“On the day I was born, the nurses all gathered ’round
And they gazed in wide wonder, at the joy they had found
The head nurse spoke up, and she said leave this one alone
She could tell right away, that I was bad to the bone”
-George Thorogood

Felonious Gru, Despicable Me’s superbad turned superdad.

Megamind, the former big-brained threat of Metro City.

Sometimes it can feel so good to be so bad, but there’s more to life than being the bad guy. What really matters is the people around you who can make you better and want better from you. That’s the lesson these two supervillains learned, and now they use their genius for the good of the world. But which one of these two reformed heroes from these animated classics from 2010 shall prevail? Will Gru see Metro City’s former threat slip up, or will Megamind make the Anti-Villain League’s best agent fall for his tricks? Let’s find out in a DEATH BATTLE!

Before We Start…

For both characters, we will be looking at all their media. This includes their movies, shorts, games, comics, novels, etc, as long as it doesn’t contradict what Gru or Megamind are capable of, or is explicitly non-canon, like crossovers. There has also been a G1 Gru Vs Megamind blog before, back in 2023, which will be referred to as a source. But this blog is meant to be a fresh new look at both franchises, since Gru and Megamind have gotten a fair amount of new material since then.

Gru and Megamind also won’t have us held at gunpoint to explain their tech this time since they are currently preparing for their Death Battle.

Background

Gru

“We are going to steal…pause for effect…THE MOON!”

Have you ever felt like doing something so bad, so evil, so despicable, that anyone around you can remember you for your despicableness? Then get in line, because among the many villains on this planet, one was already born to be the most despicable. Felonious Gru,alongside his twin brother Dru, was born to a family of history’s most despicable villains. Yet, despite being destined for greatness, his father and mother divorced very early in his life, leaving Gru ignorant of his brother’s existence or his father’s legacy. As such, he grew up an average boy with a long nose and big ideas, his mother constantly unimpressed by his feats. He remained lonely, alienated even by his classmates. Despite having little to no support, though, Gru still wanted to become a supervillain. After creating some inventions here and buying some guns there, Gru managed to perform an incredible feat as just a child: freezing the legendary villain Scarlet Overkill and stealing The Imperial State Crown! This garnered not only the attention of villains all over the world, but a species of small yellow creatures that after their long search for a leader, decided to become Gru’s henchmen – The Minions!

Though at first he denied their request to join, they’ve proven to be quite useful, and after spending some time with Wild Knuckles, Gru understood that he can’t do all his villainy alone. Thus, the Minions and Dr Nefario joined his cause, and Gru rose to become a greater villain than before. By the time he reached adulthood, he regularly found himself committing hideous crimes and acts, like popping a child’s balloon, freezing people in line, wrecking his neighbour’s lawn, and many more, too devious to be described. His house alone demonstrates just how despicable Gru has become over the years – a dark big mansion, secret lair, and weapons all over the place. Yet despite that, he was not the greatest villain of his era, for there were others committing crimes worthy of worldwide news, whether it be stealing a pyramid, gloriously dying in a volcano, or having their own villainous show about themself. Gru, however, decided to go higher. He was going to steal…pause for effect…The MOON!

All he needed was a shrink ray, a rocket, and some funding from Bank of Evil. However, the new gen villain Vector was one step ahead, and stole the shrink ray from right under Gru’s nose. No problem, though, Gru could just take it back, right? Unfortunately, it wasn’t so easy. After dozens of failed attempts, Gru was ready to call it quits, until he noticed three little girls enter to sell cookies like it was nothing. These girls were named Margo, Edith, and Agnes, and seeing them in action gave Gru an idea. If he adopted them for himself and put their unassuming appearance to good use, he could easily take the shrink ray back. The adoption part was pretty easy. Stealing the shrink ray, also easy. Caring for three new daughters was not…at least at first. But even a heart as despicable as Gru’s can have a soft spot or two. The longer the girls were around, the more his life was turning upside down. They made him LAUGH! They made him cry…and after a while he realized he never should have said goodbye. Sure, he stole the moon when the time came, yet after doing so without someone in the family to share it with, this feat felt small. So instead, after finding out Vector stole the girls and held them hostage, Gru was ready not only to give away the moon to him, but even to risk his life for them. After courageously chasing Vector, saving the girls, and returning the moon to its rightful place, Gru found that he was slowly turning from the greatest villain, to the greatest dad.

A transformation that was far from the end to Gru’s family life. Soon after, he found himself teaming up with an Anti-Villain League agent named Lucy, who needed his help to find whoever stole and used the PX-41 formula to prepare to take over the world. Though going from villain to anti-villain agent was new for Gru, his experience with villainy proved helpful for the cause. Furthermore, just like how spending time with the girls made him change for the better, spending time with Lucy made him feel different. For the first time, he felt love. And so did Lucy! To the point that even after the case was allegedly closed, and Lucy went on vacation, she chose to go and confess her love for Gru instead. Of course, she didn’t know that the actual mastermind behind the case, El Macho, had caught her. So Gru, after saving his Minions from PX-41 infection, also risked his life to save Lucy. After doing so and even defeating El Macho, Gru and Lucy married and became AVL’s duo agents stopping any villain that was in their way. Fast forward into the future, Gru has reconciled with his twin brother Dru, deepened his bond with his Minions and Nefario, became AVL’s most prominent agent, had himself a biological son, even made his mother actually proud. And now he knows he could never part from his big family that changed his heart.

Megamind

“Being bad is the one thing I’m good at and then it hit me, if I was the bad boy, then I was going to be the baddest boy of them all!”

The cosmos is a host to many vast wonders, but those wonders aren’t always meant to last forever. Megamind was born on an unspecified planet that was dying. At only eight days old, he was put into a space pod, along with a fish that would become his best friend, Minion, and his binky. Unsure of what his motive actually was since he didn’t exactly hear the last part, Megamind was launched away as his planet died. But as Megamind approached earth, Metro Man,another baby from another dying planet, approached in a rivaling escape pod. This was only the beginning of their rivalry as they arrived at Earth, Metro Man crashed into a life of luxury, while Megamind crashed into a life in prison.

Growing up, Megamind was taught to do evil things by the prisoners and eventually ended up going to school, which just so happened to have Metro Man as one of his classmates. While Metro Man was showered in praises, Megamind received no such thing, only messing things up there even further. That’s when it dawned on Megamind, if he was the bad guy in this situation, then he was going to be the baddest one of them all. This is where the rivalry between Megamind and Metro Man truly began. With Megamind having the goal of conquering Metro City, this rivalry between the two went on for years, with Metro Man always coming out on top, while Megamind always ended up back in jail. But using his smarts, Megamind always found a way out of prison, invented something new to give Metro Man a challenge, lather, rinse, repeat.

But one day, things were different. On the day of the opening of Metro Man’s museum, Megamind had captured Roxanne Ritchi, a close friend of Metro Man and lured him into a trap. But against all odds, and because Metro Man’s weakness was copper for some odd reason, Megamind had fired his death ray upon the observatory holding Metro Man captive and…Metro Man was dead, Megamind had finally won at long last. Metro City finally belonged to Megamind and Minion, and they celebrated, using the city as their playground to do whatever they wanted.

But over time, Megamind started to miss the good times he had battling Metro Man. After all, what is a villain without a hero to fight? Then it suddenly dawned on Megamind after having a conversation with Roxanne while disguised as a man named Bernard: Megamind would create a hero to battle himself. Using a sample of Metro Man’s DNA from his remains, Megamind created a way to make someone into a hero by infusing someone with said DNA using the Infuser/Defuser. But before he could do just that, Roxanne somehow ended up finding Megamind’s hideout and in the scuffle, Roxanne’s cameraman, Hal Stewart, ended up getting Metro Man’s DNA infused into him. While this seemed like a mistake at first glance, Megamind felt this was the perfect opportunity for a new hero to be trained to battle him.

Disguised as Hal’s supposed space dad, Megamind trained Hal into becoming a hero, eventually dubbed as Tighten, all while remaining disguised as Bernard and getting closer with Roxanne. But as it turns out, Hal was mainly interested in becoming a hero just so he could get with Roxanne, which she rejected. During this time, Minion left Megamind’s side after he was continuously hanging out with Roxanne and beginning to feel like not being the bad guy anymore. But Roxanne ended up finding out Bernard was Megamind all along and also turned her back on him.

Soon after, Megamind confronted Tighten, only to learn he didn’t want to be a hero after Roxanne rejected him and noticed she was dating someone else. This is when Megamind revealed the truth, revealing he was his space dad all along and that he was also the man dating Roxanne, and Tighten was extremely angry about this. Megamind and Tighten battled, but Megamind lost and escaped after Tighten attempted to kill him. After meeting up with Roxanne to learn about Metro Man from her so he could defeat Tighten since he has no way to power him down since Megamind misplaced the Defuser, they went to Metro Man’s old hideout, which just so happened to be Megamind and Metro Man’s old school. Only to find out that Metro Man was alive all along! Dun Dun DUNNNNN!

Turns out, Metro Man faked his death since he was tired of the constant cycle of battles between him and Megamind, feeling he had no free choice to be who he wanted. He found that this new life of playing music and living in seclusion was his true calling. He felt that Megamind should also find his own true calling, but this was just crushing to Megamind and he turned himself in to the authorities. But after witnessing Roxanne under Tighten’s captive, he apologized to the prison warden about everything he’s ever done wrong, only for his apology to be accepted since the warden was just Minion all along.

They then faced down Tighten, only for Megamind to seemingly die after getting impaled. But suddenly, Metro Man showed up in the nick of time to save Roxanne. After going off to battle Tighten, it turned out the Megamind that got impaled was just Minion in disguise, and Roxanne figured out Metro Man was just Megamind in disguise, which failed after Tighten figured it out. All hope seemed lost, that is until Megamind found the Defuser in the invisible car he couldn’t find, and just when the opportunity was right, he took away Tighten’s power and defeated him. This made Megamind’s Metro City’s new savior and he would continue to fight crime as their hero, taking on the likes of the Doom Syndicate and truly showing that a villain just needs the right people in order to be the good guy.

Experience & Skill

Gru

With the history of several movies, there are plenty of skill feats to discuss around Gru’s end, so for better comprehensiveness so to speak, it’s safe to separate it into several categories.

All of Gru’s bigger fights, evil schemes and even just having such a convoluted dungeon in his home, required him to possess an intellect far greater than one of an average individual. Sure he is not behind all of his inventions – after all, some of them were made by Dr Nefario instead – but he is still the one who created a lot of his convoluted gadgets, like the Cheese Ray and Stink Bomb, and his high-speed scooter that can transform into a jet! He’s even invented stuff that doesn’t have a physical explanation, like a Joystick that can control anyone of his choosing. Keep in mind, all of this was made when he was still just a child.

As he was growing up, he only got smarter. To steal the moon, he devised a plan that was then carried out perfectly, involving a rocket that he designed alongside his henchmen. His criminal feats are so notorious to villains across the world that even his father was proud of his accomplishments, and that guy was descended from generations of legendary villains. His experience with villainy also proved to be useful in exposing other legendary villains, given with just his intuition he was able to figure out that El Macho was still alive. He also knew how to steal from Balthazar Bratt, a villain whose lair was filled with various defenses and such.

Speaking of stealing, if there is one thing Gru is known for the most, it’s the very successful heists he has pulled off unnoticed. While his most iconic heist involves stealing the moon, he managed to perform some other very complicated stealth missions as well, even dating back to his childhood. Not only was he able to act quickly and steal Zodiac Stone right under the Vicious Six’s nose, he was also able to successfully steal from the Bank of Evil while Wild Knuckles was pretending to be dying.

As he was growing up, his heist operations went even further. For instance, he was able to figure out where the shrink ray was being tested and steal it mid-experiment. Likewise, he devised a plan to use cookie bots to steal said shrink ray back from Vector, utilizing the girls’ cookie sales to do so. He has stolen a gem directly from Bratt, bypassing his defenses while teaching Dru the art of villainy. In a way, you can say that stealing and performing effective heists is one of Gru’s biggest gimmicks, to the point that he even performs them during direct combat confrontations.

On that note, it’s also worth establishing that given the huge roster of villains he has faced off with, Gru is a master of combat. From the Despicable Me 3 DVD, it’s established that he knows Kung Fu, Jiu Jitsu, Krav Maga and even…Thumb Wrestling? That’s new, but hey, even if you don’t believe the forbidden texts, there is more to back up these official claims. In his fights against Balthazar Bratt, despite losing the first encounter, Gru proved to be pretty on par with Bratt, despite Bratt casually beating trained soldiers to steal a diamond. Gru even outplayed Bratt at his own game in their next encounter. Not only did he start to kick Bratt’s ass while dancing, somehow he even managed to steal his signature weapon right in front of him. Frankly, there’s no physical explanation for how he pulled that off so quickly, yet somehow he did. His sneakiness, speed, and efficiency are just that insane.

He’s very quick to pull out and use whatever gun he has on hand, to deal with his opponent as quickly as possible or even counter their moves. Is the opponent too strong? Gru knows not to just throw punches and use his guns to put them down fast. One gun doesn’t work? Gru will go for another and try that instead, like he did in his fight against El Macho. Contrary to his usual more comedic behaviour, when Gru gets serious, his improvisational tactics and aim become practically immaculate. So much so that he even manages to scare villains off with how good at combat he is. It’s clear that he is AVL’s top agent nowadays, with how incredibly competent he has become in his fights.

Megamind

As the current main superhero protecting the citizens of Metro City and the former rival to the great and powerful Metro Man, one might expect for Megamind to be a pretty capable and intelligent guy. And you would be right, as he’s not called Megamind for nothing! Even when he was a mere child, he was capable of inventing plenty of nifty little gadgets and gizmos to solve his problems, such as the electric helmet and his notorious De-Gun, which he made at the age of 4. It’s no surprise his engineering skills are top-notch, given absolutely all his gadgets and machines are made by him and whatever scrap he can get his hands on. This can go as far as constructing tools on the fly if he lacks any on-hand, like a bazooka and a whole-ass targeting turret. Alternatively, he can use his skills to quickly hack into machinery.

Megamind has been battling Metro Man for decades, and has made at least 654 separate plans to defeat him. Thus, he’s developed quite a knack for fighting even if it’s not his expertise, managing to easily outmaneuver the Go Fish Gang while dancing, hold off Tighten in a sword fight, and fire his De-Gun precisely enough to bounce its shots off of a disco ball to take down two villains at once. He’s also quite stealthy, managing to take down one of the members of the Go Fish Gang by pretending to be a mannequin and sneak away from Tighten despite being in his direct line of sight seconds earlier.

He’s fast on his feet, managing to outwit the Doom Syndicate in numerous ways, like slipping his disguise watch onto one of them to make them look like himself, tricking Pier Pressure to dump cement on him, redirecting Lady Doppler’s electricity back at her with a metal wire that he lasso’d onto her foot from afar, overloading Lady Doppler’s abilities by spraying her with water so she shocks herself, and many, many more. Hell, one time he was trapped in a videogame simulation where the day would reset every time he did something good, and not only did he almost instantly figure out what was happening, but his first instinct when running into the Doom Syndicate was to instantly try to incapacitate them with the Dehydration Gun. When that didn’t work, he simply ran down the list of the De-Gun’s settings to repeatedly take them out before they could react… including fucking killing them with the Desintegration option LMAO.

He’s managed to weasel his way out of many life-or-death situations where he realistically should have died simply through his creative use of whatever tools he has on hand, which mainly comes from his tendency to always learn from his mistake despite every loss he’s suffered and utilizing previous gadgets or plans to their fullest potential. Be it defeating Tighten by dehydrating himself to survive a deadly fall and completely catch him by surprise, or talking the Doom Syndicate into fighting each other to give himself time to escape despite having no real tools on-hand at that moment. His manipulative tactics allowed him to casually escape prison at the start of the original movie, sending himself the Disguise Watch and predicting the Warden would keep it for himself, just to then activate it to fool the guards into believing the Warden was Megamind. Or shortly after, where he built an entire fake observatory to take Roxanne into, knowing that she’d snitch their location to Metro Man, just to lure Metro Man into the real observatory for his Death Ray.

In general, he is quick to opt for the big guns if he finds himself in sticky situations and has immediate access to them, though he tends to prefer relying on his evasive tools first and formulating a plan of attack. This was shown by him quickly jumping to hide in his Invisible Car when he was overwhelmed by Mega Megamind, which allowed him to lure the giant right to the Death Ray’s line of fire and destroy it, calling out for his Brain Bots to pull him to safety the instant his Battle Suit got defeated by Tighten. This helped him get away and eventually come up with an incredibly over-the-top diversion to fool Hal with the Disguise Watch and scare him away from Metro City (which only failed due to a single mispronunciation).

