Ethan vs Tycho (Ctrl+Alt+Del vs Penny Arcade) VS Prediction Blog
“With the glass ceiling broken, all the oppressed groups shall prosper. Especially the most oppressed group of all: gamers.” - This guy who I’m quoting for a second blog because I couldn’t think of a funnier quote to put here
Ethan MacManus, the snarky gamer of Ctrl+Alt+Del
Tycho Brahe, the snarky gamer of Penny Arcade
Are you a gamer? If so, you probably remember the 2000s, when the internet was full of people just getting into gaming on the internet. One of the biggest trends of that time were webcomics based around gaming, the most ubiquitous of which were ones about 2 normal guys who were friends, typically talking on a couch about various gaming content, along with getting into various hijinks. With these two in particular being real weirdos.
…I don’t have any deeper thematics here, fuck off.
The media list here will be relatively simple. Obviously the main media of relevance for the two is their original comic runs, along with media directly tied into them, such as Ctrl+Alt+Del: The Animated Series, the Analog and D-Pad reboot continuity, and the Penny Arcade Adventures games. Some other points to bring up are that I refuse to spend actual money on this blog so any details from content exclusive to members of both of their sites will not be accounted for here. I’m also gonna broadly be focusing on what the two can do as their “real” selves, so abilities and equipment from strips that are contextualized as them playing a game in-universe will not be considered.
Beyond that, Penny Arcade has also had a surprising amount of appearances in other series, and while I will be looking into them as extended sources (because let’s be real, who else is gonna be discussing any of this), there won’t be any discussion of cross scaling based on these crossovers. So if you’re expecting this to go over Sam & Max, Homestar Runner, and Team Fortress 2 scaling just because Tycho played poker with them, tough. Also going into this there is a general disclaimer, as these are online media that started in the 2000s, so content warning for tasteless jokes, gore, and occasional slur dropping. I’m doing that last one myself, but I can’t guarantee links I’ve used are free of that. Finally, these comics are both still ongoing, so if there’s some random new comic where they blow up the moon because Neil Armstrong beat them in Street Fighter or something, I’m sorry but I’m not a fortune teller.
Ethan Media List:
The original Ctrl+Alt+Del comics
Ctrl+Alt+Del: The Animated Series
The Analog and D-Pad comics
Various Official Merch
Tycho Media List:
The main Penny Arcade comics
The Penny Arcade Adventures games
Various crossover appearances
Poker Night At The Inventory
Dungeon Defenders
AirMech
Kaosball
Background
Ethan
“Woooo! 2005!! The Year of the Gamer!! Woo!”
This is Ethan. He is a gamer. He often spends time with his buddy Lucas, his wife Lilah, and his sentient XBox robot Zeke. He has gone on many shenanigans, including starting a holiday, stopping Jack Thimpson’s attempt at ending video games, and getting ownership of a video game store. He is currently deceased.
Tycho
This is Tycho. He is a gamer. He often spends time with his buddy Gabe, his wife Brennah, and his sentient and drunk DIVX player. He has gone on many shenanigans, including surviving a zombie horde, killing his buddy for a watch, and playing poker with a rabbit war criminal, wrestler war criminal, and russian war criminal. He is currently alive.
Intelligence & Skill
Ethan
Ethan has shown he’s surprisingly knowledgeable, as he runs a video game store and regularly tends to show good knowledge on gaming subjects, even knowing how to apply various college subjects to gaming. Though his real source of intelligence has been seen primarily in inventing, with his most notable feat being turning his Xbox into a sentient robot named Zeke, whom he was later able to trick into acting human, rebuilt on his own, and even made a girlfriend for that he was also able to quickly recognize issues in. He’s also created a wide variety of other machines which will be mentioned later, and his future self was even able to figure out time travel.
Tycho
Beyond being a gamer, Tycho has had quite a few examples of being smart. In his past he was a fairly well known telemarketer, and he has shown himself to be fairly knowledgeable with computers and gaming, as he’s set up ways to spy on people 24/7 and he's claimed he could outhack Red team. Beyond that, he successfully concocted a poison, uncovered a jewel smuggling ring and Big Bird’s murder plot, is good enough at table tennis that the government asked him to use his skills to save the world, made an elaborate plan to get Gabe interested in RPGs, can make a mean sandwich, is knowledgeable enough on manticores that the president went to him for help, and is canonically a VS debater. And while he’s generally not been involved in combat, he has shown he can keep up thanks to various conflicts with Gabe and the occasional zombie horde.
Equipment
Ethan
Melee Weapons
Ethan’s used quite a few melee weapons throughout his time. He’s got a mace, brass knuckles, a frying pan, a knife, a hacksaw, a blowtorch, a weedwhacker, a baseball bat, a gavel, a branding iron, a crowbar, a chainsaw, a sledgehammer, a power saw, a shovel, a spear, a normal saw, a golf club, a hidden fork, a grilling fork, a rake, a drill, a lightsaber, a spade, a fire axe, a cattle prod, and a weird controller spear.
Ranged Weapons
Ethan’s been shown with quite a few firearms, such as a shotgun, a machine gun, a nail gun, a stake gun and electricity gun, dueling pistols, a taser that shoots pink electricity, a tranquilizer gun, and a paintball gun. For non guns, he’s got a bow and arrow, a crossbow, a slingshot that fires games, and a flamethrower he got for Christmas.
