was able to find youtube reuploads of them. As for 8-Bit Theater, this was made before the release of the annotated script version of the comic, but that one I’m not really intending to wait around for since A) the actual progress on it has been very sporadic, B) I missed my chance to sign up for the kickstarter to get access to it and don’t know if it will be available for purchase, nor do I personally know anyone who had taken the chance themselves, and C) by its nature, I’m a lot more doubtful something from this would end up changing the ultimate result here.

Finally, just as a general warning, both of these are web series from the early 2000s, which means they do have certain instances of dated jokes and language. I’ll do my best to not bring that up beyond linking to pages with that on it, I just feel like pointing that out for anyone interested in checking out these series for themselves. I’ll also add a general content warning for some crass language and instances of ludicrous blood and gore, though obviously nothing super explicit. And spoiler warning for both of these comics that ended over a decade ago.

Background

Bob

“You shall bow down to me! I am the destroyer of entire countries and civilizations! I also like to barbecue!”

Originally the son of a succubus and a human, Bob was a child who seemed destined for greatness of some sort, though maybe not as a hero. He was always a bit of a troublemaker, and as he grew up, he’d end up dabbling a bit into supervillainy on the side of his computer programming career. Eventually, he’d take to the streets as Napalm, a powerful supervillain aiming to get all to bow to his awesome pyrokinetic might. But to stop him was the hero Blitz, an electric themed superhero who acted as his nemesis. And when he wasn’t stopping crime, he’d be the mild mannered software engineering student George, who just so happened to be Bob’s older brother.

You might be wondering what the fuck any of this has to do with Mega Man, and that’s a little bit convoluted. Within the story, Bob had grown too powerful for his home universe, and in an attempt to find someone to take him down / get rid of him, George would draw him into a portal which would transport him to and trap him in another reality, which just so happened to one in which the Mega Man cast was real, if a bit more quirky personality wise. Out of universe, the comic itself started as a sprite comic starring the Mega Man cast as filler for a hand-drawn comic starring Bob & George in their own universe, but between the sprite comics being more popular with readers and the author’s drawing skill being a bit, uh, let’s say rocky, he decided to shift focus to the sprite comic and ended up incorporating Bob and George into the Mega Man universe. 

Anyways, after ending up in the Mega Man universe, Bob would immediately try to carry his super villainy to this new world, but ultimately he’d end up getting separated from George when he got tossed into another portal. This would end up taking him on a journey through various alternate universes, before ultimately reuniting with George on the heels of an alternate universe invader known as Mynd, who Bob had previously been captured by. The brothers would end up combining their power to defeat Mynd, only to end up stranded in time. After Bob came from the future to the past to get George during the events of the third game, and then returned to the present, he’d hang around for a bit, before a pokemon related incident led him to take to another universe.

This universe, as it turned out, was the Rock Man universe, which was a lot more like the canon Mega Man universe in terms of everyone’s personality. While he did initially not take to the idea of being there too well thanks to the author of the comic corrupting them into being more quirky, he’d eventually make a name for himself in that dimension, ending Dr Wily for good and bringing peace for a bit. However, this would end up coming to an end when a tussle with an alternate Mega Man and Bass led to his cannon misfiring, leading to a massive explosion which wiped out the main characters of that universe in an event known as the Cataclysm. This explosion would also end up blasting him back in time again, this time to around the time of the fifth game.

Bob would end up taking over Wily’s forces at the time, upgrading the new robot masters while mass producing the old ones in an attempt to take over the world. This was naturally a bit overwhelming for the Mega Man of that time, but fortunately versions of him and his future rival Bass from an alternate universe showed up to take on Bob instead, for reasons that are rather convoluted. To make that story short, ultimately Bob was defeated after the two summoned a giant meteor, which seemingly was enough to kill him. In reality though, he had ended up stuck in a subspace rift between dimensions, in which he was left alone with his thoughts for all eternity. Or well, he would be, if it weren’t for the magic illusionary version of Acapulco and the cast of Final Fantasy 7. 

Regardless, while he would be content in this new dimension, it wouldn’t be one to last, as Dr Wily would end up dragging him out of this dimension to help with some programming. Bob was initially livid to this, and even more so after the scientist tricked him into once again being sent to the past, this time ending up at the time of the 6th Mega Man game. He’d once again attempt to take over Dr Wily’s forces, but this time the doctor was prepared, and Bob ended up being forced to work with him on his plot. George would end up coming back in time to try and save / stop his brother, but was surprised to find Bob was actually content to try and keep the timeline intact. 

Unfortunately, George would make the mistake of saying Bob wasn’t such a bad guy as he thought, which ended up having the opposite effect on Bob. He’d end up infecting the Mega Man of that time with a virus that would make him go crazy and kill a bunch of people, and he intended to use George’s time machine to wreak indiscriminate havoc on the timeline. To stop him, George was forced to shock said suit, sending him adrift in the timeline once again. Lost out of time once again, Bob would end up wandering for an unknown period of time after the fact, seemingly gone for good.

It was at this unknown point that Bob would end up meeting with a mysterious entity known as the Helmeted Author. He’d give Bob an offer to help in a plot to take out the one that was really behind his constant pulling out of situations he liked, that being the Author of the comic itself. Bob would agree with this plan and ended up merging with the Helmeted Author, at which point the two would manipulate various villains from across the Mega Man timeline into kidnapping various instances of the Author, before trying to wipe out the comic itself by killing all of them at once. This plan would go well at first, but then through convoluted shenanigans, George would end up thwarting all 3 plots in their respective eras due to being caught in a random time loop like that one episode of Star Trek. 

After this, Bob would reveal himself in the present, and in a final gambit to try and tear down the comic, he would attempt to blow up all the heroes of that time himself. However, George had done his own author fusion, and he would end up stopping this plan by bringing in more heroes and ultimately blocking out Bob’s big attempt to kill them all. The two brothers would have a final confrontation on the roof, with Bob still dismissive of his brother, not believing he’d have the guts to really do something to stop him. He’d turn his back, and be proven wrong upon hearing a click coming from George’s buster cannon.

After some indignation from Bob, the Helmeted Author would end up leaving his fusion with Bob and freeing the actual Author, as the two had actually been having a bet on if George would be willing to kill Bob. And it was at this point that it was also revealed that the Author had only drawn the brothers into the Mega Man universe in the first place due to the two’s mother, who had wanted to toughen up George to the point where he’d be willing to take down Bob if he stepped too far, and hopefully straighten out Bob by making him aware of that fact. With this goal completed, she’d take the two back to their home dimension, leaving the Mega Man world behind to its upcoming future.

After this, things would go back to normal for the two. Both continued their respective paths in life, both professionally and in their super selves. Bob would end up proving to be successful in creating an internet company, but ultimately his life of supervillainy would catch up with him, as he ended up falling to a fight with other heroes. At least that’s what happened, but taking after the Mega Man cast doing so to dodge their own Cataclysm, he’d seemingly end up faking his death and going on vacation to Acapulco once again to avoid any time paradoxes. And then they lived happily ever after.

Black Mage

“I am the Black Mage! I casts the spells that makes the peoples fall down!”

You might know the story of the original Final Fantasy. From the kingdom of Cornelia, a band of 4 noble heroes would band together to save the princess Sara from the fallen knight Garland. These 4 heroes were known as the Warriors of Light, and were chosen by the 4 crystals which gave the world its life to act as grand heroes. They would go on a journey throughout the world, fighting many monsters, and would ultimately face Garland again, this time after he became the evil overlord Chaos. This simple story started one of the most influential JRPG series of all time, and even helped to save Square-Enix from bankruptcy.

Well, this is not that story. From the kingdom of Corenia, originally there was a duo of RPG adventurers, that being the idiotic if well meaning Fighter and the sociopathic master of magic Black Mage Evilwizardington (yes that is his actual name). Originally met when Fighter refused to leave Black Mage in spite of his clear distaste for him, the two had been on various wild goose chases adventures, and after learning of the fabled Warriors of Light, decided to form their own group to get money. He’d end up meeting the master scam artist and backstabber in both senses of the word Thief and the magic user with so much intelligence it wrapped around into insanity Red Mage, and reluctantly formed a party with them. He’d also have his first encounter with White Mage, his very unrequited object of affection.

They’d band together and bumble their way into beating Garland, who was far less menacing than his canon counterpart, before embarking on a loosely connected string of shenanigans somewhat resembling a quest. The warriors would eventually end up meeting a mysterious man known as Sarda, whom was an all powerful mage who tasked the warriors with finding the 4 Crystals, which were each guarded by a fiend and necessitated all sorts of shenanigans, during which Black Mage would end up doing things like performing genocide on a dwarven nation at least twice, getting killed by a lich before taking over Hell for a time, murdering at least two cults, repeatedly traumatizing some young child who liked onions, running a shoe shop, and getting crushed under the entirety of Australia. All of those things actually happen, and I will not give further context. 

In any case, after giving Sarda all of these orbs gained through various atrocities, the party would end up returning to where things began back in the castle Temple of Fiends. While there, amidst at least two other bands of idiots trying to fight them, the fiends would end up making a return to try and kill them. But Black Mage, thanks to an earlier confrontation with his sins made manifest ending with him killing and absorbing it rather than face character development, would end up unleashing his full power on the fiends, before attempting to take down his own party due to pent up frustration with their antics. But before he could finish the job, Sarda would make his move and reveal his true intention.