He also went into hiding when Machiavillain turned the entire city evil which let him regroup with his friend Keiko and take down Machiavillain with an ambush due to him not knowing Keiko had not been hypnotized. When the aforementioned (and incredibly handsome) Machiavillain took over Megamind’s Brain Bots and used them to terrorize the city, Megamind jumped into his Invisible Car and realized he could defeat them by taking down the antenna on his lair. Thus, he simply used his Death Ray to remotely snipe it with pinpoint accuracy instead of trying to go to the lair himself. In general, if Megamind has the option to, he will much more frequently try to slip away and plan ahead on how to take down a foe (which makes sense given the main guy he fought for decades was someone absurdly stronger and faster than him), be it with trickery or his surprisingly common spamming of the Death Ray.

If there’s one key-defining attribute to Megamind, it’s that he never stays down for the count, and always bounces back from any loss to get better.

Equipment

Gru

Freeze Ray

Gru’s iconic main go-to option is using his Freeze Ray at any minor inconvenience. As seen above, this Freeze Ray is capable of instantly creating ice and freezing a full body, locking it in a block bigger even than a person himself. But there’s a bit more to it; Gru can also freeze and stop movement of objects much bigger and hotter than himself and even freeze an entire pool with people in it along with the crowd sitting on chairs, making it fairly versatile to use even if the opponent is behind a larger contraption. One can even say that freezing a body or anything like that is a physical impossibility, considering how extremely low the temperature must reach to do so, as it reaches -100 °C. But Freeze Ray isn’t the only gun of Gru’s that gets wackier the more you look into it…

Fart Gun

You know what they say, silent but deadly. This Fart Gun creates a stench so bad it makes anyone fall unconscious, even Minions who are known to go through a lot (and moreover, lack an actual nose), or El Macho, one of the most dangerous villains off of his pure physical strength and endurance. The stench of the Fart Gun appears to be so strong it can even corrode metal. Not to mention that there are several fart guns too.

But believe it or not, Fart Gun can do a lot more than just fart, its another version that is also capable of shooting farts, has several other modifications, like completely changing your clothings, manipulating gravity, stealing objects from a person, even cloning everything that is around without a stop after just a single shot, and that is one of the weapons Minions pretty casually carry around. Sheesh!

Stink Bomb

If Gru ever wants to give the stink a bit more AoE, he can always use his gas filled bombs, strong enough to let out a stink that covers a whole movie theater. Although it is less potent than his fart gun, its smell is still strong enough to the point everyone ran away from the scene and one guy was even knocked out by it. Gru is aware of how much it stinks so he carries a gas mask with him just in case.

Disintegrator Gun

Does what it does as seen above, disintegrates targets.

Air Gun

Air Gun is probably the most simple gun in practice for Gru as it mostly just shoots winds of air. Gru still is pretty creative with it as he can either use it to boost himself in the air or blow away his opponents.

Magnet Gun

Another gun invented by, yet again, Dr. Nefario. This cartoonish looking gun with a magnet attached to it will shoot ranged beams that attract anything made of metal, like pulling out metallic platforms for Gru to jump onto, although they don’t stay for very long. He’s even capable of making his own Minions magnetic with it, though against regular people… they sort of just get electrocuted and die. Most devastatingly, it seems to be capable of completely shutting down robots to the point they malfunction and explode! Attractive isn’t it?

…Get it? ATTRACTIVE?… Party poopers.

Web Gun

The Web Gun is yet another gun that seems simple, but is actually fairly versatile. As the name implies, it shoots webs that can stop movement. However, aside from preventing movement, it can also close holes so that instead of projectiles being shot, a weapon will just explode instead. He can even use it on his own Minions, whether he needs to hold them in place, or make some other construction like a web trampoline which can redirect explosives. Nifty and shifty addition for Gru’s heists, that about wraps it up.

Cheese Ray

Before the freeze ray, Gru had his trusty delicious cheese ray which he can use to cheese everyone and cover them in cheese. Cheesy.

Sticky Fingers

No, not the JoJo Stand. One of the earliest inventions of the genius Dr. Nefario, this gun is capable of shooting green goo shaped like a hand, to grab or pull any object or very valuable, powerful items. It also can mimic the opposite hand of the user.

Zodiac Stone

An amulet that Gru stole from the Vicious Six, this is an ancient artifact that works at midnight of Chinese New Year. It possesses the power to transform anyone into one of the twelve Chinese zodiacs. The Vicious Six used it to transform themselves into a dragon, ox, tiger, monkey, and snake. They were also able to make a mockery of Kevin, Stuart, and Bob by transforming them into a rabbit, rooster, and a goat. Unfortunately for the Six, the trio managed to get the upper hand, and Gru ended up transforming them into rats. Later during the “death” of Wild Knuckles, the Anti-Villain League took the stone from Gru.

Heat Ray

A huge gun Gru used to destroy a small saucer at a fair to help Agnes win a stuffed pony. It can create explosions this big. In Minions Rush, it can destroy many obstacles in its path.

Rocket Launcher

A rocket launcher that Gru once used to shut up the Minions from playing with fireworks in the middle of the night.

Shrink Ray

This gun, as the name says, shrinks its target to tiny sizes. It’s so potent it can shrink the moon in seconds. He can even use it as a turret and can undo effects of other shrinking technologies. Even capable of targeting multiple targets at once if they’re close or touching each other. Worth establishing that only a chosen object gets shrinked down, so for instance if a car or a plane get shrinked down, people inside of it do not, and if not quick enough a shrinked down object would crush them. Another thing worth establishing is Shrink Ray’s Nefario Effect – the higher the mass of the object is, the faster it will grow back to the original size, which is why it took only a few hours for the moon to grow back to normal. One could take it as a hindrance but considering that even the moon, which, you know, is big and heavy as hell, took several hours to turn back to its original state, objects of a smaller caliber would need to wait several days if not weeks to recover.

Laser Gun

A pretty simple laser gun. Fires a laser that is used to cut through roofs and junk. It would probably hurt if it was aimed at a person, just saying.

Jelly Gun

A gun that fires a jelly produced by Gru and Dr. Nefario, which was originally a scrapped project due to how horrible it tasted. But it was repurposed for these guns after El Macho captured a majority of Gru’s Minions, and the jelly was combined with the antidote for PX-41 serum. The guns are similar to that of assault rifles, in that they fire the terrible-tasting jelly at a fast rate and have a mild amount of recoil.

Lipstick Taser

Received from his coworker/lovely wife, Lucy, this taser hidden behind what seems to be like a lipstick despite the very small size is actually pretty powerful. Its electricity is capable of immediately knocking out not only Gru himself, but also El Macho, who is known to be fine while drinking alcohol with snake’s poison while breaking a truck that accidentally crashed into him.

Moreover, it knocked out not just base El Macho, but El Macho powered by a special formula that made any species go extremely violent, as well as much more powerful and endurable. Minions powered by a serum like that could tank essentially anything, even a nuke, and yet somehow this Lipstick Taser happens to be more powerful.

Joystick

Found within Gru’s lab, and designed by Gru himself, this is no ordinary joystick, as the moment it is activated a person becomes a player who can play as any physical person of their choosing. And by playing we mean physically controlling all of their movements simply by pressing buttons, like in a videogame! No handicap, no nothing, just pick a target and bam you can control them like a puppet. A person who is controlled is still conscious and aware but physically is unable to do anything against the joystick’s control.

Reality Warping Remote

Despite having a single button, this remote is capable of doing…a lot. By pressing it you can not only switch your channel but also turn on and off other technologies, and as you can guess, even manipulate reality to some extent, changing not only weather/environment from sunny to storm to winter to a desert, but also changing the person himself, either by making him dress differently with different objects or just, turning into an inanimate object, like an ice cream!

It is important to note that it does it by sending infrared signals to whatever user desires to change, and it is potentially possible to reflect those signals via a mirror, but for other intents and purposes the remote is extremely dangerous and certainly one of Gru’s wild cards.

The Atominator

The Atominator is an invention created by Gru, presumably to show off at first, but later used to combat Vector after the invention had been insulted. What it does is basically shoot a beam that teleports the user wherever they want, such as when Gru beamed his Minions to Vector’s fortress in order to steal his invention (which was capable of stealing the internet itself somehow-).

But it can get a bit weirder, as the device is also capable of sending people inside of computers or a cyberspace of sorts by ‘pixelizing’ them, even capable of sending multiple targets at once. And that’s before the upgrades it got from Vector’s tamperment which as stated by Gru can “send his house, lab and all of his minions into Cyber-Oblivion!” Of course they defeat Vector  by sending him to cyberspace, and take the weapon back for themselves, now better than ever!

Vehicles

• Grumobile: Gru’s preferred method of transportation. It is a large vehicle with his logo attached to it. With a top speed of 400 MPH, it is equipped with a rocket booster to “cut through traffic” as Gru says, and is large enough that it contains 54 seats for the Minions.
• Airship: A good villain or super spy in this case would find use in this aircraft. It obviously allows Gru to fly a great distance, comes equipped with a mechanical hand that a Minion controls with levers, preferably used to steal valuable weapons, can lock onto targets and fire bullets and even a massive number of missiles and nukes. In the video game, it can be equipped with a forcefield to block incoming attacks.
• Scooter: As a kid, Gru built himself a nice-looking scooter that he can turn into a full blown rocket that lets him fly, packed with boosters to increase its speed.
• Rocket: A rocket Gru and his minions have built to fly fast enough to reach the MOON in a quick session. Although it may look useless, the Despicable Me video game showcases that the rocket can shoot lasers to blast other ships, and even fire out the shrink ray as a turret.
• Grucycle: Vroom vroom
• Villain Wheels: A pretty awesome golden vehicle created by his own dad, mainly used for villainy. Just like many of Gru’s vehicles, it’s packed with missiles capable of knocking back giant mechs, rockets to boost the speed which can also thrust the vehicle in the air. Not just that, it’s capable of turning into a drill to burrow underground, fly in the air across countries, cause its wheels to inflate to stay afloat on water, comes with a grappling hook and the wheels can also become spiked to stay onto walls and stated by Dru can tank nuclear blasts. Pretty nifty.

Stealth Suit

What better way than to go on a heist? Certainly not better than this suit! Given to him by his brother (he keeps the suit by the end of the movie for the record), Gru was able to infiltrate Bratt’s home. The suit demonstrates the following functions:

• Sticky Mode: Allows Gru stick onto surfaces, like Spider-Man!
• Camouflage Mode: The suit perfectly blends in with the environment, if Gru closes his eyes and covers his mouth while in this mode, then identification scanners wouldn’t be able to see through it.
• Hover Mode: The top of the suit inflates, allowing for air mobility if Gru ever wants to go higher. It can also be used to inflate the body which is capable of deflecting rockets.
• Laser Cutter: A laser cutter on the finger that lets him cut through walls.
• Holographic Map: The suit is capable of projecting a map that shows Gru the ways in order to find the object he’s looking for to steal.
• Wing Suit: During the credits scene, Dru uses the suit’s function to spread out wings that let him glide.

Minion Mayhem Training Items

The Despicable Me: Minions Mayhem ride found at Universal Studios contains a multitude of fun and interesting pieces of equipment that Gru and crew use to prepare a new batch of Minions for the despicable life in front of them. These items include:

• Minion Transmutation Ray: This powerful device is able to fully transform everyone on the ride into a Minion.
• Water Cannons: They’re pretty good at blasting people away.
• Giant Fly-Swatters: Perfect for squashing Minions during training.
• Boxing Gloves: These giant spring-loaded boxing gloves are more than capable of sending people flying.
• Anti-Gravity Room: Man, Gru’s lab must be absolutely gigantic. Anyway, this room somehow lacks gravity, and thus can lead to some fun shenanigans.
• Crushers: Supposed to crush things.
• Saw Blades and Missiles: When it comes to slicing and kaboom-ing people, these tools are just what you need.

Despicable Drivers Power-Ups

A pretty obscure racing web game but still comes packing with some neat things regardless. Gru (and by extension, Mel) drive in their respective vehicles, racing each other toward the finish line with the usage of some pretty nifty power ups. Those being:

• Bazooka Candy Box: A bazooka with bubblegum inside, once shot out it will leave the opponent stuck to the floor for a few seconds.
• Juicy Drop Pop: Leaves a trail of sour dipping behind as Gru propels ahead of the opponents.
• Ring Pop: Let’s Gru burst through obstacles with no problem (while creating a forcefield that blocks anything).
• Jumbo Ring Pop: Causes the opponent’s vehicle to spin out of control once bumping into them.
• Jumbo Push Pop: Lets Gru’s vehicle leap over obstacles.
• Bottle Pop: Gives him a speed boost during the race.
• Unicorn: Gives Gru all the power ups at once.

Misc. Items

• Flamethrower: BURN BABY BURN!
• High Tech Goggles: Goggles that Gru can use to scan and analyze foes and the dangers of the objects they’re holding while he’s hiding. They can function like an X-Ray too.
• Mace:  He has a mace! Can be used to crush someone’s foot and make ‘em go OUCH!
• Gas Mask: A gas mask to protect him from his own fart grenade’s stench, which is strong enough to knock someone out.
• Several Robots: Gru has several robots running around in his house as shown in the DS game. And in one of the training sessions with the Minions, it’s shown that he has a giant robot in his lab seemingly capable of packing missiles and a buzzsaw.
• Mech: Gru has a pretty big mech in his lab that’s equipped with missiles (as if he needed any more)
• Jetpack: A jetpack Gru used to get over Vector’s wall. A Minion was also shown using one.
• Swords, Spears, Axes, Chainsaws & More: His house has tons of these hanging on his wall.
• Vacuum Rocket: It is a rocket disguised as a vacuum, if a person holds onto it as Gru pushes a button, they go flying and KABOOM!
• Gun: Something Gru supposedly has since he was going to shoot Balthazar Bratt in the face with it, but he accidentally had a water gun after the gorls swapped it out.
• Goop Grenade: In Despicable Me 4, Gru uses a weapon at the start of the movie called Goop Grenade, that launches a slime bomb at his opponent, and after the slime hits his target, it hardens, immobilizing foes that are hit by it. Additionally, this gun seems to come with a net launcher to surround his opponent with a net, also a method of immobilization.

Megamind

De-Gun

SHOOT THEM WITH THE- what do you mean its not actually called the Dehydration Gun? Yeah, Megamind’s signature weapon which he created when he was 4 can do a lot more than just dehydrate people, though that IS what we primarily see it used for.

Its Dehydrate function condenses a target, living or not, into a small inanimate cube. This process can be reversed by water or strangely enough vitamin infused sports drinks, but the target is entirely incapacitated while dehydrated. It can even affect multiple objects at once, like piles of trash or tree roots. According to Minion, when enemies or objects get shrunk, they’ll take a few days to unshrink if they’re not hydrated. It even has a rapid-fire mode, but Megamind can’t actually control and aim it right, plus it makes it unable to shoot over time (presumably because of running out of ammo faster) making it more of a downside.

Though its functions are not limited to Dehydrating people, as it has other notable options. Megamind doesn’t use these as much, to the point that admittedly, we still don’t know how some of the De-Gun’s settings operate. Thus, the ones that lack a description just remain unused. These include:

• Death Ray
• Debilitate – Isn’t directly shown its capabilities but presumably is the one gun that stuns foes when shot.
• Decoupage -“The art of decorating an object by gluing colored paper cutouts onto it” -Wikipedia
• Decompress
• Deep Freeze – As the name implies, freezes stuff, as it was able to create a small ice block around one of the fish guys.
• Delete – Pretty much just “deletes” chosen object, can be as large as a building but also needs specifications given when Megamind “deleted” a car, the driver inside of a car was completely unharmed.
• Demoralize – Makes people completely depressed
• Deregulate
• Desintegrate – I don’t think that’s how you spell it but sure man. As the name implies it disintegrates objects, just like it did with a car at one point… and the Doom Syndicate.
• Destroy – The simplest feature since it primarily shoots projectiles to defeat foes, nothing more. When amped by Megamind’s car, it can create sky-blotting explosions.
• De-Electrocute – It shoots electricity for some reason.
• De-Balance – Makes people lose their balance.
• De-Gravity – As the name implies, removes the force of gravity affecting the target, which is what Megamind used to save a person from a fall.
• Decelerate – Slows down whoever it’s gonna hit.

Infuser/Defuser

A weapon capable of imbuing someone with all the powers of Metro Man, at least once (it seems to be a one time thing). More usefully though, it can also suck out genetically-imbued superpowers from people, “defusing” alterations to their DNA, and while it usually requires getting up close to use, certain side-media depicts it working from a distance too.

Electric Helmet

A helmet Megamind made when he was only a child, capable of emitting an electric aura that ensnares and deflects projectiles, with enough force to easily smash through windows.

Disguise Watch

A watch that allows Megamind to scan someone’s features and perfectly disguise himself via a hologram, or slip it onto someone else to sow confusion by disguising them remotely; it can be temporarily interfered with if it gets wet. It also has a gadget option to shoot a microchip to make Megamind switch looks with whoever he chooses, but also apparently at the cost of losing his equipment, it does wear off after a few days.

