Death Battle Predictions: Sub-Zero VS Glacius

And from out of the frying pan, we go into the fire. Or should we say freezer? After the blazing battle between Natsu Dragneel and Portgas D. Ace, we have a chilling clash with these next two combatants. Masters of cryokinesis, heroes of their people, champions of justice, fighters with unrivaled brutality. Both enter the arena, but only one will leave alive. Sub-Zero, Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei and Glacius, galactic marshal of the Alliance of Worlds.

Backstory

In Case You’re Wondering…

As both Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct have been rebooted, the information here will compile Sub-Zero and Glacius’ portrayals in both timelines.

Sub-Zero

"You demand my cooperation. Yet you are cut off. Surrounded. What will you do?"

The code-name Sub-Zero was shared between two brothers, Bi-Han and Kuai Liang. Both served the Lin Kuei, a reclusive clan of assassins based in China.

In the first Mortal Kombat tournament, Bi-Han was sent on orders to eliminate the tournament’s host, Shang Tsung, and reclaim his treasure. However, he was confronted by a literal ghost from his past; the Shirai Ryu ninja, Hanzo Hasashi, who he had supposedly killed in an earlier encounter, returned as the undead spectre known as Scorpion. The two clashed, and Bi-Han fell in battle. His soul would descend into the Netherrealm, becoming the wraith Noob Saibot.

Following his older brother’s death, Kuai Liang (then codenamed Tundra) was assigned to participate in the second tournament alongside his friend, Smoke. To honor his brother, he adopted the Sub-Zero moniker in his stead. Both Lin Kuei assassians later assisted in the defeat of Shang Tsung and Shao Kahn at the hands of Earthrealm’s warriors.

Since then, Sub-Zero has been summoned by the Thunder God Raiden to defend Earthrealm multiple times. In the succeeding years, he became the Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei with the intent of reforming the clan into becoming a force for good in the world. Much of this would remain the same in the post-Armageddon reboot timeline.

Glacius

“Light alone is harmless, but focused light is the most powerful force in the Universe.”

Hailing from the Ice Rings of Sokol, Glacius serves as a galactic marshal, tasked with hunting down those who violate the Alliance of Worlds’ 88 Decrees.

While on patrol, his ship picked up a faint, ancient transmission from Earth. His investigation caused him to be attacked by humans commanding alien technology, forcing Glacius to crash land in Antarctica. While adapting to the cold environment, he discovered that his ship’s power core had been stolen by forces unknown. Aware that his power core had the ability to travel between space with ease and that humans using alien technology far beyond their comprehension was in violation of the tenets he swore to uphold, Glacius followed the trail to the Killer Instinct tournament hosted by Ultratech to reclaim what was previously his.

During his time on Earth, the deity Gargos had launched his assault on the planet in order to consume it. Honor-bound to protect humanity, Glacius took up arms with several fighters from the tournament to stave off Gargos and defend the planet.

Moves and Abilities

Sub-Zero

As a cryomancer and a member of the Lin Kuei, Sub-Zero is a deadly close-range combatant and a master of manipulating ice itself. He is trained in Shotokan Karate and Dragon-style Kung Fu, and can amplify his close-range combat further by making ice weapons by freezing water vapor in the air; such examples include sledge hammers, daggers, swords and spikes. His abilities over ice have also been boosted thanks to the Dragon Medallion, upgrading his control past what he was normally capable of beforehand.

• Ice Ball: An ice projectile which freezes anyone on contact. In Mortal Kombat 9, Sub-Zero can enhance this by firing a beam of ice instead of a ball.
• Slide: By freezing the soles of his boots, Sub-Zero can perform a sliding kick to knock enemies off their feet. Enhanced versions of this attack have him perform a follow-up attack after the slide connects.
• Ground Ice: Sub-Zero shoots an ice projectile towards the ground to either bind enemies in place or force them to slip. He can also spread this over a larger area if need be.
• Ice Clone: Sub-Zero creates a statue of himself made of ice to evade attacks. Anyone unlucky enough to touch it is frozen. He can also use it as a projectile by throwing it at enemies to freeze them.
• Ice Shaker: By emitting a cold aura around him, Sub-Zero can freeze nearby enemies.
• Ice Burst: A wave of ice that knocks the opponent down. The enhanced Frost Bomb can launch people above.
• Frost Hammer: Sub-Zero creates an ice hammer to beat people down with.
• Barrier of Frost: Sub-Zero forms a barrier which prevents projectiles from crossing and freezes enemies on contract.
• Frozen Aura: Sub-Zero covers himself with a layer of hard ice to reduce damage taken. He can also destroy the aura to deal damage
• Ice Shower: Sub-Zero fires ice above his opponent, which drops down to deal damage.
• Cold Shoulder: Similar to his slide, Sub-Zero charges forward with a shoulder tackle.
• Tombstone Teleport: Sub-Zero turns into ice, melts into water and reappears on the other side of the opponent.
• Icy Counter: If an opponent hits Sub-Zero while in this state, they are frozen before Sub-Zero disappears and reappears to hit them with his Kori Blade.
• Deep Freeze: This is the name shared between Sub-Zero’s X-Ray moves in Mortal Kombat 9 and MKX. In MK9, Sub-Zero charges with a shoulder tackle, freezes and crushes his opponent’s stomach and shatters their skull with a headbutt. In MKX, he rips out his opponent’s entrails, freezes them into a javelin, and tosses it into the opponent’s eye socket.

Glacius

(Just a heads up: Glacius’ powers don’t have a proper canon explanation in the classic timeline beyond “ice alien”, so the description you’ll see here is primarily going to consist of information taken from the rebooted version’s official biography.)

In the rebooted Killer Instinct timeline, Glacius comes from a race of telepaths that can modify their molecular structure to adapt to any environment; having crash-landed in the the Arctic, this explains his icy outer shell, which is needed to defend his relatively weaker real body - mind you, this metamorphosis is not instant and requires time for him to adjust properly. Part of his biology is that Glacius can extend parts of his body to form weapons and attack foes from a distance, making him a specially dangerous opponent in long-range combat. He can also dissolve himself into puddles of water to avoid damage if need be. He can absorb fire, which heals him in the process.

• Crystalize: Glacius’ Instinct Mode. While active, Glacius gets a increase in defense, with him manipulating ice to give him thicker ice armor, while also increasing his puddle form movement to avoid attacks or perform different versions of his Puddle Punch.
• Ice Grip: Glacius extends his arm to grab onto an opponent.
• Ice Lance: Glacius extends his arm to attack.
• Ice Pick: An anti-air icepick attack.
• Liquidize: Glacius melts into a puddle to avoid being hurt.
• Puddle Punch: After turning into a puddle, Glacius re-emerges with an uppercut. Under Crystalize’s effects, he can home in on enemies or attack them from behind with this move. The Shadow version has Glacius uppercut five times.
• Cold Shoulder: A shoulder tackle. The Shadow version hits five times.
• Hail: Glacius creates a small ice projectile which hovers before flying forward. Multiple Hail projectiles can be fired and they can aimed in different directions. The Shadow version has Glacius create 5 projectiles which fire in a spread pattern.
• Shatter: An unblockable attack where Glacius summons an icicle from the ground. The Shadow has Glacius summon 5 icicles, but these can be blocked.