Inventions
As mentioned, Ethan is a surprisingly accomplished inventor. Beyond his robot buddy Zeke, who will be gone over more later, he built an epic gaming chair which had a week’s worth of air and was surrounded by bulletproof glass, power gloves strong enough to bend consoles and reduce controllers to dust, a rocket that immediately blew up, an Iron Man suit he couldn’t move in, a pie that had all the meals in it, an extension to a hallway that hid a device to keep a doorway open, an IRL Heart Meter, a vacuum connected to a pilot mask used to get rid of congestion, and a cloning machine which made duplicates of himself.
Random Bullshit
Ethan also has a bunch of stuff which is debatably useful VS wise that I’m mentioning here. This includes a lighter, a garrote wire, gasoline, a hair dryer, a syringe of some kind of drug, a shock collar, a box, a plutonium rod, a Spider-man suit, planted explosives that blew up a hotel, a water balloon, a sneaking suit and tether cord, a stapler, duct tape, a giant hammer trap, a spartan outfit and shield, a scuba suit, a gas mask, makeshift armor, a viking helmet, a smoke stick, a vuvuzela, a Boba Fett helmet, copies of Fallout: New Vegas, steel dice, thumb weights, a wallet of fake badges, painkillers, straps, WD-40, climbing gear, a Robocop suit, night vision goggles, a dummy version of himself, a construction helmet, cardboard box armor, a car battery, and some kind of knock out drug.
Analog Gadgets
Ethan and Lucas, after a freak accident involving an arcade machine, would end up becoming the gaming themed super heroes Analog and D-Pad. Unlike his buddy, Analog’s power was more… defensive, so he ended up being equipped with a wide variety of game-themed gadgets. These include controller-rangs which can stab into targets, explosives, a grappling hook which can trip up enemies, oil slicks, caltraps, electric stunners, paste, lube, and water bombs, knuckles, a magnifying glass, and a toothpaste tube squeezer. His buddy Scott also invented a few other gadgets, including an EMP device which can disable robots and some armor for protection.
Tycho
Melee Weapons
Tycho’s wielded a very wide variety of melee weapons that aren’t too distinct, including a 7 iron, a baseball bat, a hammer, a tennis racket, a lightsaber, a butter knife and scalpel, a cattle prod, big meaty claws, a saw, a shovel, a rake, an evil sword, a knife, a tombstone, a chainsaw, a hacksaw, a scythe, a lawn mower, a snow shovel, and a spear.
Ranged Weapons
Tycho wielded quite a few firearms throughout his time. He’s usually been seen using pistols, but he’s also been seen with a hunting rifle and he has mentioned he owns a 50 caliber gun that can allegedly leave a wound the size of a basketball court. For less conventional firearms, he’s got some kind of hidden dart gun that can instantly kill people, a syringe gun that injects deadly viruses, a nerf gun, and the medigun from TF2.
D20
While dealing with a zombie horde, Tycho was able to save the day by rolling a Nat 20, which convinced the entire horde to leave. It also summoned a random explosion when he pulled it out.
Enthusiast’s Timepiece
A Pac-Man themed watch he and Gabe have literally killed each other over many times throughout the series, which he also put up as collateral in Poker Night at the Inventory. This revealed that it can be used to turn invisible, which doesn’t feel worth killing over tbh.
Time Machine
Tycho once used a time machine to try and give advice to his past self, who did not give a shit. Though perhaps that’s for the best, as Gabe showed when using his own time machines that they could potentially cause universal destruction and shatter time into a billion universes of untime. Worth noting is that while each universe is finite, there are an infinite amount of them. I’d make a separate cosmology section but this is like the one way his main self has of actually scaling to it so I’m just mentioning it here.
Random Bullshit
He has a wide variety of other random pieces of bullshit that you could argue would be useful in a fight. This includes his car, a motorcycle helmet which protects from UV rays, a hazmat suit, a cross for exorcisms, a flower with venom that can blind people, a mask and blowtorch, a tranquilizer, a bomb that blew up a charity Santa, a laser used to open containers, a switch to scare away dogs or witches, a slideshow on Age of Empires 3 that Gabe nearly died watching, a guitar, a straw dummy of himself, a spacesuit, various tracking devices, a tube he trapped Gabe in to suffocate, steel toed work boots, a fake owl, a parachute, a helmet that melts the brains of the person it’s put on with tungsten rods if they curse, and a rebel pilot helmet,
Adventures Items
In the Adventures games, Tycho wields a tommy gun and a shotgun, both of which can be upgraded into various stronger but functionally identical guns I’m not mentioning here. They also give a wide amount of items Tycho can use in battle. Note that I wasn’t able to find a complete list of every item in the game so this may be incomplete.
Episode 1 & 2 Items
Bandage - Restores 25% of one person’s health, can also revive people from death
Gauze - Restores 75% of one person’s health, can also revive people from death
First Aid Kit - Restores 50% of party's health, can also revive people from death
Dr Hardd’s Liquid Armor - Buffs defense by 100%
TEC-TONIC Brand Strength Beverage - Buffs attack by 75%
Lightnin’ Juice - Buffs speed by 50%
Siege Brand Armor Eater - Debuffs an enemy’s defense by 100%
Torpor Brand Sloth Oil - Debuffs an enemy’s speed by 50%
Fruit - Can be tossed to distract Robot enemies
Invisible Box - Can be used to trap Mime enemies
Dynamite - Blows up shit for massive damage
Explosive Clown Nose - How whimsical!
