Happy Mother’s Day everyone! And in consideration of this lovely holiday, plus the fact this year is the Tenth Anniversary of Skullgirls, today I’m bringing you a special How They Compare on the most powerful villain the series’ characters have ever faced, Parasoul and Umbrella’s mom, Queen Nancy Renoir. 14 years ago, the world was engulfed in the Grand War, a globe spanning conflict brought on by the imperialistic desires of King Franz Renoir of the Canopy Kingdom, who sought to conquer all the countries that could rival him, The Gigan Nation and the Chess Kingdom. Wanting nothing more than an end to this conflict, the King’s wife, Queen Nancy, prayed in the Cathedral every day for the gods to allow for world peace. After trying countless times, Nancy was approached by a mysterious nun who presented her with a relic known as The Skull Heart, which is capable of granting wishes to any woman, but will transform them into a monster known as a Skullgirl if said wish is impure. In her desperation, Nancy asked for the most selfless wish she could think of, Peace between the warring nations. But the Skull Heart knew this was a wish made out of distrust for her husband. So, The Skull Heart Granted Her Wish, by turning her into a Skullgirl, but not just any Skullgirl, the most Powerful Skullgirl to have ever walked the Earth. One so strong that all the Warring Nations would Need to join forces just to have a shot at stopping her.
As a Skullgirl Nancy Wields Immense Power, so much so that all the world's superpowers had to team up just to stand a chance against her, this includes The Gigan Nation, an entire military Force of creatures comparable to Beowulf in raw power, as well as numerous ASG Agents and Superheros at once. All of these beings are Hypersonic and City Level but could do absolutely nothing, even working together, to stop Nancy. Nancy was only stopped when her husband, King Franz, used his ultimate weapon, Eroberung. Each member of the Renoir Royal family has their own Umbrella which is actually a Living Weapon based off one of the Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse, and Eroberung is the horseman of conquest. When he fired this weapon at Nancy, the mere side effect of this blast pulverized more than a dozen smaller countries turning it into a desert like wasteland, which in and of itself would be the equivalent of hundreds of teratons of TNT, and yet Nancy was able to persist in a direct hit from this blast long enough to strike him back. When another Skullgirl, Marie Korbel, first awakened, Parasoul Renoir stated that they need to stop her fast, as if she is allowed to grow in power she could destroy the whole country of The Canopy Kingdom. Parasoul is clearly referencing her Mother’s power, which she directly experienced 7 years back, meaning she believes Nancy to be capable of destroying the massive canopy kingdom, which has an entire conquered former country as just a city. This is consistent with the end of Eliza’s story mode, when The Mother Goddess resurrected Marie as a fully realized Skullgirl and it was displayed to be an equal Threat to the Crimson Scourge. Nancy was also able to immediately spread her Necromantic aura across this entire country spanning warzone in seconds, something that would require a speed of roughly Mach 9,000 and would therefore be something she can scale to in movement, something consistent with her being able to fight vast numbers of hypersonic characters at once.
Nancy draws her power from The Skull Heart, an ancient relic of unlimited energy, composed of and constantly producing Theonite, the energy of the Divine Gods. In terms of abilities, Nancy obviously ability-scales to other Skullgirls, like Rosie, Selene and Marie, as well as those using Skullgirl abilities like Painwheel or Squigly, due to being just a far more powerful version of them. A Skullgirl’s most famous ability by far is their ability to Control the Dead, they can instantly raise a massive Zombie Army over a wide area, in Nancy’s case a near Continent spanning Zombie Apocalypse. The Undead that Skullgirls control are capable of fighting and killing City Level/Hypersonic characters like Patty and Easter, and while most of them are mindless, should The Skullgirl choose they can gain a corrupted form of the former personality and memories, like Marie did to various Medici assassins so they could still use their skills and weapons in combat. These Zombies are also Voodoo style, meaning that any single part of them is still alive and animated even if severed from the main body. Not only was Marie able to passively control Grendel’s arm, but actually recreate the rest of Grendel as her undead servant against Beowulf. Skullgirls can also pump their minions full of Theonite energy to give them damaging aura’s or turning them into bombs. Skullgirls have powerful telekinesis that allows them to fly, fire bone projectiles and create enormous bone constructs to use in combat. Beyond this however is their Umbrakinesis, Skullgirls can generate a divine shadow-being that can attack an opponent from any direction, including springing up from the ground. Possibly the most deadly Attack that Skullgirls have though is their Astral Fire, a move that can incinerate someone’s soul in flame. When Skullgirl, Marie Korbel was still very early in developing her powers, she was still able to instantly soul hax 3 of Lorenzo’s assassins to death at once with basically a snap of her fingers using this. Skullgirls also instantly attain massive super senses, they have the ability to read Aura’s which allows them not only to detect anyone around them and see through disguises, but even read their emotions, tell whom they’ve been around recently and even know details of said person's personal history. In her conversation with Robo-Fortune, Marie Korbel even showed that she has full awareness of the 4th wall, giving them limited Absolute Manipulation. That said, the most dangerous thing about Skullgirls is just how difficult it is to kill them. Skullgirls are capable of coming back so long as The Skull Heart remains intact, giving them a High-Mid Healing Factor, and they can shrug off numerous other powers like Poison, Soul Manipulation and Disease. Eliza once tried to absorb the blood of the Skullgirl, Marie, but was unable to do so despite Skullgirls clearly having blood, meaning they have high resistance to infection and assimilation. Similarly Painwheel was able to resist the Mental Manipulation of Brain Drain thanks to her Skull Girl Blood, and that guy is able to spread his mental powers across the Small Country Sized Mega City of New Meridian. Naturally all these powers would be attributed to Nancy as well.