Finishers (Fatalities and No Mercies)

Sub-Zero

• Snowball Grenade: Sub-Zero tosses a snowball at the enemy which blows up, reducing them to a pile of gibs.
• Ice Shatter: After freezing the opponent solid, Sub-Zero shatters their upper body with an uppercut. This is modified in MK vs. DC, where he breaks them apart by kicking them.
• Freeze and Throw: Sub-Zero freezes his opponent, rips their head off, and tosses it at the rest of the body, shattering it.
• Frosty!: Sub-Zero freezes the enemy with an icy breath; the opponent then falls down and shatters.
• Overhead Ice Smash: Sub-Zero grabs the opponent, holds them above his head and freezes them before either tearing them apart with his hands or shattering them by tossing them downwards.
• Spine Rip: Adopted from both Scorpion and Bi-Han, Sub-Zero tears out the enemy’s spine and skull clean off. A variant of this introduced in Deadly Alliance has him rip out the opponent’s entire skeleton, while in MK 9, he freezes his opponent’s body after ripping the spine out, then uses it as a weapon to shatter the rest.
• Below Freezing: Sub-Zero shatters the opponent’s legs, and stomps on the opponent’s upper half, blowing their head open.
• Have an Ice Day: Sub-Zero freezes the opponent’s lower half, then rips off the upper half with his bare hands.
• Chest Kold: Sub-Zero freezes the opponent’s chest before punching a hole through it, which he uses to grab their spine, break it in two, hold them over his head and rip them in two.
• Bed of Ice: Sub-Zero forms a bed of spikes behind the opponent, and knocks them on it with a kick. He then jumps on them and delivers a final stomp to impale their body completely.
• Animality: Sub-Zero turns into a Polar Bear and begins mauling his opponent with his teeth and claws
• Friendships: Sub-Zero has two, apparently. One involves him pulling a Sub-Zero doll out of nowhere and telling people to buy it. The other involves surrounding himself in a Snowman. Why are these here? Because why not?

Glacius

• Ice Puddle: Glacius turns into a puddle of water, which his opponent sinks into, never to be seen again.
• Icicle Stab: Glacius forms one of his hands into an icicle, which he uses to freeze the opponent solid.
• Water Bubble: Glacius turns into a bubble that engulfs and devours the opponent whole.
• Ice Javelin: Glacius forms an ice projectile, which he tosses at his opponent.
• Frozen Block: Glacius grabs the enemy, freezes them in place and shatters them.

Feats and Accomplishments

Sub-Zero

• Became the Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei in both timelines by defeating Sektor. In the second timeline, he managed to kill him by cutting off his arms and ripping off his head.
• Defeated Cyrax and Sektor with Cyber-Smoke’s help. After their victory, he reprogrammed Cyrax to assassinate Shao Kahn.
• As a cyborg (who is not more powerful than a human), he defeated Goro and Kintaro at the same time, Kintaro is durable enough to tank a point blank Nuke. (To prove it, here’s Kano outright saying the bomb was atomic in nature.)
• Has defeated Sektor and Cyrax on multiple occasions    
• Killed a group of Tarkatan warriors in the Living Forest by himself.
• In the Battle of Armageddon, he managed to kill Scorpion in a sword fight.
• While he and Scorpion both have their fair share of wins against each other, he wins very slightly more often.
• His mastery of ice allowed him to harness the Dragon Medallion’s true power and increase his proficiency further. This was also the same medallion that froze Frost solid because she lacked the strength needed to control it.
• Held off back-to-back challenges from Cassie Cage, Takahashi Takeda, Jacqui Briggs and Kung Jin. (34:35 - 38:25)
• Partially froze the city of Kahishari and killed all of its inhabitants.
• Used an ice shield to survive Cyrax’s self-destruction, which destroyed the Cyber Lin Kuei’s base.
• Put an end to the war between the Lin Kuei and Scorpion’s Shirai Ryu clan.
• Called upon by Raiden to assist in defending Earthrealm numerous times. (See MK3, 4 and beyond)
• Defeated Ferra/Torr, who can make earthquakes felt across the Emperor's Kourtyard just by walking
• Raiden has mentioned that his strength is greater than that of Bi-Han - this would be proven true as Cyber Sub-Zero managed to defeat Noob Saibot in the reboot timeline.
• Defeated Ermac immediately after he made Jax’s arms explode and then beat Ermac again immediately after Ermac sent several U.S. Military troops flying and caused an entire clock tower to shake right after Sub-Zero defeated Kano, Goro, and Kintaro
• As Cyber-Sub-Zero, he was able to sense the Lin Kuei surrounded them while they were completely invisible.
• Easily defeated Reptile and stated he would kill him if he wasn’t busy.
• With his army he stopped Kotal Khan’s invasion force, which included Ferra/Torr, Ermac, Reptile, and Erron Black.
• As Cyber-Sub-Zero, he defeated Kano in a single attack.
• Instantly defeated Baraka in the Comics
• Tanked Sektor’s flamethrowers at 3000 degrees (the unit of measurement is unknown - if Celcius, it converts to 5432 degrees Fahrenheit while if Fahrenheit, it converts to 1649 Celcius.) In addition to that, he was able to counter it with his own ice.
• Is fast enough to react to missiles fired by Lin-Kuei cyborgs. Those types of missiles typically travel at Mach 2.
• Survived being impaled through the stomach by Scorpion, multiple times in the same fight and right after that, endured getting burned by his Hellfire.
• Survived getting thrown out of a helicopter by Kenshi.
• Tanked a laser blast from Kano.
• Physically shattered a large temple with a punch.
• Fought more than on par with Scorpion and kicked him deep into a stone wall, and this is recently after Scorpion went toe to toe with Restricted Raiden who was possessed by an evil dagger and fully bloodlusted, and Restricted Raiden is powerful enough to do This in a weakened state.
• Can outpace Scorpion, who is faster than Quan Chi who can react to and block machine gun bullets from a distance of 20 feet. This would put Sub-Zero around Mach 5.3.
• Created a city block sized Ice blast.

Glacius

• Managed to inflict a surprise assault on ARIA, who is capable of thinking in less than both a millisecond and nanosecond, to rescue Eagle. He accomplished this by infiltrating her headquarters, the Pinnacle, which ARIA theorized had occurred for several days.
• Defeated the spider-themed assassin Sadira.
• An experienced galactic marshal who has hunted down many life forms
• Killed Cinder in the original timeline, Cinder was capable of flying across an island in a short amount of time and vaporizing people (the rebooted version is still alive and well).
• The Glacius from KI2 defeated Sabrewulf (though this was a different Glacius, stated to be his ancestor).
• In the rebooted Killer Instinct’s Shadow Lords mode, Glacius joined the Alliance (a group consisting of almost the entire game’s roster save for Sadira, Omen, Shadow Jago, Mira, the guest fighters, Eyedol and Gargos himself) to combat Gargos and his mimic army. Gargos’ defeat has caused his Shadow Energy to spread onto the Alliance members.
• Received training from Cinder in the comics, showing that his body can handle Cinder’s flames. (Also mercy-killed Cinder after he took an attack meant for Glacius)
• In the Killer Instinct tournament from the KI Special 2, he defeated:
• Sabrewulf
• TJ Combo
• Chief Thunder
• Riptor
• Spinal.