Invisible Car

It’s a car! It turns invisible! This baby is a quadruple-exhaust sabre-tooth-grilled bulgemobile, marked with a monogrammed “MM” medallion covering a V-24 engine, which apparently contains a “cold fusion generator” that can be strapped to his weaponry like the De-Gun to massively amp their power. Its invisibility is somehow as much of a hindrance as it is a benefit, because Megamind originally forgot where he parked it. Whoops.

The Invisible Car also makes for a good hiding spot and is also undetectable by scanners, like when Megamind and Minion were hiding from Mega-Megamind and it couldn’t detect them. In other outings, it’s been shown tough enough to ram into incoming motorcycle-riding goons and agile enough to avoid dangerous explosives.

Knockout Spray

An advanced spray canister that can render people instantly unconscious.

Forget-Me-Stick

An advanced weapon that can render people instantly unconscious. By giving them a severe concussion.

Tesla Glove

A glove that utilizes electricity which can disable or defeat enemies, as well as interact with electrically powered devices to turn on or shut them down. When firing lightning, the arc can chain up to four enemies together.

Blower Glove

A glove that can push objects or enemies away with a blast of wind. Even toxic clouds can be cleared away by this glove, but only temporarily.

DNA Tracking Machine

A machine that can track the DNA signature of someone down using a combination of their own DNA and a map.

Reversalator 5000

In case Megamind wants to give someone else a change of heart, he can put them inside of the Reversalator 5000 to completely reverse their nature. It’s capable of turning the most hardened criminal into a boyscout, a venus fly trap into a sweet-smelling rose, and Minion into an evil villain who wants nothing more than to beat Megamind.

Roxie-Bots

Thousands of fake Roxanne copies that Megamind spread out across the whole city, they will lash out and attack anyone who comes near them. Later on, Megamind would recycle them to hold Roxanne hostage and destroy her if Metro Man were to step off a pressure plate… which didn’t quite work out for him.

Atomic Energon Drill

Originally serving as the horn to Megamind’s failed invention, The Equestrinator, Megamind would repurpose it as one of the many tools he’d use to try and destroy Metro Man. We never quite see it in action, but presumably it’s a really strong drill.

Death Ray

A powerful satellite that can go up to 900 million volts and fires a Death Star-esque beam fueled by the FULL CONCENTRATED POWER OF THE SUN! …after warming up for a minute. But, after some upgrades, it could instantly fire without needing to wait for a long time, albeit not at max power. While Megamind only uses it to fire at the observatory in the original film, later media like Megamind Rules establishes it has a precise targeting system capable of hitting the antenna to Megamind’s lair without damaging anything else (though Machiavillain reprogrammed it to hit a nearby comet instead). It can also serve as a regular satellite, transmitting a consistent frequency over an area of at least 250 square miles, which Machiavillain used to hypnotize all of Metro City and planned to turn the whole world evil with.

Another fascinating aspect is how weirdly consistently the laser is noted to be a beam of light, be it in the original cut screenplay, the Victory at Last book, the novelization, and the art book calls it both a “Sun Amplifier” and a laser.

Battle Suit

A big black mech, sitting at 100 feet tall, capable of throwing hands with and outmuscling Tighten, sending him across the city with a backhand. Megamind controls it through the right glove on his Black Mamba suit, making it sync up with his movements, which allows it to be incredibly mobile and somehow sneaky enough to escape Tighten’s line of sight despite being right in front of him. In case anything goes wrong, it can eject him from its gluteus maximus and into safety. It also comes equipped with fireworks and energy beams! These energy beams are capable of destroying a pillar holding up city hall.

It even comes with speakers to play AC/DC!

Hoverbike

It’s a… bike? I think? It hovers! Pretty well actually! It’s also tough enough to slam into incoming cars or trucks with little regard for collateral damage.

Jetpack Suit

A suit that lets Megamind go toe-to-toe with Tighten! …in theory. It was able to keep up with and even outpace him, but it broke on impact when trying to actually land a hit.

Metro Man Suit

After Megamind became Metro City’s hero, he needed his own super secret superhero super suit. This is based off of Metro Man to replicate all his powers, thus it comes with jet boots for flight, super strength gauntlets which are strong enough to lift up a giant robot and throw it into the atmosphere (and then let Megamind survive said robot crash landing on him), and x-ray/laser vision.

Mega-Cyclonizer

Created in the Megamind mobile game, the Mega-Cyclonizer can generate powerful gusts of wind to blast away incoming foes.

Atomic Scepter & Mega Blaster

Megamind’s bread and butter weapons in Blue Defender; the Mega Blaster for range and the Atomic Scepter for up close engagements.

…There’s not really much to add to that.

Electric Lasso

An electric whip that lets Megamind stun large groups of enemies around him, or swing over gaps like Spider-Man.

Fusion Bouncer

A mid-range weapon that lobs explosive orbs.

Expand-O-Matic

A device that sends out large homing bubbles, which um. Inflate enemies into balloons, disarming them and leaving them helpless.

Doom Barrage

A heavy-duty multishot missile backpack.

Bio Essence Neutralizer

A seemingly upgraded version of Megamind’s knockout spray, capable of not just knocking out but inducing amnesia and removing foes of their powers; given its name, we can assume it reverts their biology to a “default” state, removing any genetic modifications.

Instinkerator

Seems familiar…

Regardless, this cannon can fire powerful stink gas that forces victims to imagine the most vile, disgusting smell possible, subsequently stunning them in place for a while and possibly knocking them out.

Shockin’-Awe Glove

A glove that, as the name implies, fires out powerful electricity to shock incoming threats. It seems to be particularly effective on technological foes, causing them to explode.

Tickle-Kinesis Glove

By channeling tickle power, this glove can be used as a form of telekinesis, lifting enemies up, throwing them out of the fight, and even bringing down an entire flying machine. This telekinesis even works to remotely hack into tech without needing to make physical contact with it, which is frankly kind of unfair, though it does require there to be an exposed panel for Megamind to target.

Just as dangerous is its ability to stun foes, leaving them paralyzed by an onslaught of giggling fits. When Megamind faced grunts that had been genetically-altered to be resistant to his weaponry like the Shockin’-Awe Glove, he could use the Tickle-Kinesis Glove to stun them and suddenly make them vulnerable to the Dehydration Gun, making it a great option for setting up his winning tools.

Mega-Shield

If he’s ever in a pinch, Megamind can instantly activate this Mega-Shield to block just about any danger, while additionally zapping and exploding anyone who tries to touch it. He can even activate it while firing a turret, making it quite convenient in most situations, and most notably, because its ability specifically repels attacks, it can conduct the things like energy attacks right back from whence they came, destroying whatever was attacking him in the first place, with it working against the Conductor’s Dischord Rays… whatever those are. Its main drawback is that Megamind can’t keep it active 24/7, as it runs on a limited charge, but it does automatically recharge itself when not in use.

Laser Gauntlet

This nifty gauntlet, as the name implies, shoots a laser beam, but also it shoots short laser blasts that can explode!

Portal Bazooka

A bazooka that fires large portals, enough to engulf a veritable tank, then keeps its targets trapped within its strange weird green dimension until Megamind decides to shoot out an exit portal.

Particle Collider

This stationary object inside of Megamind’s lair is a Particle Collider that, according to Megamind himself, can atomize anything, and also doubles as a latte maker! But as you can also notice from its design you must put something/someone first inside before atomizing, as well as it needs time to actually charge.

Time Destabilizer

This Time Destabilizer Megamind himself considers extremely dangerous, but the only thing we do see it do really is just sending objects either backwards or forward in time. Just like with the Particle Collider, the object must also be placed inside first however.

Cloning Machine

Inside of his lair, Megamind has a cloning machine, which after adding a little bit of DNA can make clones. They can adjust traits like intelligence and persistence too, It can also combine molecules of clones to create one gigantic clone. However it’s important to establish that it can create only one clone at a time.

B.I.N.K.E.Y.

That small object Megamind was given as a baby, also known as Blue Ion Nano Kinetic Energ-Y, or B.I.N.K.E.Y. for short, is perhaps Megamind’s strongest object that is considered one of the most powerful energy sources in the universe, possessing unlimited power which Megamind himself admits to not fully understanding. By using it Megamind himself as a baby was able to break walls for prisoners to escape. And later on it was a source of power for other objects, whether it be a prototype of a De-Gun, or his Electric Helmet and presumably more.

The energy has been used across multiple games, anything from upgrading Megamind’s weapons to even healing his wounds. It can not only power all sorts of machines that it is plugged into, but as shown by Machiovillain, it can be used as an energy source for certain powers to achieve absurd feats of strength (see Feats).

Metro City Madness Items

Like all good marketable franchises, Megamind has some Flash games that he can draw tools from, which will all be listed below.

• Shields Up: A forcefield that makes Megamind’s Battle Suit invulnerable to damage for roughly 10 seconds. Megamind can collect up to 5 of these.
• Repair: Will instantly fix all damage taken by the Battle Suit. Megamind can collect up to 5 of these.

Mega-Team Unite Power-Ups

In Megamind: Mega Team Unite, the Brainbots can deliver Megamind and friends a variety of power-ups.

• Mega Mode: Makes your attacks more effective by enabling charged attacks to be instant attacks.
• Rapid Fire: Makes your projectiles more effective by shooting more rapidly than normal.
• Speedy Runner: Makes you run at mega speed.
• Doubler: Gives you double the score for everything you do.
• Invulnerability: Makes you invulnerable to attacks.

Misc. Items

• Terror Teddy: As seen here, it’s a teddy bear with retractable spikes.
• Bootwheel of Death: A wheel that has multiple boots attached to it, nothing more.
• Flamethrower: Pretty self explanatory, but it seems to have a mind of its own.
• Plunger Shoes: Useful for walking up buildings.
• Electric Hamster Ball: A nice and large tesla ball for Megamind to roll around in, protecting him from dangerous explosives.
• Clean Bot: It’s a robotic broom that cleans things really well. There’s not much to say here.
• Dynamite: While they don’t look like much, these nifty little sticks were able to blow a huge hole straight through the wall of a dam so they’re certainly nothing to sneeze at.
• Minion Scanner: In case you’re ever feeling a little anxious about a friend then this handy dandy scanner will help you keep track of his location at all times.
• Sticky Bomb Gun: Everyone’s been in sticky situations and they’re not exactly the most fun things in the world. However, this gun is one of the most fun things as it can make any target sticky and constrained. Megamind also made an anti-sticky bomb spray just in case.
• Suped Up Dog Collar: Megamind used this bad boy to knock out an evil minion.
• Laser Cutter: Just your average laser gun that cuts glass, nothing to see here.
• Intelligence Booster: As the name implies, this spray boosts someone’s intelligence, to the point that it was able to make average cockroaches more intelligent, as they were even able to speak human language.
• Smoke Grenade: A grenade that fills a pretty short but wide area with smoke.
• Scrap Ray Helmet: This helmet is capable of plenty of things, like shooting a substance that melts objects down. Practically this helmet is made out of all of Megamind’s scrapped weapon ideas, like the “Flip-Over Ray” which flips objects , the “Flower Bouquet Ray” which spawns flowers, a beam that turns objects into balloons, the “Lemon Ray” that turns objects into lemons, “Stage Fog” and even just spawning sharks!
• Bubble Gun: Shoots a slow bubble which explodes on contact…but said explosion only really pushes stuff.
• Sticky Spray: Makes whatever is sprayed to stick to objects, which allows Megamind to stick to walls so that he could escape. Worked for around 20 seconds or so.
• Cryo-Wand: A metallic wand that freezes objects in contact… but it also fails to freeze a guy made of magma and instead gets completely pulverized by his touch.
• Megazooka: A bazooka built out of scraps by Megamind which supposedly can shoot up to space given Megamind could even aim directly at a satellite with it. However we don’t see him using it as it gets destroyed by Roxanne immediately.
• Shrink Bomb: get shrinked idiot
• Balloon Ball: By pressing a button on his funky little belt, Megamind is able to project a bunch of funny little balls around him to act as a shield. Ough he’s so big.
• Freeze Ray: You might be asking hey isn’t that the other guy’s shtick? Well you’d be right but Megamind has shown that he’s cool enough to help prevent train accidents with it. Isn’t that nice of him?
• Head Zeppelin: A giant zeppelin with screens and loudspeakers to project Megamind’s unbelievable ego. It was unfortunately destroyed when Metro Man sniffed really hard.
• Flash Grenade: I thought it was a paperweight.
• MEGA Grow: A formula from his official collaboration with FarmVille, it will make any crops it is planted on instantly grow to completion. He also has a whole-ass farm, but I didn’t feel like listing that out.
• City Spaceship: Activated through the pressing of a red button, this past scheme of his will play a pre-recorded message to all of Metro City, covering it in an indestructible, invisible dome, and blasting it off into space. Once it’s in space, Megamind can turn the whole thing into one giant city-sized space ship for him to pilot, which he proceeds to crash down onto Earth.
• Illiteracy Beam: Something something insert fanbase
• Missile-Shooting Mechanical Donkey: It never made it to the main film. Tragic…
• Stolen Loot: According to official fun facts, Megamind has stolen The Ark of the Covenant, the Mona Lisa, the sleigh “Rosebud”, the Maltese Falcon, the Crown Jewels of England, Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, a “Face Melter” video game, a red Ferrari, a yellow scooter, several Emmy and Oscar awards, several Greek marble statues, Cezanne’s painting “Pyramid of Skulls”, a ten speed bike, Caravaggio’s painting “Medusa”, Fragonard’s painting “The Swing”, a self portrait of Rembrandt, the 2010 World Cup, a collection of Ming dynasty vases, and an original draft of the Constitution.

Brad Pitt Cardboard Cutout

I wanted to take this time to mention that the Megamind cast randomly mentioned in an interview that Brad Pitt will live for hundreds of years. This does not impact the debate. Have a good day.

Abilities

Gru

 Human Physiology
(Illumination)

That’s right, this is no joke. We can see that humans in Despicable Me have way more than what you would expect from an average human. The big thing being the fact that they are, on average, way stronger and tougher than they should realistically be. This is best demonstrated by the ridiculous feats they are able to perform. For instance, you might already know about the fact Gru can survive a multitude of rockets and weapons from Vector. Gru can also endure being slammed! Crushed! Repeatedly by his invention’s metal hands, and even other humans like Butler Fritz are able to survive being sent off by a rocket, and even endure the explosion like it was nothing. Another human, Master Chow, is powerful enough to hurt Stuart and make him fly through multiple trees, making holes in them. Scarlet is also another human that has knocked out multiple men (and the Minions) at once and has endured this punch from giant Kevin that sent her flying through buildings and even had one fall completely onto her. It’s insane, but surprisingly consistent within the franchise.

Additionally, they seem to have some level of resistance to a few things. The fact that they consistently tank explosives, and Gru being able to endure being set a flame by El Macho’s trap, should give them a degree of resistance to heat. Gru Jr. could shrug off mind control simply because of the strong emotion of love. The most notable one, though, is definitely their resistance to cold/freezing. You can see that, for example, humans are completely fine after being frozen by the Freeze Ray, not dying immediately by the fact Gru’s Freeze Ray is -100 degrees celsius. Some notable instances are Gru being capable of making himself walk despite being frozen, or Vector being capable of moving his eyes and head despite it being frozen. More impressive than that, however, is that Vector is completely fine in space even when half naked, which should normally freeze the human body instantly because of space’s temperature (-270 degrees celsius, which, for instance, is -3.15 degrees celsius away from absolute zero).

4th Wall Awareness

While Gru is not Bugs Bunnying around and manipulating his medium or anything like that, he is aware of his status as a fictional character. Most notably, in Despicable Me for the DS, Gru is completely aware that he is in a game and even directly talks to the player themselves, explaining his plan on getting his weapon upgraded by Vector through tricking him and even tries recruiting said player to work with him. Another instance would be when Gru smirked at the camera in one of the Saturday Morning Minions cartoons after blowing them up with a rocket.

Megamind

Double Jump

Megamind has the ability to double jump…for whatever reason.

4th Wall Awareness

Megamind does seem to interact with the audience quite a few times throughout his franchise. He has made technology capable of taking pictures of people in the real world (which you can try out here!!!), directly narrated to the viewers his whole life story at the beginning of the first film, and could see the faces of the audience watching his sequel before recapping the first movie to them. He’s also spoken with people through the official Facebook account, and one time, he even promoted and paid for an IRL advertisement to slander Metro Man, which makes you wonder where he’s even getting this money from.

Oh, and he did this too.

