Dragon Ball is a comic very close to my heart. I’ve loved it since I was a kid learning to read and was delighted to see it return recently for a new run with Dragon Ball Super. So believe me when I say I’m genuinely disappointed that this third book was absolute garbage. This Goku Black storyline is the worst one since that Android nonsense in DBZ!
A new villain called Goku Black destroyed future Trunks’ world so future Trunks has travelled back in time AND across universes to recruit Goku and Vegeta to go back with him and defeat Goku Black. But who is Goku Black and what does he want?
That sounds like a relatively clear plotline, right? Except it takes well over half the book for Akira Toriyama to get around to it. Up until then is the most meandering, pointless drivel you’ve ever read. This book is Dragon Ball at its most convoluted. There are Lord of Lords, Lords of Everything, Gods of Destruction, Gods of who knows what who want who knows what - the needless hierarchy is confusing and distracts without ever adding anything of value to the story. Towards the end Toriyama literally has to include a diagram explaining what’s happening and even then it’s not clear!
Goku Black’s true identity and motivations were so bizarre. He wants to destroy all mortals because mortals destroy all planets - which seems kinda hypocritical considering the damage he’s wrought on future Trunks’ planet, not to mention the mental gymnastics involved in objecting to destruction with more destruction. And he’s based his entire worldview on one encounter with some humanoid lizards on some random planet from thousands of years ago! … huh??
It takes an age to get to some actual fighting - in a supposedly martial arts comic! - as Vegeta steps up to take on Goku Black. But even the fighting doesn’t make sense. Vegeta’s kicking Black’s ass and then suddenly Black manages to find another Saiyan level - “rose” - even though he was barely able to do Super Saiyan a few pages ago and then there’s another villain and… ugh. I just didn’t care anymore at that point.
This third volume of Dragon Ball Super is what bad writing and an overly complicated plot looks like. The end result is a boring and stupid comic - maybe the worst Dragon Ball book ever. Introducing the concept of parallel universes really was the worst thing to happen to this series. Barely readable - I hope Toriyama just abandons this storyline soon for something less tortuous and tedious.
No comments:
Post a Comment