Weaknesses

Sub-Zero

While Sub-Zero has no major weaknesses to exploit other than “be faster, stronger and tougher than him”, he has tasted several losses in his career. As depicted above, he was simultaneously ganged upon by Noob Saibot and Smoke and would have been killed without Sareena’s intervention (the picture seen above is taken from Noob-Smoke’s ending in Deception where they successfully kill him because of Sareena’s absence).

He also canonically died in both timelines; he supposedly met his end thanks to Baraka in the Battle of Armageddon and was curbstomped along with a bunch of Earthrealm warriors by a powered-up Sindel in the timeline following it… he got better.

Glacius

Glacius doesn’t have much in terms of exploitable weaknesses, save for a few. As mentioned earlier, his true form behind his icy exterior is rather defenseless so should his armor be destroyed, he’ll very likely be helpless and open to a fatal blow; the same canon statement also implies that reforming a new shell is not instant (to directly quote his bio, it states that although “he quickly adopts the arctic ice to his body”, “his transition to a new shell takes some time”), which makes it all the more important that Glacius avoids damage as much as possible.

He’s also taken a few losses to his name; for example, the rebooted timeline had Cinder - who Glacius had killed in the original timeline - trade wins and being more capable of fighting against him. Rivals Mode has him lose more battles against Maya, Kan-Ra and ARIA (in her backstory, she captures Glacius after his ship crashes). In the comics, he was released by Ultratech to battle Black Orchid and lost thanks to an interfering TJ Combo.

Summary

Sub-Zero

Advantages:

• Is significantly stronger and more durable from feats
• Faster
• Larger area of effect with ice
• Has more experience fighting other ice-users.
• Fought against more world-ending threats.
• Better close-quarters combatant.
• More known victories under his belt. (Fought in 33 canonical fights, won 24 = 72.73% win percentage)
• Is (literally) cooler than Scorpion.

Disadvantages:

• Not quite as skilled fighting at long range as Glacius
• Less varied opponents than Glacius in terms of physiology and background
• Has a pretty shit theme.
• Is easily humiliated

Glacius

Advantages:

• Is more adept in fighting at longer ranges.
• Can levitate.
• Opponents are more varied than Sub-Zero’s in physiology and background
• Is (literally) cooler than Cinder.
• Has the best theme in the 2013 reboot.
• Apparently his race are galactic break-dance champions in the space Olympics. Should he win and decide that being a policeman isn’t his calling in life, he at least has a back-up plan.

Disadvantages:

• Sub-Zero has more formal training than him in close-quarters combat.
• If his outer shell is compromised, it leaves him vulnerable.
• Sub-Zero bests him in strength and durability.
• Slower
• Lacking win-loss record (Participated in 13 canonical fights, won 7 = 53.85% win percentage)
• Has quite possibly the worst song on the Killer Cuts album

Verdicts

Ramon_zer0

(Tekken music goes with everything. Speaking of which, when's Tekken?)

So… Sub-Zero and Glacius. For a while, I thought that this would have been an easy win for Killer Instinct’s icey alien given how he looks and fights, but after doing a bit of research, it isn’t as clear-cut as I once thought it was. Let’s see how the fight looks like:

The first thing I want to address is the obvious “are both immune to ice” question, much in the same way it was previously established that Natsu and Ace were immune to fire, albeit to different degrees. On Sub-Zero’s end, the Mortal Kombat universe does establish that Cryomancers aren’t immune to being frozen. Take Frost, Sub-Zero’s pupil who is frozen in both timelines: the first came when she failed to control the Dragon Medallion’s powers and was frozen alive, and the second came after Sub-Zero froze her when she attempted to attack Scorpion; it’s worth pointing out that Sub-Zero had the Medallion on him as he became the Lin Kuei Grandmaster by then. To his credit, Sub-Zero had been shown to resist Frost’s own attempts to freeze him, although she had not been fully trained as a Lin Kuei during their first encounter in the reboot timeline. In fact, given his ability to become ice itself as shown with how he teleports and in the MKX comics - something which could be possible thanks to his experience - I wager he’s more than likely to be able to shrug off any attempts to freeze him; not outright immunity, but at least a very strong resistance.

Glacius is a bit more unclear, given that he’s the only ice user in the Killer Instinct universe thus far and as mentioned earlier, we only have the reboot bio to go on in terms of his biology and cryokinetic powers. As we explained above, Glacius’ exterior was an adaptational response to him crashing in the arctic; his species’ molecular control kickstarted his metamorphosis into what we’re familiar with now. Given this was done for adaptation purposes, I wager that Glacius could also be very resistant, but not straight-up immune, to being frozen as well. Also, while we’re talking about his molecular manipulation, I don’t think it’s anything that he can straight-up weaponize against Sub-Zero like turning his own ice against him.

Now just to reiterate, the fact that I said that both Sub-Zero and Glacius were resistant and not immune to being frozen means that there is still the smallest chance that either one could be capable of doing it, so in turns this poses the question, who has the better control over their powers? Stat trinity time, and surprisingly, Sub-Zero decisively takes all three areas.

First off, defense and durability. Both Sub-Zero and Glacius both possess modes where they cover themselves in auras (Frozen Aura and Crystalize) that allow them to take more punishment. Sub-Zero slightly edges him out move-wise by making shields, but that’s not what I want to focus on here. In terms of showings, Sub-Zero has Glacius beat: both have had experience in fighting fire-based rivals - Sub-Zero has Scorpion and Sektor, Glacius has Cinder - and their ice has been shown to stand up well against their flames. However, Sub-Zero has a lot more going for him here. How so? Look at him surviving Cyrax’s self-destruct by using an ice shield around him to avoid not getting caught in an explosion that destroyed the entire Lin Kuei base he was in the heart of (or at least near its epicenter given how long Cyrax didn’t give him), with Glacius not having anything of the sort to counter that, even taking into account his exoskeleton.

Next, speed. Glacius blitzing ARIA is impressive and puts him at around Mach 3.5, consistent with his battles against the Mach 3 Cinder. However, Sub-Zero edges him out by being faster than Scorpion and Quan Chi as we explained above. Mach 5.3 > Mach 3.5, advantage = Sub-Zero.

Finally, destructive and offensive capabilities. Now, I had to flip-flop a lot on this given certain pieces of information. For one, Sub-Zero has more feats, although I have to discount a few of them due to most being the result of power boosts beyond his control - the temple shattering and city freezing feats to be specific. However, when compared to Glacius, who doesn’t have that many DC feats of his own and gets his stats based on the people’s he’s defeated, I’ll have to give his one to Sub-Zero again but albeit at a much lower confidence rate than I did the first time around.