Resistances

• Poison: Megamind and Minion are capable of withstanding Judge Sludge’s toxic sludge.
• Electricity: He’s withstood Lady Doppler’s lightning and various electrical attacks throughout the games, giving him a solid resistance.
• Extreme Heat: He’s shaken off walking through fire before, and even massive explosions only leave scratches on him.
• Broadway Force: Unaffected by “The Hokey Pokey of Destruction”, a song so catchy it could force police officers to dance uncontrollably.

Minions

Gru

Dr. Nefario

“I mean, I’m happy to create an evil army to destroy the world. But nobody messes with my family.”

Gru’s long time lab assistant who has been working together ever since Gru was a child. Dr. Nefario usually provides Gru with his gadgets such as the sticky fingers, the cookie bots and the fart gun. However, given he’s a frail old man, he does have a notable hearing problem, notably when he constantly mishears Gru’s orders, like providing him with a fart gun instead of a dart gun. So how can he POSSIBLY be useful to Gru in a combat scenario?

Shown in the first Despicable Me movie, Nefario usually prefers staying in the air in Gru’s ship, ready to aid him whenever he’s in trouble. In the sequel, he straight up shows up in that same ship providing everyone with high tech weaponry such as the Jelly Gun to counter the Purple Minions. He’s also capable of curing biological mutations, such as when he got rid of that cockroach mutation from Gru’s son in the fourth film so yeah, he sure is a force to be reckoned with.

The Minions

“And that is how the Minions found their new boss. He was cunning, he was evil, he was perfect… he was despicable.” -Narrator

Since the beginning of time… these “tiny tater tots” are some of the first organisms to first step on our planet. Which soon led them to learn to have an international language naturally. Existing to serve one purpose and one purpose only: to serve the most despicable masters they can find! Making their masters happy is their reason for existence. The Minions have served bosses from nature’s perfect killer, humanity’s neanderthal, the blood sucking icon, and the shortest leader known to man… How did all of that go? Unfortunately these masters were killed in the process of their development. This failure led the Minions to isolate themselves in an ice cave for roughly 150 years.

By 1968, all hope was lost until a Minion named Kevin stood up and decided he was done with the isolation. With a speech, he declared his intention to leave the cave and not return until he finds his tribe the biggest, baddest, villain imaginable. However, Kevin needed help. His first companion, Stuart, was picked through being tricked while half awake. And while Kevin hesitated to pick the determined Bob due to the risk of endangering the weaker Minion, he ended up picking up the responsibility and taking him anyway. Kevin had given them something lost for over a century, hope. The trio set out across the world to look for a boss, before finding what they were looking for at a villain convention. Though not immediately, as they initially attempted to serve the villainess Scarlet Overkill, until a young mastermind froze her and won their allegiance in one fell swoop. From that day forward, it was Gru whom the Minions dedicated their full loyalty to.

Ever since then, the Minions have been Gru’s greatest allies. They are completely loyal to him, and are more than willing to help him if he’s in trouble. They have committed many selfless acts in order to save Gru, like chasing Lucy down after she had incapacitated and kidnapped him, or building an airship overnight to escape prison out of the sheer love for him after they vowed they would never see him again. By now they have stopped caring about villainy entirely due to now working for the Anti-Villain League! Some could say that they stopped being simply just…  Minions, and became key integrants to a huge, cute family. How adorable!

Inherent Minion Traits

Amount: There are 10,400 Minions in total since Despicable Me 1-2.

Skills and Experience: As their backgrounds explained, this species has existed since the dawn of time and at the start of their birth, they would serve the most baddest bosses. For a Minion to decide its role with Gru Laboratories, they must go through a grueling training session testing their speed, balance, strength, underwater survivability, acrobatics, and improvisation! Roles consist: they can be lab rats, a heist team, a transporter, or… a janitor. They stay conditionally devoted to their master, especially Gru! The most disloyal Minion, Mel, ends up realizing that Gru cares for him. This would cause Mel to act as leader and with other Minions they would coordinate a plan to escape prison through stealthily stealing near a cop, bypassing security cameras, and using their environment to create a plane.

Keep in mind, they’ve been in prison for a while, they were able to recognize Bratt’s massive bubblegum leaping over Los Angeles as danger without knowing it would be a threat to Gru. They have also coordinated a plan to form a giant hand and a ladder! These Minions have shown to be fast on their feet to save Gru and others. Their loyalty is so good towards each other that the Minions will travel across the country for Gru’s prize possession and for Gru himself. They have also traveled across the world for their fellow Minions, displaying insane navigation skills.. Even in hide and seek. Although their personality is described as innocent and childish-like, they are actually surprisingly handy, smart enough to build the pyramids, a kid Gru’s lab and keep Gru’s current base well built. They invented Agnes’ jet engined bike, a sleigh with enough power to send someone to orbit, and a shampoo gun that can cover the whole neighborhood.

Design: The tribe’s clothing consist of fire proof gloves, water resistant overalls, steel toe working shoes, and those classic goggles to give them proper vision and overcourse their overalls, the overalls can be stretched to a good extent. The average Minion stands approximately 3 feet tall while others can be taller or shorter. The Minion’s physiology consists of a skeleton and agile speeds. They have a fire-resistant and immortal body tough enough to be indestructible no matter what is hit against them. Their bodies can be used as a source of light, they can also endure being stretched, squeezed, flattened, inflated, splat, low blows, bashed, zapped by electricity several times, withstand the temperatures of space, and have their insides interact with lava.

They can see ghosts, scream so loud they shatter all the windows in their neighborhood, and their bodies have no need for oxygen or food and water for a week. Crazier, the Minions’ stamina allows them to deliver presents all around the world; Furthermore, in the more present media, the Minions lack a nose despite what earlier films depict and they have a special awareness for BANANAS! This wouldn’t be a physiology section without abilities! The Minions have shown to interact with the fourth wall, create giant constructs out of themselves, pull their spirits back into their bodies, hypnotize people, they can pull anything they need out of anywhere, travel through time, pull themselves from the stone age to the present, and eat spices for fiery action

Arsenal

The Minions have shown possessing numerous weapons in the franchise. Those include:

• General Murdering Tools: Swords, axes, scythes, knives, rocket launchers and maces? Oh my!
• Disintegration Gun: Minions are shown carrying a disintegration gun which destroys large chunks of walls into nothing. It can also temporarily stun enemies.
• Anti-Gravity Suit: Minions have an anti-gravity suit capable of reversing their personal gravity to allow them to walk on ceilings.
• Wands: The perfect tool for a transmutation battle.
• Fart Guns: …Not what I would use to salute someone but to each their own.
• Freeze Rays: As one might expect, Gru’s most iconic weapon has been wielded by the Minions before . They even have their own version of it.
• Dynamites: KABOOM!
• A Sentient Shrink Ray: This ray is more than happy to float by the Minions’ side and shoot beams that shrink things into nothing.
• Surfboard: Have you ever wanted to shrink people while catching some waves? Well, this might be the right board for you as it’s equipped with two Shrink Rays that fire automatically.
• Sentient Fireworks: Minions can light up fireworks in the night sky! And in any shape too, like another Minion and even a multitude of sharks to attack anyone in their way.
• A Growth Ray: The opposite of a shrink ray!
• Smoke Bombs: They do about what you would expect.
• Water Hose: It’s capable of making things grow really large really quickly.
• Tablet: A touchscreen tablet with an app installed to destroy all opps by altering their width and length.
• Aging Serum: A serum developed by a Minion, and with a simple drop it will age anything at a rapid pace! Even the Minions themselves who are known to be incredibly old already thanks to their longevity.
• Minion Launcher: We just can’t have enough of these little guys, neither can they it seems.. The Minion is capable of shooting more Minions out!
• Power-Ups: Turning into a giant Minion, using a fluffy unicorn plush to fly, teleporting to the Moon, vacuums, shoes that amplify their speed, a forcefield to block a hit and even a golden shield that not only makes you invulnerable to any damage for an entire minute, but also capable of destroying anything in a Minion’s path.
• The Ultimate: A cool-looking guitar that a Minion can play while on top of a car that releases music notes from it that straight up erase OR teleport the obstacles in front of it away.
• Misc. Equipment: Bostaff, suitcases, punching gloves, armor and shield, laser-shooting watch, many methods of water projectiles, their own stealth suit (the one Gru has) and a gun for a perfect, instant sculpture!
• And probably way more because why the hell do they have so much

Unique Minions

Kevin: Declared as the bravest knight by Queen Elizabeth the 2nd, Kevin, is a Minion who loves video games, protecting his buddies, adventures, and hates disappointing Gru. So much so he went to save his kidnapped buddies, sacrificed himself to consume a lava missile, and influenced his trip to pick Gru over ultimate power. This is the Minion that led his tribe to their forever home and their iconic blue overalls. This forever alters the course they had put themselves in over a century ago. During their partnership with the vicious Scarlet Overkill, her husband, Herb, gives the trio unique gadgets. Kevin is given a lava lamp gun, a gun that shoots actual lava! This lava gun can tear down Gru Lab’s metal door and the queen’s wooden door; when this gun is clogged, it can be pulled for a good knockback! Trained under Master Chow, Kevin is the first to activate Master Chow’s shockwave technique and would be the first to lead the pack to unleash their inner beast through adrenaline alone, as well as move fast enough to not only leave fire trails but even create afterimages! Impressive because he and the other two below him adapted within less than a day.

Stuart: An egotistical guitar loving one eyed Minion and is one of the main 3 of the Minion trio. While asked to join Kevin’s little adventure he agreed despite not knowing what’s going on. Despite this he’s a very helpful companion with weapons he has such as a mind control hat that can control minds by seeing it with their eyes, mechanical baseball bats that can block incoming projectiles like baseballs, a staff that can open portals (tho he admittedly had trouble using it) and Vector’s gun that can suck food in and spit em out (tho anything too big can clog it). Just like Kevin, Stuart also has gone through Master Chow’s basic Kung Fu training, getting a boost in speed and strength as well as the ability to generate shockwaves.

Bob: The most innocent and cutest goober you’ve ever seen. While initially hesitated by Kevin to be chosen for their long journey, he ended up being picked anyway, lifting up his spirits. Bob is very optimistic, he loves playing with his teddy Tim, befriending animals and even hugging inanimate objects, he certainly has won the hearts of many but that doesn’t mean he’s not packing some serious heat. He’s shown proficient use in Gru’s freeze ray, carries around a rocket launcher like nothing, a button capable of summoning water, and has a stretch suit, capable of stretching his limbs to crazy lengths. And given his kind nature he’s even handed one to Gru, and most famously, is his very indestructible head, even more so than Kevin and Stuart! And much like those two Bob has also gone through basic Kung Fu training from Master Chow, giving him a significant boost in his strength and speed while also capable of generating powerful shockwaves to push enemies away from their boss through his inner beast. Oh and he can make others dance.

Dave: Pretty much the face of the Minions; the mascot! While Dave doesn’t show that many unique attributes compared to your average Minion, you can definitely make a case for him being one of the more experienced one given he’s the most loyal Minion to Gru and has been picked by Gru for several of his missions, he won the “Minion of the year” trophy in Minions Rush and funnily enough, is the only Minion to have been able to befriend a purple Minion! Of course not his only accomplishment, he once befriended a little baby saucer and was kind enough to help send a message to its family so it could fly home, while saddened the saucer gave him something in return that Dave would never forget, a giant pet ladybug as a gratitude for his kindness.

Otto: One very chatty Minion, but one Gru should be thankful to have by his side. Otto’s dedication to Gru is beyond what you would expect. For Gru, he’d travel kilometers of distance incredibly fast in a simple toy bike to help track down the Zodiac Stone.

Benny: Oh, boy. So, listen to this: what if I told you there was a Minion that could return by death? Well, not death, but still. Specifically on his birthday date, believe it or not. On February 8, Benny’s birthday is marked! Anytime this Minion faced dangerous situations, he’d reawakened on the very time he woke up. Benny’s day would constantly restart with the same situations played out. Benny used his previous knowledge to avoid those dangerous situations and put a stop to them. This would lead to him finally getting past the torture.

Scott: The wisest and oldest Minion of the bunch who has the smelliest farts. These farts were able to shake all of space!!!

Rich: I COUNT MONEEEY I COUNT MONEY

Dick: DICK

Resistances

• Extreme Temperatures & Cosmic Radiations: The Minions can be completely fine in space.
• Heat: As part of the job interview, Minions have to go through various obstacles which involve being set on fire which they have withstood consistently. One of the Minions was able to endure tasting a soup so spicy that it melted a metal pot. Hell, one of the Minions was literally being burnt by a flamethrower yet he didn’t care at all!
• Electricity: Minions have consistently tanked electricity too! Like from lightbulbs, wires, a headset. Two Minions straight up tanked a point blank lightning bolt, one of which vaporized a Minion’s short.
• Fragrance Manipulation: Minions are unaffected by the fart grenade’s stench, which was so horrible that it caused people to flee and pass out. They also have resisted the effects of the Fart Gun.
• Emotional Manipulation: A Minion could resist the effects of a cupid’s arrow, which makes those hit by it fall in love.
• (Debatable) Transmutation: The Minions have seemingly resisted the effects of Medusa’s stare, which petrifies whoever she looks at. Though, you can argue she didn’t specifically look at one of the Minions.

Mega Minions

“You will be the first to try out our super serum. Designed to transform you into elite agents with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.. or you might just explode.” –Silas Ramsbottom

If you didn’t think the Minions were already surprisingly tough, the Anti-Villain League had even bigger plans for these yellow creatures. The AVL picked 5 volunteering Minions to test their brand new super serum, which grants those who receive it powerful, brand new abilities. So, what do you get after injecting the Minions with this super cool serum? You transform them into the Mega Minions! Each one with a different power, they became AVL’s new hero squad. The Mega Minions include:

Mega Minion Dave: Twice the size of your average Minion, Dave is juiced up with superhuman strength. His strength can send Minions flying with ease after a single high-five, and he can even tear apart and bend metal bars, using them as a boomerang.

Mega Minion Mel: Mel is now capable of shooting out of his lens a devastating laser beam that burns through anything in his path. Not only can he slice up multiple trees at once with ease, but also burn straight through the entire planet to a satellite out of space! Incredibly powerful, I’d say.

Mega Minion Tim: Tim can now stretch and shape his entire body to amazing lengths. He can go through incredibly small gaps and swing around like Spider-Man (and stop a train, also like Spider-Man).

Mega Minion Gus: Gus’ head is now pointy, shaped like a missile; this Minion was granted the ability to freely levitate in the air and fly through the air.

Mega Minion Jerry: Perhaps the scariest of the Mega Minions. Jerry’s skin is now hard like a rock, and literally a rock. With his abnormal durability, he can walk through brick walls like they’re nothing, tank Mel’s lasers, and eat bricks, metal and dynamites like they’re candy, and create a roar of soundwaves that sends people and cars back.

Mega Minion Sam: Appeared in the credits. He’s just a little unicorn that sneezes rainbows. How cute!

Oh yeah, also somehow after getting out of their “retirement”, they made literal armies of seagulls, bees and bulls, and they’re more than willing to fight alongside the Mega Minions.           

Boogie Robots

“Cookie Robots.. I said cookie robots… why are you…why are you so…old…”

Robots that dance to Boogie Fever…and that’s pretty much what they’re capable of since Dr. Nefario misunderstood what Gru actually wanted, which were…

Cookie Robots

“Now THOSE are cookie robots!”

Robots created by Dr. Nefario that can climb on walls, hack into electronic devices, and have lasers that can open up walls…and seal them right back up since they have no sense of patience.

Anti-Villain League

“We are the Anti-Villain League, an ultra-secret organization dedicated to fighting crime on a global scale.”

After he stopped becoming a villain, Gru joined the Anti-Villain League to combat people that are what he once was. But AVL isn’t just something Gru works alone, he can communicate with them through a wrist watch, and also call them for aid in a fight. They come equipped with blasters, tasers, electric guns and traps to help Gru deal with threatening enough villains. They’re even aware of Gru’s status currently, and if needed, they send the help that Gru needs.

Megamind

Minion (Ol’ Chum)

Minion is Megamind’s lifelong loyal friend and sidekick. Created by Megamind’s Mother and one of the few things Megamind still has from his home planet, Minion clocks in at 800 pounds thanks to his robotic gorilla body that he controls. Unfortunately, he was forced to change his name to Ol’ Chum because of some Despicable Copyright issues.

Minion can shoot rockets, extend his limbs, and being in a robotic gorilla body makes him rather strong, enough to lift up and throw cars. He even has his own disguise watch, and if Megamind ever needs it, he can utilize some of his inventions for him, like when he activated the Death Ray from his Lair to defeat Mega Megamind. Unfortunately, he does have a pretty big weakness, since he is basically an otherworldly fish, he needs to be in water to survive. If the glass he is in breaks, it’s basically over for him unless he’s put into water… albeit, he can still hold his own surprisingly well outside of water, managing to take down the Go Fish Gang on his own, even if it wasn’t fully intentional.