Stone-Ground Mustard Gas - Damages enemies while making them bleed
Episode 3 & 4 Items
Duplicator - Can be used to regenerate certain items between fights
Potions - Can heal and revive people
Molotov - Deals fire damage
Buffz (TM) - Increases a characters’ stats
Hark Signet - Increases his magic stat
Stengthium Rods - Increases his strength stat
Double Mocha - Increases his speed stat
Vigorite Powder - Increases his health stat
Self Health Book - Increases all stats
Briquettes - Increases fire damage
Yeti Scarf - Increases ice damage
Living Gravel - Increases earth damage
Whirlgig - Increases air damage
Elysi-Yums - Increases holy damage
Spooky Shoes - Increases dark damage
Dungeon Defenders Gear
This isn’t the only appearance in another game they’ve had, as Tycho has also appeared as a costume in Dunegone Defenders DLC as a replacement to the Squire class. Not only can he equip a variety of weaponry, namely Swords, Axes, Hammers, Shields, and Gauntlets (which I’m not wasting time listing here but a full list is here if you’re curious), he also is able to summon a variety of defenses to his dungeons (hey that’s the name of the game).
Spike Blockade - A reinforced barricade which hurts those who walk into it
Bouncer Blockade - A spinning blade which can knock back enemies
Harpoon Turret - Launches projectiles which can penetrate through rows of enemies
Bowling Ball Turret - Launches projectiles which bound off enemies and surfaces
Slice N Dice Blockade - Can take time to charge, but will deal massive damage if someone’s unlucky enough to come into contact
Mortar Turret - Launches bombs at enemies
Bounty Items
Now if you bought Poker Night at the Inventory, it’s most likely because you can potentially get a variety of items for use in Team Fortress 2, which you get by being the one to knock a character out of the game while they’re betting the items. What you might not know is that it is fully possible for the other characters at the table to knock out the characters to win the items themselves, which is even acknowledged by special dialogue options. So it is possible for Tycho to get access to the other players items:
The Iron Curtain - A specially modified version of the Heavy’s minigun which lets him show pride in the Soviet Union.
Dangeresque, Too? - A pair of shutter shades used in Strong Bad’s Dangeresque films. Has no non-cosmetic use.
License to Maim - A Freelance Police badge used by Max, which also has no functional use.
Lugermorph - Max’s sidearm of choice, which is an older pistol most commonly associated with its use by Germans during the World Wars .
Abilities
Ethan
4th Wall Awareness
Ethan has shown quite a few times that he’s aware of the 4th Wall. Beyond the time he literally broke the 4th Wall, he also responded to narration, directly looked into the camera, and appeared to press up against the screen. Other characters have been able to directly interact with screen borders and point across them.
Stealth
Ethan has shown himself to be fairly skilled and sneaking around many times. He’s hidden behind a cardboard cutout to jumpscare a lady, snuck into Bioware with various disguises, and snuck around in a cardboard box.
Instinctive Reaction
When he was trying to do a one sitting marathon of Demon Souls, he was somehow able to keep the gameplay going even when he was asleep.
Telekinesis
After becoming a Nintendo Knight, Ethan was able to use whatever they call the Force in this series. I was kinda just skimming this series because it’s not very good. He used it to toss around people and objects and force Jack Thompson to his knees.
Energy Manipulation
On the cover of one of the books, he showed the ability to create energy constructs.
Electricity Manipulation
In the above poster, he shows the ability to summon a lightning bolt to hit his tablet of gaming commandments. Yes, this is an official poster you can buy right now.
Immortality
As Analog, Ethan has the ability to come back from death whenever he’s killed. It seems to happen the second he takes fatal damage specifically, as simply getting injured or incapacitated does not lead to the reset. In terms of what he’s recovered from, generally it’s been stuff like being stabbed and thrown out windows, but it has been shown to be able to help him recover from exploding himself to pieces. Ethan’s also fairly crafty with it, as he’s abused this power to instantly recover from non-fatal injuries and catch enemies off guard when they expect him to be dead. It also doesn’t leave a body behind after the fact, as even blood that left his body will also end up reset along with him. Other notable factors of this are that it also teleports him to the side of where he died, and even seems to reset damage to his outfit.
Tycho
4th Wall Awareness
Tycho has shown himself to be aware of the 4th wall many times throughout the comic. He’s talked into the camera, done commercials, read viewer suggestions, made reference to panels setting up the punchline, recognized a change in artstyle, and even kicked in the border of the comic. He’s also used immersion to go into the site’s traffic data, a magazine advertisement, and he should compare to Gabe who ended up inside a PSP.
Soul Manipulation
Tycho has shown the ability to pull a Doctor Strange and forcibly expel your soul from your body. He also has a battery full of souls which he uses to charge his Switch, and can seemingly astrally project his own soul. He’s also claimed he can destroy souls, though this is a bit dubious to take literally.
Electricity Manipulation
He can send out electric blasts due to solving hard puzzles, as well as when he eats Doritos.