In terms of miscellaneous details, there’s their respective fighting styles to consider. Sub-Zero’s the more formally trained close-quarters fighter, whereas Glacius favors long-range, rapid-fire attacks and keeping the opponent at a distance, which won’t help much given the advantages his opponent has here. Sub-Zero is also by far the more experienced of the two; if you had to compile all the stuff both have done through all of their respective continuities (hence, why we have the feats section), he’s fought in more tournaments and battles than Glacius, has gone toe-to-toe with more of the Mortal Kombat universe’s top-tiers than his opponent has in his own and has showings that paint him as the more accomplished fighters.

Now, weaknesses. Neither have anything exploitable right off the bat, as both only need to concern themselves with being stronger, faster and tougher than the other to win. However, there’s Glacius’ outer shell to consider. As his shell isn’t his true body and needs time to reform, that paints one way Sub-Zero could win this match. His ability to overpower Glacius in raw strength in addition to his defensive capabilities being roughly on par, if not better, with his opponent means that Sub-Zero could (in theory, as nobody in Killer Instinct has been able to do so) shatter Glacius’ shell; providing an opportunity for the Lin Kuei Grandmaster to finish off his relatively helpless opponent.

All in all, I think I can wrap this up by saying that at the end of this battle, Sub-Zero will be walking out alive with another name added to his kill count.

Malcolm Belmont

(Music of choice for my verdict)

Hmmm. We need some lyrics to set up this fight.

Yo, Sub-Zero, let's kick it!

Ice ice baby

Ice ice baby

Alright stop

Collaborate and listen

Ice is back with this brand new Death Battle

Glacius grabs a hold of me tightly

Then Sub-Zero flows with a sword daily and nightly

Will the ice ever stop?

Yo, I don't know

Turn off the lights and then Glacius glows

To the extreme Sub-Zero rocks the mic like a vandal

Light up a stage and Glacius gets whumped like a chump

If you didn’t already know based on my masterfully written rap, I think the Ninja in Blue is going to win this.

First, Sub-Zero has way more significant feats than the alien. While Glacius supposedly froze a lake which is decently okay, Sub-Zero has frozen an entire city as well as having defeated far more significant foes than Glacius such as Scorpion, Reptile, Ermac, Goro, Kintaro, Cyrax, Sektor multiple times as well as Cassie Cage. Meanwhile Glacius has defeated the likes Sabrewulf, TJ Combo, Chief Thunder, Riptor, and Spinal. Sub-Zero is also on the level of Restricted Raiden.

In terms of cryokinetic ability, Sub-Zero is stronger. While it’s true Glacius can heavily manipulate himself in interesting ways such as turning himself into a puddle as well as reshape his arms into weapons, Sub-Zero can create fully functional ice weapons using water molecules. Such examples include ice swords, daggers, shields, armor and many more. Honestly, the amount of weapons Sub-Zero can create using ice is extremely impressive to say the least and he can easily create them with little or no trouble at all. Plus the ice that Sub-Zero makes is stronger, being able to tank large building-size explosions with little trouble and Sektor’s flamethrowers, which are  5432 degrees Fahrenheit. Though I will admit it is extremely impressive in terms of the comics that Glacius was able to hold Cinder. Glacius does have stronger long-ranged moves for sure but as an overall Cryomancer I would say Sub-Zero is superior.

Then there’s the final factor: experience. Sub-Zero has been fighting most of his life and has been trained by extremely potent martial artists in the Lin Kuei clan and it shows. He has defeated foes most mortals would have extreme trouble with including monsters like Goro and Kintaro as well as Scorpion. He knows kombat like the back of his hand. He has even defeated cryomancers such as Frost while Glacius has not been shown in game to fight any other cryomancer. Based on both the feats we have seen and backstory I would say Sub-Zero has the more fighting experience.

Overall Sub-Zero is stronger, more durable, faster, and more skilled at cryomancy while Glacius is better at fighting at long range. I have to give it to the Ninja in Blue.

Looks like Sub-Zero is going to deal the real fatality in this DEATH BATTLE.

ThorGundersen1058

Music for Verdict

Oh my god, I’m so excited, I’ve been requesting this fight for years and boy oh boy I’ll be damned if I’m not gonna throw my hat into this one. Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct happen to be two series I know very well and I was a huge fan of the original KI VS MK fight, Fulgore VS Sektor, and this fight is definitely the most awesome matchup you could do for a rematch between franchises.

Now because I know both series quite well I was really excited when this was announced, however for me this is also one of those scenarios where a matchup gets brought up and you immediately know who wins the fight and all the reasons why, let me break this down.

Strength/Durability-wise, you have Sub-Zero with many impressive feats, including physically shattering a whole temple, kicking Scorpion deep into imbedded stone and generating enormous ice blasts that span whole city blocks. Yes, Sub-Zero was possessed by an evil dagger while performing these feats but all of them are still applicable to him normally as these daggers do not provide any form of stat boost. How do I know this? Because Scorpion was able to fight completely on par with him the entire time, and he and Scorpion are consistently displayed to be equals. It’s like the most constant thing in these games, so if he did receive a stat boost he would have clearly been winning and he obviously wasn’t. It was a brutally even fight.

These aren’t even his best feats. Sub-Zero also is on par with Scorpion who earlier fought and defeated a Restricted Raiden who was also possessed by evil daggers that drove him to kill, meaning he wasn’t holding back. Restricted Raiden is powerful enough to make city block sized explosions in a weakened state, and create and control massive storms the size of a city (next page where Raiden attacks). And to shoot down arguments against that feat, no, it is not always storming at the Sky Temple, that is a pretty baseless assumption to make and the fact it’s always raining in that stage in the game is not valid proof. Scorpion decided to not to go there tonight because of the storm which obviously implies it’s not always like that. For how we know Raiden was the cause, the storm literally dissipates immediately upon Raiden’s defeat. Then there is also Kintaro, Kintaro is a four-armed, firebreathing, tiger man (badass) who endured getting shot point-blank by a nuke (more badass). This easily scales to Sub-Zero as he previously beat both Kintaro and Goro at the same time (most badass).

Now some people have been questioning the legitimacy of this nuke, so here is my case on why it is legit. For visuals, you can’t use the size of the people close to the blast, most of them are giant monsters of varying size and the nuke is over a ridge. But another note about the blast is it has a mushroom cloud, and according to science it requires at least 15,000 tons of energy to form a mushroom cloud. Apart from that, Kano says he used the power of The Atom to do it and that pretty clearly suggests it was a Atom Bomb, that is authorial intent this was a nuke. Lastly, Sonya and Johnny Cage were both shaken and damaged when the bomb went off despite being far back into the city away from the action, this is similar to the effects of a Type 6 earthquake on the richter scale which also places this in the double digit kiloton range. For those bringing up there was no crater when Kintaro was surrendering, that is because they clearly brought him forward to surrender before we cut back to them you can see them making the agreement between the city walls and the giant rock piles Tremor created during the battle. When Tremor made those Kintaro’s army was far behind them, and the nuke was blasted while they were still there. Also, this took place in Outworld, and we don’t know the durability of those rocks so it’s hard to say if they would break. And for those saying Kintaro wasn’t in the epicenter, Kano aimed it at him, and those guys who were sent flying were clearly the outer lines of his army. Oh and no, Cyber Sub-Zero is not better than normal Sub-Zero. Not only does Quan Chi revert him back to normal calling the cyber enhancements clunky, but Cyber Sub lost to Kabal. Finally Sub-Zero scales above Tremor, who held back that whole nuke taking army at once so the nuke would be ready and is stated to be able to destroy the outworld capitol city, multiple times, before being defeated and captured by Sonya.

