Death Battle Predictions: Spider-Gwen VS Sakura

 

Spider-Gwen, The Graceful Ghost Spider of Earth-65.

Sakura Kasugano, The Student of the Ansatsuken.

  

“With great power comes great responsibility”, a lesson these two combatants have learned despite their young age. These two highschool age heroines have a lot on their plate yet try their very best not to let it get to them. While sometimes they may fall, letting their darkness consume them, they’ll mold that darkness and come back stronger than ever to fight the good fight. Whose strength will be greater in this bout of Marvel vs Capcom? Will the Ghost Spider turn Sakura into the real ghost here? Or will this street fighter give Gwen the good ol’ 616 treatment? Find out in today’s DEATH BATTLE!

Before We Start…

For this fight, we will be expanding the scope of our analysis beyond the primary media for both characters. Since recent Spider-Man content like No Way Home, Across the Spider-Verse, and Spider-Geddon have consistently established the idea that the Spider-People of various media share a multiverse and are comparable to one another, we will be examining this more extended “Spider-Verse scaling” to get a clearer picture of Gwen’s full potential.

Likewise, to balance things out, we’ll be including all the various Street Fighter media, including UDON, the various Street Fighter manga, Final Fight, EX, and other crossovers, despite the messy nature of Street Fighter’s canon. In other words, we’ll be examining a “composite” Sakura in a similar manner as a composite Spider-Verse.

The main exception to this ruleset will be Marvel VS Capcom, which is harder to justify composite-wise, and also creates overlap between the two franchises that the two would both benefit from. Therefore, while we will look at it for a full understanding of Dark Sakura’s moveset in particular, no scaling from Marvel VS Capcom will be afforded to either character - so we won’t be scaling them both to Galactus, basically.

Background

Gwen

“Let’s do this differently, WAY differently.”

The amazing Gwen Stacy, one of the iconic lasses and allies of the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. They were nigh inseparable until one day, what would be a moment of bliss in Peter’s life, ran out. During a battle with the Green Goblin, the villain pushed Gwen off a bridge. Spider-Man attempted to save her by webbing her leg but little did he know that the quick stop would make things worse. It instantly snapped her neck, killing her. Leaving a catalyst for Peter, a canon event in his life he will mold for the better. BUT- what if all of that played differently? What if Gwen didn’t die? Better yet, what if Gwen was Spider-Man instead? Let’s do this one last time.

In the world of Earth-65, you wouldn’t think much is different. However when you get to the grounded stuff, the individual, you start to see something’s off. The famous and fantastic Reed Richards was only a 13 year old. Daredevil? Now aiding the Kingpin instead. However, the craziest of all was that Spider-Man or on this Earth, Ghost Spider was a killer. And who is this Ghost Spider? The amazing Gwen Stacy. On this Earth, Gwen is a normal girl. She goes to highschool, even plays drums for a band called the Mary Janes. One day this would all be flipped upside down when she was bitten by a radioactive spider which gave her superpowers. Using these great powers, she responsibly took the streets to fight crime as Spider-Woman (she has a lot of aliases). 

Being a superhero with all these cool abilities is fun. Although not everyone in this story can say the same. Enter the average nerd Peter Parker, one of the greatest best friends of the friendly neighborhood Gwendolyn Stacy. They were nigh inseparable even being considered family by Gwen’s father and Police Chief, George Stacy. Although one day, that moment of bliss in Gwen’s life would run out. Despite Gwen being at the top of the world, Peter was hurting. He was a constant result of bullying with Gwen being his only friend. He just wanted the pain to stop, and the only way he knew how was to be super as well. He figured that if he had powers like Spider-Woman, he wouldn’t be bullied anymore. He’d have a purpose. So one day he concocted a formula, to show those who wronged him what he can really do. So one day, Peter Parker didn’t go to school. The Lizard did…

The Lizard busted in causing a ruckus, chaos all over. Nobody knew what this creature was or how to stop it. It was a monster with no signs of the lovable nerd Peter Parker from before. Just like everyone else, Gwen couldn’t tell as well. The spectacular Ghost Spider had swooped in and fought hard against the beast, eventually dealing a mortal blow to the Lizard, but little did she know the reptilian foe would revert back. Back to a familiar face. She was shocked while Peter layed on the ground eventually succumbing to his wounds. With the entire school and quickly the police force, the Spider Gwen was deemed a killer. Leaving a catalyst for Gwen, a canon event molding her for the better. She would be constantly on the run by the police and more so by George Stacy, who was also struck by the grief of losing Peter. However one day something different happened, way different.

She was pulled away into various dimensions. Meeting other Spider people like herself. Those who have lost someone, those who feel like the world is against them. Most notably she met the Spider-Man of Earth-616, Peter Parker. They connected over the grief of losing each other, feeling directly responsible for each other’s death. Promising to each that they would protect each other, to make sure the same mistake isn’t repeated. She even met the dorky Miles Morales, the cool Miguel O’ Hara, and the annoying Peter Porker. With her help and many others, they wouldn’t just be friendly neighborhood spiders, they’d be friendly multiverse spiders. With Gwen traveling into, across, and beyond this “Spider-Verse” to make sure no one suffers her fate.

Sakura

“Do you have time for another beating before my next class?”

In Tokyo, Japan, you probably wouldn’t think too much of the Tamagawa Minami High School…except for the fact the energetic and cheerful Sakura Kasugano was enrolled in it. She was just your average high school student until a chance encounter with Ryu and witnessing his incredible martial arts fighting style. This inspired Sakura to take street fighting herself, imitating his Ansatsuken fighting style, but in her own unique way. Her fists were righteous though as her first times fighting were against bullies who would dare threaten her friends. 

She realized she had a love and joy for fighting and looked up to Ryu for inspiring her. It was to the point she skipped school just to search the world for her idol (sidenote: please don’t actually do this in real life) and study under him. She would meet all sorts of new people from Cammy, Karin, Ibuki and she would even become friends with Dan (though one could say the relationship is a bit one sided!) She would eventually meet up with Ryu and even spar with him, earning his respect and friendship as well, though he would refuse to be her teacher as he thought he still had much to learn himself. Still, this didn’t discourage Sakura at all and promised to meet each other again. 

And that she did, meeting not just with her idol Ryu, but all sorts of fighters while improving upon her own. She would even enter the World Warrior tournament herself, hoping to find Ryu again. Imposing a self greuling hard working train regime on herself, she did wonder if she was getting closer to be as strong as him. While she was improving her skills, Ryu was also becoming stronger, learning to control his inner demons and have a better state of mind. That never discouraged her though as long as she had that goal, she would still love fighting and become a stronger person in both body and mind as well. 

As time passed though, while she would still have that contagious spunk and energy that would make almost anyone happy to have her around, she did eventually graduate out of high school and attend university. Now working part time at an arcade, she wondered about the future and what to do about it. She didn’t have nearly as much free time as she did when she was younger to wander the world anymore, making her lose some of the passion she had for street fighting. Despite having some of this anxiety, she did bump into Ryu one more time. After a sparring session and a heart to heart talk about the future, she now knew what she wanted out of life. Whether it’s having the power to protect those she cares about or the strength to keep on fighting and carry on her legacy, Sakura would find a way to bloom once more.

Experience & Skill

Gwen

My last moments in Elon’s body

Despite being a formidable hero since she was 17, the real hero here are Kung Fu movies. Since those are the only thing that gives Gwen some semblance of skill, as without those Gwen lacks any proper training to the point she can’t even throw a proper punch. However, skill isn’t just about fighting. Where Gwen lacks in combat skill, her deductive capabilities definitely make up for it. Growing up with a police chief father allowed for Gwen to be a natural when it comes to detective work and analytical reasoning. Which helps her come up with creative tactics on the fly or even maintain distance when she knows her opponent is stronger than her.

These natural instincts of Gwen’s are even praised by Spider-Man Noir, stating that they are the best he's ever seen. She’s also surprisingly stealthy, being able to evade Earth-65 Matt Murdock’s senses. On this Earth, Matt was stated at even a young age to have the “sight of a thousand eyes” and can still hear heartbeats of course. Making Gwen’s stealth incredibly impressive.

Sakura

Despite her young age, Sakura has proven to be one of the most talented fighters within the Street Fighter Universe. Being able to just simply imitate Ryu’s Ansatsuken fighting style from imaging him teaching her each maneuver, including the legendary Hadoken is simply just one of many impressive accomplishments. Even in the midst of combat she has shown the ability to analyze a fighter's patterns, to the point she figured out Maki’s fighting style off of a sentence. She’s battled and even bested many martial artists such as Zangief, Honda, Maki, and most notably Karin Kanzuki. Karin in particular has studied a plethora of martial arts, and displayed even as a high schooler the skill to adapt quickly to unknown situations.

Her self-made Ansatsuken fighting style was developed enough to even keep up with even her idol Ryu. Prior to traveling the world, Ryu was noted to master every technique and form that Gouken crafted to the point of appearing he created them. His travels would open him up to several different martial arts that he analyzed and learned from to constantly improve himself.  He’s even incorporated techniques from other styles into his moveset, such as karate, judo and taekwondo. With only a fraction of the time Ryu had, Sakura was able to keep up in technique, even surprising the World Warrior himself. 