Body Manipulation
His own body is completely fucked up in a lot of ways. He’s dropped his jaw cartoonishly, birthed some kind of alien creature from his pores, had his brain grow sentient, turned into a horror beyond comprehension, can crystalize his tears internally, replaced his internal organs with rare cards, had his fingers grow sentient and rebel, and grew a xenomorph tongue He’s also allegedly capable of doing all this eldritch bullshit, though how literally we should take all this is debatable.
Enhanced Senses
He can sense losers. Meaning he can probably sense people who like Yu vs Soma.
Future Sight
On two different occasions, Tycho was seemingly able to get visions of the future. At least if you take these literally, which there is definitely no reason not to. He was also able to see the end of the comic coming, though not enough to recognize Tycho changing it.
Hair Manipulation
Tycho has been able to instantly grow a beard. Surely this will be the key to killing the funny loss guy.
Memory Manipulation
He also has the ability to steal memories. We don’t really get an elaboration on how he does it or how many he can steal, but it is neat.
Duplication
The two were able to make weird br**ish clones of themselves after making fake accounts in the EU to play a Rainbow Six demo early.
Weather Manipulation
He’s also capable of summoning storms with some kind of spell.
Adventures Abilities
The Adventures games give Tycho quite a few notable abilities for use in battle.
Episode 1 & 2 Abilities
Double Burst - He shoots enemies with 2 guns, which does more damage
Gas Can - He tosses a gas can in the air to explode on enemies
Full Spray - His most damaging move, where he shoots everyone a lot
It’s Cool I Got This - He shoots a bunch while doing tricks
The Fall Of Man - He shoots at all enemies
Double Shot - He presumably shoots the enemy twice. I don’t know for sure because the gameplay video I was using never showed it and I’m not looking up a second one.
Episode 3 & 4 Abilities
Full Auto - A weak attack that targets all enemies
Heal - Heals one ally, but can’t affect the dead
RTFM - Deals non-elemental magical damage
Ice Shards - Deals ice-elemental damage
Balance - Passive, Boosts Tycho’s strength and magic for a turn after he uses a healing move
Blizzard - Deals ice damage to all enemies
Ice Bullet - Adds ice damage to his basic attack while increasing his defense against ice based damage
Dispenser - Heals all allies
Non-Physical Interaction - He can attack and defeat ghosts that are directly described as incorporeal
Dungeon Defenders Abilities
This game also gives him abilities, go figure.
Block - He can drastically reduce the damage of incoming attacks, at the cost of not being able to move
Circular Slice - He slices around himself, which can hit enemies twice
Blood Rage - Greatly increases his damage, movement speed, and defense for a time
Blade Vortex - Creates a vortex for 10 seconds at his location which damages enemies that walk into it
AirMech Abilities
This is an RTS online multiplayer game in which you can pick pilots to offer your units a variety of buffs at the cost of a debuff. Tycho’s are listed above.
Kaosball Ability
This is a miniature squad game that Tycho appeared in. His special ability is that he can deal damage to enemies next to his target. I could probably look into this game more for other stuff he gets from it but I don’t want to spend money on it.
Resistances
Fire - Has been lit on fire quite a bit, to the point where the threat of it doesn’t seem to phase him
Electricity - Got electrocuted and was fine
Pain - Survived a wide selection of painful injuries
Forms
Ethan
Wintereenmas King
A holiday he invented that comes around every year. He puts on a crown and cape, and carries around a weird controller staff thing, but besides that is completely normal.
Tycho
Red Eyed Barry Tycho
Typically whenever Tycho is feeling aggressive, he will suddenly have red eyes. Beyond being potentially the fault of demonic possession, this doesn’t really change anything.
Ultraman
Yeah he can just turn to Ultraman. Though he doesn’t seem to be able to grow in size.
Cyborg
He and Gabe were able to upload themselves into cyborg bodies that lived for Millenia.
Vampire
He’s also a vampire, despite his earlier attempts to deny that.
Super Saiyan
See this is a reference to Dragon Ball because like Goku Tycho has way too many forms to keep track of-
Fish
Okay this is getting ridiculous
Worm
I wanna make a reference to the “Would you still love me if I was a worm?” meme but I know 95% of the people reading this only know him from Poker Night at the Inventory and therefore would gladly use this as their chance to stomp him into dust.
Women
More like Penny Wokeade
Furry
I said more like Penny Wokeade-
Zombie
Dude it’s April Fools, even if it’s not funny could you at least do the courtesy of laughing.
Support
Ethan
Zeke
Perhaps the greatest invention of Ethan was when he upgraded his X-Box into a robot named Zeke. Not only is he generally shown to be on par with the gang physically and even allegedly has nano-reflexes, he’s also equipped with other features, such as vocal mimicry and a targeting system. This let him potentially take over the world in the future, though Ethan did stop this future from coming to past.
(If you’re wondering, his equivalent in the Analog + D-Pad continuity was made by a different guy and is more a wild card character at the moment, so I’m not including him here)
Tycho
Robots
Tycho has quite a few sentient machines to help him, such as a sentient DIVX player that turned to alcohol and is a massive jackass, and a cybernetic replacement for his wife after she died. But the most dangerous robot he’s got is the Fruit Fucker 2000. Yes that is his actual name, I hope you can intuit what he mainly likes doing. Though he is also capable of going code Omega and completely decimating enemies.
