DB Prediction: President Koopa vs Dr. Robotnik

“He crossed the line between everyday villainy and cartoonish supervillainy ”

~Waylon J. Smithers, Jr.

Ain’t gonna lie to y’all for a second, I love out there adaptations, like okay (depending on the context) there are times where it gets too out there, and there’s also times where it so out there it becomes a classic to me. Look man i’m probably the world’s only unironic Dragon Ball evolution fan aight, I breathe out there adaptations. One of my favorite media to see get adapted (may it be out there or accurate) is video games, and today we have the biggest gaming villain match up, but with the twist of it being their appearances in the live action movie adaptations. I love this match up, I love both of the films we’re analyzing today, so let's get into it.  

Before we begin

What are we including?

For Pres. Koopa we’ll be including the 1993 Mario movie as well as the Mario Movie Manga and the Skybox trading cards

And for Robotnik we’ll be including the first two LA Sonic movies, the pre-quill comic by IDW, and the drone home short

Btw shout out to the goated Mario movie archive site, with that being said where the fuck is that sequel comic at, ITS BEEN YEARS SINCE MAY 2021 WHAT HAPPEND

What happened to some of the links?

So turns out the links to the movie now instead now lead to a 404 page on a adult site so uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I don't feel like replacing the links so just take me word on those timestamps 

(thanks to the person who told me bout this, though I wish they didn't keep forgetting to tell me because according to them its been like this for a while)

Background

President Koopa 

“Too late, humans! [...] Looks like I win”

The meteor that struck the dinosaurs is one of the most famous examples of mass extinction. But what if it wasn’t mass extinction, what if instead the impact of that meteor sent some dinosaurs into an alternate dimension where they evolved into intelligent bipeds like us, and what if they found a way back? That last question was what was stuck on the general turned all powerful president/king Koopa’s mind. As he was tracking down this lady named Daisy ever since she was an infant, who held a piece of the meteorite that would be able to merge the two worlds. Allowing the people of Dinohattan to finally flee their desolate and grimey wasteland of a planet and flee to earth (remember this movie was made in the early 90’s). Then on one faithful day, he found her, but also the two people who would signify the end of his empire. 

The Mario Brothers

Despite using everything he had, the dictator in a half shell couldn’t get his hands on Mario Mario, Luigi Mario, or that meteorite for long. However thanks (somewhat) to his wife, the dimensional merge did somewhat happen, before being quickly undone and the Mario brothers devolving him into a puddle of slime, a fitting end for a weirdly germophobic individual. However, while we may never get a proper idea, the last minute sequel bait does make me wonder somewhat. Had Koopa, in spirit, accomplished his goal and found a way back, the world may never know.

Dr. Robotnik

“Confidence! A fool’s substitute for intelligence”

Orphaned as an infant (Sonic (2020 film) 30:24) Robtnik showed great intelligence at a very young age. With a disdain for how the world worked in such a way that brawn can triumph over brain, Robotnik would pave a path of destruction, anger, technical miracles, and self proclaimed superiority over everyone. Joining the military he would become a loose but powerful cannon, he wasn’t trusted but respected, and thus when the government was facing a concerning and unexplainable blackout. He seemed like the right person for the job.

This would lead to him meeting and facing Sonic in a cross country/cross world brawl that would ultimately end up with him stranded on a mushroom planet and his name and history being wiped off the record. To assume that would be to assume Robotnik is that of lesser men, which he isn’t. He found a way back, tricked a strong echidna warrior into helping him acquire the master emerald, however even with god powers that hedgehog and his friends were able to defeat him again. As we see him fall from a great height, getting shrouded in explosions we just have to wonder one thing

Is he truly gone this time? 

Equipment and Allies

President Koopa 

Devolution gun

The latest and greatest weapon in the Koopa’s gallery of weapons is the devolution gun. Capable of devolving living things however ever many ancestors they have to devolve into, in fact, the goombas are devolved Dinohattan civilians, that’s pretty messed up. He also used it and turned some poor sap into a –

Fireball blaster

A gun that fires out fiery fireballs, that overuse of the word fire was fire man

Anyhow, these fireball blasters were able to bust through a locked metal door, even sending of them flying (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 1:22:18)

However it does occasionally jam (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 1:25:12)

Walkie Talkie

How he keeps in touch with his troops or the status of his pizza delivery

Koopa mobile

Can probably (and probably has) commit hit n runs with it

Fan

Ain’t really a fan of this one

Goomba

Big body, small head, dumb, and loyal Goombas make for excellent minions and are what makes up the majority of Koopa’s army

They come packaged with fireball blasters and the much feared devolution gun

One even survived being hit by a fireball blaster and getting set ablaze (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 1:12:05)

Another survived ramming into icicles so hard they break into pieces (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 1:23:11)

Cops

That’s right Koopa got his weirdy disinfected hands on the police force. Lizards, Dinosaurs, Pigs, what’s next? Geckos?