Moreover, he acts as invaluable support to Megamind, usually carrying many of their tools, but also serving as great support from the sides.

Arsenal

• Laser Gun: In one of the Flash games, Minion carries a laser gun to shoot down rogue Brain Bots.
• Power-Ups: In the Minion’s Mission flash game, Minion is shown carrying around a variety of power-ups to aid him.
  • Fast Shot: Increases the firing rate of his laser gun.
  • Fast Run: Increases Minion’s own running speed.
  • Freeze: Freezes all enemies on-screen for several seconds, able to work on up to 72 Brain Bots (though likely more).
• The Lair’s Computer: In the Megamind Java game, Minion operates from Megamind’s Lair and provides invaluable support the whole time, the specifics of which will be listed down below.
  • Gadget Finding: So long as Megamind is close to one of his gadgets, Minion can detect any previously stolen or missing gadgets for him.
  • Enemy Detection: Minion can detect nearby enemies to warn Megamind, including entire crowds if it comes down to it. More notably, he can pin down the exact coordinates of a target even if Megamind doesn’t know where they are, then send those coordinates to things like Megamind’s car so he can find them.
  • Hacking: Minion could overwrite the circuits of the turret Megamind made to make it automatically target and shoot at foes. Whether he can freely do this to foreign technology is a tad unclear, but he can get into security systems to get info on their inner workings.
  • Location Analysis: He can seemingly map out locations Megamind is in and give him advice on where to go next, even identifying split-paths and how their length differs. He can also give Megamind warnings of any possible hazards that may reside within his vicinity.
  • Enemy Scanning: One of the most absurd things Minion can do, he is able to quickly get readings on an enemy Megamind is confronting to get crucial information, such as somehow detecting that an enemy had been genetically-altered to resist some of Megamind’s gadgets like the Shockin’-Awe Glove, or during the final boss fight, where he could analyze the Conductor’s powerful machine to search for any weaknesses, and within seconds, identify the fact that it could resist all of Megamind’s current tools, but that it could have its energy redirected by the Mega-Shield.
• Hokey Pokey Of Destruction: Giant speakers that force anyone who hears their music to dance. Except Megamind, of course.

Brain Bots

Megamind’s legion of personal bots! Despite their name, their heads are just filled with plasma, but they’re more than a capable army for the blue menace. According to Megamind, he designed them to be self-directed go-getters, capable of flight and with some nasty claws, this coordinated army will relentlessly pursue and take down Megamind’s foes, or immediately come to Megamind’s aid if he simply calls for them and fly him away to safety. They number close to 100,000, and each is equipped with Porta-Prisons, hard-light cage projectors that can trap the entire Doom Syndicate at once and mute people inside of it. [While this was done by Machiavillain, Megamind’s side would have his Brain Bots use these cages in the following episode.] They’re able to group up to form massive holographic images, record messages (and they’re apparently always recording everything they see), or catch Megamind from falls that would otherwise kill him. There’s also one more, slightly different Brain Bot from the rest called Polly-227, who is Minion’s personal pet! Just like your average Brain Bot, Polly can fly and create a Porta-Prison, and additionally he can also shoot lasers! Beyond this, the Brain Bots can shock people who try to touch them, shoot out fireballs or lasers, and somehow resist the effects of the Dehydration Gun??? Ok.

Overall, they’re an incredibly organized and capable unit that will follow Megamind to the bitter end.

Mega-Megamind

A gigantic robot Megamind built to combat Metro Man. This robot has Megamind’s own evil personality transferred into it and is programmed to not stop until it eliminates its target. This robot comes with scanners to detect their target, rocket fists, and a crossbow that can fire cars.

Spider-Bot

A robot that has a mind of its own and can also be piloted by Megamind. It’s quick on its feet, can bounce across buildings to avoid attacks, climb on walls and ceilings, is unaffected even by being hit by a car, and comes with a beam that can electrocute foes and awesome speakers. It also has a cannon that can fire the same De-Hydrate beam the De-Gun has.

Feats

Gru

Overall

• Stole and returned the MOON!
• Managed to freeze Scarlet Overkill and steal the Queen of England’s crown from her
• Became the Anti-Villain League’s top agent
• Gained the trust and respect of the Minions, more than any villain previously (plus surviving them for decades!)
• Became a good father, a loving husband, and above all, a far better person
• Defeated Vector, El Macho, Balthazar Bratt, The Vicious 6 and Maxime Le Mal
• Voiced by Steve Carell (GOAT)

Power

• Knocked out Vector’s shark with one punch
• As a kid, he knocked out a zodiac transformed Jean Clawed with a giant clock hand
  • Shortly after, he throws the clock hand hard enough to pierce concrete
• He can kick and throw around the evil, purple Minions
• He can barge through steel doors
• Kicked Bratt a good distance away
• Gru is strong enough to hold back two crushers with his bare hands to the point they malfunction and break, which were capable of crushing metal
• His Heat Ray was powerful enough to incinerate a carnival stand

Speed

• As seen above Gru dodged Vector’s several missiles
• Pretty quickly runs up a pyramid to catch up to Vector’s ship as it was hovering in the air
• Gru’s shrink ray shrank the moon in seconds (Mach 1990)
• Gru dodged buzzsaws while climbing
• His rocket can escape Earth’s atmosphere in a short time-frame (Mach 1846)
  • After removing its boosters, the rocket could reach the Moon even faster (nearly 17% SoL)
  • Gru can pilot the rocket through asteroid fields and dodge “lasers” and rockets while flying at top speed to the Moon in the video game, thus, scaling in reactions to the previous feats should be fine
• Laser feats (See Before the Verdicts)
  • Gru is capable of dodging “lasers” from robots
  • In his air ship, he can similarly react to “lasers”

Durability

• Vector’s Shark ate Gru with one chomp which he survived!
  • And pretty much all of Vector’s other traps
• Endured being inside his shrinking air ship
• Gru survives a beating from a big robotic hand
• Survived fighting El Macho’s chicken
• Survived this explosion from several rockets (40 tons – 4 kilotons of TNT)
• Endured Kevin and Tom’s shampoo explosion (0.83 Tons – 80 Kilotons of TNT)  
• Tanked Bratt’s guitar blast
• Gru’s villain wheels vehicle is stated to be able to “withstand nuclear blasts”

Megamind

Overall

• Became the last survivor of his planet
• Fought Metro Man for years (and ALMOST won sometimes!)
• Escaped prison countless times
• Became Metro City’s new savior
• Got the girl
• Defeated Tighten and the Doom Syndicate
• Finally remembered to use the Dehydration Gun
• Broke the Guinness World Record for most superheroes in one place.

Power

• Effortlessly throws Mega-Megamind into the air using the Metro Man suit
• Pushes a grand piano
• Can lift up to 100 Ibs
• Punches Tighten through a building in the Black Mamba
• Can lift and throw various items in Mega Team Unite such as Steel Cabinets and Cars
• After connecting the De-Gun to his car’s “cold fusion generator”, the Destroy setting created a blast that blotted out the sky (7.3 Gigatons of TNT)
• The Death Ray is stated to be able to burn entire planets and fires the heat of the Sun (Debatable but what the fuck)
• The Death Ray could knock a 10-mile wide comet straight towards Earth (9.3 Teratons of TNT)
  • His BINKEY, when used by Machiovillain, could destroy this same comet, and is stated to be a source of unlimited power (208.7 Megatons – 476 Gigatons of TNT)

Speed

• Runs out of the scene before Roxanne could speak to him
• Moves some Orangutans out of the way of some falling rocks
• Walked from Metro City to the Grand Canyon alongside Minion in a little under an hour
• Can dodge lightning from Lady Doppler and Roxanne using Doppler’s powers
  • Said lightning is capable of creating genuine thunder storms, indicating it has similar properties to real lightning.
• Laser/Relativistic Feats (See Before the Verdicts)
  • Can move in tandem with electricity in wires (25% SoL)
  • And did so again slightly faster (31% SoL)
    • The previous two values are reduced to 90% of the calc result to account for the fact that electricity in wires isn’t 100% lightspeed
  • Mega-Megamind was able to react to the Death Ray, which is stated to be light in multiple sources, right before it hit (1.38c)
• In one of the flash games, Baby Megamind is able to perceive and react to his surroundings while in his pod, and Baby Metro-Man is able to ram into and taunt Megamind using his (2.33% SoL – 3.59c) (Debatable; see Before the Verdicts)

Durability

• Survived a REALLY bumpy landing as a baby
• Got crushed under the boot of Mega-Megamind
• Survives getting knocked off a wrecking ball and crashing into his own fortress
• Got hit by a car and a train
• Gets launched by a stick of dynamite
• Got blasted by an insane amount of water straight into a hot dog truck
• Tanked getting crushed by a wrecking ball
• Survived this small building explosion
• Withstood a blast from Lady Doppler’s lightning

Scaling

Gru

The Minions

What better way to start than with Gru’s very own minions! Though they are more cartoony in nature compared to your average human in Despicable Me, Gru alongside the rest of the cast has shown to harm and keep up fairly well with them, given regular humans have constantly caused the Minions to scream in agony, Minions themselves have constantly knocked each other out with basic punches, and other humans like Scarlet Overkill endured a punch from an amped up Kevin, thus Gru should be no different. Furthermore, he was able to fight back and keep up with Purple Minions who are more vicious and merciless compared to your good old yellow ones, meaning there is nothing going against the scaling.

• Minions straighten out the leaning tower of Pisa with a hook
• Minions can consistently tank nuclear warheads
• Giant Kevin survives this big explosion (318 Tons of TNT)
• Survived dynamite explosions that popped Balthazar Bratt’s giant bubblegum (14.3 Kilotons of TNT)
• Bob reacts to a speeding subway
• The Minion trio ride on Santa’s sleigh to deliver presents all around the world (5% SoL)
  • It happens again
• Mega Minion Mel’s laser is able to pierce through the planet (64.4 Megatons of TNT)
• Mega Minion Gus is able to tank Mega Minion Mel’s laser beam
  • It should be noted that Mega Minion Gus does not have a higher durability than your average Minion like Jerry, thus scaling to normal Minions is fine.
• Several minions were able to tank a Hawaiian Roll BBQ Beam so strong, it literally split the moon in half (1.506 Ronnatons of TNT) (Debatable)
  • The calculation in the scan says Quettatons, but it was a slight miscalculation.
• Scott the Minion shakes space with his farts (264 Ronnatons of TNT) (Debatable)
• Laser feats (see Before The Verdicts)
  • Minions were able to dodge wall lasers (3% – 22% of SoL)
  • Minions were able to dodge Mega Minion Mel’s lasers (70% of SoL)
  • Stuart ended up being picked by Gru thanks to his “laser-fast reflexes”, though it can be seen as hyperbolic

Family Members

Likewise Gru should be comparable to all of his family members. The gorls are a pretty obvious case, it’d be harder to justify them being stronger than Gru. Lucy is Gru’s coworker with whom Gru fought alongside several times so the case should be fair, and Dru is quite literally his twin brother, exact same in body and physique, just with hair. Pretty much everyone you can think of among Gru’s associates, Gru should reasonably be comparable to, and thus, scale to their feats such as: 

• Lucy can react to Gru’s freeze ray
• Agnes screams so loud she:
  • Shatters a window
  • Shatters the purple Minion’s glasses and stone
  • Causes a sign to malfunction and explode
• Butler Fritz survived being sent off by a rocket and its resulting explosion

Villains

Pretty self-explanatory: Gru and the Minions fought these villains, beat all of them fair and square either physically or via using their own weapons, and were even able to tank hits from them, meaning that scaling to their feats should be applicable with no issues.

• Vector:
  • Withstood the KE of Gru’s rocket yanking him (3.83 Kilotons of TNT)
  • Survived being electrocuted by a powerline
  • Tanked the moon expanding on him (115.42 Kilotons of TNT)
  • Launched himself around the moon in seconds, catching onto a rock to slow down (1% SoL)
  • Vector (& the Minions) react to each other while flying fast enough to reach Mars (65c) (Debatable, see Before the Verdicts)
• El Macho:
  • Jumped RIDING A SHARK, WITH 250 POUNDS OF DYNAMITE STRAPPED TO HIS CHEST, INTO THE MOUNTAIN, IN AN ACTIVE VOLCANO, and survived (322.02 tons- 8.32 kilotons of TNT)
• Scarlet Overkill:
  • Endured this punch from giant Kevin that sent her flying through buildings and even had one fall completely onto her
• Balthazar Bratt:
  • Dodged energy blasts
  • Survived getting hit with his own shockwave emitting super guitar’s blasts
• The Vicious Six:
  • Wild Knuckles survives being electrocuted to the point his skeleton could be seen
  • Nun-Chuck (Goat) survives being hit by a whole van.
  • The Vicious Six’s amped up animal forms can no sell AVL’s blasts
• Maxime Le Mal:
  • Survives a massive fall, being hit by pastrami melted by Mega Minion Mel’s laser, stomped by a massive stampede of bulls, getting pooped on by Seagulls, stung by bees, and then being crushed by Mega Minion Jerry. All in the same scene, sheesh! And he’s somehow recovered in the next scene.

Megamind

The Doom Syndicate
& Other Villains

Megamind is capable of fighting on par with and defeating the many villains that threaten Metro City.

• Destruction Worker (The Goat)
  • Pulverized a building.
  • Destroyed all of the windows on Metro Tower using Megamind’s Shockin’-Awe Glove (449.32 Tons of TNT)
• Lady Doppler (The Fraud)
  • Withstood the energy of Metro City (19.67 Tons of TNT)
  • Creates storms with her lightning (19.43 Kilotons of TNT)
• The Conductor dispersed a storm upon being defeated, which he was using to amp himself
• Laser Feats (see Before the Verdicts)
  • Lord Nighty-Knight is able to sidestep a laser (3% SoL)
  • The Go Fish Gang dodge a laser blast (1.04c)
• Various Mega Team Unite Playable Characters:
  • Dodge static electricity
  • Pulverize steel pipes
  • Throws cars

Tighten & Metro Man

Megamind has routinely battled Metro Man, held his own against a bloodlusted Tighten (who has all the powers of Metro Man and is stated to have his same size and heft, with his Brain Bots being able to outpace him for a good while). Megamind has even beaten him outright in a number of the video games, alongside having a suit that apparently grants him all of Metro Man’s powers as well. There is a fair bit that would imply Megamind’s best equipment should be capable of matching the strength showings Tighten and likely even Metro Man, which would make sense since, even early into his career, he could already make machines that could put Metro-Man on the ropes. However, that Metro Man feat remains massively out of Megamind’s league, as Metro Man was explicitly utilizing his super speed for that, which left Megamind as a statue while Metro Man had a midlife crisis. For those curious, the feat would clock in anywhere from Mach 1,048 to 5 c.

Tighten

• Sends a bus flying with a kick
• Throws Metro Tower (202.6 Tons of TNT)
• Creates sonic booms while flying
• Punches through the invisible car’s door
• Punches through a giant copper ball
• Blows up the giant Brain-Bot Megamind Head
• Lasers his name through the entire city
• Endures getting punched through a building

Metro Man

• Punches through a brick wall
• Quickly flies to skyscraper height and over to Megamind’s hideout
  • The storybook states he was flying faster than lightning, though it’s likely hyperbolic
• Caused an earthquake while digging to the center of the Earth (508.9 Tons – 9.7 Kilotons of TNT & Mach 952.53)

Weaknesses

Gru

Gru doesn’t have any “traditional” weakness besides the fact that, at the end of the day, he’s still a human being… despite how cartoonishly insane his “physiology” makes him. So, anything you’d expect of the average human weakness like eventually running out of stamina in a prolonged fight and the lack of any sort of powers without his weaponry would count. Gru is also very short-tempered and can be annoyed easily, if that counts. He’s also a terrible liar!

His Minions are also worth talking about, despite their absurd versatility and indestructibility they can genuinely be klutzes. They’ve shown quite a handful of times that they love pranking each other which can lead to them fighting, and most notably is their addiction for bananas which can distract them completely.

Something something Illumination bad ig

Megamind

As much of a super genius as Megamind is, he’s not without flaws. He’s pretty cocky and usually loses the upper hand when it comes to that, which is especially apparent against Tighten and his many losses against Metro Man. Some of his gadgets like the Infuser/Defuser, the Particle Collider, and the initial version of the Death Ray, while effective, need time to charge before use. Megamind also isn’t the most physically fit combatant out there since he doesn’t do the best in a hand to hand fight, preferring to lure his opponents right into his hand.

As for his support, Minion is a more physically impressive foe, but they have a crucial weakness since if the glass they reside in breaks, it’s basically over for them since they need water to survive. The Brain Bots are also not that durable considering they can die to a simple dynamite explosion and they can sometimes get confused, like when Megamind was disguised as Bernard, they went for him not knowing it was their master. He is also allergic to flowers, yikes.