With these feats in mind Sub-Zero is pegged at Town to potentially City level in destructive capability and durability. This puts him easily up with the highest tiers of KI and he could potentially solo the verse. Glacius on the other hand has basically no good direct strength feats and has to rely on scaling. Glacius has defeated Sabrewulf, TJ Combo, Chief Thunder, Riptor and Spinal and none of these characters have any feats above Building level so therefore you must give the edge to Sub-Zero for strength and dura.

Now for speed, in this category Glacius does have feats, though the most impressive is a bit tricky to interpret. So there is this character ARIA whom is stated by one canon source to be able to process information in a millisecond, but is stated on the website to be able to process information in a nanosecond. That’s contradictory, how do you figure out which to go with? Let’s find out. Now Glacius’ feat is he was able to retrieve Eagle from ARIA in “1/1000th” of a second, and he did this from a distance of what appears to be 1.2 meters. If he did this in less than a millisecond he would be moving Mach 3.5, but if he did this in less than a nanosecond he’s going 4 times the speed of light. Now first off what speed makes sense for consistency, Mach 3.5 lines up very nicely with a feat Cinder has of traveling across an island at Mach 3. 4c is over 1,000,000 times faster than the next highest feat in the verse, a Mach 32 feat possessed by the final boss Eyedol, making it a MASSIVE OUTLIER. Also the exact quote of the story is “It was Glacius! In the next thousandth of a second ARIA had the following thoughts: The alien Glacius had found a way inside Eagle’s stasis-gel chamber”. A thousandth of a second is a millisecond, and it states Glacius did this in that amount of time. Then you also have Cinder who is on par with Glacius at top speed only clearing an island, if Glacius were 4c Cinder would be too so at top speed would go around the world 30 times per second and he obviously can’t do that.

For Sub-Zero’s speed he scales to Quan Chi who as you can see in the link up there can block machine gun bullets from 20 feet away, machine gun bullets travel around 12954.545 mph so they travel about 20 feet and travel at ~ 6948 meters per second.

He reacted in ~0.00071 Seconds of just under a millisecond (about 0.71 milliseconds)

He also moved his arm maybe half meter when the bullets were already halfway there so his arm movement is  1 meter in 0.00071 seconds or ~1395.348 Meters Per second

=~Mach 5.3 for arm movement. Making Sub-Zero faster than Glacius.

Take into account other factors like Sub-Zero has more training and experience, because he can freeze city blocks at a time his attacks have higher Area of Effect, and he has a considerably better win record against foes from a stronger verse and it should be obvious that Kuai Liang wins.

Now before I go I’d like to shoot down some other arguments I heard for Glacius.

1. Glacius froze an entire lake: This feat does not exist, there is no such thing as a Killer Instinct cartoon (as cool as that would be), and I went through all 3 games carefully, read all the comics/novel, and even listened through the OST just incase it was in a lyric or something and there is no Lake Feat.
2. Glacius scales to Eyedol and Gargos: No he does not, he has never canonically fought either of them, and the only time he sort of did was as part of a large team which included Jago and Orchid who can handle these guys themselves. You also can’t scale him to Eyedol through ARIA because she defeated Glacius with little effort, he merely managed to escape her cause she cared little.
3. Glacius scales to Tusk as Tusk is basically fodder: There is no proof of Tusk being fodder, the fact that he only fought TJ Combo, a fodder doesn’t prove that as he won, and we haven’t seen how he compares to other characters. Tuck never fought Glacius or lost to anyone that would suggest he’s fodder, yet has some of the franchise’s best feats, therefore he is not fodder, and Glacius doesn’t scale.
4. Glacius has Massively Faster Than Light reactions from piloting his ship of that speed: We never see him actually doing this, this is something people are implying simply from the fact it’s his ship, I don’t think this is legit by any means, considering how much of an outlier this is for the verse I find it far more likely his ship just has autopilot and navigation.
5. Glacius can absorb and heal from fire, because he has molecular manipulation this means he could absorb and heal from Sub-Zero’s ice: Really? I mean that is a string of baseless assumptions with no proof, which is the literal equivalent of making stuff up. Fire and ice are very different. Ice is matter while fire is pure energy formed by a chemical reaction. It has no matter or mass, absorbing fire is a type of energy manipulation and is not related to molecular structures, and he can’t do this with Sub-Zero’s ice blasts as they are defined as magic and not energy.

I don’t mean to give Glacius the cold shoulder, he’s a really cool character and my second most used in the game, behind Spinal of course, but Sub-Zero’s gonna rip his spine out, freeze his body before it hits the ground and use his spine as a weapon to shatter his body.

MLDKF (AKA Wolf)

Okay, where do I start? First of all, I love Killer Instinct AND Mortal Kombat. While these two aren’t my favorite characters in their franchises (those would be Scorpion and Jago), these two are still favorites of mine. I’ll admit, I’m not a fan of the matchup either, but the reason for that is plain and simple: this is an ABSOLUTE STOMP in Sub-Zero’s favor...well, okay, maybe not an absolute one, but it’s a stomp nonetheless.

Glacius’ feats do surprise me. Surprising a being who can think like ARIA is definitely a surprise...but it’s also important to note that he didn’t actually beat ARIA. If he did, that would be interesting. Meanwhile, the opponents he did beat (canonically) aren’t that special. I mean, don’t get me wrong, that’s some pretty stiff competition, but Sub-Zero easily tops him, having beaten Goro, Kintaro, Ermac, and I believe he’s the one who defeated Motaro in the original timeline (where as it was Raiden saving Johnny Cage in the new timeline), but I have no evidence to prove that, hence why it’s not in the feats section. Now I know what you’re thinking: “But Wolf, Sub-Zero was a cyborg when he beat Goro and Kintaro. And this is Sub-Zero without any enhancements” I call bull on the idea that it shouldn’t count for two reasons: one, Raiden himself has even said Sub-Zero is the most powerful mortal in all the realms, and two, there’s no evidence that the Cyber Initiative did anything to make the Lin Kuei stronger. All it did was make the subordinate to the Grand Master.

