Death Battle Analysis: Big Band

Hi Guys, Sorry for the long delay, but I’m back now and ready to get down to business with a new Skullgirls character. But this one plays by a different beat, that's right, this Skullgirls character, is a Dude. Oh and also he's kinda a combination of Jazz, Noir and Mecha, so this should be fun.

Background

In the troubled streets of New Meridian, there exists many people that wish to be hero's and make things better. One such man, was Ben Birdland.

A bright young city kid, Ben always has a taste for 2 things, music that touches your soul, and justice. As a young man, Ben joined the New Meridian Police force and started working to help clean up crime.

Ben and his partner Irvin were like super cops, busting up all sorts of crime all over the city, they were smart, tough and incorruptible, a true bane to the cities infamous Medici Mafia. One day Ben and Irvin discovered that the Medici were running an illegal gambling operation and reported it to their Sargent.

However it appeared the department already knew this and had assembled a task force to take these goons down that very night without them knowing about it. Excited to bust more mob creeps, Ben eagerly asked when they gear up.

Strangely though, Sarge quickly told them that the mob is already being handled, and rushed them out telling them they are off this case and that there is no shortage of other crimes that need solving in this city.

But Ben wasn’t one to just give up on a case so easily. Knowing Sarge was acting suspicious and the task force would need all the help it could get, Ben decided to go stake out the gambling ring himself and wait for the task force’s arrival. When Ben arrived he was thrown off by the task force being late, he was about to go look into this when the Medici’s spotted him and he was forced to take action.

Ben went full on commando against these mafia fools, and after a long fought battle he managed to single handedly take down the entire gambling operation by himself. Then, finally, backup arrived.

Ben expected to be praised as a hero cop, instead it all came crashing down. The Medici police force was on the mobs payroll, the police weren't allowed to touch them. Ben always thought cops uphold the law, it doesn’t work that way in New Meridian. Guess what happened next?

As punishment for upsetting the mob, Ben’s fellow officers beat him, brutally and efficiently. They damn near broke every bone in his body, popped his lungs, and left him just a bleeding crippled husk. They were sure he was dead, but turns out, he's fulla surprises.

Ben’s life was saved when his partner Irvin thankfully went looking for him, he found him and quickly got him emergency medical attention. Unfortunately due to the severity of his injuries Ben’s chances were slim, until of course he was visited by Dr. Avian, the Director of ASG Lab 8.

After some discussion, Ben was brought to the ASG Labs to be remade as an ASG Agent. Once there, the 95 remaining pounds of Ben was presented to Stanley, a Dagonian Shark Scientist who rebuilt Ben into a better, stronger, large and in charge ASG Agent.

Stanley gave Ben a whole new look, style and of course tons of awesome weapons and powers, and after training with his new abilities, Ben got back on the beat and teamed up with Irvin to take Sarge down. The two stormed Medici tower, and now successfully took down the whole gambling operation, although Sarge escaped.

Afterwords Ben officially became a ASG Lab Agent, choosing the fitting codename for his new body, Big Band. Irvin similarly quit the police force and became a Private Eye where he can help people free from any corruption.

Later that same Evening, Lorenzo, head of the Medici Mob, had Sarge killed for failing to deal with Ben the first time, and created the River King Casino in response to their gambling operation being lost.

Over the next 15 years, Big Band did great work as one of the most powerful ASG Agents. He defended the kingdom from a variety of threats, including numerous criminal activity and even fought in the Grand War, helping the armies bring Down Queen Nancy, a Skullgirl who was so powerful she could reduce entire countries into desert like wastelands.

One day Big Band lead the ASG Agents on an all out assault on a Medici stronghold, where they were holding refugees from No Man's Land hostage. After beating the shit out of the mob, Big Band discovered a particularly brutalized little girl.

This was Patricia Watson, an orphan who had been horribly mutilated by slave traders, and everyone there including the Nurses of the Last Hope believed she was going to die. Big Band however, would not give up on her, after all, they said the same thing about him.

Big Band rescued the girl and brought her to Lab 8 where Doctor Avian not only saved her life, but made her better. Patricia was so inspired by Big Band and the fellow ASG Agents that she decided to join their ranks, and she was rebuilt as a fellow cyborg warrior named Peacock.

Peacock was one go getter of a new member, a bit of a wildcard that the scientists did not entirely know how to deal with. Being one of the only two adult ASG Agents, Big Band made it his responsibility to look out for her. He taught her how to fight and trained with her to help her use her new powers.

You see, Big Band and Peacock understand each other on a deep level, they both are fully in the moment and appreciative of the subtle beats that occur in life. The ASG Agents are very much a family unit so put quite simply,

Big Band is kinda like her new fun yet protective dad. This actually makes them an even stronger team, all be it when Peacock doesn’t charge off by herself, but together not even a Skullgirl can take them down. And this was proven when after Doc Avian was murdered by Valentine, Peacock irresponsibly ran off to take those that did it down. Big Band followed her the whole way there and the two brought her down together in an epic team attack.

