Friday, April 14, 2023

Rocky Bursts Into DEATH BATTLE!

         

Rocky, Master of the XGem

XDragoon was created by Felipe Marcantonio it can be read in English on Tapas or in Portuguese on Tapas


Welcome back to the blog! 20th blog woohoo!!! To celebrate, I'm gonna cover the longest series I've featured here so far. Along with spanning over 2,000 pages, XDragoon is also the most ambitious series I've covered at the moment. While it is a bit too shonen-y for my tastes, I gotta commend the series for being able to extend into a multimedia project with graphic novels, spinoffs, an animated webseries adaptation, and even a cancelled video game. While it may not have been my cup of tea, it definitely feels like something a lot of people could get into. It's like Dragon Ball, but with the vibe of those obscure TMNT-likes.

Background

"I’m really enjoying here so much! This planet seems very nice to me! I really like looking up at the sky… and also, I’m happy I got to meet you and your friends!"

In the world of XDragoon, there is a draconic alien race known as the dragoons hailing from a galaxy far from our own in the Alp-Pha solar system. Dwelling on the planet Gan-Mah, each one is known for their amazing fighting prowess and can train to achieve a variety of cool powers. Fire manipulation is expected, but others have crazy powers like dangerous petals and casting illusions.

The history of dragoons is one closely tied with conflict. Fifty years ago, they were at war with a race of aliens called morphs. It was a vicious war that resulted in the deaths of many dragoons. However, a dragoon named Richier singlehandedly wiped out the morphs army with the power of a grand artifact known as the XGem. Not wanting such a powerful object to fall into the wrong hands, he traveled to another galaxy to hide the XGem somewhere no dragoon has ever treaded before: Earth. No one has heard from Richier since, but after fifty peaceful years the XGem would land in a new dragoon's hands. And that dragoon is none other than Rocky.

Rocky had a rough childhood. He was born with the same orange and blue scales as Richier, signifying that he was chosen by the XGem to wield it. Too bad his father Gauthier never knew that and was enraged that Rocky's scales didn't resemble his own. Assuming his wife cheated on him, he murdered her and kept his son as a slave. As the grueling years passed, Rocky had enough of this life and ran away. Due to his upbringing, he was selfish and filled with anger, but that all changed once he met a large dragoon named Alfred.

Even though Rocky tried to steal from him, Alfred chose to take the kid under his wing and taught him to control his anger. Since then, Rocky mellowed out and the two have become best friends. Rocky's now a coolheaded and friendly dragoon who gained a passion for fighting and helping others. He and Alfred traveled the planet together without a home, going on all kinds of adventures. Little did they know that their greatest adventure yet has yet to happen.

To the surprise of all dragoons, the current ruler of Gan-Mah Lord Krad Del Black made a bold decision to put all his resources into building a space ship to fly to Earth. Everyone's in the dark as to why he's leaving his people behind, so Rocky and Alfred take it upon themselves to sneak onto the ship and attempt to convince Krad to turn back. While they did board the ship, they were eventually caught by Krad's cohort Dr. John and ejected from the ship. Thankfully the duo surrived, landing in the Amazon River.

The dragoons arrived in the city of San Janery, bewildered by this new world. As they explored it, they came across a human girl cornered by a classmate who can't take a hint. Even after their daunting landing, Rocky had the energy to scare him away. The girl's name was Renata, and she'd become one of the most influential people in Rocky's life.

Although they saved her, she didn't immediately trust the dragoon and believed they were just wearing dragoon costumes. That didn't stop her from letting them crash at her house as thanks. Rocky and Alfred enjoyed getting to know her and learn more about her world. Over time they really build up their relationship. However, Rocky is unexpectedly roped into a scheme devised by Lord Krad's very own elite soldiers. They realized the purpose of traveling to Earth was to uncover and claim the XGem.

The resistance was led by dragoons Berry and Master Fei, a veteran of the Morphs War who personally knew Richier. Naturally he recognized Rocky as Richier's successor. As the XGem was being held in a cave surrounded by a protective vaporizing barrier, the one worthy of wielding the gem would be permitted through. After proving himself worthy to the dragoon guarding it, he escaped the cave with the XGem in tow. By the time he returned, Renata had been kidnapped by Krad, so that gave him and the elite soldiers the drive to rush to his ship.