Remember that kid who kept getting traumatized that I mentioned? Well, turns out he was pretty important, as through convoluted time loop shenanigans, he’d end up growing up into Sarda, who ended up having quite a lot of disdain for the man he felt ruined his childhood and the party which inadvertently enabled it. As such, he’d ultimately try to kill the light warriors with the power of the crystals. While Black Mage did try to stop him by firing all of his new form’s energy into the mage, this new power-up meant that was a level of power Sarda just absorbed. Though as a stroke of luck, this turned out to be too much power for the mage to wield, and he’d end up getting possessed by an evil embodiment of chaos called, well, Chaos. 

While this was a bit of an improvement, their previous fight had left them very weakened for dealing with the final boss, which left things looking a bit hopeless for them. Even after a day of mustering whatever strength they could, this seemed to be one obstacle which they just couldn’t solve with wanton murder. Good for them then that White Mage got a party of 3 other White Mages to defeat him while they were busy, which is a strategy Black Mage himself had written off nearly 9 years and 1214 strips earlier. After unsuccessfully attempting to take the glory for themselves, the Light Warriors would end up going their separate ways. Ultimately, the comic ends on Fighter ready for yet another adventure, and Black Mage only sticking by him due to him being a good meatshield, as sometimes time is a circle which is why clocks are round, as a not so wise man once said. 

Intelligence & Skill

Bob

Bob is a pretty smart guy, with his skill mainly lying in regards to computer programming. He was able to look over 60 million lines of BASIC in 50 minutes, before condensing it down to 5000 lines of Assembly, which as the commentary below that link breaks down, is a ridiculously absurd feat of coding. He was able to type up a program in a couple seconds to do something Wily claimed would take him 30 years, and he casually fixed some issues in the code of Mega Man X, which he also used as a template to write basically all of Zero’s code in a night. And he was able to infect Mega Man with a virus that took the form of a program called Vic inside his head, who was able to make Mega Man go crazy and try to destroy everyone and kept himself hidden inside Mega Man for years after the fact. After the events of the series, he’d go on to create a massively successful computer company, whose operating system managed to dethrone Microsoft Windows as the most used operating system in the world.

Beyond that though, he’s also a skilled fighter. He’s had his abilities since he was very young, and he was a successful supervillain for some time before his time in the Mega Man universe. He was able to keep up with most of the Mega Man cast, who all show plenty of skill in defeating various evil robots, and he was able to keep up with Alternate Mega Man and Bass, who are both super geniuses who were able to invent time travel and hold discussions over complex physics. He managed to make a plan to kill the Author by capturing him in 3 different time periods and trying to kill them all simultaneously, and he was able to take over Dr Wily’s army for his own ends at least twice. And during his stint taking over the events of the fifth game, he had upgraded that generation of Robot Masters to be far more deadly and skilled in a fight, with notable examples being Gravity Man being able to make a quasi-black hole, Crystal Man being able to view an absurd amount of futures at once, and Stone Man being able to trick Alternate Mega Man into lowering his guard by pretending to be incompetent.

Black Mage

Despite being surprisingly young apparently (though that may just be a gag), Black Mage is a bit of a genius when it comes to magic. He’s shown knowledge of summoning, theoretical magic such as Blue Magic, and he generally is seen as one of the stronger mages of the setting power wise. Beyond that, in terms of a fight, well, he tends to mainly stick to just mindless carnage or blowing up his opponent with his most powerful spell, he has had moments of showing him to be rather skilled. He managed to murder a group of cultists on his own, has regularly easily taken on city guards, took on a bunch of monsters on his own, and he was able to contribute to the defeat of Sarda in a gambit with Red Mage, which indirectly led to his defeat. He also tricked a manifestation of all his flaws which was just him into getting more and more evil, before tricking it into turning its back on him by pretending to stab himself, at which point he ended up killing it and absorbed its power for himself. He was able to stalemate Fighter, who despite his idiocy, has still shown himself to be an incredibly skilled fighter (heh).

Equipment

Bob

Suit

(Recolor done by me 11 years ago)

Bob’s armor was originally designed to look like Proto Man, only for it to be burned to its grey form due to being blasted by Proto Man. The armor itself offers a decent amount of protection, and the helmet is equipped with scanners that gives him the ability to adjust to view objects hidden from normal sight, along with other processors as mentioned in the commentary for the above link, such as Night Vision. It’s also a decent improvised weapon.

Plasma Blaster

This is an arm cannon given to him from his mother, which can shoot energy much like the other cannons found throughout the Mega Man universe. It’s capable of charging to increase its power, and it has 499 different ways to blast the shit out of something. His cannon misfiring was powerful enough to cause a city wide explosion which wiped out the Rock Man universe’s cast, and while this level of power was enough to damage the cannon into non-functionality, that still stands as a testament to how powerful it can get.

Additionally, during a crossover with a series called FARTS, Bob used the cannon to blow away Dark Macc. Which was interesting as usually he and Macc are able to feel both of their pains simultaneously, and yet in this instance Macc was fine. Neither side of the crossover really brought up an explanation to this, as mentioned in the commentary here, so I'm taking that to mean Bob’s cannon is also able to bypass certain abilities such as that. Or it’s just a plot hole, but it’s kind of a niche factor regardless

Also he can retract it and summon it with a cool effect, which is a very crucial detail.

Plastic-Wrap Shielding

Another gift from his mom, this is an energy shield which is able to absorb any attack which hits it. It’s mainly been shown dispersing energy blasts, but it has protected from more physical blows like psionic crushing. Though it’s not a perfect defense, as the author’s commentary suggested that the shielding needs you to be aware of a threat to activate it, and a strong enough blow can drain through its batteries.

Shield

As he is a Proto Man recolor, he also carries his own version of Proto Man’s shield. Though he didn’t really use it too much, other shields like it were able to protect from his flames, meaning it’s durability should be comparable to his own power.

Trans-dimensional Portal Gun

Gotten from alternate versions of Mega Man and Bass who were geniuses, this is a gadget attached to his cannon which can shoot out portals to other dimensions. While he initially couldn’t quite control where he ends up due to the gun being set to random, the commentary for that mentions he later upgraded it for him to use it freely. 

It was also later upgraded with the ability to send portals that let him go through time, which he got as an upgrade from them, as mentioned here.

 Instant Robot Maker

During the course of the fifth game’s storyline, Bob had control over many of Dr Wily’s resources, most notably with this device. While initially it was only able to replicate basic minion bots due to hardware restraints, Bob upgraded it to be able to replicate the more complicated Robot Masters, which he had done en masse, though they were less durable than their original counterparts. Their total number was later noted to be 2.75 million. He later utilized the same technology in the final arc to do much the same, though he had upgraded it to make full power Robot Masters. 

Grill

Piccolo, eat your heart out.

Black Mage

Knives

Black Mage’s weapon of choice when not using his magic, these are sharp metal blades made for cutting, stabbing, slashing, and generally maiming things. While he tends to stick to one or two at a time when striking, he has shown to have a rather large supply of them.

Nintendo Power Magazine

He has one which he was going to use to figure out a strategy, but wrote off its advice of using a party of white mages as useless and promptly forgot about it for most of the comic. The joke, however, was on him.

Staff-Chucks

A Christmas gift from Fighter, these are magical staffs fashioned into nunchucks which unleash a massive bout of destructive magic when spun.

Amnesia Powder*

*is actually just gunpowder

Abilities

Bob

Fire Manipulation

As you may expect from his super villain moniker, Bob is rather skilled in the use of fire, thanks to his literal demonic heritage. He tends to stick to firing blasts, but he’s also been shown to be able to light his hair on fire, create explosions, directly light people on fire, form barriers around himself for defense or around others for offense, and many other things. The flames can also burn hot enough to melt concrete, meaning it has to be over 1200 degrees celsius. Also he can fly while using them.

These blasts have been noted to be magical in nature, as seen in the commentary here, and the commentary here mentions that due to this, their powers don't need an energy source like food to keep going.

Fourth Wall Awareness

The comic generally has a practically non existent 4th wall, to the point where the author himself is a recurring character. Characters have looked directly at the audience, mention reading the comic, recognised the use of fancy fonts, pulled up strategy guides, acknowledged when they were breaking continuity, recognized when readers started reading events they were in, realized when sprites weren’t ambidextrous, and plenty of other things.

Teleporting

Bob has shown the ability to do the standard Mega Man “teleport from the sky” thing, possibly due to his suit. He’s also done a more fire based version of it as well.

Title Character Immortality

By virtue of being one of the guys in the title of the comic, Bob is unable to die, as whenever there is a situation where they should have died, something convoluted happens to prevent it. And yes, this is an actual ability he and George have in universe, as George has exploited it several times, and earlier Mega Man had tried to unsuccessfully exploit it himself. Bob himself seems to have used it to escape the meteor that blew up his base, as he was instead sent to a pocket dimension for convoluted reasons. Though this rule isn’t a complete defense, as being able to manipulate reality to change the title like an author can let you bypass it. 

Wind Manipulation

While in 32 bits, he can make his scarf float in the wind because he’s cool. Very useful. 

Resistances

• Fire Manipulation - Has regularly been fine being at the center of his various fire blasts, and it was noted he’d be unaffected by a standard explosion.

• Ice Manipulation - Got completely frozen solid and managed to break out offscreen via an explosion

• Limited Electricity Manipulation - George’s electric powers are ineffective on him, though that's more due to how their powers work.