Demons
Tycho’s shown knowledge of the summoning of demons, to help him recover save files and to unleash billions of hungry souls. His most deadly way of doing this is the Malahedron, which he used to bring the spirit of Halloween to Australia. Unfortunately, Australia was too much for them.
Animals
He’s not above using less fantastical creatures, as he’s also got a rabid dog, a cat that bites, and a pack of wolves.
Nemesis
Yeah Tycho’s just canonically buddies with Nemesis from Resident Evil.
Adventures Support
The games give you the option to have summon characters do quick attacks.
T. Kemper - An alley cat who usually does fuck all, but has a chance to do massive damage
Anne-Claire Forthwith - Tycho’s inventive niece who will burn all enemies with a fucking flamethrower. She also later gets the ability to attack with a fucking orbital strike.
Fuchsia - A repaired Fruit Fucker robot which will create a massive rainbow explosion which increases in strength with each use
Div - A sentient record machine who will play a sound to damage all enemies. At least, when it doesn’t vomit over everyone.
Mr Tails - A robot monkey that will maul all enemies one at a time
Dr Blood - A definitely not evil doctor who attacks with a Talonite Bomb that zaps all enemies.
Feats
Ethan
Overall
One of the most infamous names in webcomics (For better or worse)
Turned his X-Box into a robot
Snuck into Bioware several times
Stopped Ted’s plan for world domination
Sacrificed himself to save the future from robot apocalypse
Has a wife
Strength & Power
Screamed loud enough to be heard in space (135.181 Tons of TNT)
Presumably carried in a large crate containing a life sized chocolate statue of himself
Moved his fridge (90 - 180 Kilograms)
Got so mad it was a 15 on the Richter scale (476.879 Petatons) (Debatable)
Tipped over a vending machine (180 - 400 Kilograms)
(Analog) Kicked a christmas tree aside
Speed & Reaction
Caught an arrow (Mach 0.24)
(Analog) Pulled a Batman disappear
(Analog) Tagged Elijah mid run (Debatable)
(Analog) Claimed he has “lightning fast reflexes” (Hyperbole)
Durability & Stamina
(Analog) Survived the arcade machine explosion that gave him powers (4.142 Megajoules - 0.382 Tons of TNT)
Tycho
Overall
One of the biggest names to come out of webcomics that inspired a lot of imitators (including his opponent)
Survived a zombie horde
Poker buddies with Max, Strong Bad, and Heavy
Has a wife and two kids
Strength & Power
Summoned a worldwide storm (Inapplicable)
No definitive size or timeframe for making the storm
Can bore a hole in reality and end the world (Debatable)
Speed & Reactions
Perceived the infinite music cylinder of Aaero (Infinite) (Debatable)
Did whatever this is (I don’t fucking know man)
(Adventures) Can block weaponized sound waves
Durability & Stamina
Scaling
Ethan
Main Series Cast
The other people from the comic have shown themselves to have plenty of feats Ethan likely compares to.
Lucas:
Zeke
Claimed he has “nano-reflexes” (Rela - FTL) (Inapplicable for Scaling)
Managed to break through bulletproof glass after some effort
Paris Hilton got tackled by a hockey player hard enough to break a rib
Analog & D-Pad Cast
In this continuity, the two end up fighting a wide variety of enemies that try to spread chaos throughout their city.
Lucas / D-Pad
Got tackled by Elijah going full force (3.165 - 8.075 Megajoules)
Survived the arcade machine explosion that gave him powers (4.142 Megajoules - 0.382 Tons of TNT)
Zeke
Elijah (Debatable, See Before the Verdict)
Was able to spray three different tags while appearing to be standing still
Is noted as being able to go from one side of the city to the other in minutes (Mach 0.77 - 1.23)
Dr Eldritch summons tentacles that towered over skyscrapers (Inapplicable)
He also claimed to have a device that could open “dimensional fault lines” (Inapplicable)
Beyond the fact his exact capabilities are unknown due to the fight with him being mostly offscreen, Analog hasn’t even fought him yet, the one who did was Captain Prime, a superhero that’s treated superior to them
Tycho
Main Series Cast
A bunch of random people in the series that you’d have to assume Tycho scales to by virtue of also being portrayed as a normal person.
Gabe
Lifted up a 500 pound weight (226 Kilograms)
Used a laptop that caused someone’s face to melt on first being exposed to it
Rode a snake that took him to the moon quickly (0.128 c) (Inapplicable)
This is a drug induced hallucination and he doesn’t really react to anything on the trip anyways
Race car driver survived his car exploding (0.0284 Tons of TNT)
This lady might have summoned a storm (Inapplicable)
We don’t know the size of the storm and it’s unclear if it’s even her doing
Adventures Cast
In the Penny Arcade Adventures Games, Tycho and his group end up fighting a wide variety of supernatural foes.
The Player can smack Charles hard enough to smash apart pillars (Pillarversal)
Gabe
Fuchisia attacks by making a massive explosion (75 Kilotons of TNT)
Anne-Claire’s missiles could launch from orbit quickly (Mach 7492)
Weaknesses
Ethan
God the Ctrl+Alt+Del website is kind of a chore to navigate. The page up and down buttons act as automatic ways of going to the next comic, something that really fucked up my muscle memory. Additionally, by default it just posts all of the series hosted there by release order, and while it does let you just read them by series, the page up and down buttons still send you to the next one chronologically, ignoring if you’re trying to read by series.