Equipment

Gwen

Spider-Woman Suit

Not much to the suit other than looking super dope. The hood technically would give an extra method of hiding her secret identity, so that’s smart!

Web-Shooters

Created by Janet Van Dyne, who was the Wasp, these web shooters operate like your typical web shooter, which is pretty much used for swinging around, and  trapping enemies.

Venom Symbiote

 

Created by Dr. Elsa Brock, this artificial symbiote was used by Gwen to restore her powers after they were stolen by her reality’s Cindy Moon. By combining the Lizard Serum and Cindy Moon's radioactive isotope, a symbiote that bonds to host bodies and amplifies them, as well as granting them abilities identical to Spider-Gwen's original power set. While it would prove fatal to bear for most hosts, Gwen's immunity to the symbiote's radioactivity allows her to put it on without harm to herself. In addition to getting her powers back (including organic webbing), the Venom Symbiote also grants Gwen the Lizard Serum's regenerative abilities, allowing her to quickly heal small wounds, dispel poisons and toxins from her body, filter air, and even provide Gwen with oxygen should her airway be restricted via Gwen breathing through the suit.

The symbiote itself is also technically not a singular entity. It’s made out of a ton of tiny spiders that Gwen has full control of. These tiny “gummy” spiders can survive long periods on their own separated from Gwen and can stick/have them follow individuals for Gwen to spy on.

An interesting thing to note as well is how close Gwen’s symbiote is to an actual Klyntar. It is stated to be inorganic and not alive by Gwen, yet powerful Symbiotes can wrest control over bits of it from her. It even intrigued the God of Symbiotes, Knull, and compelled him to want to have it due to how similar it is to the Klyntar. But perhaps the most important takeaway here is that Gwen was able to pushback against Knull's attempts to control her and her symbiote, showcasing her incredibly strong bond to it, described by Gwen in her own run as having found balance with it.

Ticket to the Multiverse

Created by the Gwen of Earth-3109 after Spider-Gwen saved her, this device allows Gwen to create portals. These portals, as one would assume, make it so Gwen can freely travel the multiverse as she pleases. This in practice is very similar to another multiverse device Gwen had in the past which she once used to completely teleport away an enemy. Another Gwen aka Spider-Guin, once used her Ticket to the Multiverse to teleport various villains to different universes as well. So it’s fair to say Gwen on a bad day can send you to Earth- 10011 or Earth- 2149. 

Sakura

Gems

From Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, blue, red, and yellow gems are gems that can be collected in big or small sizes. Each time you collect a lot, it powers up a special move of Sakura. Examples include such as Sakura's Hadouken getting bigger with each level, earning more hits with her Shou’ou San with her umbrella, and Shunka Shuuto which makes her run farther and more hits.

Scooter

A green scooter driven by Sakura herself. She can use it on unfortunate foes.

Yellow Umbrella

A yellow umbrella that she uses in her Midare Zakura…that’s it.

Item Balls

From Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, Sakura can obtain these elemental orbs to throw at opponents. Each orb can burn the opponent, freeze them, poison them, she could throw a bomb, a banana orb where the opponent can slip and fall if landed, petrify them by turning them to stone, or shock the opponent. 

Disguises

In Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, Sakura will sometimes take different outfits/disguises in each of her attacks. Some can range such as a playboy bunny costume with hat, wand and wine, tennis outfit with a tennis racket, soccer outfit, one piece school swimsuit with a bat and towel, and finally a training outfit with polearm.

Abilities

Gwen

 Spider Mutate Physiology 

As a Spider-Person, Gwen gained a lot of physical enhancement far above just your average superhuman. So much so that they typically hold themselves back against other street level characters just so they won’t accidentally splatter them in one hit. 

Spidey’s are so tough due to their physiology they can resist a plethora of attacks. Whether it be electrical, sound based, radioactive, nerve severing, acid, petrification, and even anti-matter! They can be filled with toxins deadly enough to kill a city, tank constant powerful explosions, and even have shown resistance to their main weakness of ethyl chloride. Gwen specifically has been able to show resistance to cold temperatures and fire even with her Symbiote. She hasn’t been able to even get a cold or food poisoning because of how fast she can recover.

Her recovery doesn’t just heal sicknesses but far more vital injuries. Such as blindness or even broken bones. However these aren’t like Wolverine, they do take hours to fully heal. Thankfully her stamina and endurance can buy her enough time. These remaining two abilities are some of the defining characteristics of Spidey’s across the multiverse.

Spidey’s are surprisingly resilient, being able to keep on fighting through the toughest of challenges. Their stamina is stated to be 40 times more than the average person which could be an understatement given they can fight for hours straight on end. They can survive in space, hold their breath for more than 10 minutes, and can go without drinking water for two days without feeling thirsty. Peter Parker, who has the same physiology as Gwen, can fight crime for 3 days straight with food or sleep. 

Spider-Sense

The classic Spider staple (unless you happen to be from the year 2099). This ability is probably the most iconic power in all of Marvel and for good reason too. As most know the Spider-Sense acts a danger sense, warning Spider-People of harm that they would reasonably have no way of detecting. Although it’s much more varied and much more potent than what people first believe. The spider sense first and foremost acts like an “alarm” of sorts, allowing Spidey’s to sense incoming danger even if they can’t see it and it’s extremely efficient. This efficiency comes about through various reasons; it can predict several future outcomes, seeing which ones are safe and which ones are dangerous. It can slow the user’s perspective to a crawl and let them be several steps ahead of their opponent. Regardless of if he’s blinded the spider sense will also force Spidey’s to aim exactly where they need. Basically “it buzzes on the bad ideas and goes silent on the good ones”. It even continues to work while the user is sleeping.

 

It’s able to detect not just attacks but nigh everything that’s potentially unsafe. Working on a 360 degree radius it can detect radiation, cameras and detectors, mind control, beings on the astral plane, lies and tricks, intent, other people being in danger, teleportation, someone’s speed, and even changes in space-time. Spidey’s can also reverse this ability to find where the most danger is specifically. Even with all this, if Gwen still can’t evade an attack flatout, the spider sense will make sure she sustains as little damage as possible. While for Gwen specifically it was stated to be a bit unreliable compared to other Spidey’s, it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily weaker and would be comparable. Furthermore, outside said statement, this hasn’t been shown to be the case.

Wall Crawling

While not as notable as other abilities and equipment, wall crawling is an underestimated facet of a Spidey’s powerset. As already known it’s often used as a form of mobility as it allows for Gwen to stick and traverse to any surface at high speeds. Furthermore, hands and feet aren’t needed as some think, as every part of Gwen’s body retains this adhesion. This ability is so strong that Peter Parker has once stated that he’s never encountered anything that severed this bond, only in cases where the surface itself is completely broken. The fact that it extends across the entire body also means that Spidey’s can use other parts of their body similar to hands and grab things. It might be unorthodox but with this, random objects can be used as impromptu weapons in a pinch. 

This ability is strong in the sense that there’s nothing shown that can sever this adhesion. Even things moving at high speeds can’t shake Spidey’s off once they are in contact, such as jets, planes, or even space shuttles. Lastly as previously mentioned, this ability can be used in an offensive manner. It can be used to overcome the momentum of speeding objects stopping them in their tracks. Inexplicably it can also be used to turn the tide on stronger opponents. Peter Parker with this ability was able to flip the Hulk around. Gwen herself was able to tear off the armor of Earth 616’s Super Adaptoid using this very ability as well. 

Sakura

Ansatsuken

Thanks to copying Ryu in nearly every way possible, Sakura studies under a fictional fighting style called Ansatsuken or Assasination’s Fist. Ansatsuken is a fighting style that has roots towards killing the opponent via assassinations techniques. Characters that use this style are Ryu, Ken, and Gouken, which Gouken taught the nicer side of Ansatsuken, which Sakura copied from Ryu.

Ansatsuken is based off of Shotokan or Shoto by FGC standards. Shotokan or Shotokan Karate is a subsection of Karate, which focuses on such as punches, hand/elbow strikes, knee strikes and kicks. It teaches self-defense through a series of kihon(basics), kata(forms), and kumite(sparring). It is known as a hard martial arts style due to its emphasis on strikes, long stances, and sparring techniques.

Ki Sensing 

While Sakura was training after losing Ryu to Bison and Urien, she was able to sense Akuma coming.

Hadouken

The classic Street Fighter fireball. While Sakura’s version is more of an imperfect version compared to Ryu or Ken (especially with the smaller size and shorter reach), it’s still a strong and fast projectile that’s good at keeping opponents out. Sakura can charge it for even more power, but it does decrease in reach and speed the longer she does. She’s also capable of detonating her Hadouken mid charge to create a bright flashbang.

Tengyo Haduoken

Sakura does the Hadoken at a 45 degree angle to hit any opponent approaching in the air. She can charge it to make a bigger fireball shot in the air. In her Dark Sakura form, she charges up for some time before firing 10 massive Hadouken in the air in rapid succession, obviously they’re also much stronger then they usually are.