Before the Verdicts

Lasers/Relativistic Feats?

Both series have a fair few feats which are argued as laser/light timing or just relativistic speed in general, and we’ll go over what’s valid and what isn’t.

Gru’s Feats

• Gru’s “Laser” Dodging Feats: In the Despicable Me video game, Gru can dodge what seems like lasers that are shot by a robot. He can dodge similar ones when he is in his air ship. This one is relatively easy to explain: we don’t actually know if they’re real lasers or not, as it’s not elaborated anywhere in the game. Sure, they might look like lasers and travel in a straight line, but aside from that, we don’t have any other evidence to say they’re lasers. For all we know it could be energy projectiles.
• Wall Lasers: In one of the many Despicable Me rides at Universal Studios, the Minions had to pass through a corridor that was turning on lasers to act as traps, and they could dodge them. The lasers shock them instead of burning, so unfortunately it doesn’t meet the requirements. They’re called lasers in the comics, but they still get zapped like it’s electricity.
• Mega Minion Mel: Mel’s laser might seem too ridiculous (and they are) but besides the devastating power, it actually follows laser properties well. It doesn’t show physical force and burns through everything, and also it moves in straight lines. The only thing that could seem contradictory is the fact that when it burns through the igloo, it sends some snow flying, but this is just an in real life thing with stuff that’s too hot. One of the books also straight up calls it a laser beam, so, yeah, it is good to use.

Megamind’s Feats

• In-Tandem Movement with Electricity in Wires: In the video game, Megamind Mega Team United, the playable characters can seemingly move along with electricity moving through a wire. Megamind could do something similar by dodging Lady Doppler’s lightning and jump in-tandem with the electricity through the wires that he made Doppler hit with her lightning. This would indicate relativistic speeds around 25 to 31% of the speed of light. There is some general debate about their validity from both sides, mainly from the latter feat. Starting with it, by slowing down the footage we can confirm that Megamind is jumping out of the way in-tandem with the electricity going through the wire; the main contention comes from the fact that Megamind technically begins his jump a few frames before the electricity traveling through the wire, meaning you could make the case he’s not actually dodging it, and it’s just an animation quirk. The main argument in support of the feat is that even if Megamind technically starts jumping slightly before the electricity begins moving through the wire, the gap is so minute (a few frames) that it should realistically be seen as negligible, as it’s pretty clear that the intention is Megamind jumping away from the electricity to safety, and thus the in-tandem movement should be perfectly usable. On the other hand, the main argument against the feat is that Megamind, regardless of anything else, still started jumping before the electricity even began traversing the wire, and so he was not dodging the attack or the electricity’s traversal, making the feat invalid. Additionally, Lady Doppler also did not react to this feat while it was coming at her direction. More precise thoughts on these feats will be covered down in Verdicts. The former feat is less contentious and more so just weird due to it being mostly a video game visual, and even then, characters are struck by the lightning immediately and can’t dodge.
• Mega-Megamind VS The Death Ray: When Megamind fires the Death Ray at Mega-Megamind – a laser that is stated to be light by sources – the robot manages to look up and say “oh no!” before being hit. This would be a faster than light reaction feat… if it was actually reacting at said speed. It could perceive the laser coming its way, sure, but not reacting to anything, as it was pretty much hit by the Death Ray on the spot without moving an inch. Sounds familiar?
• Glazer Donut’s Laser: From Megamind Rules, the villain called Glazer Donut has been shown shooting what seems like lasers as one of his abilities. The Go-Fish Gang manages to dodge one of these lasers, which would imply faster than light reactions… if they were legitimate lasers. In practically all instances, this laser shows force – destroying walls and whatever it hits. Thus, it cannot be a real laser, and reacting to this wouldn’t make any one faster than light either.
• Lord Nighty-Knight’s Sidestep: In Megamind VS The Doom Syndicate, Megamind fires a laser at Lord Nighty-Knight from his De-Gun, and… the laser does follow the qualifications for being a laser: it moves in a straight line, burns up the glass and shows no signs of force. The debatable part is Nighty-Knight himself. Megamind does not actually aim the laser directly at him but rather above him, so Lord NK technically does not dodge the laser. However, he does still move out of the way after the shot is fired in a way that makes him look like he’s dodging it, thus you could argue it being an in-tandem movement feat. Considering how weird the feat is and how Megamind’s relativistic feats seem to be inconsistent though, there is a bit of skepticism to this feat. Though, you could certainly buy it given it’s not that big of a jump.

Piloting Feats?

Both Gru and Megamind possess somewhat debatable ship-related feats from tie-in game and shorts. So, let’s talk about them.

Gru’s Feat

In Illumination’s short, Mooned, the events of which happen right after first Despicable Me, Vector decided to attempt to come back to Earth. At the end of the short, he uses a pile of explosives that he (somehow) got, in an attempt to blast himself back to Earth. However, when doing so, he and the Minions in Gru’s ship ended up sending themselves to Mars instead.

Arguments For: Vector and the Minions were able to react to the crash right before it happened from a relatively short distance, which would be the main justification for scaling to the speed of the ship and rocket. You may argue about the timeframe being lower, but the final clashing is likely what destroyed the rocket (given we have no leftovers of them shown). This means they would have had to reach Mars at that point, so there would be not really a long cut in the time-frame, and even just a minute time-frame would give FTL results. It’s also important to consider that the ship was likely moving faster before the collision that sent them to Mars, given that impacts between objects slows them down rather than the other way around. While details behind the feat aren’t entirely explicit and more interpretational (hence this BTV existing in the first place), it is certainly worth noting as a high end.

Arguments Against: While colliding, the Minions and Vector don’t really react to each other. The Minions notice Vector on their radar and Vector notices he’s about to collide, but once they’re actually close they don’t react beyond crashing into each other; more damningly, there’s a blatant timeskip. We don’t actually see Vector land on Mars, rather the screen fades after the crash and an indeterminate amount of time later Vector wakes up on Mars. While reactions are debatable, the lack of timeframe and blatant cut means this feat is unusable.

Megamind’s Feat

In the Button Of Doom flash game, we see the events of Megamind’s origin playing out, with his pod and Metro-Man’s flying to Earth from his doomed homeworld. However, unlike the original movie, Megamind and Metro-Man both react to and interact a fair bit.

Arguments For: To be clear, we’re told we’re steering the pod for Megamind, effectively acting as an autopilot, so the actual steering is off the table. What IS fine to use is that Megamind actively comments on and reacts to what’s happening in real time from within the pod, and Metro-Man very actively attempts to ram Megamind repeatedly, shouting that he’s going to get him and such. It’d be silly to say a Baby Metro-Man blitzes Megamind, and Megamind himself reacts as well, so the calc itself is actually fine. We are very clearly shown Metro Man going out of his way to strike the pod, given he verbally taunts Megamind’s while redirecting himself midflight so as to always hit. This combined with Megamind being able to perceive his surroundings to begin with at all would indicate some degree of reaction speed, even if he himself isn’t directly piloting; obviously him just talking isn’t enough, but it’s WHAT he’s talking about that matters, ie being able to tell when the ship is about to his something while its moving at such high speeds.

Arguments Against: There’s a lot of issues with this feat. The first one being that baby Megamind is specifically asking the player to react to the obstacles in his way because he can’t. Commenting while doing so doesn’t make you as fast, either; you can do that in real life: does Neil Armstrong have hypersonic reactions because he was talking in real time while NASA’s rocket flew to the moon? Besides, his comments aren’t directly related to the meteors and how he dodges: in the entire minigame, his head faces forward, and his comments are about how meteors break his bones (duh) and teasing Metro Man (which is weird; they never met), very much because the player is the one controlling the ship. You’d also have to be assuming baby Metro Man was piloting the ship at all, which makes relatively no sense when you consider how his pod is built.

Even then, there’s also no proof in-game that he was reacting to anything given he only appears on your screen a few times to serve as a video game obstacle; there’s nothing implying he’s making all these turns to go and hit Megamind in the first place, as he just suddenly pops up. In fact, he might’ve been bumping into asteroids like Megamind’s ship to get an impact. Who knows? The point is that it’s not made clear. Additionally, as silly as it sounds, there’s no direct scaling chain to baby Metro Man in this game. Sure, Megamind could have eventually surpassed baby Metro Man, but there’s no proof of that, especially within this flash game, which, as you may have noted, has both babies talking despite being at best days old, and calling each other by their titles that they didn’t even have or especially know, contradicting the original movie entirely. If the game had direct scaling chains, it’d be something, but relying on the original movie to apply a feat from a contradictory media is beyond shaky. Overall, saying that the babies were skilled enough to be reacting to asteroids when there’s no real proof of scaling at all is weird, especially in a flash game like this.

Verdicts

Team Megamind

Stats

Stats are one of the most interesting parts of this debate, and this mostly comes down to how many ends you can argue for either side.

For instance, let’s take their strength and durability feats: Gru can compare to Vector surviving the Moon expanding at 115 Kilotons of TNT and, with some leniency, should be physically on-par with the Minions, one of which could survive Mel’s Mega Laser that sliced through Earth with an energy of 64 Megatons of TNT. On Megamind’s side, his physicals stats CLEARLY fall far behind, being able to scale to his weaker gadgets like the Shockin’-Awe Glove which shattered the windows off of Metro Tower with an energy of 449 Tons of TNT and at best taking repeated hits from Lady Doppler’s lightning capable of creating a storm worth 19 Kilotons of TNT. While there are some arguments you can make against stuff like, say, Mel’s laser, since it doesn’t seem to always be firing at full power, evidenced by it being able to heat up a cup of coffee and melt a block of cheese just fine, and the main scaling argument to it coming from a short gag during the credits that very likely didn’t utilize the full power of the beam, this ultimately doesn’t matter as, regardless of the ends you push, Gru would AT WORST be 6x stronger than Megamind in terms of raw physical strength… physical strength, that is.

While Gru and his Minions could withstand most of Megamind’s conventional offensive tools with little issue, the issue comes when you bring in his big guns like the Battle Suit and Black Mamba, the Death Ray, and any tech he decides to power up with the motor of his Invisible Car or his BINKEY. Starting off small, when Megamind hooked up his De-Gun to his car’s “cold fusion generator” with the Destroy option, he fired a blast that generated a massive explosion large enough to blot out even the gigantic comet coming right at them, which when accounting for its original size of 10 miles and any lost diameter during re-entry, would give the explosion a radius of 68 kilometers, and thus a value of 7 Gigatons of TNT. More than enough to obliterate not just Gru, but his entire army with one shot, and this degree of raw energy could be given to just about any of his weapons he decides to plug into it (though it’s unlikely all of them would have the raw destructive AOE, but point still stands).

Then there’s the Death Ray which, even when on a lower setting (since Megamind only intended to use it to snipe an antenna on his lair without destroying anything else), can still output enough energy to knock the aforementioned 10 mile wide comet straight to Earth, requiring at least an energy of 9 Teratons of TNT, which was followed shortly after by Machiavillain using the BINKEY to destroy said comet, with values, even when accounting for any lost mass, varying from 209 Megatons for the destruction itself and 476 Gigatons for the comet’s durability, as it would need to be tough enough to withstand its own kinetic energy (and is supported by it being completely unharmed from the aforementioned 7 Gigatons feat). Keep in mind that the Death Ray, at its highest output, has statements for being able to burn entire planets, thus implying potential surface-wiping up to Multi-Continental levels of energy (which would be weirdly consistent with its statements for firing the concentrated power of the Sun), but do note that this is Debatable as it’s unclear how literal these are. Regardless, it wouldn’t change the fact it’s far beyond Gru’s level of strength.

It’s also worth noting the BINKEY should just upscale the Death Ray’s output anyways, since it’s been directly referred to as one of the strongest sources of energy in the universe and is considered to have limitless energy beyond Megamind’s own understanding, implying it would be beyond his other weaponry like the Death Ray. Then there’s the fact that Megamind doesn’t even technically need to rely on these super weapons to threaten Gru, as his Battle Suit could keep up with a bloodlusted Tighten for a good while, taking an absolute beating from him, and even overpowering him quite a few times, which would imply it, at minimum, compares to weaponry like the Invisible Car’s motor given how much Megamind and other media emphasizes Metro Man’s strength (comparing it to God-like power that makes any obstacle he comes across yield except for his own emotional turmoil), who Tighten would be comparable to due to literally having his same powers and same physique.

To simplify, Gru and his Minions are far physically stronger than a lot of Megamind and his weaker weapons; however, as we’ll cover below, Megamind’s tool kit is a lot more centered around hax or evasiveness, and his creations that are focused on raw power like the Death Ray, the BINKEY and stuff he amps with it (as the BINKEY can be used to upgrade various of his weapons in Ultimate Showdown like the De-Gun, the Tesla Glove, and the Blower Glove), the Battle Suit, and whatever gadgets he amps with his car’s generator would all blow Gru’s best showings out of the water and could easily one-shot him with a single hit, be it the Battle Suit stomping through or blasting apart Minion hordes with its lasers, or just some good-ol’ fashioned area nuking.

[Note: Minions can potentially get into the cosmic ranges themselves through feats like a barbecue splitting the Moon in an ad and Scott the Minion shaking space with a fart; however, the former has the issue that not only do we visually see none of the Minions near the barbecue had their clothes burnt, but even more detrimentally, the grill it was on remained intact from the blast, making it really hard to believe they actually got hit by the fire pillar despite being near it. The latter feat has the issue of being very clearly a visual gag that isn’t actually, physically shaking the entire planet, and there’s no reason to assume he is since we’re given no further context to the feat beyond this 3-second visual joke.]

Covering speed, it’s comparatively much simpler, but still has its intricacies. Gru can pilot his own ship capable of leaving the planet’s atmosphere and reaching the Moon, and thus would require travel speed anywhere from Mach 1,990 for the former and 17% c for the latter (which would compare to Gru’s own reaction speed). Comparing him to his Minions, one of his Mega Minions could dodge Mel’s Mega Laser in a commercial, requiring reactionary speeds of 70% c.

On the other hand, Megamind has very consistent showings of lightning-timing thanks to the sequel movie and TV show, where he repeatedly avoids Lady Doppler’s lightning bolts despite them being able to generate real, natural storms, implying they should compare to natural lightning. Even beyond that, Metro Man could extremely casually fly to the Earth’s core and back in under a minute, which would require speeds clocking in at Mach 952, something stuff like his Brain Bots could compare to due to outpacing a bloodlusted Tighten (obviously, Megamind wouldn’t scale to Metro Man’s absurd existential crisis feat since that specifically required him to consciously utilize his super speed, which left Megamind visually frozen compared to him, but Megamind should still compare to more casual flying feats shown by Metro Man or Tighten due to these not utilizing his absurd super speed).

Most impressively, when fighting Lady Doppler, he was able to defeat her by redirecting her own electricity through a metal wire and jumping out of the way as it traveled through it, which would require speeds of 25% c, and this is all before mentioning Baby Metro Man’s frankly absurd showing of piloting a ship going to Earth from an asteroid field, being able to redirect the ship mid-flight to ram into Megamind’s ship despite them traveling in separate directions and mocking him the whole time, something that can get from 2% c to 3.6 c.

Now, it’s worth emphasizing that the Baby Metro Man showing is, frankly, extremely weird to use given it’s from a flash game, though you can admittedly make a similar point for a Minion avoiding Mel’s Mega Laser since it comes from a commercial where the Minions are randomly in a movie theater to watch their own movie, something that can be argued to be pretty contradictory to the mainline movies. Yes, we are obviously being fairly lenient with what media we include here, but the point we’re more so making is that it’s weird to argue against the former for being from a very random one-off piece of media that seems to contradict the source material, and then allow a similar high-end feat from a one-off piece of promotion that seems to contradict the source material. The Baby Metro Man feat does also have other points you can levy against it, like how Baby Metro Man likely isn’t the one controlling the ship since it doesn’t visually appear to have any internal controls, though this isn’t too strong of a counterargument since he is still audibly mocking Megamind and screaming how he’s going to catch him, indicating it’s clearly his doing.

If both feats were to be disqualified, then we’re left with Gru’s piloting feat for reaction speeds up to 17% the speed of light and Megamind jumping away from electricity moving through a wire at 25% the speed of light; the blog previously discussed that there’s some disagreements with Megamind’s feat, though these mainly rely on Megamind visually jumping a few frames before the electricity starts traveling, which does feel like nitpicking to a degree as we can still visually see there’s clear in-tandem movement, and the narrative idea is clearly that Megamind is jumping away from the wire before the electricity shocks him, so the feat should be perfectly fine and thus give Megamind a very slight speed advantage. On the other hand, if both the Mega Minion Mel and Baby Metro Man feats are bought, then Megamind can be up to 5x faster than Gru, though again, the inherent weirdness with the feats means it’s very possible for someone to buy one feat and not the other. If you were to buy the Minion Mel feat and not the Baby Metro Man feat, then Gru would be just about 2.8x faster, which isn’t too big of a gap.