Renata was brought to Lord Krad's ship since her eyes were the same as his wife's. As it turns out, Krad only wanted the XGem to revive his wife, whose recently deceased body he brought to the planet. When Rocky reaches him and learns his motivations, he lets Krad momentarily use the XGem's power to try and revive her. As it turns out, resurrection is not one of its abilities. Lord Krad isn't convinced and fights Rocky in his blind rage. It was a tough fight, Rocky but Rocky was able to get through to him. Just as he plans to take everyone back to Gan-Mah, he's suddenly assassinated by Dr. John in cold blood. It's revealed that the evil doctor was not only the murderer of Krad's wife, but was a morphs named Scar in disguise that wanted to kill all dragoons by taking the XGem for himself. Tough luck for him, because Rocky's able to beat him with ease and saved the planet when the ship was about to self-destruct. Unfortunately, that meant the dragoons that came to Earth had no way of going back home. That didn't bother Rocky, as his upbringing on Gan-Mah wasn't the best and he still had many friends to keep him company.

Despite his race becoming publicized to the world, the dragoons were let off easy because the ones dwelling on Earth hold no animosity towards humans. So Rocky, Alfred, and Renata were able to catch a break and enjoy themselves. All signs pointed towards this being Rocky's new life, but that came crashing down once the morphs invaded Earth.

The morphs threatened to destroy the planet if Rocky and his crew didn't reach the top of the ship in 24 hours after draining the planet's life force. And so the dragoons fought powerful morphs guards in each floor to progress through the spaceship. Among those fights, two were surprisingly lifechanging.

On the fourth floor, it was revealed that Scar was still alive. Not only that, but his true motivations behind Krad's ruse of a voyage were to collect the XGem and bring it to the morphs' ruler Lord Hea. Even worse was that Rocky's abusive father had been recruited to deal with his son. In a turn of events, Gauthier had learned from his mistakes and told Rocky the truth behind his appearance. He sacrifices himself to destroy Scar, and in his last moments he gave Rocky a picture of his mother - the first time he ever saw her. Learning about this made Rocky realize that the XGem truly does bring misery wherever it goes. If his appearance alone caused so many problems growing up, it likely brought same misfortune to Richier and everyone before him. But he wasn't jaded by this news because he learned from Renata that he has to fight to overcome his problems and there's a reason for everything.

The other notable fight before reaching the top was against Alar, a morphs that would soon become one of Rocky's most valued allies. Alar was indecisive of his dedication to Lord Hea and was unsure if he had darker intentions than he was letting on. Rocky sensed this, and spared him when he was defeated. Ultimately, Alar came to the realization that Lord Hea simply gathered morphs to fight and watch everyone die and suffer for his own amusement. And chose to aid the dragoons. As Rocky's gang catches up to him (gaining more allies along the way), Alar is shot out of nowhere and urges the gang to go to the last floor and defeat Lord Hea once and for all.

Once they reached the morphs emperor, the dragoons were in for a surprise. All of the Earth's life force is being filtered into the ship's Utopia Cannon, which will be strong enough to destroy other planets once it's completely filled. He not only aims to destroy Gan-mah, but also the morphs planet Deoh-tah because he views all life forms as feeble. Lord Hea isn't even a morphs; his real name is Ruby and he hails from the near-instinct race of jewelians. Jeweelians were able to live forever by taking over bodies, but were nearly wiped out because they lost their ability to reproduce. Before taking over a human's body, he inhabited the previous morphs emperor's body and started the Morphs War 50 years ago. Why pit dragoons and morphs against each other that had lasting impact decades later? Because it's amusing, and not having the XGem in his possession makes it even more entertaining.