Shinku Hadouken

The Shinku Hadoken is a large, multi-hitting Hadoken (the maximum usually being 5 hits) made of vacuum energy. It’s described as “A Hadouken in which the body's ki is concentrated and condensed into your palms before firing. Its swift speed and invulnerability can quickly turn the tables on an opponent.”. Its power propels it the length of the whole stage, and easily lets it plow through other weaker projectiles, though some games lower the amount of hits landed for each one before it 'breaks.' Sakura has also been able to use the Shinku Hadoken in most, if not all, of her appearances, and sometimes has an anti-air variant.

While in her Dark/Sunburned state, the Shinku Hadouken becomes an invulnerable large beam of energy that can blast through any projectile and do devastating damage in the process, while firing this, Sakura is fully covered in electricity.

Nekketsu Hadouken

Sakura fires a very fast and powerful, large Hadoken with a pink color (ignore the fact that it's red here, it's just the charge up) that inflicts even more damage than a Shinku Hadoken and any other move in the game. It can only be used when her energy meter is at maximum. 

Shunpukyaku

Sakura jumps into the air a bit before swiftly floating down with a series of spinning kick(s). While Sakura’s version of the hurricane kick doesn’t exactly have her travel across the screen and defy gravity, it’s still a handy move for getting past projectiles and ending combos. Some variants like the EX version of it even allow follow ups for cool combo extensions. 

Haru Ichiban

A special move that consists of a series of low, sweeping, spinning kicks followed by a backward-facing kick to the opponent's midsection.

Shouoken

AKA that one move you’ll mash on wake up because you’re too impatient to block. Jokes aside, Sakura’s will leap into the air and do a rising uppercut, similar to the classic Shoryuken, the EX version having invincibility making it a good reversal tool. Despite the similarities, it’s surprisingly not very versatile as an actual anti-air considering she moves forward a bit, so timing it is key, but it’s a great damaging combo ending move that’ll reset neutral and can knock the opponent far away enough to force them to fight against Sakura’s fireball game.

Midare Zakura

Sakura performs three Shouokens in a roll that sends the opponent into the air. In Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, she uses a yellow umbrella while doing the move. Sakura describes the technique as inspired by several different fighters she has fought, combining teachings of Ryu, the spontaneity of R. Mika, the power of Zangief, the relentlessness of Karin, the perseverance of E. Honda and the unpredictability of Dan (sure).

Sakura Otoshi

Sakura would leap forward in the air preparing to do a double axe-handle on the unfortunate opponent. If landed, she would hit the opponent three consecutive times before the opponent hits the ground defying gravity once again. While certainly a damaging move, if she misses, she will lose her balance, making her vulnerable if she’s not careful.

Haru Ranman

Sakura’s Ultra Combo from Street Fighter 4, Sakura first does her Haru Ichiban by down three sweep kicks, but this time she kicks them into the air. She jumps after them to Sakura Otoshi, hitting them and slamming them into the ground. She ends it by landing on them, feet first then backs up. 

In Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, she does a more comical version and older version of this move as puts on a playboy bunny outfit as she calls in two muscular men to take the unfortunate opponent away. In the background, it’s likely implied that they beat up the opponent in which the opponent is thrown back as they’re beaten up or being crazy in love. 

Hadosho

Sakura envelops her hands with the same energy from her Hadouken, but instead of a projectile, she does a double palm thrust, knocking the opponent back. She can charge this move to increase its size and strength. The EX version is stronger, bigger and instead of a double palm thrust, she straight up DECKS the poor opponent. This move only hits in front of her, however whoever she hits will instantly be knocked down.

Focus Attack

A cast wide attack that was introduced in Street Fighter 4, a focus attack is a Heavy attack that gives her an augmented and unbreakable defense during the execution, making her ignore any attack that hits her. If it lands it causes the opponent to get paralyzed for a bit and then crumble down like a wet sack of potatoes.

Okakyaku

Sakura does a dive kick at the opponent. The EX version adds a kick at the start.

Floral Kick

An overhead attack where Sakura raises her leg, turns her hips, and does a downward roundhouse kick. Great for catching people blocking low.

Hanakaze

Sakura first grabs her opponent by the collar. Next, she takes a small step forward and shuffles her feet, positioning her front foot slightly past her opponent. Sakura pulls on their collar with one hand to throw her opponent over her thigh, she uses her other hand to push their leg over. Her opponent flips over and lands on their hip.

Sakura Shoulder Throw

She dashes towards her opponent, grabs their arm and throws them over her shoulder, slamming them onto the ground on their back.

Sailor Hop

While in midair, Sakura grabs her opponent and vaults herself on top of them, placing her feet on their shoulders. She ends the throw by leaping off of her opponent's shoulders, using the downward force from her legs to send them crashing into the ground.

Sailor Shoot

Sakura puts her legs on the opponent's back. She then uses her momentum to throw her opponent forward in the air straight towards the ground…. ouchies.

Sakura-Jime

Sakura leap frogs over her opponent and delivers a dropkick to their back mid air. In older games, this attack was completely different, as Sakura would climb her opponent's back and wrap her arms around her opponent's neck, strangling them. before knocking them down with an elbow strike on their head.

In Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix a more comical version of the older Sakuma-Jime was used where Sakura would climb onto her opponent's back and give them wet willies. It is otherwise functionally equivalent to her Alpha counterpart. Instead of clubbing the opponent's back of the head like the Alpha version, this version shows Sakura biting her opponent on the back of their head.

Daydream Headlock

Yeah Sakura is a pretty big Rainbow Mika fan and got to do this move with her hero to knock the lights out of Zangief. The user grabs the opponent in a headlock and crushes them repeatedly before saluting with one arm and Neck Riding their captive. 

Shunka Shuutou

From Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, Sakura runs at the opponent with her arms flailing around to hit her opponent. Each level from the move increases the distance of her attack, more hits, and more damage.

Genki Ichiban

Sakura walks across the stage towards her opponent before pointing at them and laughing, sending them flying and dealing massive damage. How this does massive damage we’ll never know.

V-Trigger

Haru Arashi

From Street Fighter V which introduced V-Trigger, Sakura’s fists are enveloped by blue ki energy, which enhances her Hadokens, making them stronger and safer on block. This also let her gain Hogasho. This V-Trigger is typically used for a better fire ball game increasing their versatility as both a pressure and combo tool.

Sakura Senpu

Another V-Trigger, but this time Sakura’s fists and feet are enveloped by blue ki energy, enhancing her Shouoken and Shunpukyaku. This V-Trigger is more strictly about damage and combo potentially and gives her Shouken invincibility on startup on all versions.

V-Skill

Haru Kaze

A command jump which Sakura leaps into the air at her opponent. She can follow up with such moves as Sakura Otosh, Okakyaku, mentioned above, and Kashinfu, a command grab which Sakura grabs the opponent at their waist, then uses their body as a platform to do a backflip off the person’s body, knocking them into the ground.

Haru Hayate

Sakura somersaults forward towards the opponent which she can follow up with a rising knee at the opponent.

V-Reversal

Floral Spin

Another attack that was widely introduced in Street fighter V; The V-Reversal. The attack is performed after blocking the opponent’s attack for a counterattack. Some V-Reversals are attacks that either knock down the opponent, or push them backwards to give their character some space, dealing Provisional Damage and being incapable of knocking an opponent out.  V-Reversals are safe on block (with the exception of Cammy's) and are strike and projectile-invincible, though can be grabbed if an opponent recovers in time. 

Sakura’s V reversal: The Floral Spin, Makes Sakura perform a single low, sweeping, spinning kick that is visually similar to her Haru Ichiban.

V-Shift/V-Shift Break

Floral Side-Kick

Another Cast wide defensive option/counterattack in Street fighter V. Sakura performs a back dash with her entire body radiating with blue energy. After activation, She is invincible to almost any attack; including throws and projectiles. When this move is performed as the opponent attacks, a brief "slowdown" occurs. Another follow-up added to this move is the V-Shift Break, which is a counterattack. During the slowdown effect after avoiding the attack Sakura can retaliate with a strike that knocks the opponent back and inflict provisional damage. Not only does the V-Shift Break have decent range, but it allows the player to break through an opponent's chain of attacks.

Sakura’s version of this move is the Floral Side-Kick. Sakura slides forward with a side kick to her opponent's middle, knocking them away.

Sakura Rain

Sakura’s critical art in Street Fighter V and her most damaging move in the game. After she has enough meter, she can throw a fireball to stun her opponent before doing a barrage of kicks into a very powerful uppercut. It also has invincibility on startup, allowing it to be a good reversal option as well. It’s sure to finish off most of her opponents should this land.

Forms

Gwen

Gwenom

While her current suit is already composed of the symbiote, it can transform even further into the “Gwenom” suit. In this form the suit gains a few extra features such as an air filter and even a snorkeling mask... that's attached to her lungs. That’s an image I don’t wanna picture in my head.

Camouflage

As an extension of the symbiote’s self-clothing ability, Gwen can enter a “Predator Mode” that allows her to become invisible to the naked eye.