Black Mage

Hadoken

Black Mage’s favorite spell, which is a massive energy blast which always leaves a massive mushroom cloud, implying it is a literal nuke in terms of potency. Black Mage was able to gain access to it by sacrificing 9 orphan childs to an ancient god. And the spell itself is powered by love. Not his own, but rather, it drains some of the love in the universe, causing the divorce rate to go up each time he uses it. While it is certainly powerful, it is also his most limited spell, as he can only use it once a day before needing to wait for it to recharge. And his accuracy has occasionally left something to be desired.

Also yes he calls it a Hadoken despite the fact it takes the form of a more concentrated beam like a Kamehameha rather than the brief energy blast of the actual Hadoken. It bothers me too.

Electricity Manipulation

BM has shown skill in sending out electricity based spells, being able to use both Bolt-2 and Bolt-3 to fry enemies. He’s also been shown to be able to infuse his weapons with electricity and call down lightning from the sky.

Fire Manipulation

He’s also shown aptitude in casting fire spells, to the point where he once managed to make it so a city burned just the homes and children somehow.

Eye Beams

He can shoot lasers from his eyes, which were strong enough to instantly ignite a town. Red Mage claimed he didn’t have it in the above instance, but joke’s on him since BM showed them off beforehand.

Meteor

He’s also able to summon rocks from space which rain down and destroy things. Whether that be in the form of a bunch of smaller rocks or one big rock.

Blue Magic

A fabled ancient form of magic, which Black Mage was granted access to by one of his patron dark gods after getting a class change. By surviving a specific magical technique, Black Mage can then use his own version of it for himself. Some of the techniques he copied using this include:

• Goblin Punch - Not really a punch so much as a kick, and not really gained from anything resembling a goblin, this is an attack to an opponent’s nuts which can apparently cause atomic blasts.

• Spell which makes Black Mage puke his guts out - A spell copied from the almighty wizard Sarda, which did exactly what it says. In Black Mage’s words, “When Sarda casts a spell to hurt you and you learn it, you learn a spell that hurts you”

• Spell which rewrites reality according to Sarda’s whim - Another spell copied from Sarda which can rewrite reality, but only to the will of Sarda. Which means it’s pretty much useless when Black Mage uses it. See above quote.

And that’s it.

…yeah turns out it really wasn’t as useful as it might seem.

Madness Manipulation

The hat BM wears does more than just look cool, as it also acts as a way to help block out his true face. If someone were to view it unobstructed, they would end up immediately falling into a catatonic state of madness that is impossible to detect, and is so potent that afterwards their mind would block out the event due to trauma. 

Petrification

By using Stone, Black Mage is able to petrify a foe into, well, stone. He did so to avoid any possible temporal paradoxes which could arise from having two Black Belts in the same timeline. And also probably because he felt like it.  

Hypnovision

He can use this ability to make people more susceptible to his influence, though it can be reflected if it hits a reflective surface.

Necromancy

Black Mage has defiled the natural order of things in ways beyond just genocide. While the above instance was from a possibly non-canon guest comic in which he was actually using White Magic that had gone horribly wrong, he later showed the ability to create a dozen zombies, which were able to toss away a stone that was in his way and crushed a bunch of innocent villagers.

Feather Fall

Seemingly his one spell that isn’t explicitly designed to inflict horrible agony on something, this is a spell he can cast on himself to make himself fall slower, therefore preventing injuries from falling down a long way. Can also be used to imitate dramatic dives.

Possible/Limited Teleportation

This is a bit of a weird case, given there was a time where he was able to “teleport” over to an iceberg to stab it a bit. But he’s also claimed to have been unable to teleport as well, which seems to suggest that maybe he’s only able to teleport when using this specific knife technique? Or it’s just another plot hole to ignore.  

4th Wall Awareness

8 Bit Theater has also had many instances of people being able to see past the fourth wall. They have written guest comics themselves, recognised different sprite levels, recognised when something was anachronistic to the time period, responded to viewer questions, winked directly to the audience, and other things.

Bad Puns

One time he made a joke that was apparently so bad that Astos, the guy he was talking to, immediately died. Yes, that is the actual explanation for that.

Resistances

• Fire Manipulation - Has been nonplussed at being completely covered in flames.

• Extreme Conditions - Was able to walk around a volcano-based dungeon fine. Could walk around on a continent that had temperatures of “about a thousand degrees below zero", though he did eventually get knocked out from hypothermia. Has also survived the pressure of being deep underwater, though he did still need air

• Extreme Pain - Survived having his organs leave his body due to the aforementioned ocean pressure

• Possible Atomic Manipulation - Has been hurt down to the molecule, though given Sarda explicitly states he was the one to keep them alive, it’s likely this isn’t a natural feat of durability

Assistance

Bob

Angel & Devil Bob

These two are the standard “angel & devil on your shoulder” trope, but a bit different since they are literally separate beings who can come and go. They are capable of acting as inner helpers to help explain things to him and form strategies. They are capable of stopping time to help with the explanation, and can conjure food and tactile illusions.

Black Mage

“Darko, the Dark God of the Dark”

One of the many Dark Gods Black Mage has pledged himself to, who is the executive assistant to Chaos and just so happens to take the form of Magus from Chrono Trigger. He’s been able to grant Black Mage power, and has enough power to seemingly affect the whole universe. While he mainly has appeared handling Black Mage’s soul after death, he’s also shown the ability to manifest to Black Mage while he was still on the mortal plane, as seen above. 

While this is all impressive, Darko’s job is mainly to ensure that whenever Black Mage dies, he ends up coming back to life a bit later. This is because, after Black Mage’s first death in which he went to hell and took over, literally all of hell would rather he not return, as if he were to, he’d likely take control of it once again and wreak havoc on the universe. Yes, Black Mage is so evil that Hell itself is trying to keep him out. 

(Also while the repetitive name above was something that in context Black Mage seemed to have made up on the spot due to not knowing it, he’s also never referred to as anything besides that, so I’ll have to stick to using it)

Forms

Bob

Author Fusion

(Bob is me when I remembered this form has no cool change to his appearance)

In the final arc of the series, after George sent him to an unknown point in the timeline, Bob met with the Helmeted Author (more on him later), and the two ended up teaming up to try and kill the Author and end the universe/comic. At least Bob was, the HA just was interested in winning a bet. During this point, the two ended up merging together, and while the exact specifics of this merging and how much of a boost in power he gained is a bit hard to gauge, given George was able to get access to some powers of an author from his own fusion, it would stand to reason that at that point Bob would have access to some of the abilities that the Helmeted Author has shown, even if he never directly used them. 

• Darkness Manipulation - His presence was able to create darkness. Can manifest a dark aura version of himself, and make it grow in size

• Barrier Creation - Can create force fields which slowly shrink, while vaporizing anything that touches them.

• Absorption - While disguised as Mega Man, absorbed and redirected a blast from Dr Light’s mech. His shields are also shown to do this.

• Intangibility - Was able to phase through one of Proto Man’s shots

• Depowering - Was able to revert George from his powered up form

• Death Manipulation - Made it so a jar would instantly kill anyone who touched it, though it doesn’t work on immortals as explained in the commentary here

• Existence Erasure - He was able to delete Mega Man from existence, which the Author explicitly needed to reverse.

• Petrification - His power being released was able to turn Nate into stone 

• Plot Manipulation / Reality Warping - Being an author, he’s able to effect to flow of the comic’s narrative

• Immortality Negation - Was able to make it so George would end up dying in spite of his title character immortality

It is admittedly a little questionable if this form could be seen as a standard “peak form”, as it is directly only possible due to the intervention of a third party, and the context for how the fusion was accomplished is unknown, so it’s unclear if he can use it in order to power up mid fight. That being said, Helmut had explicitly teamed up with Bob for the fusion, and he is capable of going through dimensions to find people, so I do feel it would be hypothetically possible for him to recreate the circumstances of this.  

Black Mage

Hell Master Form

When Black Mage ended up killed by the Lich, he naturally ended up in hell. Rather than accept endless torment, he’d end up taking control of the underworld and gaining great power in the process, so much so literally the entire world feared his presence. While he did ultimately lose access to these abilities, the fact that there were active measures put into place to prevent him from regaining control of Hell suggests that, should his spirit end up damned in spite of these precautions, he’d quickly regain control of Hell and this form once again.

• Dimensional Travel/BFR - Came up from Hell, before promptly sending the Lich there

• Conceptual Manipulation - Claimed to be able to effect the fabric of the universe, and made it so mortal laws would no longer apply to him

• Spiritual Physicality / Immortality - Acted as a spirit, and should his physical body be inaccessible, has no way to be stopped by mortal means

• Enhanced Senses - Mentions having an expanded consciousness and 8 extra senses in that form

Evil Form

In the Castle of Ordeals, Black Mage ended up coming face to face with the embodiment of his inner demons, with that being, well, himself. After getting it even more evil and powerful, he ended up killing it and ultimately absorbed its evil energy. While the results of this weren't shown for a while, eventually he’d unleash its full power. Beyond giving him an absurd boost in power, this form gives him access to several other abilities:

• Darkness Manipulation - Can summon tendrils made of darkness to kill foes

• Absorption - After defeating the 4 Fiends, he was able to absorb their hatred for himself

Feats

Bob

Overall

• Feared super villain in his home dimension

• Caused the Cataclysm in the Rock Man universe

• Hijacked the plots of the fifth and sixth Mega Man games

• Stated to be a danger to the entire multiverse if left unchecked

• Defeated Mega Man, the Doc Robots, Dark Man, Mynd, and the Cids

Power

• Caused this explosion, which just blew up a building

• Claimed to have enough firepower to destroy Texas

• Blew up a bunch of Cids

• His charged up cannon could destroy Mynd’s lair and cause a large explosion (0.247 tons)

• Knocked out Mike in a single kick, by tossing his shield at him, and by tossing his helmet at him.