Anyhow the police station not only have fireball blasters (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 42:45) but also holds two special pieces of equipment

A taser gun which tases people (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 32:19)

And police cars, said cars having no breaks (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 43:54)

Lena

Koopa’s (not so) lovely wife, she may be the person Koopa takes seriously the least, and that’s pretty sad.

-Has a knife (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 1:10:26)

-Has this weird metallic mush that acts similarly to a rag of chloroform (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 1:25:46)  

-Survived being shocked (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 1:26:05)

-Was gonna merge the dimensions, but couldn’t withstand the force and died

Dr. Robotnik

Control Glove 

He uses this to control his drones

Can scan things to get data (Sonic (2020 film) 27:37)

One of it's fingers can act as a blow torch using electricity (Sonic 2 (2022 film) 21:11)

Has a mini drone inside of it which can map out entire mazes (Sonic 2 (2022 film) 1:17:20)

Can be used as a taser also (Sonic 2 (2022 film) 1:19:05)

Drone technology

Can scan and hyper analyze things (Sonic (2020 film) 20:59) (Sonic (2020 film) 21:47)

Has mounted guns (Sonic (2020 film) 32:47), though they need to reload (Sonic (2020 film) 33:01)

Fire mini missiles (Sonic (2020 film) 1:14:37)

They can also shoot out grapple gloves, with three of them being enough to tear out and lift up a bank vault

Their batteries can apparently last 1 billion years

Also there are multiple variations of drones

Mini drones

Mini versions of the regular drone

Beetle Drone

Can fire out long reaching tracking lasers to home on their target and fire orange smaller lasers at them (Sonic 2 (2022 film) 54:06)

Said lasers themselves seem to be potent and not just for show (Sonic 2 (2022 film) 55:02)

Morning Routine drone

Teeny tiny drones for helping Robotnik with his morning routine

Self aware drone

A singular drone Robotnik programmed to be able to think for itself for no real reason. This drone can be seen acquiring itself constant upgrades at the junkyard, though it has been turned off from attacking when pushed to pursue its passion of poetry

A singular quill from Sonic

This electrifying and pointy thing despite being separated from the full hedgehog, it still has a lot of juice

It being able to knock out the power of Robotnik's federal truck lab thing (Sonic (2020 film) 1:02:59)

It's energy even stated to be unlimited (Sonic (2020 film) 1:04:23) (not saying this means it has infinite power as in strength, just that it's unlikely to run out of juice, an infinite battery if you will)

Doom buggy

Has a harpoon to stab and reel in vehicles (Sonic (2020 film) 54:39)

It even has loads of smaller buggies inside it

Let's go in chronological order 

First mini buggy can fire mini emp disk (Sonic (2020 film) 56:37)

Second mini buggy has pokey tires (that's what my family calls them) that pose a serious threat to tires (Sonic (2020 film) 57:47)

Last one isn't really a buggy but more so a super tiny drone, which can fire lasers that can guy through cars (Sonic (2020 film) 58:40), with the main body acting as a sticky bomb if it gets detached from the propeller (Sonic (2020 film) 59:02), with the explosion being able to crack rocks (Sonic (2020 film) 59:33)

Egg Pod

It's powered by Sonic's quill, which allows it to keep up with Sonic, however Robotnik himself doesn’t seem capable of reacting at said speeds (Sonic (2020 film) 1:15:14)

It also has a really cool laser capable or big explosions (Sonic (2020 film) 1:15:22)

Has laser tracking missiles (Sonic (2020 film) 1:22:13)

Space satellite 

Robotnik operates this at wherever his base is, and is able to track where somebody is in the world (Sonic 2 (2022 film) 41:10), also dispenses the-

-Space Egg

A giant flying space egg that can be called in from orbit, it also contains plenty of drones

It also contains the-

-Eggmobile

(Knuckles not included)

Our final part of this technological russian doll is this flying machine straight out of the games, though no wrecking balls seemed to be chained to it

However it can fire missiles (Sonic 2 (2022 film) 53:09)

Egg krabs?