Biomass Manipulation

A Symbiote staple, Gwen’s suit is able to shapeshift to form talons, tendrils, wings, and even generate organic webbing when she’s in a pinch. Though of course its most common usage is allowing Gwen to switch from her superhero outfit to civilian clothes. She can even replicate new clothes and create new hero outfits.

Spider Control

Thanks to the mental bond with the spiders that make up her suit, Gwen is able to use them as semi-autonomous scouts to seek out any criminals, civilians that need saving… or to swarm someone with hundreds of them. They can also work alongside her webbing to restrain her targets and hang them over ledges. Individual spiders are also quite tough, as adults are unable to crush even one and they appear to be resistant to pesticides.

Sakura

Dark/Sunburned Sakura

A transformation gained when Sakura gives in to the Dark Hado, either because of an intense desire to win, being close to death, or possessing enough rage and hatred that she becomes willing to kill. She can also get this form by getting sunburned, yes really. While Sunburned, she also gains the powers of the Satsui no Hado, except without losing her humanity.

Satsui no Hado

The Satsui no Hado (which translates to “Killing intent” or “Surge of murderous intent” if that isn’t raw enough) is a strong, dark, murderous (if the name didn’t already showcase that) and corrupting power source in the world of Street Fighter. It’s a form of spiritual energy that focuses on the desire to win, being unrestrained by violence and battle. Its main purpose is to kill (SHOCKER) the opponent brutally. In the UDON comics it represents vast amounts of dark energy that permeates all things, which can be bent to the user’s will. The Ansatsuken is connected to this martial arts, causing even experienced martial artists to succumb to this killing intent, losing focus, becoming mad and only focusing on fighting, Sakura herself isn’t any different. 

A user of the Dark Hado gains several techniques besides the enhancement in their original techniques and amp in their physical stats. A user has the abilities to Teleport, use limited telekinesis, levitate, phase through attacks, create after images, deflect Ki projectiles, and even travel between dimensions . They’re able to sense the Hado in others and even absorb it from them. Of course they’re also able to do the Shun Goku Satsu.

Sakura in the Udon comics hasn’t mastered the Satsui no Hado at its fullest yet, but Akuma himself said she had the potential too and he’d be proven right! Cuz in MvC where she somehow has mastered the Satsui no Hado by being sunburned. Obtaining its full powers yet not going mad or bloodthirsty, she just has a nice tan. How this even works, we have no clue.

Metsu Hadoken

An amped version of the Hadoken using Satsui No Hado, even more powerful than the Shinku Hadoken (hitting up to 8 times now). However it leaves a strain on the body, seeing as both Ryu and Evil Ryu reel from the attack after using it.

Zanku Hadouken

An airborne version of the Hadoken often used by Satsui No Hado users. Used primarily as a means of countering close range assaults and pressuring opponents on the ground.

Ashura Senku

A technique that utilizes the Satsui no Hado, Sakura widens her stance, glows red, then lifts one knee and glides along the ground, this move grants complete invulnerability while gliding, as she will phase through attacks or people while using it. It’s a good move to get behind or away from her opponents.

Shun Goku Satsu

Alongside an amplification to many of her techniques, Sakura can utilize one of the deadliest techniques in Street Fighter History: The Raging Demon. In the UDON incarnation, this attack doesn’t just simply instantly kill the opponent, but sends their soul to hell to be tormented by denizens of Makai. While Sakura within UDON hasn’t displayed this ability herself, other users like Dan Hibiki could utilize it the first time he received the Satsui No Hado. Spinoff games like Marvel vs Capcom also display her utilizing the technique when in her “Sunburn” state, leading more credence that she can do it.

Feats

Gwen

Overall

• Became an established member of the Web Warriors 

• Has saved the multiverse on several occasions

• Defeated her universe’s Lizard, Captain America, Kingpin, Man-Wolf, Carnage, the Sinister Six

• Traveled to dozens of alternate universes

• Sought forgiveness in herself with her relationship with 616 Peter Parker

• Her drumming skills can’t be matched

Power

• Punches Rhino through a wall

• Lifts up car

• Laura Kinney, while in Gwen’s body, accidentally wrecks a drum set and shatters a car’s window by closing the door

• Battled the Inheritors alongside other Spider-People numerous times

• Fought off a Symbiote Dragon and managed to steer and splatter it against a wall

• She would then go on to fight “Carnage”, the same Symbiote Dragon bonded to Earth-65 MJ, and managed to defeat her while holding back and being stripped of control over her Venom suit

Speed

• Can easily dodge bullets

• Wrapped one of her tendrils around Captain America's arm and snapped it mid-punch

• Her webbing seemingly moves at comparable speeds to bolts from a version of Electro

• Can keep up with a Symbiote Dragon's flight while web-swinging

Durability

• Able to tank an explosion from a Pumpkin Bomb

• Laura, in Gwen’s body, survives a blast from Red Hornet that knocks her into a brick wall and shatters it

• Survives being near multiple explosives going off and is only momentarily knocked out

• Takes numerous blasts from Frank Castle's repulsor gauntlet

• Took a blast from The Battery, who absorbed a thousand Electros across the multiverse

• Takes blows from Sin-Eater while he has Morlun's powers

• Inheritors such as Morlun can deal significant damage to Leopardon

• Can take hits from Superior Octopus' tentacles

Sakura

Overall

• Defeated Karin, Zangief, E. Honda, Twelve

• Fought Ryu several times and earned his respect

• Defeated Dan (but let’s be real, who hasn’t?)

• Survived an encounter with Akuma and kept up with him

• Managed to balance a healthy school life and street fighting

• Graduated high school and got into university (good for her!)

Power

• Beats up a group of security guards

• Splits and later destroys a tree

• Blows a metal door open with her Hadoken

• Created a large explosion when clashing with Ken’s Hadouken

• Combined her and Ryu’s Hadokens to put out a large fire

• Dark Sakura can launch Dan hard enough to crack ice

Speed

• Avoids a taser

• Blocks multiple of Karin’s punches 

• Avoids a swift strike from Gen

• Catches hot dogs hit towards her

• Leaps over a wall after jumping off of her bike

• Dodged Dan’s pointblank Gadoken

Durability

• Survives her Metsu Hadoken reflected back at her

• Performed 100 laps, 500 push-ups, 500 pull-ups, 500 sit ups, and 800 squats seemingly without being tired. 

• Meditated in one place for 3 whole days straight without eating anything.

• Battled Ryu for seemingly hours on end with no fatal injuries.

• Takes multiple hits from Karin Kanzuki while still digesting loads of hot dogs

• Takes a punch from Bahn

• Takes hit from Zangief’s dropkick

Scaling

Gwen

Peter Parker

Naturally as THE Spider-Man himself, Peter Parker has plenty of feats that further show the true potential of Gwen Stacy. Considering they have fought alongside each other plenty of times and share the powers/physiology, it only makes sense for them to be comparable. 

• Dodged Lightmaster's light beams

• Outpaced microwave beams (FTL)

• Dazzler stated that she has never seen anybody move as fast as Spider-Man. 

• Dazzler moves at light speed

• Survived an explosion that blew up a volcano

• Was able to tank an exajoule worth of energy (239 megatons of TNT)

• While holding back, was physically superior to an amped Daredevil

• Daredevil with this amp was able to perceive other street tiers like USAgent as a “slow moving sculpture”

Other Spideys 

During Gwen’s ventures across the multiverse, many other versions of Spider-Man appear to help. Similar to Peter Parker, all of the ones mentioned below are shown to be comparable to Gwen, Peter, etc.

• Insomniac Miles can absorb the energy of an unstable Nuform Reactor and survive it’s explosion, which would have vaporized all of Harlem (55.5 megatons of TNT)

• While Insomniac Miles has yet to appear in a Spider-Verse crossover, the Insomniac Peter Parker has and is treated as comparable to Miles.

• Insomniac Peter moved in tandem with particles moving within a particle accelerator

• Miguel O’Hara caught Mjolnir moving at Mach 2000 speeds

• Miles Morales reacted within a microsecond

• Supaidaman can pilot and react within the Leopardon

• Garia using the Leopardon was able to travel from Planet Spider to Earth (175.25 c - 117,500 c) 

Symbiotes

The symbiotes are a major part of the Spider-Man mythos. These beings are some of the few regulars shown to be on par with the friendly neighborhood Spidey’s. Whether it be through the occasions they fight alongside or the many many battles they have against each other. Furthermore, Gwenom would certainly make them comparable regardless of previous bouts.

• Mac Gargan Venom survives an explosion that eclipses part of a mountain

• Carnage’s body was able to contain the explosion of the Gene Bomb and prevent its effects from spreading planet-wide, which would inherently require him to be withstanding and smothering most of its energy prior to being blown apart (3.7 megatons - 1.8 gigatons of TNT) (Debatable, see Before the Verdict)

• Symbiote dragons were able to fly from Klyntar to Earth in 2 weeks (1,565,359 times FTL) (Debatable, see Before the Verdict)

Misc. Street Tiers

Spider-People might work on a street level but aren’t “street tier”. It’s often shown time and time again that there’s a massive difference in power and speed between Spidey’s and other peak human to superhuman characters. So every feat below isn’t just scaling to Gwen in this case, but actually far below her true capabilities.

