Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Death Battle Analysis: Imhotep



Welcome to Part 2 of my Analysis blogs on the Universal Mummy! Yesterday in Part 1 we looked at the Traditional classic Mummy with Kharis, go check that out if you missed it. Today however we are breaking tradition and moving to innovation as we dive into the Original universal Mummy, Imhotep! Enjoy!

Background

In the forgotten year of 1290 BC in the great city of Thebes, Egypt, there unfolded a tragic story of horrors that laid dormant under guard for Millenia. Long ago there was a powerful High Priest to the Temple of the Sun, named Imhotep. Imhotep’s unmatched intellect and skills at this task gave him numerous followers and being appointed to being the Personal Priest of the Pharaoh Seti.
It was here that Imhotep met the woman Anck-su-namun, The Pharaoh’s personal mistress who no other was allowed to touch. Naturally wanting what he cannot have, and her hating the Pharaoh using her as a tool, Imhotep and her fell In Love and began having a secret affair.
Unfortunately for them, the Pharaoh suspected something was amiss and soon caught the two in the act.
In an act thought unthinkable, Imhotep and Anck-su-namun murdered the Pharaoh to protect each other from his wrath. Knowing that there was no way to get away with this, Anck-su-namun decided to take full credit for the murder, sending Imhotep away as the guards arrived and then killed herself.
After escaping with the help of his followers, Imhotep became determined to resurrect his beloved Anck-su-namun. He stole her mummified body, taking it to Hamunaptra the City of the Dead, where he planned to do a resurrection ritual using the Scroll of Thoth, the very artifact Isis used to raise Osiris from the dead.
Unfortunately for Imhotep he failed, he and his followers were caught by the Egyptian army. As punishment for his heinous acts, he and all his followers were mummified alive. But for Imhotep it was much more severe than just that.
They dumped a giant bucket of Black Scarab Beetles on him which would slowly eat his flesh making for the most painful Death imaginable. On top of that they Cursed Imhotep with the Hom Dai curse, a curse so Terrible it was never cast before or after, leaving them in eternal torment. They Buried Imhotep with the Scroll of Thoth in order to prevent someone from attempting what he did and tasked the ancient order of the Madjai to forever guard Imhotep's tomb, as according to the Hom Dai curse, should Imhotep ever return, he would be a plague upon humanity, an uncontrollable demon with power over the 10 Plagues of Egypt. Thankfully that would never happen right?
Oh No….
Anyway Imhotep's temple was eventually discovered in the 1930s by exploring Archeologists, who foolishly brought Imhotep back to life with the Scroll of Thoth, and The Mummy rose. Now Freed, Imhotep got to work on rebuilding himself and tracking down his beloved Anck-su-namun so they could rule this new world together.
The warning of Imhotep’s return was NO Joke, he is absolutely the most dangerous monster in the entirety of the Universal Monsters series, and would be considered completely unstoppable throughout every time he managed to come back. At his full power only the actual Egyptian Gods were able to stop him, thankfully they seem to hate his guts and lend a hand when we needed it most.
Imhotep is a very intelligent and ambitious individual, he is very determined to achieve his goals and prioritizes it above all his other personal feelings and attachments. He is pragmatic and cold in his demeanor, and does not tolerate any meddling fools interfering with his plans, his aggression towards humanity is circumstantial to his own girls, that said he has no special love for them either and has no qualms about becoming ruler of the world when he gets his main objectives.

Intellect & Skills

Imhotep is a genius by human standards, he is very well read in both science and magic and extremely manipulative. He is quick to worm his way into positions of power without having to use his magics and can easily fool or trap those trying to stand in his way. After awakening in the 20’s he patiently waited 10 full years to strike, to allow himself to become integrated into this new modern society, and track down numerous lost tombs. He is also extremely knowledgeable on Egyptian history and can speak numerous languages fluently.