The dragoons couldn't lay a finger on Ruby, not even tapping into the XGem's power could help Rocky. But in the nick of time, Renata is brought to the scene to deliver Rocky Lord Krad's sword to give him a power boost. Even that was nowhere near enough to land a dent on Ruby and he shattered the blade. Renata endured a powerful attack trying to protect Rocky. Devastated that one of his best friends was gravely wounded, the shards of the sword were absorbed by the XGem and turned into crystals he used to heal Renata. That was the push he needed to become as powerful as Richier. At last, he achieved the form of the Legendary XDragoon.

Ruby fused with his space ship in an attempt to contest with Rocky, but the dragoon was able to outsmart and destroy swiftly beat the jewellian once and for all. After the fake emperor's death, Alar agreed to help rebuild ship so everyone could return to their respective planets. While it saddened Renata, she knew that if Rocky and his friends stayed here any longer, trouble will always befall Earth and the people he cares about. Along with that, someone has to rule Gan-Mah without Krad, and since Rocky was chosen to wield his sword, Krad essentially passed the role down to Rocky. He'd want Renata to come to his planet with her, but he understands she has her whole life ahead of her and respects it.

And so the ship was rebuilt and the dragoons and morphs said farewell to planet Earth. Rocky personally gave Renata his last goodbyes, and gave her a crystal to remember him by. After a year spent on Earth, he finally returned home.

However, that was not the end of Rocky's story.

Rocky and friends return to Gan-Mah and give thanks to their morphs friends, but Rocky isn't prepared to rule a planet, so he proposed to participate in another tournament to see if he's worthy to be emperor. Even after they left Earth, trouble seems to follow him wherever he goes. jewellians have overtaken the morphs planet Deoh-Tah, and Ruby's brother Sapphire is calling the shots. The ultimate goal of the jewellians is to free Black Diamond, the all-powerful jewellian goddess that was sealed away for threatening the solar system. While Ruby was grew too haughty and was defeated, Sapphire was more focused on claiming the XGem to set Black Diamond free.

In the wake of the jewellians' attack, many of his friends were turned to stone. To stop Black Diamond from breaking free, Rocky reunites with Alar, who discovered that there was another XGem that was to be wielded by him. The combined efforts of two XGems should be enough to seal Black Diamond once again.

The two arrive at the jewellian planet Beth-Tah to confront the corrupt goddess, only to learn she is the creator of the XGems. Despite being sealed in crystal, she stole them from their wielders to free herself. All the gems, including her third one, were made to maintain peace in the galaxy. But because she was forced to move her homeplanet further from the sun, her Beth-Tah significantly worsened in condition while it was shrouded in darkness. Her grief for what became of her planet corrupted her and she sought to plunge the galaxy in total darkness. Without the XGems to protect them, Black Diamond petrified them and showered the galaxy in darkness.

All hope seemed to be lost, but back on Earth, Renata realized Rocky was in danger when the crystal he gave her started to vibrate. She figured out she could talk to him through her crystal. All she could do was give him encouraging words, and that speech made him envision every friend he made up to this point in his journey. That was the motivation he needed to stop Black Diamond.

Rocky and Alar broke through their petrification. They wanted to help Black Diamond instead of killing her, as all she was doing was lashing out because of her planet's condition. Both were able to absolve Black Diamond of her curse and return her to her previous state as Lady Diamond. She gave up her XGem, asking Rocky and Alar to find someone worthier before she self destructed. She illuminated the galaxy as all the petrified dragoons and morphs reverted to their normal selves.

After a while, everything's gone back to normal. The tournament Rocky proposed resumes and he easily makes it to the finals. He faced against his elite soldier buddy Phillip in the finals without using the XGem. In a friendly, yet spectacular spar, the winner and new emperor was… Phillip?! In a shocking turn of events, Phillip bested Rocky in fair combat and became the planet's new emperor.

After Phillip and Berry got married, Rocky decided to fulfill his promise to Renata. After four years the two have been apart, Rocky finally returns to Earth to reunite with one of his closest friends on her graduation from her university. After they headed back to her house, Rocky admitted to her that if Phillip hadn't beaten him, he would have resigned from the emperor's position anyway. If he were emperor, he wouldn't be able to leave his planet… and never be able to confess his love to Renata. After waiting all this time, she realized she had feelings for him too. Now together, they can go on new adventures. With no one else in the galaxy to get oppose them, he abandoned the XGem so they can live happily.