Now sure, Sub-Zero’s city freezing feat is questionable, since we don’t know how long it took for him to do so, but then again, there’s no evidence of the lake freezing feat either. Also, we’ve actually seen Sub-Zero’s feats in action thanks to cutscenes, comics, AND gameplay. Glacius on the other hand? We’ve only seen it through gameplay, and even then, it’s only that he beat up some guys, nothing much more than that. On top of that, Glacius, like many in Killer Instinct, doesn’t get many feats. Unless you’re Jago, Orchid, or one of the EXTREMELY high-tiered characters like Eyedol or Gargos, it’s hard to get any feats. Meanwhile, Sub-Zero, while a jobber just like nearly every other Mortal Kombat kharakter (I’m surprised no one made that joke yet as of writing this) still gets plenty of feats mostly due to his popularity.

This will be a tough fight for Sub-Zero, though, especially trying to get through Glacius’ armor, but if Sub-Zero can get through Sektor’s armor, he can get through Glacius’. Ice is very fragile, after all, so, it shouldn’t be as tough, but who knows. But in the end, with all the evidence presented to me, Sub-Zero will be the one to walk away from this fight all. My vote goes to Kuai Liang.

Electrocole

For starters, so glad to see this match finally happened. It's one I've wanted to see for years. Now onto who I see winning this... that's a bit tricky for me to answer.

Back before Killer Instinct (2013) gave its cast an extended and rebooted story, I would've given this to Sub-Zero as even with Glacius' feats in the original series, none of them made it sound like the ice alien was completely immune to or had utter complete control over all things ice. That combined with Sub-Zero's speed, agility, mobility, versatility, mastery of cryomancy, and the power of the Dragon Medallion would, in my opinion, be enough to defeat Glacius of KI1 and 2.

With the extended story of KI2013, many have been making the case that Glacius has been given the ability to "adapt to anything", as well as "complete control over ice". If those claims are true, then I suppose that even with the Dragon Medallion, Sub-Zero's cryomancer abilities alone would not win him this match-up.

However, even without his ice attacks, he's still quite physically strong, as he's been shown in the MKX comics tearing a Lin Kuei cyborg in half with very little effort, as well as ripping Sektor's head off with his bare hands as well, both of which I'd assume would be a tad tougher than tearing through a human body. Most of his fatalities do incorporate his ice abilities to make his opponents easier to tear apart, but a few exceptions including the spine rip he learned from Bi-Han, his Deadly Alliance fatality where he tears out the entire skeleton, and his MK9 fatality with him tearing out the spine and skull through the opponent's chest.

And I get that if Glacius can change his body on a molecular level to turn from solid to liquid and back, then he'd obviously need his body together to do so. Theory time: if Glacius were to lose an arm, he wouldn't just grow a new one. He'd need to retrieve it and reattach it if possible: otherwise he's short one arm. If Glacius loses a head, he's not just going to grow back a new one: without his head, his body's not going to know what to do and could lose its ability to keep its shape.

So if Sub-Zero isn't going to win this via freezing Glacius, the one way I can see him taking this match is by decapitating Glacius. If he can keep the ice alien's head from his body, I think the Lin Kuei warrior wins.

Nowhere near an easy task, as Glacius wouldn't need such a specific way to kill Sub-Zero, who most likely has no immunity to ice attacks despite his cryomancer skills or Dragon Medallion and can be killed about the same as any other kombatant in the MK universe (he was killed by Baraka in the original timeline via impalement, and was killed by Sindel via a heel to the cyborg throat). So again, if Glacius does indeed have 100% control over all ice IE Iceman-type characters, then Sub's best stuff would be turned against him and we could see Glacius crushing Sub-Zero with his own Frozen Aura armor Gaara VS Toph-style.

At best, I can offer my opinion on stats. Sub-Zero is the faster, more agile, and more mobile combatant thanks to his ninja speed, ice teleport, and slide capabilities (which, if Defenders of the Realm is counted, can allow him to slide across the ground for much longer periods of time than in-game) while Glacius is one of the slower KI combatants on foot who can keep up with his puddle ability, which I feel would make him predictable. In strength, both might be fairly even, as Sub-Zero can tear through the human body and Glacius is fairly bulky. In durability, Glacius has the edge in perhaps having only one way that Sub-Zero could effectively kill him while Sub-Zero is as killable as any other man. Versatility is somewhat even as well, as both have a decent short and long-range arsenal of ice attacks, though Glacius' focus is more-so offensive oriented as to combo his opponents while Sub-Zero also has some defensive measures like the ice clone.

So can Sub-Zero keep on his toes and avoid all of Glacius' moves just long enough to score the killing blow? Or will Glacius end up with the Dragon Medallion as a trophy by the end of the match? We'll have to see.

ThankSwalot

(Music of choice for my verdict)

Tfw everyone else so far picked Sub-Zero.

Might as well join the bandwagon.

Not really.

Now, while I don’t really believe in the meteors that Eyedol can summon that much, I still say Glacius takes this. If you take in everything from both of these characters, Sub-Zero has far more to go over with more games and such. However, from what I see, he hasn’t really done much that makes me think he can defeat Glacius.

Of course he does scale to a lot of characters who have feats such as blocking bullets and anvils, and has displayed impressive cryokinetic attacks such as that city block wide ice blast he did that was in his feats section, but let me go over both of these one at a time, starting with speed.

Sub-Zero, like I just said, scales to Quan Chi when it comes to his machine gun bullet reactions. While Mach 5.3 is impressive, Glacius being able to blitz ARIA, who can think and process things in a nanosecond, proves he can keep up with fighters much faster than those Sub-Zero fights. So yeah, I think Glacius beats Sub-Zero when it comes to speed.

Strength is a bit trickier, but yeah, I’ll have to say Sub-Zero probably takes it. However, due to the previous mention of Sub-Zero and Glacius’ speeds, I highly doubt Sub-Zero would be able to land many hits, if any at all. It’s just too large of a gap for him to be able to attack. So what I see is Glacius, a guy who can already keep up with building level characters (Cinder), and is not much weaker that Sub-Zero, could pull out a win via blitzing him.

Probably one of the most debatable parts of this, and hardest to find in Glacius’ favor, was him displaying the ability to absorb ice. Well, it was found kind of. As you can see here, Glacius decides to absorb fire to protect some random people and he uses it to heal himself, which can be seen here. I actually asked someone on the Killer Instinct wiki to find these, and I thank him and give credit to him for that. I asked some follow-up questions about this, since Glacius was absorbing fire and not ice. He said that in Glacius’ origin, which can be seen here, that Glacius and his race are able to bend molecular structures. This makes sense since his race are not only ice aliens, but aliens that adapt to the environment around them and make an armor that’s suited for them.

This is important, since Sub-Zero showed off that city block ice blast feat, so what I think is simply that most, if not, all of Sub-Zero’s ice attacks can be absorbed by Glacius. Of course, with the ice blast Sub-Zero doing being city block, and Glacius never absorbing or fighting anyone at that level, at least in my opinion, this would be a huge NLF if I just said he could absorb it just like that.