So remember when I said every member of the Renoir Family had an umbrella based on one of the Four Horsemen? Well Nancy wasn’t an exception. Nancy wields Todd, a devastating living weapon that is fittingly enough, based off the Horsemen of Death. As one of the Renoir Umbrellas, Todd should at least sport similar power to the likes of her Daughter's umbrellas, Krieg and Hungern, the latter of which is accredited with having consumed entire ancient cities all at once. However, it has been established that if a woman becomes a Skullgirl while in possession of a Parasite or Living Weapon, said Parasite or Living Weapon will receive a similar power boost from The Heart, so Todd should be amped well beyond this. As the Horseman of Death, Todd is a Scythe like Umbrella of Raw Entropy, and can drain and absorb energy on contact, to Death Hax a foe, just like it did to King Franz who has been “Out of the Picture” ever since just from one swing. Todd can also shapeshift to be used as a shield or glider similar to the other Umbrellas. Nancy is incredibly powerful, and seeks to create world peace essentially through the destruction of all sentient life, thanks to The Skull Heart’s influence twisting and corrupting her impurities. She even sought to murder her own daughters considering sparring them the horrors of this world to be ‘A Mother’s Mercy.’ She has no hugely exploitable weaknesses, with her only super notable one being the fact that The Skull Heart in her chest is relatively fragile and one precise hit to it will shatter and without the Heart, Nancy will Die.
Name: Queen Nancy Renoir.
Origin: Skullgirls.
Classification: Dark Queen, Undead Necromancer, Demon.
Powers and Abilities: Country Scale Necromancy, High-Mid Regeneration, Death Manipulation, Divine Energy Manipulation, Flight, Telekinesis, Umbrakinesis, Bone Constructs, Shields, Soul Destruction, Aura Detection, Super Senses, Absolute Awareness, Resistance to Poison, Soul Hax, Mind Hax, and Assimilation.
Weaknesses: Will Instantly Die if her Heart is destroyed.
Destructive Capacity: Large Country+
Range: Country Scale.
Speed: Massively Hypersonic. (Possibly Sub-Rela)
Durability: Large Country+
Stamina: Limitless.
Intelligence: Very High. (Highly Educated Queen of an Entire Kingdom, Gains Additional Knowledge and Awareness from Skull Heart)
So How would Queen Nancy do in other verses?
DC Comics:
In The DCU for example, Nancy would be of similar threat level to most of the High Tier Antlantians and similar Metahumans, having very similar stats to Aquaman, which is an interesting point of comparison due to Aquaman retaining control over the Dead after having been a Black Lantern. Speaking of Black Lanterns, Nancy being able to raise country spanning Zombie Armies could be a devastating move to pull in DC due to the high chance it would allow her to control dead Metahumans to use against the living ones, such as the Atlantean Graveyards. In most cases her battles with the DC Spellcasters are rather one sided, she could easily stomp characters like John Constintine or Asa, but would obviously not stand a chance against Zatanna or Doctor Fate, putting her in somewhat of a mid-tier sweetspot. I would be able to see Nancy successfully taking over a City in DC, even including ones as strong as Antlantis if she came up with a tactical plan, as only a handful of Antlantians would actually pose a threat to her, however she’d never be able to last long against a coordinated Justice League Counter Attack.
