Dragonball Super manga Volume 4 (chapter 22)

By Mark Rodriguez

Goku, Vegeta and Trunks return to the alternate future timeline for the rematch with Goku Black and Zamas. Goku Black has gotten more powerful and was able to transform into Super Saiyan Rose.  Gowas arrives with Kaioshin and tries to talk Goku Black into giving up his evil way one last time. Goku Black stabs him with an energy blade and tosses him off a roof, making him land near the heroes. What will happen now?

Chapter 22- Zamas's Final Trump Card

Gowas lays in front of Kaisohin, Trunks and Mai. Goku Black looks down upon the other from the rooftop and smirks. Kaioshin angrily flies off to attack him but Zamas flies after him and kicks him away. Trunks holds onto Gowas telling him that he can't die here. Gowas suddenly coughs and opens his eyes. Black says he must have missed his vitals, but they must kill them before they escape again. Trunks tells Mai to take Gowas on a nearby motorcycle and get away as far as she can while he keeps them occupied. Trunks turns Super Saiyan and charges forward with his sword saying that he will stall them until Goku and Vegeta return. 

Goku and Vegeta arrive and can sense that Trunks and Mai are still alive but Trunks' energy is fading. They arrive at the battle scene and see that Kaioshin has been defeated and Black is choking Trunks out. Upon seeing that they've returned, Goku Black drops Trunks to the ground. Vegeta says he'll beat him to a pulp and tells Goku to give the senzu beans to Trunks and Kaioshin. Goku asks if he's sure he can handle this on his own. Vegeta says he will and Goku's job is to go off and seal the immortal Zamas. Vegeta and Goku Black go off to fight elsewhere.

Goku goes to give Trunks a senzu and Zamas tries to blast them. Goku teleports out of the way and appears near Kaioshin. He then teleports away with Trunks as well. Zamas is angry that they got away. Mai is riding the motorcycle with Gowas away from the fight until Goku appears in front of her with the others. She tells him that if he has another senzu bean, Gowas really needs one now. 

Goku Black and Vegeta face off. Black says Vegeta doesn't seem any different but he does look confident. He asks if he's learned some new transformation and Vegeta says he will see. Black transforms into Super Saiyan Rose. Vegeta transforms with red hair, which means he's a Super Saiyan God. Vegeta still smirks confidently and says he realized he needs this form to defeat him. Black asks what he intends to do with a downgraded form and realizes that Vegeta still looks very sure of himself.

I always find it humorous how they always have to find a way to have the characters call out that Goku or Vegeta have red or blue hair. Otherwise how would you be able to tell in a black and white manga?

Black fires off an energy blast that Vegeta easily avoids. The confident smirk that Vegeta has makes Black angrier as he fires off a second blast. Vegeta easily flips out of the way and lands in front of him. Vegeta comes in with a punch that Black blocks using his palms. He comments that the Saiyan has gotten faster. Vegeta starts attacking him and Black is surprised such power can be coming from the Super Saiyan God form. Vegeta finally lands a kick sending Black flying back. Black is sent flying through several buildings, and even when he tries to slam on the breaks, he collides with yet another building. 

Black makes the building explode in his anger. Black tells Vegeta not to mess with him. Vegeta smirks and asks how it feels to lose to Super Saiyan God. Black says he hasn't lost yet and Vegeta says they should settle it. Both continue to fight.

Elsewhere, Gowas is healed thanks to the senzu bean Goku gave him. Kaioshin apologizes that they wasted the beans on them but Goku thanks him for saving Trunks. Goku says they only have on senzu left but it should be alright as long as Vegeta defeats Black and he manages to seal away Zamas. Goku gives Trunks the capsule for the time machine and he opens the capsule for the plum jar. 

Just then Goku Black lands nearby and continues fighting with Vegeta. Trunks notices his father's form and asks about it. Goku tell him that it's the Super Saiyan God form, the form that comes before Super Saiyan Blue. Trunks is surprised that his father isn't being pushed back by this form. Goku explains that Super Saiyan Blue has amazing power but you can't fight in that form for long, while the Super Saiyan God form keeps things more balanced. Vegeta is storing his energy while in his God form and then transforming into Blue the moment he lands an attack and back again. Kaioshin asks if this is what he used in his fight against Hit. Goku says it is but he could only do the switch once. The fact that Vegeta can make the switch multiple times shows how hard he's trained. 

Goku Black finally catches on that Vegeta has been transforming mid-fight. Vegeta says he won't be able to do anything even if he realized his plan. Just then Zamas flies in and kicks Vegeta away. Goku sees him and flies over with the plum jar. Goku tells Zamas that he's a former Kaioshin, so he should know to not step between a fight between two proud warriors. Goku offers to challenge him and Zamas accepts. Black notices the jar that Goku has set down. Vegeta fires off some ki attacks towards Black reminding him that he can't afford to get distracted now. 

Zamas reminds Goku that he is immortal and there isn't a way for him to be defeated. Goku turns Super Saiyan Blue and says this technique will work on him even if he is immortal. Goku then unleashes the Ma-Fu-Ba. The technique latches onto Zamas and sends him into the plum jar. Goku dashes over to tie it up with the help of Trunks and they slap the seal on it. However the seal turned out to be a 50% off coupon for a hostess bar instead of the actual talisman. Zamas breaks free from the jar, breathing heavily. 