• Moon Knight reacts to and moves in tandem with light (44% SoL)

• Daredevil has perceived and arguably reacted within a nanosecond (3.3 times FTL)

• Wolverine takes a punch that sends him from New York to Georgia (the country) (1.3 tons of TNT)

• Wolverine has dodged Cyclops’ optic blast

• Deadpool dodged Cyclops optics blast

• Cyclops optic blast can move in light speed 

• Cyclops can also redirect his optic blast in a nanosecond (3.3 times FTL)

• Deadpool survived being punched out of Krakoa, which caused this massive explosion (30.9 kilotons of TNT)

• Iron Fist can tank and absorb an explosion that makes Hiroshima look like a sparkler, and was gonna destroy K’un-Lun

Arno Stark (Debatable)

 

Peter Parker managed to easily defeat Arno Stark from the year 2020. While it is admittedly unsure how strong Arno’s armor is compared to the entire collection of suits Tony Stark has at his possession, it should be reasonable to assume it’d be stronger than the suits Tony had used up until Arno’s first chronological appearance, such as the Silver Centurion. Peter, at the least, scaling over earlier Iron-Man suits can be backed up with his occasional scuffles with Iron-Man where he can damage and take punishment from more modern suits and even some of his rogues gallery. And to back that scaling up further, members of Peter’s rogues gallery have fought the Silver Centurion and even stronger armors like the Model 9, the Neo-Classic armor and damaged them.  

That said, there’s a reason we’re titling this scaling chain as debatable. While some of Spidey’s rogues have fought Iron Man armors, Tony generally has held the advantage for most of those encounters, even breaking Rhino’s horn with one attack, and Doc Ock only managed to break the Silver Centurion armor after Emma Frost stun locked the armor to leave him wide open to attacks. Additionally, the power of Arno’s armor fluctuates depending on his power source, which could mean he wasn’t operating at full power when Peter fought him. There are arguments for and against this scaling chain, hence why it’s labeled as it is. That said, if one were to accept it, Peter, and thus Gwen, would scale to the following feats:

• The Silver Centurion destroyed a mountain the size of Manhattan (179.8 megatons - 1 gigaton of TNT)

• The Iron Man Model IV withstood an attack from the Mandarin that created an earthquake felt for 7000 miles (1.4 teratons of TNT)

Sakura

Ryu and Ken

Sakura uses a similar fighting style to both Ryu and Ken and has battled the duo evenly across different continuities. Even during the Alpha days she was capable of breaking Ken’s ribs and fighting Ryu for seemingly hours on end. E. Honda even made claims that she might even be stronger than Ryu during the Alpha era. While Ryu has obviously gotten stronger since then, his feats during this period should still apply to Sakura, and by extension Ken. 

• Ryu’s energy is used to charge the Psycho Drive which destroys a city (33.3 megatons - 1.1 gigatons of TNT)

• Ken intercepts Bison’s Psycho Crusher which can tag a Satellite laser (Mach 1166 - 1.66% SoL)

• Both Ryu and Ken have beaten Balrog who can survive Shadoloo’s Base exploding (11.5 - 30.52 kilotons of TNT)

• Ryu dodges bullets in the Alpha movie

• Ryu destroys a skyscraper in the Alpha movie

• Ryu survived being on the island Akuma destroyed with a single strike (119 megatons of TNT)

Street Fighter Wrestlers

The wrestlers of Street Fighter are anything but slouches in combat, and Sakura has traded blows with them on multiple occasions. She’s beaten Zangief multiple times in combat and has beaten E. Honda in Street Fighter Alpha 3. The aforementioned sumo wrestler has even noted that he and Zangief are rivals, making it more clear that Sakura should be stronger than the Street Fighting Unofficial Wrestling League. 

• Zangief pulls a submarine out of the sea

• Zangief jumps into space (2.7% the speed of light) (567 kilotons of TNT)

• Zangief blocks a Psycho Powered charged sword 

• Both Zangief and R.Mika take a hit from Balrog, whose blows are known to kill elephants

• E.Honda shatters a meteor (961 megatons of TNT)

Street Fighter Gal Pals 

The big gals of SF have displayed plenty of impressive feats across the series. Sakura has managed to keep up with fighters like Cammy, and other shotos like Ken have managed to keep up with Chun-Li, making it possible for her to scale to feats performed by the girls. 

• Juri kicks a rocket 

• Juri destroys an amusement park

• Cammy dodges bullets

• Cammy is superior to fellow doll Juli, who can dodge bullets at close range (Mach 5)

• Cammy survives an explosion that blows up a wall.

• Juri’s Feng Shui Engine can absorb enough energy to blow up a mountain in Xinjiang (15 - 133 megatons of TNT)

• Chun-Li’s Kikosho vaporizes large portions of land (3 - 432 kilotons of TNT)

Final Fight

Turn the beat back! Final Fight takes place in the same universe as Street Fighter and several characters like Cody, Guy and Poison even appear as fighters throughout the series. These characters are generally depicted as on par with the main roster of SF characters Sakura would scale to, so feats from this classic beat 'em up series should be applicable.

• Belgar survives falling out of a skyscraper

• Cody regularly punches through “50 cm thick wall”

• Cody and Ryu survive an explosion

• Hugo lifts a truck with ease.

• Haggar pile drives through the earth (10.4 petatons of TNT)

Street Fighter EX

The cast of the Arika developed fighting series Street Fighter EX have had their fair share of run-ins with the SF cast. Given her already existing scaling to other SF characters who have fought evenly with the EX cast, it’s fair to say Sakura should be in the same ballpark. 

• Cracker Jack punches a train 

• Hokuto defeats ninjas in a flash

• Cycloid Beta flies around the Earth

• Nanase jumps into space (3.7% the speed of light)

• Cracker Jack can hit people to Uranus (3400 times FTL)

• He also hit people to Jupiter (1468 times FTL)

Weaknesses

Gwen

As with most symbiotes, intense sounds and heat can disrupt the bond between the black goop and the wearer, with Gwen being no exception. While she is able to power through being inside a burning building just fine, even being near her universe’s Human Torch was enough to drive her Spider-Sense crazy and give her headaches. The Venom symbiote is also sensitive to Gwen’s emotions. Whenever Gwen feels too much anger, fear, or pain, she can lose control of herself and lash out on innocent people, letting the symbiote control her mind.

Oh and the suit can get hungry. The symbiote needs calories and nutrients, specifically cellulose-dense foods like celery and wheat-bread and her abilities will weaken if she doesn't consume enough food for it. Oh she also cannot even throw a proper punch, what a fraud. Like, girl has zero hands. 

Sakura

Sakura undoubtedly has proven herself as a strong skilled fighter and not to be underestimated. In fact, in terms of physical weaknesses, she doesn’t really have any. However, that doesn’t mean she’s invincible. She’s still relatively inexperienced and is mostly self taught, aside from training with Dan (which…come on, do we really want to count that?) and a couple sparring sessions with Ryu. It doesn’t help that she still has to balance her school life with fighting, so this limits her time to train. She still has yet to master the full potential of the Ansatsuken let alone the Satsui no Hado.

Before The Verdict

Multiversal Gwen???

Oh no Sakura bros

Ah, the infamous scan of Gwen holding together the Marvel multiverse. For some context, a pop idol from the end of time, Finale, accidentally struck Gwen with temporal energy and altered her timeline, as well as creating five additional timelines with their own unique histories revolving around their iterations of Gwen Stacy. Towards the end of the storyline, we see that the creation of the Gwenverse and Finale’s own recklessness with the fabric of space-time begins to break apart the multiverse itself, unraveling backwards from the end of time. In an attempt to fix this, Gwen uses a device to absorb the life force of all the other Gwens to try and go back in time to stop Finale moments before the multiverse unravels itself. However, this proves to not be enough and all seems lost for our heroine…

…until, somehow, Gwen came to the realization that absorbing the life force of her alternate selves linked her to all of their timelines turning her into a multiverse capable of creating webs "made out of eternities" that Gwen would use to hold the multiverse together (as shown above) and save the day!

It goes without saying that the specific circumstances for Gwen to attain this level of power are absolutely ridiculous and in no way feasible for this fight.

Gene Bomb

You might notice that the calculation for this feat is notably lower than its last appearance on a completely different blog. This time around, different methods were utilized to get the result that lines up closer to the information provided in the comic.

With what we have, the statement about the Gene Bomb claims that it will “flash fry” everyone on the planet who isn’t a mutant. Needless to say the statement doesn’t really provide us with a whole lot on what this will actually entail. Because the bomb never goes off the effects aren’t fully established, its method of killing all humans not elaborated, and even the term “flash fry” only means so much to describe exactly what the bomb is capable of.

The previous calc utilizes a 24 hour time frame, which can obviously cause massive differences in the application of kinetic energy, and even longer time frames like a week can accomplish what the Gene Bomb set out to do. It also assumes the virus is heavy enough to split the atmosphere, which isn’t super easy to actually prove given the issues addressed above. 