Street Fighter:
Since Skullgirls is a fighting game, we may as well compare it to the most iconic Japanese fighter out there, Street Fighter. In the Street Fighter universe, Nancy would be an extreme threat, having physical stats actually slightly above top tier characters like Akuma, and would also be able to resist a great deal of the verses' best hax like M. Bison’s psycho brainwashing or Akuma’s soul destroying hado. Meanwhile Nancy herself has much more advanced magic powers like Death Manipulation, Telekinesis and easier to perform Soul Hax, which are all potential insta-kill options against basically any character. If you add in the fact that Nancy can form a massive army of Zombies of similar strength level to most Mid Tier Street Fighters, and you have a devastating combination that really could potentially solo the verse. That said Street Fighter Mid Tiers are notably much faster than her undead, and some of their more powerful characters have powers such as teleportation, long distance projectiles and The Evil Destroying Power of Nothingness that could potentially let them prolong the battle and Take Nancy By Surprise. I Do think it is possible for the Street Fighter verse to repel Queen Nancy, but it would more than likely require a coordinated attack from a fairly large group of their strongest characters.
Yu Yu Hakusho:
Since we’re talking about dealing with a powerful undead foe with divine powers, how would Queen Nancy fair against the Spirit Detectives? In Yu Yu Hakusho, Nancy on paper is similar in stats to the strongest demons and main characters at the end of the Manga, although more than likely is notably slower, but it’s harder to prove that. Nancy being able to raise armies of Zombies certainly would allow her to mitigate the potential speed gap due to just having an overwhelming presence, that being said foes have used Zombie Armies in YYH before and the Main Characters like Yusuke were smart enough to ignore it and simply kill the one causing the event as fast as possible, so would likely not be as susceptible to this tactic. Regardless, Nancy would be quite difficult to take down due to her immense regeneration, not too much worse than the Elder Toguro brother, and her abilities like Death Hax and Soul Destruction would still be a devastating combination to pull against someone. Due to her being undead, I’d also believe a majority of Kurama’s devastating plant attacks would fail against her in combat, and that's if he could even get a hit off on her due to her ability to simply fly out of range of him. I would think that characters like Murkuro would likely be able to defeat Nancy with had like spatial cutting to destroy her heart, which she could likely pull off with her likely higher speed, but it would still be quite dangerous getting near her.
Soulcalibur:
Of all the fighting games I know, the closest one to Skullgirls in terms of story would probably be Soulcalibur, due to both centralizing on the corruption caused by an ancient magical artifact. In the Soulcalibur World, Queen Nancy would immediately be a Massive threat, with most characters in the verse only having the stats of her Zombie minions. Nancy by comparison has the same stats of the most recent Soulcalibur villain, Azwell. In a Direct Fight, Nancy VS Azwell could go either way, Nancy is likely faster than him, can regenerate from most of his attacks, and has multiple ways to kill him if it's just a raw melee, that said Azwell is extremely intelligent and could score a win by using his potent spatial manipulation to avoid her and seal her in another dimension. Queen Nancy is essentially like a more powerful version of Nightmare, with her Zombie Army being a similar threat to his ability to spread Malfestation across the world, so similarly she would be even more of a challenge to take out. However characters in Soulcalibur like Zasalamel have a great deal of hax that could potentially put Nancy down. Really I think Soulcalibur would have to make a coordinated Strike with some of their best characters to beat Nancy, similar to Street Fighter, but utilizing Hax rather than Speed.
Madoka Magica:
The Madoka Verse actually has a lot of very strong thematic similarities to Skullgirls. Within the Verse, Queen Nancy would be an insanely powerful threat, far superior to nearly every single Witch in the mainline series, including the likes of Walpurgisnacht, and her Zombie Minions have strength that can match the average magical girl blow for blow. That being said I do think the most balanced environment for Queen Nancy to fight in is not in the main series but in the Tart Magica spinoff series that takes place in Medieval France during the 100 Years War. More Specifically, Queen Nancy would be directly comparable to Queen Isabeau of Bavaria, the main villain of the series and leader of a dark magical girl group trying to turn France over to the English. These two are nearly on par in Stats and can counter almost every power the other has blow for blow, making it very difficult to determine a winner in shorthand like this. Obviously though, Nancy being a comparable threat to the most powerful non god entity in Madoka, means she clearly would be an incredible challenge to the various magical girls of the same era. I personally think that the best chance they would have to try and defeat Nancy would be to have Elisa snipe her heart with her rifle, while her allies distract her, which funny enough would be similar to the plan that Franz actually used to defeat her in Skullgirls to begin with.
