Dangerous Characters: Son Goku

Once again, Happy New Year folks, though I know it's a little late now. I hope no one has blown their resolutions already. I for one have only just gotten back from a weekend of merrymaking and so I'm planning to get started on a couple of mine today, if possible. Still, as is tradition for New Years, I'd like to open up our new year of articles with a bang, by adding a classic dangerous character to our lineup. And what could be more explosive than a guy who can shoot energy blasts out of his hands (and feet sometimes), and make the planet quake around him when he powers up? That's right guys, this month's dangerous character comes from an alternate earth (once he became an inhabitant of it thanks to a Superman-esque origin story.) Hailing from the franchise surrounding Akira Toriyama's manga, Dragon Ball, and the subsequent anime and many, many, many specials, games and movies, let's give it up for Son Goku.

So your first question might be "Why Goku? He's such a nice guy!" Well, my reasons are two-fold. First off, it's not so much what he would do, as what he could do. In the first anime that featured him, Dragon Ball, he was a ticking time bomb because of that little issue of turning into a giant monkey at the full moon and going King Kong on everyone unfortunate enough to be in the way. Though that was dealt with later, he still becomes very powerful even by the end of that series, as he's able to fly, and use powerful ki blasts during his final fight with Piccolo, even after he was already capable of incredible physical strength. By then, he had already surpassed Master Roshi, his teacher, who himself had proved he could blow up the moon. Goku could probably pull a planet-buster if he wanted to by the end of Dragon Ball alone. If not, then he certainly learns how by the end of the first season of Dragonball Z (spirit bomb anyone?). If go to the end of Z and even into the part of the story mostly rejected by fans, Dragon Ball GT, he gets even more ludicrously powerful, as by then he's surpassed most of the gods, at least in his various forms of super saiyan. Imagine what could happen if someone managed to permanently get Goku under mind control. He himself would never do anything harmful if he could help it (outside of pounding opponents to a pulp), but if someone much less scrupulous were at the helm it would be disaster. The citizens of Earth and possibly the universe, should start saying good-bye to their planets at that point.

The other reason has to do with one of our traditional qualifiers, in that being dangerous is an occupational hazard of what he does. He's a fighter, and often when he beats people up, he makes enemies. Especially later, they are usually incredibly powerful enemies. Several of the enemies he faces in Z wouldn't have been his enemies per say except that they were out for revenge (usually because he didn't kill someone properly the first time, being that he's such a kind-hearted character.). As a result, being around him involves a lot of risk. His family and friends have to be the bravest people in the world seeing as how they stick with him even though many of them die...   a lot...     often because of being caught in the cross fire. Sure, they usually get wished back with the Dragon Balls, but one would think once would be traumatic enough. Some, like poor Krillin, end up biting it as many as 3 times and yet he still sticks around. As we can see, Goku is clearly an excellent addition to our lineup of Dangerous Characters, and that's the tiger's two cents.

Image taken from Dragon Ball Z.

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