New Meridian is a dangerous city, those who want to protect it have to make several tough calls, but as long as Big Band is on the case, you can be sure it will never lose it’s light.

Personality

Big Band is first and foremost a responsible, by the book enforcer of justice who comes off as very calm and collected and prefers to rationalize and talk things out, but also knows when he has to fight back. While he can come off as an uptight upholder of the rules sometimes, he is actually pretty layback, often openly having fun with what he's doing, making jokes, recounting stories and being a very understanding father figure.

Big Band is also a truly heroic person, who despite understandable issues of trust is very optimistic. This is well shown when Big Band refused to listen to Brain Drains orders to attack the Skullgirl while she was vulnerable holding up a skyscraper as he wouldn’t risk it dropping on the city, there was a better way. Then afterward he liberated Painwheel from Brain Drain’s control and took her back to Lab 8 to join there much nicer family. Big Band loves a good beat, shoe and brass polish, 4-part harmony, Autumn leaves, the flat 5th, the spirit of the law, Gin, and neatness. He dislikes punks, corruption, unresolved dissonance, carelessness, electric shavers, smoothies, and narrow spaces.

Intelligence

Big Band is a very wise and experienced veteran fighter, and is considered to be a professional operative, able to easily take down numerous trained assassins even before becoming a superhuman cyborg. He is skilled in stealth and surveillance and can read a room and gather intel quickly. He is very level headed and always has his priorities in check even in the most desperate of situations. The most notable aspect of his intellect though, is his detective skills. Big Band is able to quickly look at and fully understand any crime scene and know almost perfectly what happened down to minute details like the type of scalpels used. He can use these to understand a perpetrators intentions and experiences and is able to read someone's bodily language as well.

Acoustokinesis

Big Band’s bread and butter is his advanced acoustokinetic abilities. Acoustokinesis is the ability to manipulate sound and vibrations for any number of different effects. Such Effects Include:

• Passive Awareness Immediate Area

Can sense changes in the immediate area based on acoustics.

• Sonic Blasts:

Can fire powerful concussive decibel blasts from pretty much any part of his body.

• Momentum Boost:

Big Band can also fire some soundwaves out the back to drastically increase his moving speed riding the sound waves for powerful bursts of energy. This can be used in a similar method to increase the power of his attacks as well.

• Flight:

Big Band can even take this a step further by blasting sound out with enough force to allow him to fly with really no limitation.

The Ensemble

The Ensemble refers to the enormous arsenal of musical weaponry built into big bands new body and coat. There are over 100 giant instruments contained in there through some form of spatial manipulation, which only makes it scarier as you just plain do not know what he could ge pulling on you. Big Band uses these instrumental weapons to literally Beat Box his foe into submission, both by using these to blast powerful sonic waves, and also cutting out the middleman and just bludgeoning them directly with the brass itself.

Some of his more notable moves include:

• Brass Knuckles:

Big Band rushes forward and gives his foe a hit with his devastating giant fist, blasted forward by sonic waves.

• Kick Stand:

Big Band swings his entire body into his foe for a powerful kick using a music stand for balance.

• Bass Drop:

Big Band Blasts sound from every part of his body at once.

• Sweet Clarinet:

Big Band spikes a clarinet downward with drills his foe.

• Beat Extend:

Big Band traps a foe in a giant tambourine which sends damaging sonic energy throughout their entire body.

• Pneumatic Slide:

Big Band uses sonic energy to push his knee upwards in a devastating knee to the face made worse by the extending trombone which hits twice.

• Bass/Baritone/Tenor Blast:

Big Band Elbows into his opponent, and blasts sound out of either the Bass, Baritone or Tenor hole on his arm.

• Air Mail Special:

Big Band upper cuts you with a saxophone as his fist.

• Overblow:

Big Band uppercuts you with the biggest horn in his arsenal! Wait…...is that thing his….

• Heavy Toll:

Big Band traps his foe in his bell and gives them a disorienting shake.

• Bagpipe Blues:

By pulling out and jamming on the worst instrument ever made, Big Band removes his limiters and allows himself access to more power, meaning he can perform longer and stronger combos.

• Cymbal Clash:

Big Band claps together two giant cymbals which generate waves of damaging sonic energy.

• Giant Step:

Big Band created a mini earthquake by smashing a giant soundwave into the ground, this knocks foes off their feet and can crush them at short range.

• Take the ‘A’ Train:

Big Band traps the foe inside of his own giant arm where they are bludgeoned senseless without being able to defend themself.