Regardless of what you push, Megamind’s side will generally have much faster travel speed, as regular Brain Bots outpacing Tighten for a time would put their travel speed at the Mach 952 value, and yes, Gru can go faster with the full throttle of his rocket, but that’s only through that one specific vehicle of his, which would not scale to stuff like the travel speed of his Minions or the speed of nearly any other tool at his disposal. This is a pretty big deal since the Brain Bots are Megamind’s main mobility option that would be constantly zooming around the battlefield the whole fight, though we’ll touch on that more later.

Overall, Gru and his Minions are consistently far physically stronger than Megamind and his Brain Bots, but are MUCH weaker than any of Megamind’s stronger tools like the BINKEY (which he can use to boost most of his weaponry), his car’s generator (which can be used in the same way as the BINKEY), the Battle Suit, and the Death Ray, all of which would easily blast cleanly through Gru’s entire side.

On the other hand, speed is extremely tricky to pin down due to the variety of ends you can pull from, be it buying none of their weirder high-ends where Megamind would have a minute speed edge, buying both of their high-ends where Megamind would have a more noticeable speed advantage, or only buying Gru’s high-end with the Mel laser where Gru would have a slight 2.8x speed advantage. However, Megamind would consistently have much higher travel speed across the board thanks to his Brain Bots, which would make them nearly impossible for most of Gru’s Minions, gadgets, or vehicles to catch outside of specifically his rocket, which is only one particular vehicle that would still leave the vast majority of his remaining side pretty lacking in this regard.

All of these differing factors makes it absurdly hard to pin down any victor here, though we ultimately believe that even if you do believe Gru is faster in terms of reactions, Megamind’s much more consistent travel speed advantage would circumvent this and make it far less relevant, and even though Gru is generally stronger, Megamind has a multitude of weapons capable of field-wiping Gru’s side via their raw firepower, which all ultimately makes us believe stats should generally be a draw due to both of their big advantages in each field.

Arsenal & Abilities

If you thought stats were confusing, then this is where the debate really heats up. Let’s talk about their arsenals and abilities.

For starters, they match each other in regards to standard weapons; be it bazookas, laser guns, tools that weaponize gusts of wind, saw blades, missiles, jetpacks, explosives, and so on. These aren’t particularly important, so instead we’ll focus on their real area of expertise: their wacky gadgets and tools they have at their disposal.

To make this brief, we’ll simply split this up into what they match in, what advantages they have, and what they can use to counter the other.

HOW THEY MATCH

ABILITY	GRU	MEGAMIND
Anti-Gravity	Minions can use anti-gravity suits or cause others to begin floating with the Fart Gun.	The De-Gun has an anti-gravity setting to send foes flying.
Erasure	Gru and the Minions have access to disintegrating guns that can erase small objects like a finish line to big sections of a wall, and the Minions have a guitar capable of erasing obstacles in their way.	The De-Gun has a disintegrating setting able to erase whole buildings or people instantly.
Flatulence	The Minions have access to Fart Guns to… you know. These can knock superhumans like El Macho out cold and corrode metal from point-blank ranges.	Megamind can use the Instinkerator to make targets imagine the worst smell possible, which stuns them in place for a considerable amount of time, remains as a constant cloud which he can spam from a range, and can knock out superhumans like Destruction Worker.
Power-Ups	Gru can utilize power-ups to boost his speed and strength, grow in size, or activate multiple simultaneously. Additionally, he possesses invulnerability power-ups to negate damage for a couple of seconds	Megamind can utilize power-ups to boost his firing speed, movement speed, fire power, or make his guns fire multiple shots at once. Additionally, he possesses invulnerability power-ups to negate damage for a couple of seconds.
Technology Destruction	Gru’s Magnet Gun can make technological foes instantly explode, pull in metallic objects, and magnetize his Minions, while the Remote can turn technology on and off. The Minions can also shatter glass through screaming, but this was done only once and required them to be incredibly startled, making it highly situational.	Megamind’s Tesla Glove can shut down electrical technology, the Shockin’-Awe Glove can make technological foes instantly explode, and the Tickle-Kinesis Glove can hack technology or bring it to him.
Immobilization	Gru’s Web Gun can create webs to immobilize targets, and he has sticky weaponry to achieve a similar effect while the Minions’ disintegration gun can stun enemies.	Megamind can use the Sticky Bomb Gun to keep targets stuck in place, the Tickle-Kinesis Glove to completely immobilize a foe with giggling fits and leave them wide open, the Expand-O-Matic to inflate someone and leave them helpless, or the De-Gun’s deceleration to slow down Gru to a crawl.
Transmutation	Gru admittedly has much stronger transmutation options than Megamind. While the Minions’ wands wouldn’t be too useful as they require the target being right in front of a target and have only been shown to work on objects, the Remote can instantly transform a person into ice cream with a hit of its beam. However…	…despite having inferior transmutation tools overall, with the Scrap Ray Helmet’s transmutation beam only being used on objects (albeit pretty large ones), the Brain Bots resisting the effects of the De-Gun in the Java game would likely let them resist most of Gru’s transmutation options, making them largely null.

Now, let’s cover their individual advantages or counters to each other’s tools to see how well they could hold out in a large-scale fight such as this.

GRU’S ADVANTAGES

ABILITY	GRU
Odors	Gru tends to come equipped with a gas mask against gas-based weaponry, and the Minions’ lack of a nose and resistance to the Fart Gun would make things like the Instinkerator pretty useless. The effects of Gru’s own Fart Gun are mitigated by Megamind’s Blower Gun being able to blow away his gas, however.
Freezing	Megamind has freezing options like Chum’s Freeze power-up, the Deep Freeze setting on the De-Gun, or his own freeze ray, but these are countered by Gru and the Minions’ resistance to extreme cold, and Gru has shown to spam the Freeze Ray far more often, not to mention the Minions carry multiple of their own Freeze Rays.
Knock-Out Options	Megamind could theoretically get a win with something like the knockout gas, but not only can Gru counter it with his gas mask, but it runs on a limited amount and has less range than the Laser Lipstick, which can immediately knock out El Macho (someone far stronger than Megamind or Gru) and the Minions (despite their own resistance to lightning).
Shrinking	Gru and the Minions carry multiple Shrink Rays with greater potency than Megamind’s own shrinking options, being able to shrink the entire Moon and even having a sentient one to aid them, which are far more practical than the Shrink Bomb (that Megamind can’t exactly carry in his pockets) with far more range. Additionally, the Minions have a Growth Ray and Gru’s Shrinking Ray can undo the effects of being shrunken, so they could likely negate the effects of Megamind’s option outright.
Mind Manipulation & Body Control	Megamind can demoralize targets with the De-Gun, but Minions can resist the manipulation of their emotions. On the other hand, Megamind lacks consistent showings of resisting things like hypnosis, which Stuart could exploit with his hypnosis hat (though this is unlikely to work against robotic beings like the Brain Bots). The Joystick would also allow the Minions to take control of Megamind’s body if they got close enough to use it on him.
Cloning	After inserting a little bit of DNA, Megamind can use his cloning machine to create a clone that he can even adjust the traits of. However, It’s only able to create one clone at a time and is located within his lair. While being able to adjust the intelligence and persistence of clones is nice, this pales in comparison to the Fart Gun which is able to clone things up to hundreds of times over and is carried both by Gru and by pretty much every Minion out there (though in fairness, they’ve never used it to duplicate themselves to gain an advantage).
BFR/Teleportation	The Atominator is a fairly useful tool for Gru here as it can teleport anyone hit by it to wherever Gru chooses, including the digital world, which Megamind doesn’t have options to escape. It also has enough AOE to affect all of Gru’s lab, which would likely affect most of Megamind’s side. Additionally, it could be used to teleport his own troops to wherever he desires for a quick escape method. Notably, the Fart Gun can teleport items it hits straight to the user’s hand, which could be useful if Gru gets close, but is mostly situational due to its short range.
Mobility	Both have standard flying and driving options, be it Gru’s (overcompensating) car and airship or Megamind’s Hoverbike and car, but Gru takes the edge with having way more options like the Villain Wheels, which is much better equipped for combat with all its weaponry and gadgets, and his rocket, whose travel speed far outpaces anything on Megamind’s side.

This is obviously a lot, but let’s flip things around and see Megamind’s own advantages against Gru.

MEGAMIND’S ADVANTAGES

ABILITY	MEGAMIND
Telekinesis	The Tickle-Kinesis Glove is able to lift up and throw around multiple targets with “tickle power”, which Gru can’t quite match, especially since Megamind doesn’t need a direct line of sight to use it which would let him immobilize Gru with its giggling fits from a considerable distance away. Since it can work on someone instantly without relying on avoidable projectiles, it could bypass anything Gru could try to use to defend himself. This would also let Megamind instantly destroy or hack any particularly dangerous tools Gru could be carrying through this telekinesis, which Gru also cannot account for.
Portal Creation	Stuart has a staff that can open portals, but he’s not particularly good at using it. Megamind, on the other hand, has a portal bazooka able to make far larger portals, and which he’s used much more effectively to dispatch criminals trying to flee and control the battlefield.
Tracking & Hiding	Both can technically become invisible, Gru with his stealth suit and Megamind with his car, but the main difference is that Megamind has significantly easier options for shutting down Gru’s tools thanks to Chum, who can find the precise coordinates of a target and detect any nearby enemies to warn Megamind, thus shutting down any attempts for Gru to sneak in close. On the other hand, Gru lacks the same direct counters to the Invisible Car outside of potentially the X-Ray settings on his goggles, which is unclear if it’d even work due to the Invisible Car being invisible even to Mega Megamind’s sensors (and it let him hide from Tighten, who already has and actively uses X-Ray vision in the movie, though there’s a chance he wasn’t using it in the scene). These goggles are also significantly less effective than Megamind’s options given they require Gru to look in the specific direction the car is while also trying to look past the large armies on both sides, and Gru has never used these goggles in a combat-setting anyways. This is before even bringing up the Disguise Watch, which could cause pretty big confusion on Gru’s side as Megamind could always have one of his robots or Chum disguise as him to misdirect Gru’s efforts (similar to what he did against Tighten), disguise one of Gru’s own allies as Megamind with some sleight of hand, or blend into the Minion crowd for a time, since it’s not like the Minions really have the best track record at identifying fakers.
Data-Gathering	This will be elaborated further below in the Army section of the verdict, but Minion on his own offers very absurd options for learning everything about Gru that he cannot counter. Be it reading the DNA of the Minions to learn about their resistances, analyzing Gru’s tech to think of strategies or counters, and potentially hacking it outright like how he did to the turret Megamind built (though this is a bit more of a stretch since we haven’t seen him hack foreign tech).
Attack Reflection	Both sides do have forcefields they can fall back on and can redirect standard projectiles with the Web Gun and Electric Helmet respectively, though Megamind’s is better since it’s more of a passive defense. Even better, the Mega-Shield can redirect any energy-based attacks Gru can put out and destroy whatever shot it… which would include a large majority of Gru’s wincons, be it the Shrink Ray, the Atominator, likely the Freeze Ray, and most damningly, Gru’s Reality Warping Remote (as its effects are transmitted through tiny energy beams that can be reflected with ordinary mirrors), either destroying whatever Gru used or outright taking him out if he happens to be hit by it. Additionally, unlike Gru’s forcefields, the Mega-Shield isn’t temporary and Megamind can use it as many times as he wants over a long battle due to it recharging automatically when not in use.
Broadway Force	Yes, this is important. Bob the Minion can make others dance by playing a song through his phone, but this has never been used in combat and requires a target to be decently close before it can work; on the other hand, Chum has loud speakers in his body capable of blaring out a song that forces even police officers that were trying to catch Megamind to start dancing uncontrollably, meaning not only has Megamind actually used it in combat, but it would have a much greater area of effect than Gru’s options (and Megamind was unaffected by his own song, indicating the Minions’ music likely wouldn’t affect him either). Hell, since Megamind has multiple pieces of technology with loud speakers for blaring out music, like his Battle Suit or the giant Head Zeppelin that can be heard across Metro City, he could likely affect Gru’s entire side with it at once if he chooses to, which the Minions have been shown to be susceptible to.   something something grumpy character at the end of the movie
Mechs	While Gru technically has a mech in his lab, he’s never used it personally and it doesn’t display much of anything beyond having missiles. On the other hand, one of Megamind’s favorite options against tougher opponents is his Battle Suit, which even with its lowest possible scaling (scaling to the Invisible Car’s generator) would still put it well beyond any reasonable strength arguments you can make for Gru and his Minions. Megamind’s mech comes with very spammable lasers that can destroy entire chunks of buildings, meaning it could easily rip right through hordes of Minions at once, and due to being synced up to his suit, it can move around just as fluidly as Megamind himself, allowing it to be shockingly sneaky and more than mobile enough to avoid many of Gru’s tools. Even worse, since it also possesses its own invulnerable forcefield power-ups, Gru would have a really hard time getting rid of it in a timely manner until its forcefields run out (which given Megamind can collect up to 5 in the game, would give him about 50 whole seconds of invulnerability to go ham), allowing Megamind to deal massive damage to Gru’s sides and kill him outright if he’s ever caught by any laser blasts or gets stomped on. Plus, if you combine its speakers with the Broadway Force advantage from above, Megamind could just use it to blair out his absurdly catchy tunes to incapacitate the whole field at once and then stomp on them like ants. If anything goes wrong and Gru manages to take down the mech with something like the Shrink Ray, Megamind can easily escape harm through its emergency ejection, so Gru is essentially guaranteed to suffer heavy losses the moment it comes out, while Megamind isn’t nearly at as much risk from it.
Field-Wiping & Amps	To be frank, not much is stopping Megamind from nuking Gru at any point. Gru has strong weapons, but nothing he’s ever used has really showcased particularly crazy destructiveness, at least not enough to easily blast through Megamind’s large army, with the closest he has being Mega Minion Mel’s laser, which could be dangerous but has the issue of being a very concentrated beam rather than a big AOE blast, meaning it could be dodged or played around (and is completely countered by the Mega-Shield redirecting it right back at him and destroying his visor). On the other hand, Megamind can either connect his De-Gun (or any particularly destructive weapon of his) to his Invisible Car’s generator to completely obliterate Gru and his entire army with a single shot, connect any of his destructive weapons (like, again, the De-Gun) to his BINKEY and… obliterate Gru and his entire army with a single shot, or simply have himself or Chum activate the Death Ray and smite Gru (and likely his entire army) with a single shot. Both of the supercharging options with the generator or BINKEY had enough AOE to cover a massive comet initially stated to be 10 miles wide, and while it likely shrunk from re-entry, calcs that account for it still put its diameter at nearly 6 kilometers (with the amped De-Gun having a radius of 68 km), making it pretty much impossible for Gru to avoid these. The Death Ray’s AOE is slightly less concrete, but was still large enough to obliterate the entire top off of a cliff and eclipse the observatory building it struck, which would make it nigh-impossible for Gru to dodge it… which is solidified when you consider that Gru wouldn’t ever be able to see the Death Ray’s attack coming, which is made worse by the Death Ray’s targeting system being precise enough to hit a single antenna on Megamind’s lair without destroying any buildings. Gru is unlikely to be able to actually avoid it even if he did know it was coming, aided by the fact its beam is repeatedly noted to be light, making it faster than Gru even at his best.

For those who pay attention, you may have been able to notice a recurring trend. While Gru has more versatile tools for winning, they all run into the issue that Megamind can either redirect them back at him if he sees them coming (which he’d have a much easier time doing thanks to his data-gathering options), or require a direct line of sight and sometimes even getting close for them to work on Megamind, which means most of them could just get blocked by individual Brain Bots. Even his best tools like the Atominator, which have very notable AOE in regards to what they can affect, still need to shoot out an energy beam that would have to get close enough to Megamind to hit him AND could be redirected with something like the Mega-Shield, evaded with the Invisible Car, sent right back at him with the Portal Bazooka, or blocked by enough Brain Bots or Megamind utilizing a forcefield.

On the flip side, Megamind has an absurd number of tools that he can just fire in Gru’s general direction or blast out from literally anywhere on the field, even if he’s hiding in the Invisible Car; be it the Death Ray sniping and one-shotting Gru, the Tickle-Kinesis Glove immobilizing and leaving him wide open for any follow up attacks or hacking/destroying his stronger options, the amped De-Gun or any BINKEY-powered tools being able to obliterate literally all of Gru’s side in one hit, the Hokey Pokey of Doom being blasted across the whole city with loudspeakers to incapacitate everyone Gru has (of which there are many; Megamind genuinely has so many loudspeakers and literally plays his own theme music), and even his smaller scale options like the Battle Suit still have the benefit of protecting Megamind while he’s inside and having defensive tools to make it a pain in the ass to get rid of for an extended period of time, threatening to beat Gru then and there the moment it comes out if he doesn’t manage to get away in time.