With this in mind, two ends of the calc were made. The first end assumes at the very least the Gene Bomb would grant third degree burns, ending with 3.7 megatons of TNT. The second end assumes the humans would be vaporized entirely, granting us 1.76 gigatons of TNT.

Doc Ock Nuke Feat

Some might be surprised to see this feat absent in the scaling section given how it was brought up as one of the big Spider-Man feats for years. The TLDR of the argument is that Otto’s arms were able to tank an explosion that wiped out an island and Peter could rip the arms apart like tissue paper, sounds pretty clear cut right? Unfortunately there’s a bit more context to the feat.

 

Otto’s arms…didn't actually take the explosion head on as he had to hide himself in a safety shaft made for exactly this situation. While the arms did end up protecting and saving Otto from the blast, as they were grafted to his flesh once again, they weren’t taking the full force of the explosion. Accounting for his distance from the epicenter, he’d be surviving about barely 0.25 tons of TNT. Truly surface area is the enemy to us all.

Symbiote Dragons (& other MFTL arguments)

During Knull’s attempt to conquer Earth, we see him being a whole slew of symbiotes. Most notably symbiote dragons. While not playing an important role, we do see these dragons do something extremely impressive. The symbiote dragons using their ability of flight were able to fly from Klyntar directly to Earth. At the point of their arrival, it had been two weeks since their travel started. Furthermore, we also know that Kylntar resides 60,000 lightyears from Earth. The results this feat would yield, with everything we know, is around 1,565,359 times the speed of light. A big gap between what is usually accepted for Spideys but nothing out of the norm. A gap like this would still raise eyebrows, so let’s go through the various arguments for the validity of this feat. 

First and foremost, this would not be an outlier. While the number itself is above what is usually given to Spideys, it’s important to remember that Spidey tiers themselves yet to have a quantifiable value on their own. Outside of this feat, the closest we have is that they are “blitzing 3-5c”. Any other Spidey tier feats are surprisingly lower. Making this the only Spidey feat with an actual number applied. Narratively only proves the point further. Spider Tiers are meant to be far above street tiers physically. Not only do characters like Spider-Man constantly blitz and hold back against said street tiers, but as shown above it’s much bigger than that. Daredevil, even with an amp that made him blitz street tier, was physically inferior to Spider-Man holding back. Effectively we know that narratively, Spidey tiers are massively faster than street tiers who are FTL. 

This also falls in line with Spidey’s relationship with heralds. With him generally being slower than the big guys. Again effectively going 3-5c (Street Tier) < Mil C(Spider Tiers) < Infinite-Immeasurable (Heralds).One might argue that there’s insufficient backing for this but there’s more than enough. Every instance of said gap between street tiers and Spidey tiers only proves this number. Especially keeping in mind his history with groups such as the Fantastic Four, where historically he’s always been treated just as fast, if not faster than they are and can keep up with a casual Doctor Doom. 

There’s also the argument of giving Spideys interstellar travel speeds despite him never showcasing it. While this is true, it’s also obvious as to why he’s never showcased it. That would be via his inability to actually fly. Arguments like these are similar to the idea of not allowing Spideys to be city level because we have never seen them blow one up in one punch. Again while both cases are true, it’s solely a matter of the abilities rather than a case of speed. Characters like Supaidaman who do have this ability only proves this further as he can use his Leopardon to travel interstellar distances. 

Why would these dragons be Spidey tier though? Again fairly obvious. First and foremost they are symbiotes and would naturally compare to many Symbiotes that have shown to be on par with Spidey’s such as Venom. Peter, Miles, and Gwen all have been shown to be physically on par with these beings in their King in Black tie-ins, a case of them being on a similar level. Lastly street tiers such as Captain America were quickly overwhelmed by these creatures, showing that they are still above normal super humans.

With all of this showing why the feat and scaling is fine, it’s still one feat. So anyone is completely justified for wanting more that is similar to this feat. Furthermore there are also the general issues concerning travel feats in general. There’s several ways to look at it with both sides being justified. One on hand they are flying physically through their own wings and thus would be able to react and function at said speed. On the other hand, other than that they don’t really show any other case of reactions and we know for certain they were heading “straight”. All in all, there’s various ways of interpreting this feat with neither side being wrong. You are free to use this, not use it, or make it a high end.

These feats will be discussed more in the verdicts below, so please true believers, come to your own conclusion on the usage of these feats.

Fight Script

While this blog was happening, one of our users, The Black Shulk, wrote this fight script for this match up. We hope you enjoy what he wrote!

Verdicts

Gwen

Stats

Looking at both Gwen and Sakura’s stats, their lower ends both line-up in the Kiloton to Megaton range with Relativistic speeds, just upscaling from a number of different characters that perform different feats on this level. Where things get really tricky is talking higher-ends for both characters as things can take one hell of a drastic turn with how high both these girls can go. 

Starting with Gwen, she’s absolutely as strong and tough as any other spider-person in the Spider-Verse crossovers given how frequently she’s joined the assaults on the Inheritors and her fight with Sin Eater when he had Morlun’s powers. This would scale her to a bunch of different feats like Insomniac Miles’ absorption and subsequent tanking of 55 Megatons worth of energy from within his body and, of course, the insane stuff that 616 Peter Parker has done over his decades’ worth of comic book history. To start, 616 Pete himself can survive being hit by an exajoule (or 239 Megatons) of energy, but the real meat comes from his battles with Symbiotes and Iron Man. For the former, we can take Peter’s numerous battles with Carnage to say that he’d scale to Carnage withstanding the Gene Bomb, a feat that comes out to 3.7 Megatons to a whopping 1.76 Gigatons, depending on how you assume this bomb would’ve incinerated people after going off. 

Meanwhile Peter’s battle with Arno Stark and absolutely manhandling Arno’s suit would absolutely scale him off of older Iron Man models such as the Silver Centurion, which of course has the famous feat of destroying a mountain the size of Manhattan reaching the Megaton to Gigaton range, and the even older Model 4 Classic armor, which survived an attack from the Mandarin that caused a massive earthquake coming out to about 1.4 Teratons of TNT. Consistency-wise, multiple members of Peter’s own rogues gallery have fought and damaged the likes of the Silver Centurion and the proceeding Neo-Classic armor, and Peter himself has numerous feats across the years of scuffling, taking hits from, and even damaging more modern Iron Man models.

The only caveat with this is that potentially Arno’s suit wasn’t at peak capacity when Peter fought him and that some of Iron Man’s fights with Peter’s rogues have other circumstances behind them leading to them not scaling directly. Most of the time however there’s no mention of Tony’s suit being low on power or making use of a weaker energy source in these kinds of encounters, so there’s no reason to believe it would be weaker than any standard usage of the armor, and even then both Arno and Tony have expressed surprise at the strength of Peter and his villains without blaming anything on their suits being weaker than normal. So there’s no reason to believe he isn’t taking them as seriously as Crimson Dynamo or Whiplash (both of whom Peter has fought).

Sakura’s strength is a bit more straightforward. She’s consistently defeated Zangief and rivals to him such as E.Honda, as well as matching Ken in combat and was believed to be, at one point in time, possibly stronger than Ryu all during the Alpha era. This scales her to most of their feats such as Ryu powering the Psycho Drive, which could output 33 Megatons to 1.1 Gigatons, along with a few supporting feats to back this up such as the sheer kinetic energy of Zangief leaping up the atmosphere at 597 Kilotons and E.Honda busting a meteor with a kinetic energy of 961 Megatons. And of course there is the infamous Mike Haggar piledriver feat for a whopping 10 Petatons which, with the circumstances of the canons we’re accepting for this blog, is valid and waaaaay beyond Gwen’s max.

Now the tricky thing here is speed, because of course things can’t be so simple when talking about a decade's worth of content from multi-media franchises. Starting with Gwen’s, she has her own feats of casually reacting to bullets and weaving around different versions of Electro, placing her well above the Supersonic to Hypersonic range. Peter and multiple 616 street tiers have performed relativistic to low-FTL feats, such as Peter outpacing microwaves, Moon Knight reacting to a beam of light at 44.2% SoL, Daredevil’s nanosecond reaction feat, Insomniac Peter moving in tandem with particles in a particle accelerator, and everyone and their mothers reacting to Cyclops’ optic beam which moves at light-speed. 

However it’s not hard to argue for much higher speeds for Peter and other Spider-People, as usually they’re depicted as far more powerful than your average “street tier”. From when Peter easily overpowered and outsped an amped Daredevil that could see the likes of USAgent as moving in slow mo to the likes of Agent Venom and Peter casually overpowering Captain America. It’s clear that Spider-People don’t rank exactly within the confines of street tier, but obviously they come nowhere close to herald tier, and it shows especially in speed feats, the biggest one being when Gwen herself fought a Symbiote Dragon and the resulting “Carnage” symbiote born from it.