In terms of actual weaknesses, Ethan is typically portrayed as being a bit lazy and cowardly. And while he’s typically meant to be just a normal guy physically, this has fluctuated a bit, as he’s gotten a full body sunburn the second he stepped into the sun, vomited just from going on a walk outside, and got winded by having ice water hit him in the chest. He’s also a literal gaming addict in the sense that he’s gone into full on withdrawal if he can’t play games, though this did take a few days to be effective..
Tycho
Tcyho is a real fucking freak. There’s genuinely too many examples for me to fit here. And it is something that still pops up in more modern strips. Trust me when I say that if you only know him from Poker Night that one conversation is the tip of the iceberg.
He’s also fairly impulsive, quick to anger, and tends to not think things through sometimes. Beyond that, uh…
Idk
Before the Verdict
Why are you using all this shit?
So you might’ve noticed a couple sources here which are a bit… different compared to their usual selves. Ethan has his rebooted self in the Analog and D-Pad comics who’s an immortal superhero, and Tycho has the Adventures games where he’s a 1920s detective dealing with supernatural stuff. For both these are definitely a good deal different from their main comic selves, who are meant to be relatively normal people from a version of our real world, and you could definitely say both are meant to be different continuities. So why include these? Well, beyond the fact these two are by design almost completely lacking any sense of continuity in the first place, I feel like it’s something no one is ever gonna talk about besides me so I feel like including it. Though for the 3 people who care about canon with these two, I will split up the verdict between one with just their more “canon” material and a second with everything mentioned here.
Are they ImmortalTM?
Both of these two’s main comics are episodic ones that have a lot of punchlines involving the main characters dying as a gag, just to come back just fine the next strip. This of course leads to the question of if this is simply the result of continuity resetting or if they have an in-character ability to regenerate from injuries / come back from death.
For Ethan, there have been quite a few cases of him seemingly dying throughout the series. But assuming he can naturally respawn has 3 big issues. First, no one from his storyline has explicitly come back from death in a way that they acknowledge in universe. Secondly, there have been quite a few cases of characters getting a significant injury and having to naturally heal for the next few strips, implying that they don’t have any kind of natural regeneration. Finally, there is of course the fact that the original continuity ended with Ethan sacrificing himself to save the world, something he did not come back from. All of which indicates that his original self doesn’t have any kind of natural regeneration. This is of course disregarding Analog, who does explicitly have resurrection, since as mentioned this will be separating the two for a verdict.
As for Tycho, Penny Arcade has had a massive amount of cases of Tycho and Gabe dying as the punchline, a lot of which are listed here. Now unlike Ethan, there is actually a precedent for their resurrections being more than just negative continuity thanks to the Enthusiast’s Timepiece. Both have killed each other for it many times throughout the series, with the one that owns it switching to match whoever killed the other last. Poker Night at the Inventory also supports this, as the description of the watch notes that it's typically gained through murder. However, the issue here is the matter of timeframe, as there's not been any case of them actively coming back to life in a short time. In fact, this comic showing them as missing after a week due to being dead implies it takes at least that long for them to come back, which I feel is more than long enough for the fight to be declared as uncontinuable. You could argue that he could use his time machine to go back to the fight after resurrecting, but given this isn’t something he’s ever tried in-character, there’s not much reason to account for that here.
Elijah Scaling
Elijah here is the resident speedster of the Analog + D-Pad comics, so he does naturally hit a couple points worth discussing here. In regards to his feats, he’s pretty consistently depicted as in the subsonic range, able to move faster than eyesight, appear as a blur, and form afterimages. But two of his feats can potentially get higher. First off is the statement of him going across the city in minutes. This is coming from Scott, who in this continuity is a scientist and the two’s “guy in the chair” (pun not intended), so I feel this is fair to consider accurate. The main issue with this is that the city the comic takes place in, Omnitropolis, is fictional and doesn’t really have a clear 1-1 with any real life cities, so I just arbitrarily picked two cities to use for the distance. The other big feat would be when he sprayed three tags while appearing to be standing still. This could potentially get higher numbers, but the issue is that we have no way of knowing how far away the other two tags he’s making here are, meaning it’s impossible to calculate this feat without assuming a lot for the distance.
The more questionable part is how to scale Ethan to this, as it’s established that he is faster than the two’s casual reactions, with it later being acknowledged that speedsters like him aren’t easy to apprehend. As for the two more direct cases of reacting during his movements, Lucas does manage to block off his movements, and Ethan manages to tag him mid run twice, but these cases can be written off as more them anticipating his movements rather than fully reacting to his speeds, so them scaling to him for reactions is far from clear cut. That said, we can at least get some kinetic energy feats, as Lucas managed to tank several full force tackles from him.
Verdict
Stats
For stats, both of these two naturally don’t have a whole lot to go over. Both can pretty consistently scale to the wall range casually, having a lot of feats of being able to tear apart people and knock down walls. Both even have fairly similar ends for their lifting strength, so that was likely to even out. In terms of their better feats for attacking strength, for both that comes through scaling. Ethan can scale to Rob, who was once able to shake the ground just by running, which can clock in at 0.477 Tons of TNT. Meanwhile, Tycho can scale to Gabe, whose feat of getting launched at escape velocity would clock in at about 1.355 Tons of TNT. This would make Tycho about 3 times stronger than Ethan without trying to pull any shenanigans.