That’s why I asked Windindi another question to see if he could help solve how big that fire Glacius absorbed was. His reply to that question can be seen here, but to sum it up, despite how short the reply is, he believes it to be a city-wide fire due to the fire appearing in many cities in the game. Now, while I think it’d be a bit overboard to say Glacius absorbed a fire that was engulfing an entire city, I can see Glacius having absorbed enough fire that it’d be about the same ice destruction as Sub-Zero. However, this is all a theory so who the hell knows how big that fire was but that’s just what I think, even if it’s very weird how I got to this conclusion, but oh well. I still think Glacius would take it without the ability to absorb Sub-Zero’s ice.

So to sum everything up, I think Glacius should win this due to a huge speed gap, and believing Glacius would be able to absorb all of Sub-Zero’s ice attacks, both healing Glacius and leaving Sub-Zero only to use physical combat, which they are about even in.

Grand you better be fucking happy I didn’t make a single damn pun throughout this entire fucking verdict.

Sorry, I lost my cool there…

Grand Blazer

(Music choice for my verdict. Sorry not sorry bitches.)

I predict that ThankSwalot is a little bitch. But it's already come true so it’s not much of a prediction. And I predict that this episode is going to get shit one way or another because of how heavily some stuff relies on interpretations and speculative stuff. So that's always a time. But I also predict Glacius winning. Or at least I kind of predict it, I guess.

Essentially all the feats and stuff I know on these two comes from the research the others compiled on this blog. All I really did was hang around the chat and Devil's Advocate for Glacius when stuff popped up, so of everyone on here I'm probably the least qualified person to be making a verdict, but I'll be doing so anyways.

So the biggest thing that I've come to form from my own interpretations (thumbs up for that again) is that Sub-Zero can't really use his ice techniques on Glacius due to his energy/elemental absorption. Granted the exact thing he took on was fire, but you probably couldn't convince me he could absorb that and not the thing he's literally made out of. Especially when said thing is something that melts exactly what Glacius is made out of.

Sub-Zero meanwhile doesn't have any ice resistance/immunity to my knowledge, so it's really going to come down to his martial arts skills and such. And while those are certainly impressive, he doesn't really seem to have the same power with them as he does his ice moves, especially since I personally don't buy into his town level stuff. Granted, Glacius nanosecond stuff is also questionable in my opinion, since the microsecond stuff is more consistent with KI stats.

Honestly, that's what's got me pissed off so much about the debates over this match. Both sides are after giving their character tons of benefits of a doubt, no matter how ridiculous some got, while letting anything that requires some speculation for the other team get stomped the fuck out, no matter how reasonable it is.

Again, interpretations. Some fucking joyride, ain't it?

Back to verdict-ing, like I said, I think we have a highly trained ninja and his martial arts skills along with misc. stuff like teleportation fighting an alien with tons of ice abilities that can change around his molecular structure... whatever the hell that gives him. Sub-Zero seems faster from what I can tell from a machine gun calc and discounting the nanosecond, while Glacius has DC and durability. And that's the stat win for me.

I mean, just look at all of Sub-Zero's fatalities. I don't want to come across as "Sub-Zero can only use his ice to kill people", because I know he doesn't and that he can pull a dude's spine out no ice needed, but he definitely seems to rely on it a lot to finish off an opponent. Glacius can absorb that ice though, so he's just left with his fists. And well... I just don't think he has the power to get past Glacius' durability then, and while he may be a better martial artist, I still don't think that's enough to let him overtake Glacius' power.

So in the end, from this casual as fuck guy's stance on things, I don't think we're getting a fatality at the end of this fight. Instead... "ULTRAAA COMBOOOOO!!!"

HomestuckLover

*Notices everyone else has music for their verdict* Uhhh. Yea sure, let's go with this.

I don't have much to say about this match in particular like the others do. Not a fan of it personally, but it's another MK win so that's cool I suppose.

Glacius isn't anything to scoff at, but his best feats don’t come close to Sub Zero, who has a plethora of media and feats to go through. Glacius’ ARIA blitzing feat is arguably his best, as he attacks her in under a millisecond. Notice how i say millisecond as opposed to nanosecond? That's because the exact wording of the feat is this:

“In the next thousandth of a second ARIA had the following thoughts:

The alien Glacius had found a way inside Eagle’s stasis-gel chamber—he had turned into a liquefied state and was actually surrounding the prisoner—now her conversation with Eagle in his dream construct made sense—Glacius had assumed the guise of Eagle’s weyekin—his spirit guide—and the alien had most likely been infiltrating the heart of the Pinnacle for days, communicating with Eagle—the alien might have even been interacting with the Ryat-sim—she had to destroy Glacius—and to do that she would have to sacrifice Eagle.

But before she could fire a laser blast, shards of ice shot up all around, encasing the acrylic tube”

The exact wording is that Glacius attacked in under a millisecond, not a nanosecond. The feat doesn't even really mention that he blitzed her. The text doesn't mention that he was too fast for her reaction timing, just too fast for her actual movement speed. ARIA, may be able to react to things in under a nanosecond, but there's no evidence to suggest she moves that fast either.

Even then, Glacius moving in under a nanosecond would put him at FTL speeds, which is a blatant outlier for the series.

Meanwhile, the millisecond feat is consistent with him scaling to Cinder.

Quan Chi blocking bullets that were already in midair and Nightwolf’s lightning are about 3 times faster than that however.

As for the DC department, ThorGunderson covers that area perfectly, so I'll just direct you towards his verdict so as not to be a parrot.

The best argument towards Glacius is his ability to absorb the elements for health and the ability to manipulate molecular structure. Does this spell doom for Kuai Lang? Unlikely. Glacius has never been shown to absorb as much energy as Sub Zero can produce, so Glacius trying to absorb any and all of Sub Zero’s ice attacks will just end with him imploding, and Sub Zero actually has some ice resistance via not being frozen by Frost or his own medallion. Also, Glacius can only manipulate his own molecular structure, not that of others.

So by the end of this fight, Sub Zero is going to be celebrating his victory over an ice cream cone.

NocturnBros

(Music of choice for my verdict)

Before I get on with my verdict, I would like to give a huge thank you to Grand Blazer, Malcolm, and the rest of the team for allowing me to participate.in this prediction blog. I’ve researched Sub-Zero multiple times in my VS Debating career, and I’ve investigated a lot of Killer Instinct’s game-changing feats, so I think I can come up with a solid answer as to who would win this fight.

Initially, I expected more people to side with Glacius, due to the ever-so-infamous boosts that KI got after my friend ProtoDude calced and discovered new feats. Now, I can see the match-up being closer, due to some boosts and downgrades that I’ve found thanks to this team’s collective effort.