• Commentary here states he may have destroyed some small African countries

• With help from George, created an attack which took out Mynd (shot of the aftermath)

• Blew up the Yellow Devil and the other MM3 fortress guardians offscreen

• Blew up 7 Doc Robots offscreen,

• Mega Man burnt his system out defeating one on his own

• Killed the Rock Man universe versions of Mega Man, Roll, and Dr Light while destroying their lab

• One shot an evil clone version of Rock Man

• Blew up a Wily Base (2.45 tons of TNT), which is later stated to have been completely vaporized

• His cannon misfiring caused a citywide explosion, which wiped out the main cast of the Rock Man universe as it’s Cataclysm 

• Blew up Dark Man

• Evaporated a massive amount of water

• Blasted this huge asteroid hard enough to vaporize it, along with another Wily Fortress (5.09 megatons)

• It was stated this asteroid could potentially destroy the world

• Shot of the aftermath crater, along with vaporization statement

• Let off so much heat a room he was in started to melt

• Knocked out George in one punch

• While powered up by the Helmeted Author:

• Stated he was going to destroy the entire universe

• Has enough energy to create a supernova, which was stated to be able to destroy the solar system

Speed

• Caught a Shadow Blade from Shadow Man

• Could overview 60 million lines of BASIC in 50 minutes, before condensing it down to 5000 lines of Assembly

• Is a pretty fast typer

• Deflected laser blasts from Alternate Mega Man and Bass

• Flew as fast as Alternate Bass while he was moving at mach speeds

• Has kept up with George’s flight speeds

Durability

• His shielding has let him tank Proto Man and Mega Man’s buster shots.

• Got smacked away by Nate

• Survived a slice from Mynd which burst through his shield

• Barely survived being at the center of Mynd’s base exploding (0.247 tons)

• Endured being punched in the kidney

• Got drop kicked by Rock Man

• Survived the explosion which wiped out the Rock Man universe, with it instead sending him to another dimension and time 

• While it’s possible his survival was more due to being transported away, given he states his cannon got damaged by this same blast, logically he should have survived a portion of it himself

• While powered up by the Helmeted Author:

• Got beat up by Non-Alternate Mike using a bunch of Street Fighter moves

• Defended from a bunch of attacks at once 

Black Mage

Overall

• Has blown up a lot of civilizations and murdered a lot of people

• Is apparently a living Nexus of Chaos energy

• Took control of Hell

• Absorbed his evil self’s evil energy to make himself powerful

• Has defeated the 4 Fiends, Fighter, Thief, and technically Sarda

Power

• Can send Fighter flying a significant distance

• Beat up an old man to the point where his hip broke offscreen

• Stabbed two guards to death rather violently

• Hadoken is consistently depicted as leaving a mushroom cloud explosion, implying it has similar output to a nuke (15 Kilotons - 50 Megatons)

• Blew up a forest (11.82 - 79.70 Tons of TNT)

• Tried to kill a bee 

• Used it to accelerate a boat to 438 mph, and also blow up wherever Bikke was

• Blew up a castle

• Blew up an obstacle course which contained 400 trials

• After charging up for a bit, a Hadoken which missed proceeded to make impact with a planet and seemingly recreate KT Extinction event (100 teratons)

• Said attack was originally intended to explode a volcano

• Created this crater

• Blew up a barge

• Blew up their airship

• Red Mage imitating the spell blew apart a hillside

• Blew up another town

• Blew up yet another town

• Claimed to be able to collapse the universe into a single point

• Could hold on to whatever this thing is (I think it’s a rocket?)

• Blew up France (based)

• Stabbed down Thief, Red Mage, and Fighter all at once

• Burned a whole bunch of dwarven cities to the ground

• Staff Chucks could burn a forest, change the color of the sky, and create a storm.

• Dropped a F-Bomb that was heard from far away

• Murdered a guy hard enough to leave his spine sticking out

• Blew up a bunch of icebergs with various spells, and stabbed one so hard it exploded (0.103 tons of TNT)

• Summoned meteors which blew up an entire kingdom

• Goblin Punch could create a nuclear blast

• With Thief and Red Mage, destroyed a town in an “orgy of violence”

• Murdered a whole bunch of guards

• Summoned this huge-ass meteor

• Decapitated a guy with a stab

• In evil form:

• Easily killed the 4 Fiends

• Critically injured White Mage unintentionally in one strike

• Killed Fighter with a single blast to the back of the head

• Casually killed Thief

• Charged up Hadoken was able to blow up yet another random town

• In a blast where he channeled all of his absorbed evil into one attack, hit Sarda with a massive blast that destroyed the Temple of Fiends, which Sarda later states could have killed him in base.

Speed

• Can run fast enough to leave a trail of fire

• Put on Fighter’s armor fast enough to look like a blur

• Stabbed two dwarves to death mid charge

• His Hadoken could accelerate a boat to 438 mph (Mach 0.57)

• His charged Hadoken was fast enough to hit a planet in the same orbit as the planet he was on but on the other end of the sun (16.75 c)

• Able to walk around a void where time was meaningless

• Can maneuver Gold Chocobos, which can run on water 

• One was also able to go to the moon

• Went around the world over the course of a montage

• Perceived the data sphere enough to find it empty

• In evil form:

• Blitzed the 4 Fiends before they could react

Durability

• Was near a blast that blew up a forest

• Got repeatedly knocked away by White Mage

• Survived directly being in the blast of his Hadoken

• Got smashed by a giant hard enough to embed in the ground

• Got smacked by White Mage hard enough to ignite before getting blasted away by a monster exploding

• Was in a ship that launched into the air after being crashed into by a giant falling from sub-orbit

• Blasted away from an airship crash, before getting crushed by a giant yet again

• Got stabbed by Thief’s Law Ninja

• Exploded a zombie hard enough to get sent flying through mountains

• Got crushed under the flying airship/death trap, got crushed under its door, and was stuck to the front of it as it flew

• Got slaughtered by a bunch of monsters

• Survived a volcano eruption

• Survived the destruction of a dead universe (explanation for what happened)

• Repeatedly slammed by a door

• Walked around for a bit with his arm cut off and bleeding excessively 

• Smashed into a tower hard enough to collapse it

• Blasted out of cannon, before getting stabbed down to the ground

• Got crushed under the entirety of Australia getting dropped on him

• Survived a floating castle exploding

• Got stabbed through the throat by Dragoon’s lance

• Survived getting caught in the crossfire of Fighter’s Glorious Chainsaw method

• Survived being caught in the blast of Sarda turning into Chaos

• In evil form:

• No sold a back stab from Thief

• Survived an explosion from Sarda

• Survived a blast caused by all of his evil energy being unleashed at once, which destroyed the Temple of Fiends and could have killed Base Sarda

Scaling

Bob

George

Bob’s brother, superhero nemesis, wielder of electricity, and the other titular character of the comic. Initially Bob was above George until he trained his powers, as mentioned in the commentary here, and George would eventually prove to be an equal to him by the end of the series. This means Bob would certainly be on par with many of George’s feats at his best.

• Can create and absorb cloud to ground lightning

• His alternate self survived getting his eyes gouged out by Beat

• Was fine after hanging on a chain for a long time, as noted on the commentary 

• Blew up a Wily Fortress

• Blew up a Wily Fortress again, this time in a way similar to Bob’s vaporization

• Sent out enough energy to overload Helmut’s shields

• Survived a crash landing hard enough to cause an explosion (second page)

• Was able to manipulate clouds into launching lightning that mass electrocuted an army of ninjas

• Can turn himself into and maneuver as electricity (approximately the Speed of Light)

• Survived being blinded hard enough to make his eyes bleed

• One shot a fusion of Nate and Chadling which was possessed by Mega Man

• Survived getting his eye stabbed with a screwdriver

• Shocked a whole lot of ninjas

• Shocked an even larger group of ninjas

• While powered up by the Shadowy Author, blocked the destruction of Bob’s supernova

Mega Man

The titular blue bomber of the Mega Man series, who in this story is a bit of an idiot due to some faulty programming. Not only do later stories show George as a relative equal with Mega Man, but during the arc where the two came to the Mega Man universe, Bob was able to easily repeatedly defeat Rock. And that’s before mentioning all the later cases of him being superior to other Mega Man characters. So yeah, Bob is definitely superior to Mega Man.

• Survived the explosion of his own Mega Buster overcharging

• Blew up the Yellow Devil in one shot

• Got launched away into the distance by the Yellow Devil

• Got crushed by Guts Man’s blocks

• Survived this massive explosion caused by Bomb Man’s bombs

• Can run fast enough to appear as a blur

• Survived getting blown back by Heat Man being full of Crash Bombs which detonated (0.117 tons)

• Got smacked by a giant robot snake

• Survived being blasted in the face by Proto Man

• Got sprayed with bug spray, stabbed in the eye, shocked by George, and shot in the face again, this time by Bass

• Got smacked in the eye by Ran’s hammer, burned by Bob, poked by Nate, and shot in the face by Proto Man again

• Survived a close range nuclear bomb (15 Kilotons - 50 Megatons)

• Survived having his body be crushed by Gamma, then by giant Eddie

• Survived being in close proximity to a firecracker which used a nuke stock image 

• Was able to hold back a bunch of Robot Masters, before blasting them back

• A full power blast from his buster could blast a hole directly through a literal pile of Robot Masters (57.71 kilotons)

• After becoming a big hulking robot and absorbing a bunch of Ran’s Cossack Busters, created this massive explosion which wiped out all of the copied Robot Master horde 

• Casually blasted open 2 feet deep steel doors

• Got crashed into by a train

• Barely survived Mr X’s fortress exploding hard enough to vaporize two other robots

• His alternate self:

• Alternate Mega Man and Bass survived the Cataclysm of the Rock Man universe

• They could survive the forces of a quasi black hole and ultimately counter it, along with claiming to use mini black holes as toilets

• The two were able to call down this meteor 

Proto Man

A prototype of Mega Man, which would essentially make him his older brother, and who tends to  be one of the straight men of the comic. When Bob first showed up disguised as Proto Man, the two got in a tussle where Blues initially won, but later confrontations would show Bob to be his superior, meaning he should likely scale to his feats as well.