• Satchmo Solo:

The Satchmo Solo involved Big Band pulling out his trusty trumpet, not only can this blast large bursts of sonic energy, but it can also legit stop time for several seconds while he plays, giving him the chance to charge up truly devastating combos.

It also should be noted this is a real working Trumpet that you can play songs on in game without limitation.

• Cymbal of Justice:

Every character in the game has the ability to block in some form or another, but Big Band is the only one that can parry, and that is thanks to this fantastic shield, the cymbal of justice. Unlike other shields and blocks in the game that still cause the combatant to take chip damage, this brass beauty vibrates all the energy off itself meaning Big Band takes no damage whatsoever in a huge display of shock absorption.

• Super-Sonic Jazz:

In this devastating attack, Big Band rockets himself forward with as much sonic energy as possible and crashes into them like a freight train before beating them into a paste with dozens of rapid fire brass punches in what may be the ultimate bumrush.

• Tympany Drive:

While in the air, Big Band beats on a large set of drums, which blasts massive bursts of sonic energy upon contact, these both keep him airborne and rain down punishment on his foe. Afterwards he’ll rattle them further by trapping him in his bell, this time banging so hard it shatters.  

• Strike Up The Band:

Big Band stomps his foot forward and summons up an entire barrage of trumpet turrets from the earth below his foe, which fire hundreds of sonic blasts upon his foe at once.

Skills

Height: 7’7

Weight: 5000 lbs

Age: 49

Big Band is the largest character in the entire game, his massive body weighs 5000 lbs, though only about 95 lbs of it is human. This body runs on an experimental oil mixture called ‘B♭’, while its advanced weaponry and abilities are caused by its use of Theonite, a supply of Skullgirl related energy crystals. This body also walks by actually rotating its entire hips to that its legs move to the center in front and behind and grabs things with numerous mechanical arms of varying sizes for different tasks. Big Bands attacks are all very brute force focused, slamming into foes with high speed and overwhelming power. But this doesn’t make him a slugger by any means, with his high intellect and experiences he can actually be really strategic with finding the right times to defend and the right times to pound his foe into next week. He is so skilled in combat that even as a normal officer he could take down a whole gang of mob goons armed with blades and guns, and he has only gotten better since.

Feats

Strength:

• Can cause earthquakes not just with his attacks, but with every step he takes.
• Easily Defeated Cerebella
• Beat Double as an Anti-Big Band
• Defeated Ms. Fortune
• Brain Drain states that he has enough power to destroy the Skullgirls in a surprise assault. Brain Drain is a genius and he said this While Marie was performing her 1.3 Megaton feat so there is no way he was underestimating her.
• Defeated Painwheel
• Defeated Valentine and Double at the same time. Val of which damaged Marie with her attacks during the battle with Last Hope
• Managed to Bring Down Marie with Peacocks Aid

Speed:

• Briefly Held his own against Peacock, who can outrun an explosive blast.
• Defeated Valentine and Double at the same time. Val of which can dodge point blank machine gun fire.
• Escaped the catacombs of the grand cathedral as it  was collapsing.

Durability:

• Can more than take the force of his own attacks, which involve acoustic explosions.
• Was able to immediately get up after a defeat from Beowulf.

General:

• Even Before he became Big Band, was able to single handedly beat a squad of medici goons.
• Is the 3rd most powerful ASG Agent
• Fought In the Grand Wars battle against Queen Nancy, the most powerful Skullgirl on record
• Has over 30 years of combat experience.
• Survived being brutally beaten until all of his bones were broken

Summary

Advantages

• Small City Level
• Hypersonic
• Very Intelligent and Experienced
• High hand to hand combat skill
• Flight
• Sonic Manipulation and Projectiles
• Timestop
• Shock Absorption
• Stat Boosts

Disadvantages

• Big Band is an older model of ASG agent, and thus doesn’t have access to more advanced technology like Synthetic Parasites more modern models like Peacock and Painwheel do, this means he is much more limited in his abilities.
• Big Band is also the only character in the game that had assistance when battling Marie.
• Other characters with great hand to hand skills have bested him before, such as Beowulf
• Also, as you might imagine, Big Band is a very large target, and it is difficult for him to evade speedy and or surprising attacks because of it.
• He also has damaged and sensitive lungs, if his suit loses power he will struggle to breath.

Recommended Opponents:

Scratchmen Apoo

This battle seemed pretty interesting; both being heavily instrumental based sound manipulators of similar stats and abilities. The really cool thing about this fight is it's a classic Cops and Robbers battle between a pirate and a detective.

Next Time

Yup, finally back to predictions, but guess what, now I’m deciding predictions to do by poll, click the link below and cast your vote, vote for as many that interest you.

http://pollmaker.vote/p/B1IMJQ3A