Powers

  • Mind Manipulation:
Imhotep has immense mental capabilities. He is able to mentally enslave people with just a mere look into their eyes, or even remotely mind control them from a totally separate location. He was able to put people into sleep like trances or call people to his presence, and even revert their minds back into the minds of their past lives.
Imhotep can take this even further and infect whole populations with his own mental disease that forces everyone to do his bidding, such as when he took over Cairo.
  • Sand Manipulation:
One of Imhotep’s most famous abilities is his extremely powerful sand manipulation. Imhotep’s sand manipulation is superior to that of other Egyptian sorcerers who are stated to be able to sink the city of Hamunaptra into the sand, but that’s far from the limit of his Sand powers. Imhotep is able to make entire deserts rise up and form into a powerful sandstorm he can control with his very thoughts. He can harden sand into complex structures like restraints of even sentient life such as creating an enormous Mongolian Death Worm out of sand to send after his foes. Imhotep can also convert his entire body into sand and use this to travel as a sandstorm, fit through incredibly small spaces, absorb hits via sand logia and fly.
  • Elemental Manipulation:
Sand is far from his only type of elemental manipulation however. Imhotep is similarly able to control elements like Stone, Water and Air. Able to make a mountain collapse in on itself, form and control giant tidal waves or water spouts, create massive storms, breathe hurricane winds, start a tornado, breathe underwater and turn his entire body to Water or Wind for travel and defense.
Imhotep can do more than manipulate the elements around him however, he can also create and attack with fire, lightning or plants. He’s able to summon waves of fire and fire demons or shoot fireballs and lightning bolts, as well as rain down strikes of lightning from the sky. His control over Plants is even more esoteric as he was able to bring an entire forest to life and manipulate them all at once, make plant monsters and teleport people through plants themselves.
  • Telekinesis:
Imhotep has immense Telekinetic powers that enable him to block or redirect attacks, Trap enemies, fly, and of course lift and control all manner of objects around him. Imhotep’s Telekinesis has such range and power that it allowed him to move the Moon to eclipse the Sun at sub relativistic speeds.
  • Bodily Control:
One of his more unique and powerful abilities is Bodily Control Aura. This ability passively projects his telekinetic power from his body, preventing his opponents from attempting any actions to harm him, no matter how much they want to. Given that guns were a thing at this point in time, this Aura must extend to firing range. However members of the Medjai, the force dedicated to stop him, have managed to resist it with their ancient bloodline.
  • Clairvoyance:
Imhotep has clairvoyance powers that let him spy on people and events across all over the world to know their plans, secrets and actions.
This power extends throughout space time and let’s him glimpse back into the ancient past to see that as well.
  • Plague Manipulation:
True to his curse, Imhotep has the power to control and invoke the Plagues on humanity from the story of Moses. With his Plague Manipulation he was able to make a rain of fire and meteors devastate an entire city and turned all the liquid in Egypt into blood.
  • Insect Manipulation:
A notable subset of his Plague manipulation is his ability to control Insects. Imhotep is able to summon and control massive swarms of insects, enough to block out the skies itself. These insects are not normal, but in fact have massive super stats, like locusts which are strong enough to crush people. But by far the most famous and dangerous Insects he uses are his Scarab Beetles. Scarab beetles are never ending Eating Machines which can quickly eat a person down to bones in seconds, they are able to reduce giant steel structures to nothingness in the time it takes to swarm past it. Black Scarabs can also eat very slowly, as a means to torture the crap out of someone.
  • Necromancy:
Imhotep has general Necromancy abilities, able to make dead bodies move and obey him without a soul. He was able to resurrect an army of his mummified priests to fight for him, and can create Skeleton Warriors from anywhere.
  • Fear Aura:
Imhotep also has a Fear Aura, a normal person gazing upon them could literally be scared to Death or driven to babbling madness.
  • Rejuvenation:
Imhotep’s immortal body is equipped with Rejuvenation. This allows him to revert from his decayed mummy form to a form similar to how he looked in life. With his rejuvenation, Imhotep can regenerate his body from being blown to pieces, not age, and can persist without food, air or rest.
  • Life Absorption:
As part of his curse, Imhotep can absorb the flesh, body parts and vitality of people and use it to rebuild himself, making for some pretty gruesome deaths.
  • Death Manipulation:
He can also curse people to die, just giving them a curse and letting nature take its course, or by using his powers to remotely give people a fatal Heart Attack.
  • Summons:
Lastly Imhotep can summon a variety of monsters from the underworld to fight on his behalf, ranging from a powerful sea demon, to dozens of flying logia intangible shadow ghouls. He can even turn regular Animals into monsters by unlocking the Beast within to transform them savage and powerful.

Feats

Strength:
  • Stated could destroy the World.
  • Can bury whole cities in sand.
  • Turned all the liquid in Egypt into blood.
  • Made a gigantic storm over Giza and Cairo that rained down flaming meteorites.
  • Telekinetically moved the moon to eclipse the sun.
  • Made a sand wall the size of a mountain range.
  • Ripped a likely over 20 ton solid stone statue off the ground and over his head like nothing.
  • Smashed from an underground cavern to the surface like nothing.
  • Shattered part of a mountain.
  • Physically defeated the Minotaur.
Durability:
  • Endured the pressure at the bottom of the Mediterranean sea.
  • Endured falling off a mountain.
  • Easily scales past Rick O'Connell who was able to endure a Wind Demon stated to be powerful enough to destroy an entire city in minutes.
Speed:
  • Traveled from Cairo to Thebes in a mere Hours.
  • Weaker mummies can outrun speeding cars.
  • Tornado Traveled from London to Cairo in under an Hour.

Summary:

Advantages:

  • Large Planet Level.
  • Supersonic.
  • Mind Manipulation.
  • Logia.
  • Flight.
  • Numerous kinds of Elemental Manipulation.
  • Limited Teleportation.
  • Telekinesis.
  • Clairvoyance.
  • Insect Manipulation.
  • Transmutation.
  • Meteor Showers.
  • Necromancy.
  • Fear Aura.
  • Bodily Control Aura.
  • Life Absorption.
  • Regeneration. 
  • Summoning.
  • Death Manipulation.