• Ran across town in several seconds

• Can blast holes in a big crowd of copied Robot Masters

• Survived being electrocuted by a Met in a faulty holodeck, which was strong enough to leave him smoking

• His fight with X caused an explosion strong enough to shake Dr Light’s lab 

Mynd

An evil overlord from another reality, Mynd is a semi-recurring villain who pops up at a few points. And when Bob originally ended up in said universe, the two fought on equal terms, meaning Bob is certainly capable of doing what he can do.

• Sliced Proto Man’s shield in half

• Deflected multiple blasts from Proto Man

• Sliced Mega Man in half in a single strike

• Took down Super Bass, Proto Man, and Roll in a single strike each

• Was shown to be equals with his counterpart Non-Alternate Mynd

• Sliced Mega Man in half while moving as a blur

• Could intercept a bunch of missiles being fired at him

The Authors

First off, no this is not trying to power scale David Anez, the actual IRL person behind the comic. This is just discussing his in-universe persona, since as previously mentioned, the author is a recurring character within the series. He was actually one of the first times a webcomic did something like that, and I believe is the first instance of someone making an OC a recolor of a pre-existing character’s sprite.

To break down in more detail how anyone would scale to him, while the main Author clearly demonstrate a lot of seemingly omnipotence over the characters within the webcomic, which has also been brought up in commentary, plenty of characters within the series has also shown the characters within being able to prove a threat to him, implying they could end up scaling to him without boosting through fusion forms. That being said, this is rather inconsistent, given he’s also pretty commonly pointed out in commentary to be far too strong for any conflict to really arise, so these instances may be more down to Plot Induced Stupidity or something similar.

As for the other two, on the left is the Helmeted Author, aka Helmut, aka Fistandantilus. Helmut was an evil author from another dimension who had been a villain for a chunk of the series, and after a final battle, the main author ultimately defeated him rather easily (see the last two pages on that link). This is the main reason I feel it’d be questionable to fully scale Bob to the main author even at his full power when merged with Helmut, since he’s still implied to be inferior to the main author, but it should still be likely he downscales a bit.

As for the guy on the right, that’s the Shadowy Author. He’s a mysterious figure throughout most of the comic whose seemingly meant to be the overwatcher of the Rock Man universes, but the epilogue of the comic revealed he’s meant to be a future version of the Author himself, who had turned that way due to watching the Mega Man cast die in the Cataclysm (more specific explanation of said events are in the commentary here). At least in a universe where everyone didn’t fake their deaths and go to Acapulco.

• The Main Author:

• His mind is directly tied to the comic itself, and him having a breakdown was able to make the comic break down.

• His fight with Helmut was enough to temporarily destroy the comic

• Powered up Ran’s Cossack Buster to let him do this (explanation of the events in the commentary here)

• The Helmeted Author

• In a weaker disguised/sealed form:

• Tossed Mini-Rick hard enough to explode several robots

• Blew up a simulated Yellow Devil

• Survived getting blown up by Proto Man’s mech while merged with Nate

• At full power:

• Repeatedly claimed to be able to destroy a universe

• This was clarified to be literal

• The Shadowy Author

• Reset the Rock Man universe after Bob killed a bunch of people

Misc Other Characters

• Elec Man can maneuver as a bolt of lighting (Mach 1282.79)

• Mike survived falling down a cliff, which shattered most of his bones

• Dr Light survived his mech exploding after a disguised Helmut redirected a blast 

• Skull Man’s shield can survive nuclear bombs 

• Dive Man could blow up a large base entrance

• Toad Man charged into one of Wily’s mechs hard enough to make it explode on impact

• Mega Man, Bass, Roll, Mike, and Chadling were able to dig enough holes to make a canyon in a couple hours

• Gravity Man could attract enough gravity to make a quasi-black hole

• Ran’s Cossack Buster self destructing could create a big explosion, and later uses of it showed it being able to output similar blasts

• A group of cloned Fire Men were able to keep this massive fire lit

• Crystal Man was able to perceive the future in 224036583 universes (Incalculable, see Before the Verdict)

• Dr Light can run faster than Mega Man X somehow

• X could dodge lightning from George

• Dr Light apparently has a black hole generator lying around

• Gravity Man was able to send Hard Man into orbit by reversing gravity on him

• Captain Kinesis could react to George’s flight speed and knock people into the next country

• Mike could swing his fists fast enough to act as a shield against Bob’s fire

• Ran was able to fire this blast after being empowered by the Author, which Zero survived (explanation of the events in the commentary here)

Black Mage

Fighter

Black Mage’s main “best friend”, he is a strong warrior who excels in skill with all forms of swordsmanship, and not a lot else. Especially intelligence. Fighter has repeatedly been shown to be on par with the other Light Warriors, and Black Mage at his peak has been shown to be able to take all of them on, meaning he should scale to his feats.

• Has regularly shrugged off getting stabbed by Black Mage

• Wrecked a cave wall

• Unharmed by falling 10000 feet

• Can parry 8 sword strikes at once

• Threw a sword at a giant hard enough to kill it in one strike

• Attached a cow to a wooden post and swung it like a club

• Can carry crates on his own which require Red Mage and Thief working together to carry

• Survived looking at the information of the Data-Sphere. 

• Possibly so fast he can be in multiple places at once

• Black Mage himself said he could block all of his attacks

Red Mage

The other main spellcaster of the group, Red Mage is a “munchkin” whose skill in magic and stat allocation somewhat makes up for his strange amount of logic in plans. Red Mage has repeatedly been shown to be on par with the other Light Warriors, and Black Mage at his peak has been shown to be able to take all of them on, meaning he should scale to his feats…

Wait a second-

• Froze a dragon

• Capable of casting Ice-9, which he claimed is able to completely freeze the entire universe, and was able to use to freeze the inside of Thief’s bag of infinite holding

• Literally logic bombed a dinosaur

• Absorbed all the knowledge of the data-sphere, which is a six hundred and twelve dimensional matrix consisting of plans on how to kill everything that ever will exist (Incalculable, see Before the Verdict)

• Implied to be able to match BM’s Evil Form

• Cast all the spells in existence on Sarda in an attempt to distract him

Thief

The last main member of the Light Warriors, who isn’t quite as skilled in combat, but makes up for it in other areas by being a cunning criminal master of manipulation and fine print. Thief has repeatedly been shown to be on par with the other Light Warriors, and Black Mage at his peak has been-

Yeah I think you get the point.

• Stole the clothes off Fighter before he could realize

• Was fine after getting an axe stuck in his head

• Threw Red Mage across a river of lava

• Threw the party up to a castle in the clouds

• Got smacked around by a dragon

• Somehow stole his own class change from his future self

White Mage

Black Mage’s incredibly unrequited love interest, who’s probably the most moral character in the comic. Her status as a healer does mean her skill in combat doesn’t pop up as much, but Black Mage being able to survive beatings from her and the fact he was able to critically injure her on accident when he was in his strongest form should mean he’s likely comparable to her own strength as a fighter.

• When sent to the start of time, survived the Big Bang

• Survived a tidal wave which flooded a whole town

• With help from 3 other white mages, defeated Chaos by blasting him with holy magic

Sarda

Originally just a random guy living in a cave from the original game, in the comic’s continuity he is basically god and ultimately becomes the big villain of the entire series. He was apparently the one which created the world, regularly screws around with it, and much of the standard RPG weirdness is attributed to him being the wizard who did it. 

Now for much of the comic, Sarda is pretty unquestionably the top dog, with Black Mage in particular suffering all sorts of slapstick from him for reasons that are a bit convoluted. However, near the end of the series, Black Mage was able to hit Sarda with his full power, mainly due to Red Mage distracting him, and while Sarda did survive it, he himself states that level of power could have taken him down if he hadn’t absorbed the power of crystals, which is backed up by this being Red Mage’s plan to destroy him being based on the data-sphere's information on how to kill him, which is later stated to have not been accounting for this later power up. This implies that at his peak, Black Mage could compete with Sarda’s normal level of power for most of the series.