If you did, Ethan did have a direct feat in screaming loud enough to be heard from orbit, which clocked in at 135.181 Tons of TNT, which could make him about a hundred times stronger. Though this was definitely debatable to use, as not only is there the standard issues that makes feats of this nature debatable, in that it’s easy to argue it’s more a case of toon force and there’s not a lot of correlation between how hard you can scream and how hard you can punch, it’s also a good deal higher than any of his other feats, which means you could definitely write it off as an outlier.
There’s also Ethan’s hyperbolic feat of being able to cause a Magnitude 15 earthquake, which would clock it at 476.879 Petatons. It’s definitely a good deal higher than the other feats mentioned, but even if you wanted to use it, then by similar standards you could use the time Tycho claimed he could eat the planet and burst through a hole between dimensions, and I don’t think I need to pull up numbers to say that would be more than good enough to overpower Ethan. So overall, power was a bit of a toss up, but generally Tycho had the edge.
In terms of speed, both didn’t have a whole lot to go over. Both do have fairly comparable subsonic ends, but like the last category, scaling does shift things a bit. For Tycho, he would be able to scale to Gabe being able to intercept a bullet, which could get him into Mach 0.67 - 1.33 for speed. This was above anything done by humans in Ctrl+Alt+Del, as surprisingly no one in Ethan’s comics ever dodged bullets.
I specify “humans” there because Zeke had his statement of having “nano-reflexes”, implying he can react within nanoseconds and therefore meaning he’d be in the Relativistic to Faster than Light range. However, even taking this fairly casual boast literally, there’s not much of a solid way to actually scale anyone to Zeke in terms of his full speeds, given no one ever really ends up outspeeding his reactions fully, and the fact he is a robot, meaning this could very easily just be a case of him having good processors. So ultimately, while there are arguments for Ethan pulling ahead, generally it was easier to argue Tycho had the edge in stats.
Arsenal, Abilities, and Allies
General versatility was a category the two matched each other in pretty well. Both had a lot of options for fighting, including various blunt objects, blades, guns, and other ways of causing harm, along with a lot of less useful bullshit. They could even compare more directly, as both had access to tasers, lightsabers, chainsaws, and ways to counter toxic gasses. Abilities were a similar case, as while neither had too much to go over, the ones they shared, like 4th Wall Awareness and Energy/Electric blasts, evened out pretty neatly.
Where things shifted, though, was in terms of what they didn’t share, as generally Tycho’s unique options were a lot better than Ethan’s. Starting with the arsenal comparison, Ethan did generally have an edge in terms of defensive armor options, and he did have quite a few options that seemed good on paper, such as his planted bombs, traps, or cloning machine. The issue here, though, is that these would all rely on him needing to get time to set up. While some of Tycho’s options were similarly limited in that way, such as his Age of Empires slideshow and the tungsten rod helmet, he had quite a few options which could easily end the fight instantly, such as the gun that shoots viruses or his dart that instantly kills people. He also has access to the Medigun from TF2, which if you didn’t know, canonically blows up the hearts of most people on being exposed to it. Whether or not Tycho’s could do that is debatable, but if it could, then there’s a wincon Ethan certainly wouldn’t see coming.
In terms of abilities, that was a similar case. Ethan did have a couple big options which could be useful. Particularly, his telekinesis would be a good offensive option for putting Tycho on the backfoot, and his instinctive reaction could arguably let him keep fighting if he was put asleep. However, the big thing you could give him in stealth was directly countered by Tycho’s watch letting him turn fully invisible. And while a decent chunk of Tycho’s abilities were frankly not going to be relevant, he had two which would be particularly dangerous. There’s his ability to steal memories, which while nebulously defined could certainly screw up Ethan if he got to have his way with him. But more dangerously was his soul manipulation, as while whether or not he could directly kill souls was unclear, his ability to remove Ethan’s soul from his body was something that could very easily end the fight then and there.
Briefly discussing forms, yeah Tycho had way more, but neither had access to ones that would shift the discussion that much, so it’s not worth getting into.
Finally, to discuss support, this was definitely a big “quality vs quantity” case. Tycho definitely had far more to potentially toss at Ethan, as he’s got a bunch of demons and animals, a few robots, and fucking Nemesis from Resident Evil, as opposed to Ethan, who’s really only got Zeke. However, Zeke is a lot more versatile than any of the minions Tycho had, and while it was questionable to scale Ethan to his nano-reflexes personally, that did mean Zeke had significantly faster reactions than anyone else on the field. Though that didn’t really amount to much, as given he’s generally on par with Ethan physically and doesn’t have any real offensive capabilities, there wasn’t much he could realistically do to shift the tide in Ethan’s favor.
Tertiary Factors
When comparing the two intellectually, neither were particularly well known for being these epic fighters with legendary mindgames. Ethan was at least likely smarter on a general level, given his many inventions were a lot more impressive than Tycho being a generally competent computer programmer. That said, when it came to more VS relevant intelligence, Tycho had an edge. Not only is he generally more willing to resort to violence, he’s got experience being tricky and manipulative. Certainly not helping was the stamina comparison. Not only does Tycho generally tend to shrug off significant injuries that would leave Ethan hospitalized, but his feats of staying up for months to years far trumped Ethan’s best showing of not even being able to stay up for a week. There’s not a whole lot to say here, so let’s move on to discussing how things change if this turns to a-
Composite
Tycho wins even harder now, gg.