This is relevant as Symbiote Dragons are wildly fast, being able to cross interstellar distances alongside Knull (with added detours devouring planets) at 1,565,359c! And this wouldn’t at all be inconsistent with fellow members of the Spider-Army like Takuya Yamashiro a.k.a Supaidaman, who can fight on the outside of his Leopardon/Marveller that can cross interstellar distances ranging from 175.25c to 117,500c, depending on where you wanna assume the “M77 nebulae of the 17th Milky Way” is for an irl analogue. And keep in mind that both calcs use the absurdly long timeframe of 400 years just because we know Takuya’s predecessor didn’t age significantly from the travel to his homeworld to Earth.

And if you don’t buy Gwen scaling directly to Takuya, she would scale to him anyways through the Inheritors as they can overwhelm Leopardon in a group. Shorter time frames would also make even the low-end assumed distance far closer and more consistent with the Symbiote Dragon’s travel speed.

Sakura again is just more straightforward and, admittedly, less reliant on background context. Sakura can fight the likes of Ken, who can intercept the Psycho Drive which can move at Mach 1166 to 1.66%c. The latter end would be especially consistent with Zangief’s and Nanase’s leaps into space being 2.7%c and 3.7%c respectively. And of course there’s the insane end of Cracker Jack batting people across interplanetary distances from Earth to planets like Jupiter and Uranus, which comes out to about 1468c to 3400c. It helps Sakura’s case as well is that generally Street Fighter doesn’t depict insane jumps in speed between different characters and that Sakura does scale closer to that upper-end of the SF cast.

In summary, Sakura easily overpowers Gwen when it comes to raw strength, but Gwen’s far and above faster due to her keeping up with Symbiote Dragons and scaling to Supaidaman’s Leopardon with. While Sakura would certainly oneshot Gwen with any serious attack, virtually none of her hits are going to land as Gwen is always going to be fast enough to see Sakura’s attacks coming.

Arsenal & Abilities

This part is definitely the “fairest” all things considered. Both of these gals have several advantages that really keep them in the running. Notably without question, Sakura is undoubtedly skill stomping. Even without delving into her training, her plethora of techniques, and well-being in a series called “Street Fighter,” Gwen is consistently shown to be extremely unskilled in actual fighting, regarded as using “natural talent”. While it is impressive how far she gets in bouts with said “natural talent”, the gap here in skill is huge. However, Spider-Sense not only helps with that but gives Gwen a massive overall advantage. Using the ability at its peak, Gwen would effectively know how to play the fight in her favor. The spider sense would immediately let her know that not only is Sakura stronger, prompting her to use a previous keep away strategy. It would also let her know that Sakura is much slower. 

Adding Gwen’s various forms of mobility such as teleportation and unlimited web slinging, it would be very easy for her to outlast until she figures out a way to put down Sakura. Given the spider-sense abilities to also slow perception and keep the user several steps ahead, this would be done with relative ease. How would she put Sakura down? Well as stated before Gwen has used previous portal devices to BFR her opponents and considering this would be the only way for her to win, this would be what the spider-sense would point her to do. While Gwen isn’t a fan of doing this tactic, she has still done it. It would also be much more in character for her to listen to her spider sense and do this rather than ignore it, letting herself die. Especially considering how hard it is to ignore this ability. 

She doesn’t even necessarily have to go for it instantly despite being able to. Gwen would have all the time she needs considering her physiology like Peter Parker, would allow to keep on playing keep away for 12 hours to even several days. While it could be hard considering Sakura’s AOE, a combination of the Spider-Sense and stellar mobility would allow her to casually avoid these larger scale attacks.

In this debate, stats and abilities really take precedence so it would make sense that any other factor would not be as noteworthy. As said before, each of them have their fair share of advantages. However, for more “minor ones”, each character here has a decent counter. While Gwen takes experience Sakura takes skill. While Sakura has the plethora of elemental items, Gwen’s physiology allows for her to resist these. There’s Gwen’s camouflage and stealth, but ki sensing would make those a non factor. While there’s a good amount of miscellaneous stuff, all in all they are pretty redundant in terms of the entire debate.

Conclusion

"I never found the right band to join, so I started my own, with a few old friends. You want in?"

Advantages:

• Much faster with high ends and low ends given equal leeway

• Spider-Sense would let Gwen know of her wincons and how to pull them off

• Spider Sense also clues Gwen in on stat differences with Sakura being stronger but slower

• Can BFR Sakura using the Ticket the Multiverse 

• Much Better Mobility 

• Resists all of the item balls via her physiology 

• The Spider-Verse Movies clear everything SF has

• Suffocation via webbing is a valid wincon.

Disadvantages:

• Weaker and less durable regardless of ends

• Has little to no skill in actual fighting 

• Forced to play it much more safe compared to Sakura

• Only has one conceivable way of putting Sakura down

• Ki Sensing would make Stealth and Invisibility useless 

• Has no counter to the Raging Demon 

• Really had her shoes on Miles’ bed and ripped a collectible right out of the box

Overall, you can definitely argue Sakura winning with raw physical stats, skill and AOE, but Gwen would still be faster regardless of either ends thanks to symbiote dragon and Marveller which if you bought that would be about over 1000 faster than any speed feat Sakura scales to. Spider Sense would also be a pain since it could always warn of danger and unexpected attacks, and thanks to her portal devices she can just BFR her to another universe. And while Sakura has the ability itself she hasn't shown off those abilities, making the BFR potentially likely, plus thanks to her physiology she could resist most of Sakura’s elemental items. BFR isn’t something Gwen would like to do but she can if she has to, she’s also pretty smart and can make strategies on the fly, and could be aware if her opponent is stronger, so she could find a good plan to defeat her. Sakura may be a good brawler but Gwen proves which girl comes out on top.

The winner is Spider-Gwen.

Sakura

Stats

Both Gwen and Sakura have quite a few stat ends you can place them at, however, it’s clear when looking at stats that Sakura should edge out more often than not, no matter what stats you look at.

In terms of strength, Gwen’s best is scaling to the high end of the Gene Bomb, getting her about 1 gigaton of TNT - in addition to this, if you don’t buy the high end of said calc, there are several other calcs in the City range that you can give Gwen from across the Spider-Verse - Insomniac Miles’ feat gets 55 Megatons, there are several feats within the City range from the Ultimate cartoon, Peter himself has a 239 megaton calc, and more. In general, it’s very consistent for Gwen to be within the City to Mountain range, no matter what. Now, you may be asking about Arno Stark scaling, as this seems to be fine, right? However, Team Sakura doesn’t particularly buy this scaling - Arno was not at full power when he and Peter fought, and Iron Man armors have routinely wrecked most of his rogues, including those like Rhino, who are fairly consistently on par with Spidey despite some outliers suggesting otherwise, meaning that we don’t particularly buy Gwen scaling to Teraton levels of TNT. Even if she did, it wouldn’t really matter for reasons we specify below,

Meanwhile, for Sakura, things are a bit more complicated than that. First of all, in terms of AP, Sakura should definitely scale to the likes of Alpha era Ryu, Zangief, and E. Honda, which can easily match Gwen’s ends in AP, with the Psycho Drive’s highest ends nearly perfectly matching the Gene Bomb’s 1.4 gigaton calc, at 1.1 gigatons. However, there is the elephant in the room, and probably the most infamous Street Fighter feat - Mike Haggar’s piledrive, which gets to a whopping 10 petatons of TNT, making Sakura far, far stronger than Gwen’s best - it’s a difference of Large City to Multi-Continental, meaning that Sakura should reliably be able to one shot Gwen with basically anything she does - to note, even if you bought Arno Stark scaling, Sakura would still be thousands of times stronger than Gwen regardless.

However, in terms of speed for both, things are also… complicated, to put it lightly. For Gwen, she should obviously upscale from your average street tier, due to Spidey consistently blitzing them  This should make her massively above Daredevil’s 3c calc and every other FTL calc that street tiers generally have - however, there are two feats that can get far higher than this. 

First of all is the Leopardon feat, with it traveling between two galaxies by Garia to track down the man who devastated his home planet within almost 400 years - depending on where you believe the galaxy is, it can get anywhere from 172 times faster than light to a whopping 117 thousand times faster than light! However, isn’t this a travel speed feat, and not really applicable to combat speed? In this case, no. Takuya has consistently been able to react to the Leopardon in speed and can react to it in combat, as well as his foes being able to as well, and him having piloted it before and while piloting having visibly reacted to obstacles, meaning that while it may seem weird, Takuya can definitely scale to his mech in reaction speed, thus affording him this level of scaling, making this feat totally fine to scale to speed. However, this does not apply to the Symbiote Dragon feat. While this feat is valid, we don’t actually see the aforementioned Symbiote Dragons reacting during this flight, meaning there’s no actual way to determine whether or not this should realistically apply to their reaction or combat speed other than a guess. As a result, we don’t really buy these scaling to Gwen’s speed, meaning she should cap at around 117 thousand times faster than light.

Now, for Sakura, she should scale to the number of sub-relativistic feats in the Street Fighter series, including the likes of Zangief’s space jump and Ken’s interception of the Psycho Cannon - however, again we return to some of the feats from side material to see how fast she can get. Cracker Jack can send people flying between Uranus and Earth, getting 3400c, with him also being able to hit people to Jupiter, getting within 1400c, giving Sakura a decently consistent MFTL+ calc. Overall, this should be where Sakura’s speed stops.