• Regularly referred to as an “Omnipotent Jackass”

• Possibly slowed down the Earth’s rotation to make days 24 hours instead of 36

• Stopped time for over 700 years

• Held everything in part of a universe still except for Black Mage, which displaced him hard enough to tear apart his molecules, kept him alive through that, and inadvertently caused another planet to explode into a supernova

• Presumably either created the entire continent of Australia or lifted it with his powers just to drop it on Black Mage

Misc Other Characters

• Garland survived a beating from Black Belt so bad his spleen exploded

• Black Belt somehow got so lost he spawned a temporal duplicate

• Baphomet was able to wreck a city hard enough to nuke it

• Black Belt could punch fast enough to make a boat’s sail go just from the wind

• Dragoon is able to casually jump to the cloudline

• Bikke threw the Orb of Water at Sarda hard enough to stagger him

Weaknesses

Bob

While Bob is certainly a force to be reckoned with, he’s far from the flawless Mary Sue he claims to be. For one thing, his hot headedness can get more than literal, as his anger can often overwhelm logic and make him do impulsive things and lose focus. He’s been shown to fly off the handle in response to clones, being called good, guys named Jed, and things getting particularly wacky. He also has a tendency to ignore or underestimate foes he’s up against, which smart opponents have taken advantage of. 

Also he’s absolutely terrified of Pokemon, possibly due to unresolved childhood trauma, and will drop everything and run at the sight of them. 

Black Mage

In spite of his massive magical power and potential, Black Mage tends to have a rather horrid amount of luck. This is possibly due to the guy who created the universe having it out for him, suggesting the universe is literally built to make him suffer. Beyond that, Black Mage can get rather cocky and carefree towards threats, which has led to him getting taken advantage of in the past, and his anger and cruelty has sometimes made him fly off the handle in detrimental ways, especially if he’s dealing with something particularly stupid. He’s also got some cowardly tendencies, as he only stays around a party full of people he hates the guts of because they act as potential meat shields.

Also worth bringing up is that while he is typically the straight man who is portrayed as smarter than his allies who have a more tenuous grasp on reality, it can be a little inconsistent, as there have been cases where he is arguably worse. This seems to be due to his evil, as while he can recognise when things are a bad idea, he will often just ignore that fact if it satisfies his want for evil or bloodlust. 

Finally, he has admitted to being a glass cannon, which I’m not sure I personally think is too accurate, considering the sheer amount of punishment he’s gone through. What I would say is more accurate is to say his stamina isn’t the best, as enough prolonged punishment can put him down for the count.

Before the Verdict

Bob & George Cosmology

This should be relatively short actually. In regards to certain feats involving “the comic” or “the universe" being treated as literal, we do have a direct statement (link to the comic’s narration if you don’t wanna sit through that gif) that each comic acts as “its own plane of existence”. With the Authors being able to casually manipulate the comic however they want, this means that each of them are likely at least universal. 

It’s also been noted from a few sources that the Bob and George multiverse does indeed have infinite parallel universes, and commentary from the author has also confirmed it runs on the “infinite timeline” theory.  However, I don’t really think there’s much of an argument that Bob or anyone on his level should scale to being able to destroy it in its entirety, as the best we get is a couple vague statements of people being a threat to them if they were left unchecked, which is hardly conclusive. 

Mega Man X Scaling

Now if you know anything about the canon Mega Man series, you might question the idea of scaling characters mainly based in the Classic era to the X era characters, as in the actual series X and co were specifically built to be superior to anything from the Classic era. Well, while the comic has kept that idea to an extent, there are also a lot of instances of characters from earlier eras showing themselves to be comparable to them. To bring up a few examples, various characters were able to keep up with X on his first activation, and George was able to overpower Sigma and easily wrecked other X era robots. 

While I am talking about him, there is an arc in the comic where basically X makes a whole virtual reality thing where a bunch of robots he merged with because he wanted to be their friends would go and live in (long story), which in terms of VS stuff is relevant given George manages to completely tear apart one of these simulations. This could arguably give him universal scaling, but given its status as a simulation, and the fact that bit of the arc happened due to George’s electric powers being particularly devastating on the mind of a robot, I feel that particular instance is not likely to be something you could argue would be a literal display of attack potency.

Crystal Man and other potential instances of ludicrous time warping speed 

So Crystal Man’s feat of perceiving a bunch of futures is kind of absurdly fast. As in the number he’s quoting is -1 from the highest known prime number we are able to perceive. Which as you can imagine, makes the exact speed of Crystal Man being able to perceive that many timelines basically impossible to put a solid number on, given said number is purely theoretical. That value alone would have over 7 million digits, and that’s before bringing up how there’s absolutely no context for how long it took him to perceive that many timelines, which means the time frame is also practically impossible to calculate exactly. Given I am not a theoretical physicist, nor do I know one who’d be willing to push ahead science itself for the sake of a VS debate, I’m just going to slap the “incalculable” number onto it. It’s not quite into immeasurable or infinite speed, as it’s still a number that is theoretically finite, it’s just literally not a number science itself is able to quantify. 

The more questionable bit here is how anyone scales to it. While Alternate Bass did manage to take him out in spite of this massive edge, he explains he only did so by way of using his tech to make his actions imperceptible to said future visions, so it’s not technically overtaking his reactions. There’s also the implication brought on by the commentary here suggesting Crystal Man did perceive that as a possibility, he just couldn’t do anything about it due to believing it to be his fate, though said commentary doesn’t bring it up as if it’s really what happened. That said, between Bob generally being seen as above most of Wily’s other bots and being the one to upgrade them in this storyline, and Bob’s ultimate level of power being merging with an author who should naturally be above everyone in the comic, I feel it’s still likely Bob could compare to this feat, especially at his best.

There is another instance of potentially immeasurable speed involving Crystal Man in which he somehow defeated Flash Man after he stopped time, but considering not even the author knows what exactly happened there based on the commentary, it’s also not really possible to put a solid label on if it counts. And while we’re on this topic, while technically Mega Man is able to talk and perceive things in stopped time, this shouldn’t count as a feat of immeasurable speed either, considering he explicitly can’t move in stopped time, meaning this is more an explicit ability to perceive stopped time rather than actually being so fast he can perceive it, which is noted with this explanation later. Also to anyone familiar with the series, while Bright Man and Centaur Man’s abilities are similar to the time stopper in effect, how these abilities were handled in the comic also makes them inapplicable in terms of speed feats.  

8-Bit Theater Cosmology

The main universe in 8-Bit Theater is a universe of the same size as our own, given the fact we know the big bang happened there. There are numerous instances of pocket realities and afterlife realities as well, which could be seen as also being affected by people threatening the universe, but it’s a bit unclear.

…I don’t really feel like I have much of note to really go over for this segment, I just felt I needed to include it if I also did a cosmology segment for the other series.

The Data-Sphere

Yeah whatever.

Perhaps the most notable bit of perception speed from 8 Bit Theater is this, which is definitely not a cube. Originally received from the very anachronistic War Mech, this is a set of data which contains information on “every possible way to build every possible device to destroy every possible thing in all creation,” which is enough data to encircle the universe 3.5 times and could only be contained in a 612-dimensional matrix. No idea what that actually means, but given the source of that last bit is coming from Red Mage, probably worth taking it with a grain of salt. That being said, knowing that amount of information was crucial in the final fight with Sarda, so the idea that it literally contains that much information is likely true. 

While it has been stated at a few points that it contains infinite amounts of information, logically speaking, since the amount of things that could exist is ultimately theoretically finite, and we know there are limits to the information it can provide in the first place, that’s likely not a literal description. That being said, much like the above instance with Crystal Man, there is really no practical way to actually calculate the perception speed needed to parse all this sheer information, meaning I’ll have to slap the “incalculable” value on it as well.

Now to cover why anyone would scale to it, especially in regards to why it matters to Black Mage, given he had explicitly been rendered catatonic by the attempt to perceive it. However, there’s actually quite a bit of evidence to suggest he can scale to it. First off, the biggest example, Red Mage was able to absorb it, and while he was seemingly driven insane by it for a bit, he ultimately was able to get it under control and later showed he could easily parse the information from it for the final fight with Sarda. Black Mage was shown to be on equal footing to Red Mage in a fight, so he should logically compare somewhat to him in that regard. 

Besides him, Fighter was able to look into it enough to get a good grasp on what was in it. While it could simply be a gag based on the idea that he’s not smart enough to actually understand it, given he was able to talk about the contents of it accurately, he logically should have been able to perceive a portion of it instantly. Hell, the idea that the joke is that he’s so dumb he looked all through the sphere and ultimately perceived none of it besides what it was about is also far from off brand for him. Black Mage is similarly shown to be generally comparable to Fighter as well. 

Finally we have, well, Black Mage himself. Later, after Red Mage took all the information, Black Mage was able to look into the datasphere thoroughly enough to declare it empty. While yes, he is literally not perceiving anything here, considering the sheer well of information it had once contained, the fact Black Mage was able to quickly make sure there was nothing in it makes the idea of him actually being able to handle that much information if he’s actually prepared a bit more plausible in my opinion. And of course that’s before bringing up how his evil form was able to easily kill Fighter and was implied equals with Red Mage after that point, giving even more reason to assume he scales at his best. 

How strong is Sarda really?

While Sarda’s level of power is pretty obvious and not something to be underestimated, I do think that saying he is a literal omnipresent or omniscient presence is a bit of a reach. Now sure, a statement of him being an “omnipotent jackass” is repeated quite a bit throughout the series, along with similar statements, but not only is this kind of statement basically impossible to definitively prove and is a bit cheap for the purposes of VS, as explained here, “omnipotent” is specifically in regards to “can do anything they want”, and isn’t really indicative of the same thing as omnipresence, which is in regards to being one with everything, or omniscience, which is having knowledge of all things. 

In regards to the omnipresence, there have been a couple statements which could suggest his mind would be at that level. However, in terms of what the character himself has actually been capable of, he actually has had many moments of showing himself to clearly still need to deal with linear time. As for omniscience, while it is definitely not something I could see being a reasonable thing to scale, Sarda has also shown multiple instances of clearly not being aware of everything, let alone things that could happen. And that’s not even a case of playing the semantics game, as his ultimate defeat comes from not knowing the level of power he gained from Black Mage’s Evil Form would be more than what he could control, meaning it is definitely an intended character flaw for him to not know everything. 