…oh you want elaboration? Well…
Starting with stats, Ethan doesn’t really get much in terms of AP feats in the comic. The best feat he could scale to, that being the explosion that gave him powers, would still be weaker than Rob and his other canon arguments. The only other character at a higher scale would be Captain Eldritch, who, as mentioned, Ethan has no business scaling to at the moment. That said, Fuchisia’s feat of causing an explosion worth 75 Kilotons alone was over 150 thousand times stronger than Ethan’s best possible feat, and this is a blast Tycho can actively weaponize at any time, can use on any of the various enemies he fights, and can survive being right next to with no damage. And of course there are higher arguments to be mentioned. To be blunt, there is no world where Analog can even scratch Detective Tycho.
Speed was a similar case. Analog could at least get up to the Mach ranges of OG!Gabe thanks to being able to tag Elijah, who can run at similar speeds. But then Detective Tycho has his niece’s orbital cannon, which is thousands of times faster and is supported by scaling to Cthullu, who’s done a similar feat directly. You could arguably push Analog higher through his claim of being a lightning timer and Zeke’s direct relativistic feat, but not only are both kinda iffy on their own merits, the fact Elijah is much slower than both of those arguments and yet is treated as a high effort foe for Analog to keep up with is a big narrative anti-feat to him being that fast. Especially so given “appearing so fast it’s like he’s in more than one place” is something Detective Gabe can also do more casually.
Also he scales to the Player breaking pillars, and as we all know breaking pillars means you transcend fiction entirely.
When it comes to versatility, Analog does get a couple super hero gadgets, but speaking broadly, none of them really change things that much. Not only does the speed gap mean he’s realistically struggling to hit Tycho, but when you break things down all the things he has are stuff he had in some equivalent before. Detective Tycho, meanwhile, gets a bunch of stat buffing and debuffing items which would further leave Analog in the dust stat wise, even more allies, many of whom have AOE attacks that would make dodging practically impossible, a bunch of magical spells, and healing that would instantly undo any damage on the off chance Analog does something.
Now Analog does have a big ace in the hole in his immortality, as that did mean this wasn’t quite as simple as “Tycho hits him once and he dies”. However, even this would only really drag out the inevitable. Not only did Tycho have plenty of options for simply incapacitating him, which Analog’s immortality does not protect him from, the biggest issue Analog would have is if Tycho attacked his soul, which he has yet to show any capability of resisting. This was a problem, as not only would it mean he’s still vulnerable to the aforementioned soul detaching, it also means he’d be fully capable of either getting sucked up by the Soul Extractor or just getting his soul shot and killed directly. Meanwhile, Analog didn’t really have access to anything that he could realistically use to take out Detective Tycho before he got soul yoinked, with his super hero gadgets or not.
As for other stuff that doesn’t change much, Tycho gets a few more useless forms, and he likely has an even better edge in experience, as he’s portrayed as a guy who spent much of his life dealing with supernatural stuff, whereas Analog is still a newbie to being a superhero. Now I’m guessing you can see why I wanted to separate it out. This isn’t even mentioning the other stuff Tycho would get by allowing everything from other crossovers, such as the various traps that give him better area control from Dungeon Defenders, the ability to give buffs to all his allies thanks to AirMech, and the ability to hit Ethan and Zeke at the same time thanks to KaosBall, which singlehandedly negated the biggest advantage Zeke had. So let’s end this before this qualifies as targeted bullying.
Conclusion
Had one argument for being stronger..
Better options for defensive armors
Zeke was faster and technically better than any of Tycho’s support…
Likely smarter intellectually
Analog’s immortality could be tricky to get around…
Is somehow more relevant on the modern internet due to memes
The Analog + D-Pad comics are fairly solid superhero comics
Disadvantages:
…weaker under most circumstances
Slower
Generally less directly deadly arsenal
Vulnerable to many methods of instant death
…too bad he’s comically outnumbered
Worse in terms of battle relevant intelligence
…too bad he’s completely fucked in all other regards by Detective Tycho
B^U
Advantages:
Stronger under most circumstances
Faster
Generally more deadly arsenal
Significantly outnumbers in support
Better battle relevant intelligence
Detective Tycho just takes Analog to the fucking cleaners
Disadvantages:
Worse options for defensive armors
Zeke was technically fast enough to do something maybe
Not as smart intellectually
Analog’s immorality would be annoying to get around
Everyone fucking hates him in Poker Night
For that reason everyone is probably gonna hate him for winning this despite his comic being better
So, in this battle of old internet titans, ultimately Ethan came up short to Tycho. Whether you gave him everything or not, Tycho had the strength, abilities, and experience to end this in his favor. This was a loss to big for Ethan to deal with. Or something. I can’t think of a funny way to end this so I’m gonna yammer for a bit until you stop reading and see the win screen. You also definitely shouldn’t look for hidden links below it.
The winner is Tycho Brahe.
Donot click this link or you’ll get troolllledd!!!!!
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