Equipment


Before I progress, I want to discuss what will be considered canon and noncanon—basically which media I will cover for the blog. I'll mainly focus on the rebooted comic XDragoon: One Way Journey and everything in the original webcomic that hasn't been adapted yet. The Portuguese versions won't be relevant much unless I need to clarify any notable distinctions between them.

XDragoon has multiple animated projects posted on Yuski's personal channel, which are all considered beta versions of XDragoon. Instead, the only animated bits I will focus on are the ones uploaded to the XDragoon Canal Oficial channel. All the animated videos there cover events and abilities that are present in the webcomic.

Speaking of which, the primary webseries is adapted from the short spinoff XDragoon: Fire King that ran on Neo Tokyo Magazine… which is currently being rebooted as the webcomic XDragoon: Magma Crystal. The webseries is still being produced so I shall include it anyway, along with events from Magma Crystal.

The spinoff graphic novel XDragoon Rockstar will not be covered in this blog. It's an alternate universe series that's more in line with the series' prototype concepts.

And of course I can't research a cancelled game TwT 

XGem

A gem of unimaginable power. It can only be wielded by ones that are pure of heart. The XGem is the source of many of his powers and transformations. Rocky typically can't utilize those powers if he's separated from it, but in the most dire situations the XGem can act on its own to aid its owner. I'll explain his powers more in the abilities section

The Emperor's Sword

Rocky doesn't feel good using weapons, always preferring that he and his opponents show their true strength by not relying on tools to fight. If he were given a weapon, he'd literally toss it aside to best opponents in physical combat. However, he did infrequently wield a powerful sword that he gained after Krad's passing. It seems the sword can sense who Rocky is closest to emotionally, as it allowed Renata to make it absorb the crystals’ power. It needs to be bathed in the energy from crystals made by the XGem to fully utilize its power. It gained an upgrade after it absorbed the powers of the crystals within Palmares Hill. When it’s in his hands, it unlocks a new form, giving him imperial battle attire. He later passed down to Phillip when he became the new emperor.

Abilities


Martial Arts

Rocky's been fighting for most of his life, and it's become a passion of his. He loves to spar against others to see their true strength through their fists. He was mainly mentored by his best friend Alfred, who was taught the art of wrestling. Rocky's fighting style definitely doesn't resemble that fighting style, given he punches and kicks a lot without any grappling.


Light Manipulation

Every dragoon in the series has their own special power they use in combat. Rocky's is light. Typically he shoots a wave of light out of the palm of his hand.

Energy Manipulation

The XGem can channel energy into specific parts of his body to strengthen them or fire energy out as projectiles. He can also use it to restore peoples' energy.


Extrasensory Perception, Enhanced Senses, and Slight Precognition

You know that trope in anime where people can sense power levels and bad things happening to their friends by sensing their energy and aura levels? Yeah… everyone in XDragoon can do that. His misfortune senses are so keen that he's able to sense that his friends are in trouble planets away from him. The XGem is also able to sense energy signatures that give off bad vibes.

Dragoon Physiology

Dragoons' bodies have scales that act as an extra layer of protection. They have enhanced stamina and energy levels that makes them much more resilient than humans. Unlike humans, they can run and fight for days without tiring. It's unknown how self-sufficient they are, but it seems like they still need basic human needs.

Visions

In the reboot, the XGem communicated to Rocky through visions. It hinted at some of its abilities and future events


Limited Power Bestowal

The owner of the XGem can allow others to momentarily wield its power


Crystal Manipulation

With the XGem, he can cover his targets in crystals. The crystals have preservative and healing properties that I'll elaborate on in the next ability. If someone starts to become crystallized, it will likely require outside influence to break free from them.

Time Stop

Anything trapped within the crystals are frozen in time.


Navigation

When Rocky needs directions, the XGem creates an arrow that guides him to his destination.

Mind Reading

With the XGem, he can see into peoples' minds to learn their true thoughts.