Now are these just anti-feats? Not really, as it’s also worth noting that the only source we have for Sarda being omnipresent/omniscient is, well, himself. And Sarda does have a bit of an ego due to being the strongest wizard in the setting. So the easy solution is that these statements are just him lying to build his ego, which is hardly off base given the ultimate reveal means he had been lying to the Light Warriors from moment one. 

Loosely related to this is Chaos, who is obviously stronger than Sarda at his peak, and whom White Mage was able to take down with the help of 4 other white mages. Though that feat is very impressive, there are a couple asterisks to it in context. Mainly that they had managed to talk him into powering down beforehand, and it’s heavily implied they beat him mainly because he was specifically weak to holy magic. Still an impressive moment for her which backs up the idea of Black Mage being able to compete with Sarda through scaling, I just want to nip any extreme upscaling arguments in the bud here. 

Verdict

(yes these are both official)

Stats

Now in terms of power, both of these two have a surprising amount of overlap. They have many cases of being able to easily blast through cannon fodder, and plenty of casual building busting. Most notably, both can scale to the ability to create/survive attacks that are comparable to actual nukes, though Black Mage is a lot more consistent about it. Some of their more impressive feats come from dealing with impacts which could have wiped out the world, to which Black Mage held the edge, as his own Hadoken was able to recreate the impact which killed the dinosaurs, which would be hundreds of times better than the best feat of blasting I could find for Bob. Though given that meteor was stated to be able to wipe out all life on Earth, you could argue that it should also be able to be compared to the dinosaur wiper. But that’s hardly the limit here.

Both could also arguably scale to universal level attacks while in their base forms, but I feel the argument for Black Mage scaling to that is a bit more solid, as not only did he directly survive such an event with the rest of the party, but the fact he also scales to Red Mage, who has the power to freeze the universe, and White Mage, who survived being in the Big Bang, means it’s fairly consistent. Meanwhile, the main argument for Bob being able to scale to that is earlier strips showing the Author as being threatened by the cast, which seems more likely to be a combined case of plot induced stupidity and early installment weirdness. And Black Mage generally had a better track record of surviving stuff, whereas Bob being put in such situations himself was a lot rarer. So Black Mage is likely stronger and more durable when it comes to their base forms.

However, once you bring in the higher tier stuff offered by their ultimate forms, the case of power gets a bit more even. Black Mage being able to threaten Sarda should mean he’d be able to upscale a bit from all the universal stuff, which might make it sound like he should have a slight edge. But Bob solidly scaling to the Author himself would also mean he’d be getting an unclear amount of upscaling from that universal level, given all 3 authors have shown themselves to be able to casually affect the entire comic/universe. It might seem a bit odd to compare Sarda to them, given he’s portrayed as far more blatantly overpowered, but he’s actually very comparable to them conceptually. Both are able to bend the rules of their universe to their whims, are responsible for many of the weirder things within their world, can do basically anything they want, and are treated fairly unambiguously as the top dogs of their worlds. So while Bob and Black Mage should realistically upscale a bit from just universal and downscale a bit from the upper limits of Sarda and the Author respectively, it should be by a similar enough degree that differences in their peaks of power are marginal, meaning I’d say they’re about even power wise at best.

Now onto speed, and there was surprisingly more to this than I thought. Both comics do match quite a bit in a few instances, with characters being able to move fast as blurs and outpace various bits of cannon fodder. To get more on the calculable end of things, Bob has been shown to be able to move as fast as his brother’s electric flying. You could arguably say George’s electric forms are only the speed of lightning, but given he’s been described as an innately electrical being and the comic generally plays pretty accurate with science stuff (mainly because the author happens to be a physics instructor), I think it’s more likely to say he’s literally going as fast as electricity. This would mean he, and by extension Bob, can move at just about the speed of light, which is more impressive movement speed than anything I could see for 8-Bit Theater. However, thanks to his charged up Hadoken being able to strike at over 16 times the speed of light, Black Mage boasted better attacking speed. Granted, this particular attack did require him to charge for a bit, but even if his normal Hadoken is only half as fast, that’s still about 8 times faster than Bob.

However, perception speed, and by extension reaction speed, were both pretty hard to lock down. At both of their peaks, they could scale to the ludicrously large amount of information able to be processed by Crystal Man and Red Mage respectively. Both feats are so fast that it is literally impossible to know for certain how fast both of them go with our current understanding of science. You could make various arguments for which of the two would get higher into incalculable by saying which is more impressive conceptually or which they should downscale / upscale from more, but given I am dealing with numbers that are literally beyond our realm of understanding, I feel it’s easier to just say they’re about equal in this front.

So as a summary, Black Mage is likely stronger / more durable in base form and has faster attacking speeds, Bob has faster movement speed, and both are about equal in terms of power in their higher forms and in reaction speed.

Arsenal & Abilities

In terms of arsenal, well, a laser cannon from the future is a lot more deadly than medieval era knives, and all of his other technology from the future would be a lot more useful than basic robes, a magazine, and a small bomb he used once. Though admittedly the Staff-Chucks would probably be a good way to quickly cause a lot of carnage at once, that’s still one useful bit of equipment vs all of Bob’s options, including solid defensive methods, a way to potentially manipulate the battlefield however he wants by moving it through dimensions or time, and a way to massively get the numbers advantage, given the best summons you could give Black Mage was making a dozen zombies offscreen once, in comparison to the millions of robot masters Bob could call in a maneuver he’s used several times. So the point definitely goes to Bob on the arsenal front. 

Now we come to abilities, and here is where we get to the real meat and potatoes of the match. Both of the two have a bit of overlap, as both can casually break the 4th wall and are able to cause plenty of carnage with their power over fire, which they’ve also shown some resistance to. Now for Bob that does seem bad, as fire is his main method of attack, so it not being as effective against Black Mage would prove a bit of an issue. However, Bob is still the only one of the two who’s shown a more explicit immunity to fire attacks, and he’s far more versatile with his fire. Most notably, his ability to make barriers would make his defensive edge far more notable, and his ability to fly and teleport using his flames would give him far greater mobility than Black Mage’s more limited methods of achieving the same kind of thing. 

Now given Bob’s fire is explicitly confirmed to be magical in nature, it could stand to reason that Black Mage could use Blue Magic to copy these abilities, thus making Bob’s advantage null. However, Blue Magic explicitly is only capable of copying specific techniques as he’s attacked by them, meaning he wouldn’t be able to copy Bob’s entire kit just by being hit by a stray blast of fire. To give an example, something like Bob charging into him would likely not be able to copy Bob’s flight in general, just the action of charging forward while covered in flames. At that to the previously mentioned straight up immunity to fire Bob has, and how he has multiple ways of fighting without his flames, and ultimately Blue Magic would be pretty useless here.

That being said, Black Mage certainly had a far more versatile set of abilities beyond his fire control. Between the Hadoken, lightning, eye beams, and I guess wordplay, he had plenty of more ways to tango with Bob, whereas really the only big abilities Bob has towards fighting besides his arm cannon is the ability to control wind in a way that was basically not at all combat applicable. Though Bob did also have a couple more specific ways of countering Black Mage’s abilities, as his shades meant Hypnovision wouldn’t be effective, his ability to automatically adjust their vision would mean the true face madness glimpsing would be unlikely, and as previously mentioned, necromancy would be hard countered by Bob’s far superior numbers of robots who BM obviously couldn’t raise from the dead due to being, well, robots.

In terms of assistance, while Darko was likely stronger than Bob’s angel and devil, he never once shows the willingness to try and fight on the behalf of Black Mage, so it’s unlikely he’d try to personally step in. Beyond that, both of them do offer some niche help to provide, but I don’t think either of them would give much in terms of game changing advice. Rather, their respective abilities are both able to make the match a lot more interesting. While Bob’s admittedly never actively used them as such in the past, there’s no question the ability to create whatever illusion you want and especially the ability to stop time would be particularly devastating in the hands of someone as crafty as Bob. Meanwhile, Black Mage having the ability to potentially get stronger would certainly help in a pinch, and his reviving is going to ensure the match won’t end unless Bob can find a way to stop it, which is a complicated question I’m saving for its own section below.

Now when it comes to their higher forms, Black Mage’s evil form is certainly more visually impressive, but the Author Fusion just blatantly has a lot more to offer. Not only does it grant him the ability to do the same darkness manipulation and absorption as the Evil Form, but it grants him a whole slew of other abilities which he can use to take back the versatility edge. Granted he didn’t use most of these abilities in canon, aside from arguably his shrinking barriers with a fiery twist, but I can’t really think of a logical reason for why Bob wouldn’t be able to replicate these abilities if he really felt the need to, as George’s directly comparable fusion was blatantly capable of doing so. The most notable things it offers which will be important later are its ability to manipulate reality, depower, and most crucially, erase from existence. 

