God tier · Cosmic
Doctor Manhattan vs Saitama
Doctor Manhattan sees the future perfectly. He has never seen anyone like Saitama in it.
Tale of the tape
| Watchmen | Universe | One-Punch Man |
|---|---|---|
| Cosmic | Tier | Cosmic |
| Complete control over matter and perception of all moments in time at once | Strength | Ends any fight with one punch |
| Detachment from humanity makes him indifferent | Weakness | Crushing boredom: no one is ever a challenge |
| 1–2 | Record on Versus | 7–0–1 |
The Arena
Doctor Manhattan experienced every moment of time at once, and one day, among those moments, he found something impossible: a bald man in a supermarket whose future he could not see. Curious for the first time in decades, he teleported to City Z and appeared in the vegetable aisle, glowing blue and naked, next to the cabbages.
Saitama, holding a bag of cabbages, looked at the giant blue man. “Uh. Sir. You can’t be in here like that. There are kids.” Manhattan looked down at himself, then back at Saitama. “I cannot see your future,” he said. Saitama blinked. “Okay. That’s weird. Can you move? You’re blocking the onions.”
Manhattan, who had not felt surprise since the accident, felt something very close to it.
Round One
Manhattan tried to understand him. He looked at Saitama’s atomic structure, the way he looks at everything, and found it was ordinary. Human. Completely normal. And yet, somehow, he could not see what this man would do next. It was like trying to read a book with the pages glued together.
He tried a simple test: he disassembled the cabbages in Saitama’s bag into their component atoms. Saitama stared at the empty bag, then at Manhattan, and his expression changed. “Those,” he said quietly, “were on sale.”
For the first time in his entire existence, Manhattan felt a premonition, not of the future, but of danger.
The Turn
Saitama walked toward him, and Manhattan, alarmed, did what he had done to a thousand threats: he reached out with his mind and began to disassemble Saitama’s body into atoms. It should have been instant. It should have been effortless.
Saitama’s atoms did not move. They simply refused. Manhattan pushed harder, and Saitama kept walking, as though Manhattan were a mildly annoying breeze. Somewhere, deep in the structure of this bald man’s body, there was something that had broken the limits of what a body could be.
Manhattan realised what it was. This man had trained so hard that he had broken the rules of his own universe, and those rules were the only thing Manhattan knew how to rewrite.
The Finish
Saitama stopped in front of him and punched him once, not very hard. Manhattan disassembled into a cloud of blue particles that scattered across the entire supermarket. It took him three full minutes to put himself back together, by which time Saitama had paid for new cabbages and was waiting by the door.
“You owe me three hundred yen,” Saitama said. Manhattan looked at him, reassembled and very confused. “I cannot see your future,” he repeated. Saitama shrugged. “Me neither. That’s kind of the point, isn’t it?” He walked out with his cabbages.
Manhattan stood in the supermarket for a long time, thinking. Then, for the first time in years, he went somewhere without already knowing what would happen when he got there. He found that he quite liked it.
The verdict
Saitama wins
Doctor Manhattan controls matter and sees all of time, but Saitama’s broken limiter puts him outside the rules Manhattan relies on: his future cannot be seen and his atoms cannot be rearranged.
- Broken limiterSaitama exists outside the normal rules of his universe.
- Unreadable futureManhattan cannot predict him.
- One punchEven a light blow disassembles Manhattan.
How the rematch could go differently: There is no rematch. Saitama’s whole story is that no one ever gives him a real fight.
Who do you think wins?
Who would win in a fight between Doctor Manhattan and Saitama?
Saitama wins. Doctor Manhattan controls matter and sees all of time, but Saitama’s broken limiter puts him outside the rules Manhattan relies on: his future cannot be seen and his atoms cannot be rearranged.