Healing

As mentioned before, Rocky can cover people in crystals to heal wounds. The limit to the healing is that it can't bring people back from the dead

Portal Creation and Galactic Travel

There are some powers of the XGem that Rocky hasn't used that Richier is known for. Now that he's the equivalent to the previous holder of the XGem, he should be capable of performing them. For example, Richier could create warp portals to other galaxies.

Fast Travel

Rocky can create a beam of light that sends him to far away locations like other planets.

Telepathy

Rocky can communicate with people through the XGem or receive messages from people that own one of his crystals. It doesn't matter if they're galaxies away, he can receive messages or vice versa.

Tornado Creation

With his move Burst Tornado, he creates big tornadoes out of energy.

Wing Generation and Flight

Rocky trained himself to create wings out of pure energy to fly around. For someone resembling a dragon, it's a little surprising that it took him long to grow wings.

Super Form

Rocky has a couple super forms he achieves when wielding the XGem. The first gives him a look that resembles gems and gives him energy wings. This form has a "celestial aura" to it. In this state he can fly, has enhanced strength, and being in this form lets him use amplified variants of his attacks.

Forcefield Creation


He can create protective barriers out of energy to surround himself or his friends. When he uses the XGem to make a forcefield, it's blue. It's yellow when created in his super form.

Pressure Points

Rocky can target opponents' pressure points to land especially painful attacks

Resistances

  • Cold resistance (thanks to the heat constantly radiating from his body in his super forms)
  • Paralysis resistance (he broke through Alar's attack that rendered him paralyzed, and would eventually make him go unconscious until his heart stops functioning)
  • Petrification and life draining resistance (even though he was disconnected from the XGem, hearing Renata's supportive speech gave Rocky the motivation to break free. The XGem acted on its own and freed Rocky and influenced Alar's XGem to do the same to him. The petrification process completely turned his body to diamond and left no traces of his life energy. Rocky was in a black void, unable to feel any of his senses as his memories faded away one by one.)

Light Manipulaton

In both of his XGem-powered forms, Rocky can produce light to attack with. He can shoot them in powerful beams or spread them like a shockwave.

Imperial Battle Attire

An outfit gained when he first wielded the Emperor's Sword, signifying a power boost. He can remain in this form even when he isn't wielding the sword.

XDragoon Form

The legenary XDragoon, a form equivalent to a god that was triggered by Renata's sacrifice. In his words, he's a hundredfold times stronger than he was before. Along with that, he gains many new powers like…

Technology Manipulation

It's unexplained how, but he's able to power down technology.

Levitation

He can lift a LOT of things into the air without any effort.

Teleportation/BFR

Like his levitation, he can teleport many targets to a new location

Energy Absorption

All energy-based attacks against him are nullified because he can completely absorb them.

Regeneration (Mid-High)

Even if someone has been reduced to dust, Rocky can sense their life force and return them back to normal, healing any other wounds with his crystals. If their life force has drifted away, he can’t save them.


Fully Powered XDragoon

By drawing from all three XGems, Rocky achieves his most powerful form.

Sealing and Darkness Manipulation

In their XDragoon forms, the previous dragoon and morphs that wielded the XGems used their combined powers to seal Black Diamond away in a crystal with the power of darkness.

Techniques


Burst Fist

Rocky's signature move: a light-empowered punch

Dragon Kick

He do be kickin'

Burst Spark

Rocky's secondary signature move, which unleashes a large spark of light out of his fist as he thrusts his fist. Using the XGem, this attack turns into an energy beam.

Crystal Grave

Known as a suicide move, Crystal Grave surrounds himself and everything around him in crystals. However, Rocky was come out of his own attack completely fine.

Burst Screw

 Energy surrounds Rocky's fist like a screw as the energy swirling around it digs into the target like a screw. That's gotta leave a mark.

Burst Tornado

Combining Burst Spark with Burst Screw creates a giant tornado of swirling energy.

Reverse Flow

Raising his hand, Rocky can create an energy rotation surrounding it. It can either absorb or reflect projectiles

Burst Nova

He basically fires a kamehameha

Atomic Burst Fist

A variant of Burst Fist named after his father's signature move. It seems to be a stronger version of the attack, though he prefers to just use regular Burst Fist. He does use this attack when in the Imperial Battle Attire, so perhaps he just uses that attack when wearing it.