That’s of course not counting BM’s other similarly colored form taken from becoming the leader of Hell, but well, the circumstances that would be behind hm accessing it again are a lot more roundabout than just “Helmut saw a guy he wanted to ally with be in trouble and decided to help”. To start with, the only solid way I could see this even being a possibility is if Darko is somehow taken care of, which is unlikely due to the aforementioned “not really likely to step in himself” thing. Beyond that, Black Mage would need to actually take over Hell before returning to the fight, which I could see taking a bit too long depending on how long you want to define the time period of “taken out of the fight for too long to continue the battle”. While BM’s own takeover of hell was a relatively short process (for context, not counting filler, there are 6 pages between BM’s last seen moment before taking over Hell and his reveal after having taken over, which only seemed to be a few minutes in universe given the conversations), given the fact there’s a demon directly keeping him alive to keep him out of hell, there are likely to be other obstacles to make his descension to the throne less convenient. So ultimately, while the Hell Master form is certainly impressive, it’s very unlikely to be anything besides a niche possibility.

Immortality

Worth its own section is this, as both of their methods of immortality, those being Bob’s title character perk and Darko’s revivals, are both potent enough that they couldn’t easily be broken through. Though I think neither of them are technically true ways of immortality in vs terms, but well, it’s effectively the same result regardless of semantics, so shut up. In their base forms, neither of them really had a solid way of getting around the other’s immortality. Sure, Bob didn’t technically have a resistance to getting petrified, but given how the ability has been shown to work as a sort of passive luck / plot armor, this meant that it’d be likely for the spell to somehow be rendered be ineffective by some convoluted circumstance, which I’ll remind you, is literally how the ability works in universe. Likewise, while technically the idea of Black Mage getting killed in such a way that he didn’t have a physical body to go back to could give the argument Darko couldn’t revive him, there’s really no solid way to prove that possibility as likely, as Darko just being able to create a new body is far from unbelievable given what similarly powerful characters have done. He also technically has a way of reality warping thanks to the spell he copied from Sarda, but given it’s unlikely for Sarda’s will to be “let this guy I hate the guts of kill this random other guy from another world I got no personal beef with”, that wasn’t going to be a solid method either. 

Also no, “the Bob and George comic has been over for years, which means he’s not technically the main character of the comic anymore, so just ignore it” is not a valid reason to disregard the immortality, as VS tends to put people at their best, which here would naturally be at a point where the comic was still ongoing. And while I’m on the topic, while the epilogue ultimately revealed Bob would end up dying at some point in the future, A) we have no context for how the fight actually played out, B) we don’t know if that was a technical case of “comic ended so you’re not a main character anymore” or not, and C) he was alongside all the people who faked their deaths and went to Acapulo in the end slide, so it’s not even clear if that’s meant to be his actual death or not.

In their higher forms though, things do become a bit more interesting on that front. For Black Mage, his Hell Master Form was able to affect reality to the point where mortal laws no longer applied to him, which meant that he’d certainly be able to change reality to the point of subsiding the title character perk, much like how Helmut himself did, thereby making Bob killable. On the other hand, Helmut’s fusion gave Bob the ability to completely delete beings from existence, which is a level of punishment Black Mage has never had to deal with. In fact, we actually know for a fact similar things have worked on people he compares to, as there was a page implying there was a fifth member of the Light Warriors that Sarda was able to retcon out of existence, which was naturally successful given no one ever gives mention of him beyond that. And given Darko’s whole goal behind reviving him was to make sure BM’s soul never went to hell again, he’d be unlikely to try and remake BM’s soul in this case even if he could. As such, this was a method that would certainly be able to take Black Mage out for good if Bob were to pull it off.

Now which of these two are more likely? Well, I think you can go up and reread my section on how unlikely I consider the Hell Master Form to even be a factor and use context clues to get an answer on that. Also worth bringing up is that, while Black Mage could manage to take away Bob’s immortality, he’d still need to find a way to actually kill Bob after the fact. And between the two’s equivalent stats combined with Bob’s superior mobility, access to robot masters and illusions to play decoy, and just the ability to straight up stop time, it’s going to be very hard to actually finish the job. BM could drag him to hell, but Bob’s dimensional hopping means that’d just be a minor annoyance, and his ability to depower forms and strip beings of immortality through reality warping means that it’d be possible for Bob to just straight up deny him the benefits Hell Master Form in the first place. Same could probably go for his other form now that I think about it. On the other hand, Bob’s existence erasure is going to be, well, erasing him completely in one shot. Take all the above advantages I mentioned and add the fact Bob would be fully capable of one shotting him. 

So ultimately, while both could hypothetically find a way to counteract the other’s immortality and take each other out in their higher forms, Bob’s method of doing so required far less legwork to actually get to the point where it would be effective than Black Mage’s method of doing the same, meaning Bob was simply far more likely to be the one to put Black Mage down for good rather than vice versa. 

Tertiary Factors

The final point in the conclusion would be the matter of intelligence and skill. In terms of overall experience, it’s hard to really gauge that, given neither have too much well defined dates, but both have been using their powers up till college, and went on an unspecified amount of adventures before the events of the series, so I’m willing to say they’d be about equal on that front. In terms of general intelligence, both are certainly skilled in their respective fields, but Bob’s ludicrous feats of coding were far more impressive than any of Black Mage’s magical knowledge. Especially given his far more inconsistent bouts of competence. 

Though despite being from series that are so different in terms of general vibe, neither would be likely to be caught out by each other’s weirdness in comparison to what they usually deal with. Bob, beyond being from a world where superheroes are common, is canonically a fan of the Final Fantasy series, as his endless paradise involved illusionary versions of the cast of FF7, so he would likely not be caught out by Black Mage’s fantasy magic. On the other hand, BM has dealt with plenty of anachronistic things like robots in the past, has dealt with demonic foes who use fire, and had a prolonged experience with someone very similar to an Author, so there wasn’t much Bob had that he would have been caught out by either. 

The other big question here is of general skill. And that’s also pretty unquestionably in Bob’s court. Even putting aside Black Mage’s questionable bouts, while he does have a couple instances of plotting strategies, he has a massive tendency to just let his overwhelming power solve his issues over anything else. Bob has let his powers do the fighting in the past as well, but his time as a devious planner have come up with plenty of results that are more impressive, whether that be programming robots to be better than Wily’s, outmaneuvering geniuses who made time travel, and ultimately managing to hold off the combined efforts of 3 different time periods of heroes in his final fight. Simply put, nothing Black Mage has done can really be said to be anywhere close to Bob’s skills as a tactician. And that’s before bringing up how Bob is a solo act for most of his comic, whereas Black Mage tends to stick around the rest of his party.

To briefly go over their respective weaknesses, yes they both have a tendency to go off the handle in anger, but Bob generally can be a lot more calm headed and has quickly caught himself if he gets too overzealous, and there’s not really a solid way Black Mage could trigger one of his berserk buttons either. They both can underestimate foes, but given this is likely to be a very prolonged battle, I feel that’s unlikely to be a huge factor in the end. Also Black Mage did not have a way to take advantage of Bob’s fear of Pokemon, as funny as that’d be. Meanwhile, Black Mage’s other flaws aren’t really things he tends to care about working around, meaning he’d ultimately have more to take issue with.

Conclusion

Advantages:

• Faster movement speed and mobility

• Superior arsenal and far greater numbers in case of an army fight

• Better options for defense

• Immensely more versatile in higher form

• Existence Erasure gives him a way to subvert Black Mage’s revival and take him down for good

• Generally smarter, especially as a fighter

• Is the reason 8-Bit Theater exists at all

Equal:

• Equal in power while in higher forms

• Equal reaction speeds

• Equal in general experience and in dealing with what the other can do

Disadvantages:

• Likely weaker & less durable in base form

• Slower attacking speed

• Less overall versatile attacker in base form

• Isn’t even in 20% of his own comic

• Probably shops at Hot Topic unironically

Advantages:

• Likely stronger & more durable in base

• Faster attacking speed

• More versatile attacker in base form

• Could copy some of Bob’s abilities with Blue Magic…

• Hypothetically had a method to nullify Bob’s immortality…

• Actually the main character of his comic

Equal:

• Equal in power while in higher forms

• Equal reaction speeds

• Equal in general experience and in dealing with what the other can do

Disadvantages:

• Slower movement speeds and lesser mobility

• Lesser arsenal and far inferior numbers in case of an army fight

• Lesser defensive options

• Immensely less versatile when in higher forms

• …but Bob’s fire immunity and lack of real notable techniques to be copied would make it unlikely to impact much

• …but this method requires accessing a form which is very unlikely naturally, and Bob had methods of doing the same which were easier and far more devastating

• Generally less intelligent and tactical as a fighter

• Canon VS debater

• This

This is a debate that is shockingly close in my opinion. Both of these two have a dangerous amount of power, ludicrous levels of perception, deadly potential for destruction, and plenty of villainy under their collective belts. Black Mage certainly had the spells and strength to dominate at first, but once their higher forms were busted out and the gap in power became a non-issue, that’s where the cookie starts to crumble for him. Bob’s superior tactical might, greater source of powers, and frankly far more bullshit immortality meant he had everything he needed to take this nexus of chaos off the map for good. Unfortunate end for the Black Mage, but while he may have adopted the burning, for Bob, all he has ever seen is burning, and it was nothing short of beautiful. 

The winner is Bob.

Next Time

I’m sure this is shocking if you’ve been paying attention. 

Special thanks to:

• @G.G for providing the calcs used for Bob and George

• u/TheMightyBox72 and u/Overlord_Xcano as their respect threads on 8-Bit Theater were a major help on the researching of that series

• David Anez and Brian Clevinger, as their comics were major sources of entertainment for me when I was younger and still give me joy to talk about even today. 

• Not whoever wrote this page, which is just outright wrong about some things, and it was also not a major boon to my research how it didn’t bother actually sourcing most of the things it claims 

• Viewers like you, thank you.