First thing’s first, I want to discuss the infamous Island level feat that Glacius has supposedly performed. I have contacted multiple experts in Killer Instinct, and literally each one gave me a different source. No matter how hard I looked, I could not find Glacius freezing a lake. There’s multiple possibilities in regards to that feat:

• Glacius’ stage from Killer Instinct 2: Literally why. The mountain was already covered in snow even before Glacius crash-landed.
• Glacius’ stage from Killer Instinct 2013: This one sounds less far-fetched, but I do not think it is a Glacius feat, let alone the lake feat. This stage was stated to be located in Patagonia, South America. The southernmost part of that area in real life can get pretty cold, but it is not the Antarctic hell that is depicted in the stage. Glacius’ spaceship is shown to be able to produce small-scale snowstorms when interacted with. Given those facts, I think that it was Glacius’ ship that caused the abnormal climatic change.
• Something about the novel?: I’ve also heard that the feat came from the novel, but after looking into the novel using certain keywords, I was unable to find anything related to Glacius freezing any lake.
• Promotional Artwork? This was the first reason that I was given for the lake thing, and it’s honestly bull. If you may recall, earlier in this very same blog, there was a picture of Glacius fighting TJ Combo in an icy stage. My source implied that Glacius was the one who froze it, but there is no evidence to support that at all.
• Lost cartoon? What the heck?: There’s been talk of a cancelled KI cartoon, and some speculate that the feat comes from that cartoon, but that just doesn’t make sense. If no one has seen that cartoon, it is impossible to know if Glacius has frozen a lake there.
• Lake Feat Conclusion: It’s bogus. I seriously can’t find anything on it.

But even without that supposed feat, I have reasons to believe that Glacius would be able to beat Sub-Zero.

For starters, there’s the speed factor. Let’s examine the fastest feats that Sub scales to.

• Mach 5.3 guns: Typing that made my head hurt. This feat comes from Quan-Chi being able to react to several bullets that were coming his way. I, myself, have some knowledge on IRL guns and weapons, and let me tell you: An M4 carbine can’t shoot at Mach 5.3. Its muzzle velocity is 910 m/s, which is roughly Mach 2.7. Not even close. A friend of mine provided me with a quick calc that supports my point. I’ll link it as an imgur picture. According to my friend’s calc, there is no way that the feat can be considered Mach 5.3.
• Nightwolf’s Thunder Cloud: I was actually not aware of this feat until now. Nightwolf is capable of summoning a small cloud above other characters’ heads, and use it to smite them with lightning. The speed of that lightning was calculated to be Mach 9.6. As good as that may sound, I do not think this feat can be scaled to any character. This attack may be blockable, but that’s a gameplay mechanic that heavily changes the results of the reaction time depending on when the player inputs the command. For that feat to be scalable, it would have to be blocked by a character in a cutscene.
• Dodging Missiles and other projectiles: In the comics, Sub-Zero was able to dodge point-blank missiles. Missiles of that sort are commonly around Mach 2. Given how close Kuai was to the cyborg that fired it, this feat could be bumped up to Mach 3, but there aren’t any solid calcs that can confirm this, so we’ll keep it as Mach 2. In addition to that, Sub-Zero would easily scale to fodders like Reptile, who have dodged bullets themselves. The average muzzle velocity of most guns tends to be Mach 2 as well.

As you can see, Sub-Zero’s best speed feats are all around the Low Supersonic range. Not very impressive, if you ask me. Now, it’s time to tackle Glacius.

• Blitzing ARIA: This is one of the feats that we’ve discussed most in the chat. I do not think we were able to come to an exact conclusion for that one, but I’ve seen everything ranging from High Supersonic to f*cking Faster than Light. That’s one hell of a jump. Since I am not as experienced with KI as I am with MK, I am going to give this one the benefit of the doubt, and mark it as a High Supersonic feat, since Proto stated that it was, and I quote, “at the least supersonic”. High Supersonic-Hypersonic lines up nicely with other speed feats that have been showcased by the rest of the cast, as described in the following paragraphs.
• Scaling to Cinder: This one is kind of a no-brainer. Cinder is to Glacius what Scorpion is to Sub-Zero. They’ve fought multiple times, and they’re virtually identical in stats. Cinder has a feat where he crosses an island in a very short timespan. This feat was calculated to be Mach 4.92, which is a pretty decent number.
• Scaling to Tusk: Proto himself stated that he calced a feat performed by Tusk where he destroyed meteors that were moving at Mach 33. In addition to that, he also said that due to the speed and dimensions of the meteors would mean that they have enough kinetic energy to destroy multiple city blocks. Given the people that Glacius has fought, he would surely scale to this feat. It also applies to destructive capacity.
• Piloting Starships: This one is a bit stranger, but hear me out. Glacius’ spaceship is capable of crossing galaxies at incredibly high speeds that surpass the speed of light. When piloting a ship, you need to be able to react to oncoming obstacles and threats, so unless the ship is always on autopilot or the path is a straight line with no obstacles (kek), the reaction time should be scalable to Glacius. This feat could be considered an outlier, though, so take it with a grain of salt.

Glacius’ speed feats are rather inconsistent. They could be from Mach 5, all the way to MFTL. If you asked me, I would say that the most stable feats that we can get from him are the ones that come from scaling to Tusk, which are High Hypersonic. Overall, all of Glacius’ speed feats are faster than Sub-Zero’s.

Now let’s tackle strength and durability, starting with Glacius this time.

• With the Island level thing debunked, we’re left with only one noteworthy feat that I think deserves coverage. Eyedol’s meteors were calculated to be Multi-City Block+ Level. Jago has fought against Eyedol, ARIA has fought against Jago, Glacius has fought against ARIA. Simple enough. In addition to that, there’s also the aforementioned Tusk feat, which is also MCB.

That was rather short. That won’t be the case for Kuai, though. I have more material to work with here.

• Freezing a City: This feat has been thrown around maaaaaany times in multiple sites. They all try to use it to justify City level Sub-Zero, but that argument falls flat to me. If you look at the scan, you can see that, although Kuai has created some pretty large ice constructs, he’s only frozen parts of the floor and the lower parts of some buildings. It may give Sub and advantage in Area of Effect, but it doesn’t justify Sub being City level in any way.
• Nukes Ahoy!: In another comic, Kano fires a nuke at Kintaro, a character that Sub-Zero has beaten in multiple occasions. Some people use this feat to justify MCB-Town level Sub-Zero. In theory, it makes sense, but once you look at the facts, it becomes questionable. For a nuke to be scalable, the character needs to have survived being at the epicenter, or at least close to it. Kintaro, as well as other members of his race, appear as silhouettes in the background, being blown away by the blast. That fact, and the lack of a distinctive crater in the aftermath make this feat very questionable. It can be as low as simply Building level.
• Other blasts and such: Sub has produced several large blasts that I think can’t really be accurately measured, but they’re likely Building-City Block level. That is pretty decent.

Overall, I would say that Glacius has the advantage in raw power and destructive capacity as well. I should also mention that no matter how big Kuai’s ice blasts are, Glacius could simply absorb them.

When you think about it, this episode is basically Ace vs Natsu, but with ice.

In conclusion, I have to say that Glacius is stronger, faster, more durable, and more versatile than Kuai in any way, shape, or form. In my honest opinion, the ice alien will be the winner of this chilling fight.

Announcement

The G1DBFB has an announcement to make. For having helped us out numerous times on blog research, even more-so than some of our own, we’ve elected to make ramon_zer0 an official member of the G1 Death Battle Fan Blog as opposed to a simple guest. So you can expect him to show up during any special blogs we make ourselves that aren’t related to what Death Battle is doing at the time.

His response?