Atomic Burst Spark

A superpowered version of the Burst Spark when in his super form. The blue ball of energy becomes a yellow energy blast.

Megaton Burst Screw

A more powerful version of Burst Screw used in his super form.

Burst Rocket

Flying up, light surrounds Rocky as he lands a punch so strong that it sends giants into orbit.

Final Quasar

Rocky's most powerful technique that utilizes all three XGems. Rocky and Alar fly from opposite directions to meet at the back of Beth-Tah before flying together and colliding with Black Diamond to create a burst of light resembling a quasar that bathes the entire solar system. It was strong enough to lift Lady Diamond’s curse

Feats


Overall


  • He and Alfred snuck into Lord Krad’s ship to stop him from taking over Earth
  • He defeated Phillip, one of Lord Krad’s elite soldiers and later emperor of Gan-Mah
  • He was trained by the immensely powerful Illusion, who fought in the Morphs War
  • He broke through handcuffs Illusion made with 3% of her power
  • Was mentored by Alfred ever since he was 9
  • Started out as an ill-tempered brat before becoming the coolheaded dragoon he is today
  • He has the very same power as the dragoon Richier, who singlehandedly erased the morphs to win the war
  • Defeated Lord Krad, who’s had a flawless win streak his whole life and won the planet-wide tournament to become emperor
  • Defeated Scar after revealing his plan and morphs form
  • Stopped Krad’s ship from self destructing, which would have resulted in an explosion of a 10,000 km² radius
  • Stopped a man robbing an old lady
  • Rescued Jambo, a professional wrestler that was experimented on and fused with Alfred's blood
  • Recovered from Alar’s Divine Judgment attack, which paralyzed him and forced him to remember his past sins and would eventually make his heart and brain stop functioning had he not broke through it
  • Fought through a gauntlet of highly trained morphs for 24 hours with his friends, while progressing through the giant space ship Casulo, before eventually stopping Ruby from destroying 2/3 of the Alp-pha solar system
  • Returned Earth’s stolen life force back to itself
  • Teleported his friends and all the trapped morphs out of the Casulo
  • Was deemed worthy by Lord Krad to become Gan-Mah’s next emperor
  • Bested the substitute emperor Lord Drezel in a fight to prove he was strong enough to be emperor
  • Landed a killing blow on the jewellian Topaz—who was inhabiting Krad's dead wife's body—with Phillip after Berry trapped her
  • Reverted his petrification and returned Alar back to normal too after Black Diamond turned them both to stone
  • Made it to the finals of a planet-wide tournament to decide who the next Gan-Mah emperor will be

Strength



Speed


Durability


Weaknesses

  • He usually struggles at first when he’s against opponents that are far out of his league. Either he’s able to break through his limits to stop them, or require the help of his allies to take them down
  • Relying on his energy attacks too often can drain his own energy
  • Even in XDragoon form, his power can be exhausted. The first time he powered down, he was stuck in a week-long rest, but the second time he was just tired out when he returned to normal
  • The XGem can also run out of power. It’s best to let it charge in the Temple of Sacred Crystals located on Gan-Mah—the site where Richier ended the war. However, doing it by himself can drain his own energy and leave him powerless. That's why it’s better that someone else does it for him
  • Taking the XGem from him depowers him

Matchup Potential



Is it bad that the only type of matchup that comes to mind for Rocky is a Dragon Ball character? As tired as I am from all the samey Dragon Ball Death Battle episodes, Rocky's toolkit best resembles the fighting style of a saiyan. Plus, the shonen inspired tone would lend itself well to a series like that. I have no idea who he'd fight from Dragon Ball, but it could probably work seeing as it focuses on an alien protecting Earth.

I am curious if Rocky has any matchup potential outside of Dragon Ball characters. His series really reminds me of those TMNT-likes that were popular in the 80s-90s like Battletoads and Street Sharks, so maybe there's a character from that trend that works well.

NEXT TIME ON WCAB… whenever I feel like it

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