Dragonball Super manga Volume 1 (Chapter 2)

By Mark Rodriguez

Last time Goku got a job to help make ends meet for the family. Mr. Satan was offered a lot of money after having 'defeated' Majin Buu but he felt taking it wouldn't be right since Goku and Vegeta did most of the heavy lifting. Goten tells his father to take the money so he would be allowed to train with Kaioh Sama. 

Elsewhere, Beerus the God of Destruction has awakened and started blowing up planets. After seeing another planet explode he says it reminded him of a premonition he had recently, something about a Super Saiyan God. 

Chapter 2- Goku Defeated

On the world where Lord Beerus and Whis live, the Oracle Fish does confirm the existence of a Super Saiyan God. Whis tells Beerus that Freeza had already destroyed Planet Vegeta. Beerus remembers telling him to do that. Whis discovers that some Saiyans survived and went to Earth. Beerus asks if Earth was the same planet where he wiped out the dinosaurs because they were rude to him. Whis says he remembers something like that. The Saiyan called Son Goku actually defeated Freeza and is currently training with Kaioh Sama. Beerus decides that's their next destination.

On Kaioh's planet, he feels the presence of Lord Beerus headed their way. He tells Goku that he is the God of Destruction and the most powerful person in the universe, so naturally Goku wants to fight him. Before Kaioh can object, Beerus and Whis are already standing behind him. Goku wastes no time in turning into a Super Saiyan and Beerus awaits the challenge.

Beerus dodges all of his moves, which leads to Goku turning Super Saiyan 2, without much luck. Goku decides to show him his full power, which is Super Saiyan 3 and now the God of Destruction takes him seriously. As they fight, Kaioshin and Elder Kaioshin sense the battle. Elsewhere, Champa and Vados also sense that Beerus is fighting on Kiaoh's planet and decide to take advantage of the situation to move unnoticed.

Beerus dodges all of Super Saiyan 3 Goku's attacks and Goku demands him to fight back at least a little so he can see how powerful he is. Beerus flicks him in the forehead and sends him flying. Beerus tells him to transform into the Super Saiyan God. Goku has never heard of this form and tells him level 3 is his ultimate form. Beerus is disappointed and warps behind Goku to chop him in the back of the neck, knocking him out. The God of Destruction decides to find more Saiyans on Earth.

The bonus page is an image of Vegeta watching people dancing on TV to learn the Bingo Dance he did in Battle of Gods.

My thoughts- 

This was a cool chapter as we get the first big fight in the series. Since this was done in the Battle of Gods movie and then again in the Super anime, this is technically the third version of the first fight between Goku and Beerus. This version went along closer to what was seen in the anime, where Goku actually fights Beerus a bit in his Super Saiyan and Super Saiyan 2 forms before going all out. In the movie he just uses the other 2 forms as a way to elevate himself to Super Saiyan 3 but he doesn't actually fight using the lesser forms. 

But boy oh boy, did the anime version cause a lot of controversy back then. Episode 5 of the Dragonball Super anime had Goku and Beerus fight but with very terrible, rushed and sloppy looking animation. At the time some of the American fanbase was already upset that the first episodes of Super was basically the Battle of Gods movie retold, but now to have this shoddy animation on top of that? From what I heard, the DVD and Blu-ray release of this episode redrew a lot of the real bad parts. Not perfect, but a definite improvement compared to what was originally aired on TV. I will spare you the images of a crappy looking Goku, but they were everywhere back then, I'm sure you can still find them. 

It was difficult to find legit comparison shots. Fans hated the original animation so much they took it upon themselves to fix the frames with photoshop and other art tools. The left is the broadcast TV version and the right is the Blu-ray version.

Another odd thing was the implication that Beerus wiped out the dinosaurs upon visiting Earth sometime in the past. The only problem with that is that dinosaurs still pretty much exist in the world of Dragonball. The first time Goku met Bulma, he had to save her from a dinosaur, and Gohan started his training pretty much running from a dinosaur. 

Looks like Beerus did a sloppy job.