Disadvantages:

  • The Egyptian Gods have repeatedly instantly defeated him.
  • Arrogant.
  • Underestimates the abilities of those he is up against unless they are a clear threat.
  • Wasn’t in the 3rd Mummy movie, despite it still being called The Mummy.

Recommended Opponent:

Adam Young:
Adam Young from Good Omens would be a pretty even matchup, and kinda an example of Natural Talent VS Hard Work. Young is the Antichrist without realizing it and has extremely powerful divine magic and abilities enough to match that of Imhotep's own, but he’s also not physically very fast or strong so he himself would also have to be extremely careful to deal with the Mummy.

Next Time:


3 comments:

  1. Imhotep definitely seems incredibly versatile and powerful as you'd expect for the top tier villain of the Universal-verse. I was impressed by the fact that abilities that you'd expect him to have he had way better versions of then you'd expect, like sand manipulation that can sink it cities or clairvoyance that works across time etc. and also that he abilities you wouldn't expect like teleporting people through plants. This was also shown in how he has information about magic and science, something you'd expect and something you wouldn't.

    It's interesting to see how both he and Kharis were adapted from the same source material but turned out so differently. I can see though why you can't just match them up against each other. I do think you could probably get a higher speed value out of the London to Cairo feat. I did a really quick calc and got Mach 2.8 or so and it could be off but can't imagine it would be super off.

    I think of Imhotep's powers I was most impressed by his passive telekinetic aura, his instant death curses, and his trans-time clairvoyance because of the sheer potency of passive haxes, the fact that he can one-shot beings hypothetically up to even spiritual ones, and just that trans-time clairvoyance is an underused underrated power imo. It would be interesting to see the two people that are the hypothetical enemies of the Gods, the Heretical Priest and the Anti-Christ come to blows with your recommened matchup, one being symbolically representing old age and one symbolically representing youth and young age. Good Omens was a great read and while I haven't seen the films they certainly seem to be very good quality too, even if he wasn't technically in all of them for some reason :P

    Interested in next time. I know one of the two characters so it should be interesting to see Misty get analyzed and also learn about this Enid figure. Looking forward to it.

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  2. I gotta admit, I didn’t know there was Imhotep material beyond the original black and white film :P (I knew of the more recent Mummy films but I didn’t realize he was the villain). He is also way more impressively powerful than I was expecting being. Large planet level, good grief.

    I find it cool that elements of his character are drawn from both Egyptian Mythology and the Biblical Exodus story. It’s interesting to see the similarities in his backstory to Kharis’s backstory, but how drastically different their methods of attack are. Like you said, ones a slasher villain and ones a sorcerer. And just seeing the huge variety of abilities makes him seem like a great character to see in a versus battle. There is also twists in his powerset, like his clairvoyance that work across time and his reincarnation aspect of his mind manipulation. His powerset simultaneously shows awe-inspiring power and straight up creepyness, which I find really fitting. Adam Young seems like a thematically appropriate pick for an opponent as well. Just an excellent blog all around with phenomenal research.

    The next time seems like a cool fight. Interesting that you are using a lesser known character from My Life as a Teenage Robot. I am sure that it will be a lot of fun though.

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  3. Back in my seat for the second half of this Egyptian double feature! And this time, I actually know the mummy you're talking about! Well, not personally, that would be pretty awful :P I really liked the Brendan Fraser Mummy film back when it came out and after reading your blog, I gotta see the black and white Karloff one! The gifs you included were very striking, I especially enjoyed the intensely creepy close-up shots on his eyes. And thanks to your Mummy tracks, I got to enjoy these deliciously horrifying clips with atmospheric sound! I better start talking about the blog's contents though, or I'll be swept away by the great experience I had reading it.

    What a powerhouse! At first I was surprised that this mummy was top dog among the Universal monsters, but after reading what he can do, Imhotep absolutely deserves that title. Such a long list of deadly abilities, and more than a few can even change the face of the world. Quite a lot of defensive powers and qualities to him too, those will come in handy if he fights someone in that same large planet tier as him because hoo boy is his speed ever low for that tier. Still, I think his disproportionate destructive capacity and speed will make him a good character to keep in mind for a future strategy guide, as I'm sure there's an odd tier in some series where he could fit in like a glove. Conversely, if you ever do a strategy guide on Imhotep's verse, it'll be quite interesting to see who could fit into his tier while meeting the low speed cap.

    I'm not familiar with Adam Young, but he seems like a neat "hero" to put up against Imhotep. High priest turned monster vs Anti-Christ raised as a good guy, it's a cool juxtaposition that I approve of. Oh, and the trailer! The opponent revealed! I know nothing about these two characters coming to one of your new blogs but it looks like it's gonna be an exciting showdown! Looking forward to it, so I'll refrain from giving my usual advice of taking a break after completing an awesome blog; I'm too excited for the next one! Thanks for another great blog Thor, and rekindling my interest in Egyptian horror.

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