Vegeta notices what happened and is angry Goku screwed things up. Goku figures he wasn't cut out for that kind of technique and turns into Super Saiyan God. He tells Trunks that the Ma-Fu-Ba took a lot out of him so turning Blue now wouldn't last long. He says this enough to handle Zamas. Zamas holds his hands out and Goku remembers he needs to dodge that paralyzing technique. He suddenly zips behind him and kicks him away. 

Zamas hits the ground hard, getting scraped as he slides across it, but he soon recovers. He tells Goku that he can't take damage but soon takes a strong punch to the guy anyway. Goku hits him with several attacks and Zamas tells him he'll always recover so it's no use. Goku says he can't tell if it's no use, or if it's more of a matter of continuing to fight until he finally gives up. 

Vegeta socks Black in the face and tells him that he chose the wrong body to steal. Goku tells Zamas that it seems that fight is pretty much settled. He tells Zamas that even if he's immortal there's not much he can do on his own, and at his state even Trunks can take him down. He was pretty much used by Goku Black. Zamas says the plan was flawless and failure wasn't an option. He raises his hand to make the ground underneath Goku explode. Goku is already behind him, telling him that he should just return to his own universe. Goku sends a shockwave from his palm that knocks Zamas to the ground, making him slide near Goku Black.

Zamas is angry at his plans falling apart. Black tells him to get back up and says this is why he wished for him to be immortal. Zamas gets up and grabs Goku Black angrily. He says he was told that this would never happen and that nothing could stop them if they joined forces. He says Black needs to become the most powerful or all of this will be for nothing. Goku notices that now they're fighting among themselves and Vegeta says it's over.

Vegeta aims his palm at them and tells them they can choose to be killed by him or they can take each other out. Goku Black tells Zamas to relax and reminds him that they have a final trump card. Vegeta says he'll just finish them off. Goku notices that Goku Black takes off the Potara earring from one ear and is about to switch it to the other, which would be the opposing ear that Zamas is wearing his. Goku yells at Vegeta to finish them now and he fires off his own ki blast. At this point Goku Black had already placed the Potara earring on the other ear. It's too late and a huge burst of energy picks up clouds of dust.

As the dust clears, Goku, Vegeta and the others are surprised to see that Goku Black and Zamas have used the Potara earrings to fuse. They are now the new form called God Zamas. 

My thoughts- 

As I rewatch the more-or-less coinciding episodes, I'm surprised by just how different and almost completely opposite the fights turn out between the manga and the anime. The manga, while still making Goku Black and Zamas a major threat, still makes it so they can be taken down if they're caught off guard by new techniques and such. The anime version makes them pretty much unbeatable from the start. 

One of the major things here is we finally get to see Vegeta use his Super Saiyan God form. It's something that seemed to have been glossed over when going from the Beerus arc to the Resurrection F arc, the fact that Vegeta somehow skipped Super Saiyan God and went straight to Super Saiyan Blue. In this chapter Vegeta uses a plan similar to what Goku used when he fought Hit, conserving his energy in his God form and only turning Blue at the very last minute. In the anime version, fans didn't get to see Vegeta use the Super Saiyan God form until the Broly movie.

The manga version had Vegeta completely overpower Goku Black while Goku used the Ma-Fu-Ba on Zamas, in the anime Vegeta only had the upperhand for a while. Goku Black finally noticed that Saiyans increase their power through rage and uses his own to create a scythe of solid energy. His new weapon somehow cut a hole through reality and the energy coming from it created Goku Black clones. Defeating the clones would only turn them into smoke and they'd re-form again. That whole scene was just weird, I mean even Goku Black didn't understand how this happened and he just decides to go along with it.

Meanwhile Zamas would seek out Trunks, Mai and Bulma to finally kill them. Bulma showed Trunks a video she filmed of Piccolo showing how to do the Ma-Fu-Ba. She then went out to try to seduce Zamas to buy him some time to practice it. Trunks ends up using the Ma-Fu-Ba and traps Zamas in the jar that Mai was holding. However, Goku forgot to bring the seal so Zamas just escaped. After such a close call, Zamas and Goku Black decide to fuse and just end this already. Their reason for fusion had the completely opposite tone. The anime goes with Zamas and Black getting tired of being held back and decide to fuse to just wipe out their enemies once and for all, while in the manga they're completely defeated and decide to fuse as a last-ditch back up plan they had ready if the situation were to come to that.

The anime also made Goku a forgetful idiot. I didn't mention this but on the first visit to Trunks' timeline, Goku forgot to bring the bag of senzu beans with them. They thankfully didn't do this in the manga. While the Ma-Fu-Ba didn't work, at least it was because Goku grabbed the wrong seal instead of him forgetting it altogether. I just wish the manga left out the 'Goku doesn't know what a kiss is' scene. Sure maybe Goku never kissed Chichi but there's no way Chichi never kissed Goku.

So far I wish the anime held off a bit and just adapted the manga version, because I've been enjoying this version a lot more. This chapter must have been a treat for Vegeta fans as he was dominating the entire fight and was pretty much ready to finish things had Black and Zamas not used the Potara. I liked the scene when Zamas grabbed Goku Black and started arguing with him. I can't wait to see what happens next.