While yes they have so far only been used by Agent Stone (and for a matter of fact, only in this single panel) while Robotnik was away, given the context it’s safe to say these are the Doctor’s inventions 

Portable flamethrower

Being a repurposed jet fuel disbursement system, this flame thrower packs incredible heat, being able to set a cave full of mushrooms on fire

Agent Stone

He’s gay, he’s so fucking gay, and good for him, hope him the best when he proposes to Robotnik

-Has his own control glove

-Snuck himself into a group of GUN soldiers in full disguise mere moments after the Egg mecha vs Super Sonic battle (Sonic 2 (2022 film) 1:52:44)

-Really good at coffee art (Sonic 2 (2022 film) 27:34)

-Was able to follow Robotnik’s manifesto, and was said by Robotnik to be one of the smartest humans

Strength

President Koopa 

-Kicked yoshi (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 53:16) (what the fuck Koopa) 

-Wrestled with Mario and Luigi (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 35:40)

-Punched a Gommba hard enough to knock em down (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 1:33:10)

Dr. Robotnik

-Okay admittedly it's unclear if it was him or Agent Stone that did it but one of them threw this biker dude through a window (Sonic (2020 film) 51:47)

-Could match Tom in their rematch (Sonic (2020 film) 1:19:35)

-Threw a big rock a fair distance (Sonic (2020 film) 1:29:29)

Speed

President Koopa 

(It technically fits, shut up)

-Kept up with the cars found in Dinohattan (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 1:27:14)

Dr. Robotnik

(I hate finding visuals for the speed sections)

-Dodged a giant swinging spiked ball (Sonic 2 (2022 film) 1:16:20) and outran said spiked ball once it began rolling (Sonic 2 (2022 film) 1:16:24), and various other booby traps

Durability

President Koopa 

-Got hit by a thwomp stomper boot (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 1:24:51)

-Survived a Bob-omb explosion (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 1:33:55)

-Should scale to Mario who

Survived getting tased (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 28:55) (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 32:19) (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 32:41) (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 35:47)

Took a punch from Big Bertha (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 59:00)

Survived this (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 1:23:51) (I don’t remember what i meant by “this”)

Dr. Robotnik

Took a punch from Tom (Sonic (2020 film) 32:45)

Supposedly took a punch from a school bully that caused a blunt force contusion (Sonic (2020 film) 40:26)

Licked Sonic's quill (Sonic (2020 film) 1:00:59)

-Survived this (Sonic 2 (2022 film) 2:44) (curse past me over usage of non specific terms like “this”) though it did leave him knocked out

-Held hands with Knuckles (Sonic 2 (2022 film) 30:57)

Feats

President Koopa 

-Took over and made himself the de facto ruler

-Somehow stays clean in such a grimey city

-Turned Scapelli into a monkey

-The role got Hopper’s son some shoes

-Never lost a single election (he was the only option)

Dr. Robotnik

-Has 5 PHd's

-Was solving and/or making formulas as an infant (Sonic (2020 film) 30:13)

-Escaped the Mushroom Planet with little resources

-Got revenge on that bully

-Stopped a coup in Pakistan and the uprising in Azerbaijani Stan

-Snatched the Master emerald

-Did shrooms

Hax, Abilities, and Techniques

President Koopa 

Tongue stretching

He can stretch his tongue yeah, maybe that’s why Lena stayed with him

Regeneration

Koopa can regenerate lost limbs and the such, and given the wording you can argue his wife can also regenerate like this 

 However a caveat is that if you get his head, he isn’t coming back 

Dr. Robotnik

Idk if this has a name but it seems like a technique (Sonic (2020 film) 51:58)

Flossing

You’re lost without it

Weaknesses 

President Koopa 

-The devolution gun can be used against him

(thought to be fair if you don’t use it against him for long enough, he turns into a T-rex (Super Mario Bros (1993 film) 1:34:13))

-Goombas are so stupid they don’t notice brightly colored plumbers in a small grey elevator space. They  are even hypnotized by music

-Germaphobe

-Those pesky plumbers

Dr. Robotnik

-Despite being such marvels of technology, the drones seem to not be made of toughest stuff, getting taken out after getting hit really hard by ordinary objects (Sonic (2020 film) 33:38) (Sonic (2020 film) 58:19)

-Lost some sanity after (or before) the events of the first movie 

-That blue rat

Before the verdict

Why not give Mario kun scaling to Ko-?