Overall, while Gwen is debatably faster depending on what end you buy for the Leopardon feat, Sakura is far, far stronger than Gwen, to the point of her not being able to do any reasonable damage to her with the sheer gap in power and durability.

Arsenal & Abilities

At a glance, neither character appears to have a whole lot of absurd techniques relative to others in their casts, with Sakura having a slight edge in overall quantity due to the abilities afforded by the Fighter Gems and the Satsui No Hado. What matters above all else is quality, and Sakura’s kit lends her more options to take the win.

On the more simple side most of Gwen’s webbing related abilities won’t be of much use here given the sheer power gap allowing her to snap them fairly easily. The symbiotes options such as the spiders, bladed weaponry, and flight are not only not new to the Street Fighter cast given their run ins with Twelve, but Sakura’s massive AOE could easily deal many of those tools. Her fight with Ken way back in the Alpha era created a city block sized explosion, and other fighters like Ryu have made huge explosions in skyscraper sized buildings, making it unlikely Gwen would be able to avoid any potential fatal damage that comes her way. Even abilities like camouflage and the Spider-Sense can only do so much due to Sakura’s Ki sensing and greater speed (should high ends not be accepted) allowing her to easily hit and counter any surprise attacks made on her. 

Should the higher speed scaling be accepted one win con could be possible in the form of BFRing Sakura to another universe, though even this doesn’t come without a few problems. Gwen herself hasn’t actually used this in the middle of combat, and even when an alternate counterpart did, she displayed a hesitancy to actually go through with it and only did so because of how many enemies there were at that point. The Spider-Sense at its peak could give Peter a series of scenarios and options to consider at once, but in the very same scan it’s mentioned Peter was only able to get to this point after years of growing accustomed to said Spider-Sense for years and understanding it better, compared to Gwen who has notably less experience and in some cases has had her Spider-Sense called unreliable.

On the off chance it does work, it’s not entirely unlikely that Sakura could use the Satsui No Hado to dimension hop, as depicted in UDON when it’s likened to the same world hopping abilities as the Aensland, and Akuma’s seemingly using it to escape the void between dimensions. Obviously Sakura hasn’t shown these abilities off making it not 100% reliable, but given the already existing unlikelihood of said BFR coming out alongside the potential counters to it, this option isn’t one that Gwen would reliably count on in time before Sakura gets the one hit in to kill her. 

“But what about Web-Choking?”

The Spider Snow Bunny Side Kick will be choking on her own blood if she tries something she has literally never done. Most of what was said about BFR applies here.

Lastly, the haxxier abilities Sakura has on her would be easy options for her to win the bout. The gems afforded to her grant her access to many weird elemental powers, the two most relevant being petrification and flame powers. While Spiders resisted the former, it wasn’t instant and took minutes to fully wear off, giving Sakura plenty of time to kill her beforehand. As for fire…well…yeah the symbiote doesn’t handle that very well that goes without saying. Last but certainly not least, the Raging Demon’s famous soul hax would just be an easy one way trip to hell, and between side games depicting her using it and Dan learning it instantly upon obtaining it, Sakura could easily use it without much effort. All Sakura needs is one simple touch, and it’d be game over for the Ghost Spider.

Overall, Sakura’s options for this fight are more useful, easier to apply, and far more fatal compared to Gwen’s tools in this fight. 

Tertiary Factors

In terms of tertiary factors, both have their own advantages and disadvantages.

First of all, in terms of skill, it frankly isn’t even close - Sakura takes skill by a very, very wide margin. Gwen’s been stated in the past to not even know how to properly throw a punch, while Sakura’s been able to imitate Ryu’s fighting style and nearly get on the same level with her own training, with Ryu being obviously one of the greatest martial artists in the world in terms of skill. In addition, Sakura has been able to figure out fighting styles with a glance, meaning she could work out the flaws in how amateur Gwen’s fighting style is immediately, letting her use her far greater skill to her advantage to use Gwen’s flaws in said style to be able to get in that crucial hit she needs, meaning Sakura takes this category for sure.

In terms of experience, Gwen should likely come out on top, though it’s worth noting that she’s struggled with opponents on similar power levels to her who’re more skilled, as demonstrated by her fights with Cindy Moon and the like, meaning that this shouldn’t actually negate Sakura’s massive skill advantage, especially considering both have shown similar levels of adaptability in the past, with Sakura having been shown to be able to adapt to counter fighting styles after reading them within a single sentence of her opponent, while Gwen has used her deductive reasoning in the past to be able to do similar things with said advantage, meaning that Gwen likely isn’t going to be able to fully adapt to Sakura’s attacks before Sakura can do much of the same, evening out this category - in addition, both have fairly impressive stamina feats, with neither being much more impressive then the other, meaning in terms of staying power and stamina, both are about even as well.

Overall, Sakura is far more skilled than Gwen, while Gwen is likely more experienced than Sakura, with both being around even in adaptability, stamina and staying power, meaning that Sakura should likely take tertiaries, with her sheer skill advantage being far better than Gwen’s noticeable, but not nearly as good, experience advantage.

Conclusion

"I hate to say it, but your moves are just plain booooring."

Advantages:

• Far, far stronger

• Far faster for lowends of the Leopardon feat…

• Skillstomps Gwen horrifically

• Far greater AoE

• Gems like petrification and fire could easily incapacitate Gwen

• Raging Demon would be a one shot

• Around even adaptability and stamina

• Ki sensing should counter camouflage and stealth attempts

• Could debatably dimension hop to deal with Gwen’s BFR…

• Choking is not, in fact, a reliable wincon

• The most popular SF character! (During 2017 but still!)

Disadvantages:

• …but far slower with high-ends of said feat

• …however, this isn’t entirely likely for her to do

• Less experienced

• Spider Sense could be very annoying to deal with

• Still isn’t in Street Fighter 6

Overall, Sakura should simply win almost any way you run through this. While Gwen may have some decent advantages in her own right, they simply pale in comparison to what Sakura has going for her in this fight.

First of all, the power advantage is not something to be underestimated. Gwen’s best is approximately 10 million times weaker than Sakura, meaning that any single hit Sakura can deal to Gwen will be fatal. While Gwen does have arguments to be far faster than Sakura, this really doesn’t help her case, as she has only really win reliable win condition - her BFR, which as discussed, is something she hesitated to use in a fight before, meaning it’s not very likely she’d use it here before one of Sakura’s many AoE attacks finished her off for good, leaving Gwen without any real way to reliably take the win more often than not, especially considering her camouflage and stealth attempts can also be countered due to Sakura’s ki-sensing, and the fact that Gwen would likely not know that her BFR is her only win-condition due to her Spidey-Sense being nowhere near as good as Peter’s and thus likely not being able to have the same level of precognition to be able to pick up on all her win-conditions so easily. Not to mention the fact that Sakura has other wincons in the form of the Raging Demon, petrification, and exploiting Gwen’s weakness to fire, while Gwen really does not have any other win condition besides BFR.

And even going into the tertiaries factors, while Gwen’s experience is helpful, Sakura’s skill advantage is far more relevant and far bigger than Gwen’s experience, and they even out in the other categories to the point that Sakura’s advantages overall even here are far more impressive, making it so Gwen can’t easily eke-out a win through wearing her out.

Overall, while Spider-Gwen was a dangerous threat, Sakura’s strength, skill, AoE, and ki sensing got her the win. This Ghost of a Spider should have known to not mess with this Street Fighter.

The winner is Sakura Kasugano.

Final Tally

Spider-Gwen (3) - Lofty, Spidey, TheCardinalKing

Sakura Kasugano (10) - door-kun, TheBlackShulk, Pasbros, TWILTY, Retro, Joshski, Makotofanboy, Rina Antiqua, Strunton, greymerlion2

Progress Update

So for the sake of keeping everyone informed, let’s talk a little about our biggest ongoing blog, Akatsuki VS Espada VS Shichibukai, or the Organization Battle Royale if you’d prefer less of a mouthful.

First of all, regarding the blog’s overall length and format, our plan is this: the blog will be divided and posted in nine parts. The first three parts will each be dedicated to one of the teams, with fully detailed information on each character, and specific stipulations for how we will be handling them. The next five parts will be a fully written and fleshed out narrative for the fight (or more accurately, war), providing a feature length showcase for every character involved. We have also commissioned a track for the matchup, and plan to commission art when we are further along. The ninth and final part will feature all necessary “Before the Verdict” sections, alongside the verdict itself. While the verdict still has not been decided with 100% certainty, we do have a tentative ranking that we are currently proceeding under.

In terms of our progress on each portion, the current status is approximately as such:

Keep in mind that this is only a rough estimate and that an exact determination of our progress on each portion is impossible to provide. Additionally, each section varies in length, so the percentages for each section may represent different amounts of overall work. However, to provide some degree of context, the Akatsuki section, which is currently the furthest along, is currently 191 pages in length.

Needless to say, we’ve been putting all our effort into making the final product as good as possible. We hope you are looking forward to it, and enjoy it whenever it is fully completed!

As for what we’ll be working on in the short-term…

Next Time…