WE ARE NOT HAVING THIS CONVERSATION, MARIO KUN ISN’T MENTIONED IN THE MEDIA INCLUSION SEGMENT, IT DOESN'T MATTER

Why not wait till the semi-canon sequel comic is done?

It’s been over 2 years since the last pages were uploaded…….

Why not give the Master Emerald to Robotnik?

So the debate isn’t just “Master emerald…… win!” 

Why not wait until Sonic 3 comes out?

Because I don’t want to wait until the end of this year just on the off chance Robotnik somehow lives and gets new stuff

Verdict

Mr. Bob

(Trust the Fungus)

Okay, so I may just be flat out stupid, but it took a lot of brain power for me to come to a conclusion on this one, so let me break it down into my exact thought process

Troops

-Given it’s combined total of the police force and goombas are more likely to outnumber the drones

-Both of these groups of troops have ways to oneshot the other

-Goomba’s are dumber than bricks meanwhile we’re working with advanced AI on the drones side

-Koopa wouldn't really have a way to acquire more troops and Robotnik probably be too wrapped up in the conflict to have time to repair the drones

Overall: While these troops will play a later role in this discussion I feel like both of the groups if isolated and made to battle the other would end in a draw, so this point goes to both, or neither, idk it depends on how you approach points

Lena vs Stone

It’s the battle between the combatant’s romantic lovers

-Stone is way smarter, and has his own control glove to order around drones

-Lena most likely has the same regeneration as Koopa

-But that also means she also have the same weak point as him

-But Lena does have that metallic knockout mush, so if she’s able to get close

-Though the drones will make that a hell of lot harder

I think the more likely outcome is Stone blowing up her head than Lena getting out the mush

Point for Robotnik

Koopa vs Robotnik

The part of this breakdown where i discuss the matchup this whole blog has been about

-Now despite being two behind the glass commanders, both show surprisingly good physical feats and would not go down like a bitch in a fist fight

-But basically comes down these two ideas

-Robotnik wouldn’t be able to kill Koopa unless he aims for the head

-Koopa couldn’t kill Robotnik and most likely would have to resort to the devo gun

-”Didn’t Koopa blather that weakness to Mario, why wouldn’t he do it here?”

-Probably because he saw Mario as a low class plumber, meanwhile there’s no way to mistake Robotnik as at least a threat

-”Why couldn’t Koopa and his troops just all blast the Doc with devo guns”

-Why that probably work in most scenarios, there is one trump card Robotnik has

-glass

-More specifically the glass on the egg pod

-The egg pod, and given when Robotnik makes it taps into Sonic’s quill it can tap into speeds way beyond what either combatant can read, and fire lasers which can cause big explosions, I think this is overall Robotnik’s best shot at winning

-Now between rushing with devo guns and egg pod gunning which do I think is more likely

-uhhhhhhhhh

-Not saying Koopa is a dummy dumb dumbass but Robotnik is Robotnik, this man had Albert Einstein smarts as an infant, he’s more likely to pull out the egg pod before Koopa decides he should just say fuck it all point all devo guns at Robotnik

Hopefully next time this section can finally not look like I’m about to give you instructions on how to make my Aunt’s famous pecan pie

Anyhow

The winner is Dr. Robotnik

 

Overall:

President Koopa

+ More mentally stable (sort of)

+ Devo gun would work if Robotnik doesn’t hide behind glass

= Troops

- Less smarter

- Lena < Agent Stone

- No real answer for the Egg Pod when it taps into Sonic’s quill energy

- Is Anti-fungus 

Dr. Robotnik

+ Way smarter

+ Agent Stone > Lena

+ Egg Pod tapping into Sonic’s quill energy makes it highly improbable for Koopa to beat

+ Trusted the fungus (even if he thinks it taste awful by itself)

= Troops

- Less mentally stable

- If it wasn’t for the Egg Pod’s glass would have zero defense against the devo gun

Feel free to tell me how wrong I am in the comments and see y'all next time (whenever that'll be)