Even if you buy Gru being faster, Megamind has so many more evasive options at his disposal which Gru is sorely lacking in by comparison, all of which would give him an absurd time trying to reliably land hits on him. In other words, Gru is wider, but Megamind is deeper. And since Megamind would be able to get quick intel on Gru’s options at any time thanks to Minion (more on him later), he’d have a much easier time abusing his evasive options to make Gru’s tools backfire against him, while Gru lacks any good counterplay against Megamind’s big guns.

It’s a very close category, with a lot of advantages on either side, but the way we see it, Megamind generally has counterplay and can outright camp out everything on Gru’s deck thanks to the Invisible Car, block it with Brain Bots, trick Gru into attacking someone else with the Disguise Watch, negating his tools for some time with the various forcefield power-ups, absorbing it and sending it right back with the Portal Bazooka, destroying or hacking Gru’s potential win-options with the Tickle-Kinesis Glove, or redirecting them towards him to either destroy Gru’s gadget or Gru himself with the Mega-Shield. Gru, meanwhile, can’t pull off the same stunts due to being much more limited in terms of evasive options and being hard-countered by Megamind’s tracking and data-gathering tools. Megamind has far too many options here, while Gru has 0 proper counterplay to Megamind’s large-scale instant win moves that could either obliterate his entire army with one shot, obliterate Gru and everyone around him with the press of a button, or keep him completely trapped with some sick tunes, all of which Megamind can do without even needing to reveal himself. Therefore, Megamind would take the edge in their arsenals.

Tertiary Factors

Befitting of two supergeniuses, it’s important to discuss their respective skills and talents. In terms of raw combative skill, it’s not much of a surprise that Gru holds the advantage here; he’s trained in several martial arts, can keep up with people capable of tearing through trained soldiers, and is talented enough to scare off others just with his reputation. Megamind meanwhile takes a much more technological, less physical approach to combat, though he’s not a slouch. While he lacks the highs that Gru reaches, he still manually pilots his mech suit using his own body motions, and is capable of competently engaging in both hand-to-hand and swordfighting combat while in it, using maneuvers like parries against a bloodlusted Tighten. Still though, it doesn’t quite compare to what Gru’s pulling.

Though, to flip it, let’s look at their intelligence; here, Megamind sorta blows Gru out of the water. While both have a wide array of gadgets and gizmos, Megamind is the sole inventor of his arsenal, whereas most of Gru’s stuff comes courtesy of Dr. Nefario. Megamind has been able to formulate 82-step long plans, and has been stated to have had thousands of schemes over the years. That sort of planning and intellect overshadows basically any cognitive showings Gru has. To be clear, Gru is far from stupid, but in the same way that Megamind is far from incompetent in a fight. Neither is BAD at either, but both hold a clear lead over the other in their respective categories; those repeated battles with Metro-Man for decades, over the course of thousands of plans, also means Megamind has a much greater amount of experience to pull from when it comes to fighting “super” foes.

On the topic of experience, while the Minions HAVE been around way longer (since the dawn of life), they’ve hardly been getting up to relevant duties during this time. Nothing we see of their history would indicate that they’d be highly experienced for these sorts of situations, if anything it’s the opposite given how often we see them fumbling; for most of their history they don’t get up to anything particularly relevant. Megamind meanwhile has basically his entire life made up of relevant combat experience, and is overall much more capable of reading and manipulating foes, like his numerous instances of tricking the Doom Syndicate into fighting one another, fooling Tighten with disguises, luring Metro Man into a trap by predicting Roxie’s behaviour and manipulating her into telling Metro Man their location without letting her suspect that this was a lie, and even outsmarting his previous mentor, Machiavillain, who literally taught Megamind how to be a manipulative schemer in the first place.

It’s also important to note how well Megamind’s usual combat style shuts down Gru in this situation; while his usual opening move, Dehydration, has potential to end the fight immediately, lets give a lot of benefit of the doubt and say the Minions could bring Gru back from that, even if they wouldn’t exactly know how to do it. Well, Megamind’s second option has been shown to either be Disintegrate/Destroy or the Death Ray, like against the Mega Megamind. But beyond that, his main advantage here are his defensive strategies. A lot of Gru’s best wincons, like the Fart Gun or Joystick, require quite close proximity to their target or a direct line of sight, and that’s assuming one of the 100,000 brainbots doesn’t get in the way or that Megamind doesn’t reflect it or avoid it outright.

Megamind, meanwhile, has VERY good long range options, including the Death Ray capable of hitting anywhere on the field with precision accuracy, and it’s important to clarify that he will consistently avoid direct confrontations when facing large numbers of foes at once, like when Machiavillain mind-controlled the city or took control of his Brain Bots; his area of expertise is in planning ahead and thinking of how to best use his gadgets to take down a big threat as quickly as possible, so if he were to see a massive army of life forms he’s never seen before, it’s incredibly unlikely he’d try to start blasting at them directly and risk letting himself get overwhelmed, while it’s far more likely he’d let his Brain Bots hold them off while he focuses on buying time to think of a plan. Because of this hilariously big range gap, it’s very useful that Megamind’s usual strategies we’ve seen him imply in fights against foes like Tighten are to use the Brain Bots to carry him away from danger, something their superior travel speed would absolutely let them do to avoid Gru outside of very specific rocket (that could get hacked or destroyed far before that point), or hiding out in the Invisible Car, something Gru doesn’t really have a counter to other than getting lucky.

So, while Gru is more skilled and Megamind more experienced/intelligent, this deadlock is pretty decisively broken by Megamind’s usual defensive tactics, wider AoE, and frankly absurd precision range letting him avoid, lockdown, and shutdown Gru’s army. Megamind should hold the advantage overall in tertiary factors.

Army

It wouldn’t be a GruMind debate without talking about this aspect, now would it? This is both pretty involved but also very simple to cover, so we’ll keep it brief. The Minions pretty clearly outstat the Brainbots, and have WAY more versatility in what they can pull. In a 1v1, a Minion could absolutely trash a Brainbot, no contest. But, this isn’t a 1v1, now is it? Ripping the bandage off, the Brainbots outnumber the Minions almost 10:1, a truly massive numerical advantage. And, while Brainbots lack ways to properly kill Minions, they absolutely have ways of incapacitating; Porta-Prisons would be able to lockdown groups of minions at a time, and nothing stops the Brainbots from just airlifting Minions off of the field; remember, nearly 10 Brainbots per Minion, combined with their better coordination, means they can pull off massive maneuvers.

While the Minions are overall more powerful than Brainbots, the Brainbots’ prison cages, maneuverability, coordination, and above all sheer numbers allow them to isolate Gru away from his troops; even then, the majority of the Minions’ haxier options are one-off things they’ve used while messing around, and many of which they end up accidentally backfiring on each other due to clearly not thinking about how to use them effectively, making it extremely unlikely they’d bring them out early in the fight when we’ve never seen them weaponize them; in big fights, Minions much more consistently gun for direct firepower unless the only tool they have on-hand is a notable hax option.

For instance, take the Fart Gun’s duplication, which on-paper should be an incredibly potent option for closing the gap in numbers… except for the fact it was only used once to duplicate some bananas and that’s it. It’s a bit hard to believe the Minions would only now use this specific setting for this specific purpose when they’ve never tried to bypass number disadvantages with this aspect of it in the past, while the Brain Bots are self-operating and intelligent enough to bring Megamind any power-ups or specific tools he requires, alongside being able to much more easily jump in the way of threats to protect Megamind due to their much greater travel speed over the Minions and their ability to fly.

In terms of their lieutenants, Minion is also much more capable than Nefario here. Nefario may be a genius inventor and is capable of using some of Gru’s tech, but at the end of the day, he’s barely mobile and just sort of serves as a much weaker second Gru with a smaller arsenal. Megamind should have no problem disposing of him. Minion, on the other hand, is able to instantaneously scan the entire battlefield, immediately alerting Megamind to any and all potential threats and vulnerabilities, let Megamind know of whatever resistances the Minions have so Megamind doesn’t waste time utilizing tools that won’t work, consistently remind him to use his instant win-options (which he has done multiple times throughout the franchise), or just fire the Death Ray on his behalf if he sees Megamind is in a sticky spot, something which, unlike Nefario’s options, does not require being in the thick of things to do.

Surprising as it may be, while a single Minion bests a single Brainbot any day of the week, the sheer size of the Brainbot army combined with Minion’s busted scanning abilities means Megamind’s coordinated force is going to be serving him a lot better than the chaotic unpredictability of the Minions.

Conclusion

“I finally had a reason to win… You.”

Advantages:

• Higher-end tech outscales Gru and the Minions
• Mechsuit flips the stat gap in his favor
• Death Ray can wipe the field and is WAY stronger than anything else in this debate
• Potentially faster with dubious high-ends…
• Better long-range options
• Wider AoE
• Smarter and more experienced
• Certain De-Gun settings (yes, including that one) and other weapons could one-shot Gru
• Brainbots and usual defensive strategies would let him avoid Gru
• Brainbots handedly outnumber Minions, almost 10:1
• Porta-Prisons or dance music could temporarily incapacitate large groups of Minions at a time, and potentially Gru’s entire side
• Minion’s scanning would clue him into Gru and the Minions’ capabilities
• Tickle-Kinesis Glove could destroy or hack most of Gru’s best options
• Will Ferrell

Disadvantages:

• Physically weaker
• …but could be slightly slower at worst.
• Less skilled fighter
• Minions > Brainbots in terms of stats and arsenal
• Susceptible to certain one-shot options
• The 14 years Megamind fans had to spend waiting for a sequel only for it to suck the smelliest of booty

Overall, this matchup is far from one-sided, but we believe Megamind has the tools to win more often than not. While both have ways of one-shotting the other, only Megamind can safely pull these wincons off from any distance without ever endangering himself. With speed being at its worst only a 2.8 times difference, and Megamind’s usual defensive tactics and superior travel speed via Brain Bots letting him avoid Gru, he should have no trouble getting in the shot he needs or just calling in the Death Ray; all of Megamind’s big options to win can be instantly pulled off the moment Megamind simply thinks to use them, Minion either reminds him to do it, or Minion simply does it himself if he thinks Megamind is in too much danger.

If Gru decides to throw hands, Megamind’s Mech can trounce him, and it having multiple invincibility forcefield power-ups (thanks videogames) would make it absurdly hard for Gru to get rid of it quickly before it blasts a massive hole through his army. Minion’s scanning is far more useful than anything Nefario brings to the table, and while the Minions’ arsenal and durability may seem daunting, the sheer number of Brain Bots along with their superior maneuverability, tactics, and Porta-Prisons means they’d be able to neutralize Minions en masse.

Gru could theoretically close the gap to get a good shot in with the Fart Gun or Freeze Ray, or potentially pull off a win via the Joystick, but these are either close-range or very niche options, and are simply less likely to happen than Megamind using his go-to arsenal pieces, which can snipe Gru down from anywhere on the field. Even if Gru finds him through the Invisible Car and gets a clear shot on him, options like the Mega-Shield would let Megamind redirect nearly every single big tool Gru has at his disposal right back at him to destroy the weapon or even Gru himself, or alternatively, he can take notes from Portal and use the Portal Bazooka to send them right back in a similar way.

If Megamind ever feels slightly worried about one of Gru’s potential options, or if Minion warns him of it, he can pull out the Tickle-Kinesis Glove to immediately destroy or hack it. Megamind simply has way too many options to make Gru landing any sort of win-option Hell, while Gru literally cannot defend from the Death Ray or any Invisible Car generator/BINKEY-amped weapon Megamind decides to shoot out. For those of you who remember the original blog, this might come as a shock, but the arguments for Metro City’s hero simply Gru overtime, and in turn left Felonious the loser of this De-ath Battle.

The winner is Megamind!

Team Gru

Stats

In terms of stats, both Gru and Megamind have lots of powerful feats they can scale to. Starting with Gru, his best feats of attack potency and durability are mostly from scaling. Vector tanking the Moon’s expansion should land at approximately 115 kilotons of TNT. That’s the minimum that Gru should realistically scale to, but, as you may have guessed, there’s way more than that. Because it is consistent that Gru and other humans in Despicable Me can seriously injure the Minions, it is viable to scale Gru to feats they have performed as well. One notable instance is when one of the Minions was so injured to the point of breaking teeth because of Gru’s weaponry, while Gru has endured them multiple times. Master Chow has also seriously injured the Minions before.

We could mention more examples, but it would just be belaboring the point. It might sound crazy, given Minions are portrayed to be cartoonishly tough and practically impossible to kill, but so are the humans in Despicable Me for the former, and there are way more factors that make Minions immortal than just their durability. At their peak, Minions could scale to the sheer power of Mega Minion Mel’s laser that blasted through the planet, which comes at around 64 megatons of TNT. Another Mega Minion, Gus, has tanked these lasers when fired at him just fine, and he’s one of the Mega Minions that his powers are not enhancing his strength or durability, like Dave or Jerry, meaning your average Minion could probably reach those margins as well; thus, so could Gru.

You might think it’s weird to scale people in durability to the feat, given it managed to heat a coffee before breaking the cup, implying it could’ve been an overtime thing, but we see the laser later cut through trees instantly. Lasers also just don’t work like that; they get weaker over time the longer the distance is, quite literally the opposite of what you’d argue. You can be just as nitpicky with Megamind feats anyways.

How does Megamind compare to this overall power? Well, in a few ways, for sure. Though, that isn’t for most of his things. Generally, Megamind (physically), his army, and most of his weapons are, at best, scaling to Lady Doppler creating a 19 kilotons of TNT storm. This, while impressive, would still be less powerful than Vector’s feat, which is far from Gru’s best. However, some of Megamind’s weapons and mech could scale to the B.I.N.K.E.Y.’s energy, which can go all the way from 200 megatons of TNT to 400 gigatons of TNT, and his Death Ray is even more impressive, reaching 9 teratons of TNT.

This should blow Gru’s best feats out of the water if used, however, there’s some things to consider here. Most notably, most of the weapons that Megamind powers with B.I.N.K.E.Y. energy are not used for physical purposes, like his iconic De-Gun, and other hax-focused equipment from games, for example, excluding Megamind’s mech that he used to fight Tighten. The Death Ray is also one thing alone. Given how only a few of Megamind’s options scale to their highest attack potency, he still holds the power advantage with the mech and Death Ray, but since Gru, his weapons and the Minions all scale to Mel’s laser, Gru has a broader power advantage compared to most of Megamind’s things.

Their speeds are a bit of a different story. Scaling to Vector (again) managing to react while flying through the Moon at high speeds put him at 1% the speed of light. Additionally, scaling Gru to the Minions in reactions is far easier, and Minions like Gus can avoid lasers from Mel just fine, making Gru & the Minions’ speed reach 70% the speed of light. In comparison, Megamind’s best feat would be either dodging lightning from lady Doppler, or potentially scaling to Metro Man digging through Metro City, whose results are from Mach 600 to Mach 900. For reference, the latter is more than three thousand times slower than Vector’s feat, yet alone the laser reaction feats. There are potential Megamind feats that get relativistic, but they’re not as good.

As seen in Before the Verdicts, arguing in-tandem movement with the feat from the video game is incredibly weird given it was mostly game visuals and no one can react to the lightning strikes that come right after. Similarly, Megamind moving in-tandem with the electricity in the wire is also bad, given he jumps before the movement starts, and is falling while the electricity quickly reaches Lady Doppler (note: she also doesn’t react to the electricity). Lord Nighty-Knight side-stepping a laser is also not really what happens, and arguing in-tandem movement would be fine if it wasn’t for the weird nature of the feat, and the fact relativistic Megamind is not consistent enough to make it hold merit. But we’re not done here, are we? There’s still one bigger elephant in the room to address: the flash game feat.

In that game, baby Megamind and baby Metro Man could be potentially argued to reach speeds of over 3 times the speed of light; nearly 5 times faster than Mega Minion Gus dodging Mel’s laser. However, also explained in Before the Verdicts, we in Team Gru lean towards the interpretation that this feat is bad. Megamind is not reacting to anything, explicitly telling the player to do so for him. And he’s not commenting about anything on his path, either; he comments about how meteors can break his bones and how he is better than Metro Man. It is also notable that it’s vague on what Metro Man is doing to even hit Megamind’s ship, and it’d be beyond silly to say he’s piloting and reacting to asteroids to hit the opposite ship. It’s a video game obstacle that pops Metro Man randomly.

The biggest nail in the coffin is that the feat is beyond contradictory, and even if we’re using multiple weird medias overall, this one heavily does so, making the babies speak by names they shouldn’t even know and having Megamind and Metro Man know of each other.. going with the fact that Metro Man wasn’t “Metro Man” in that time period. Additionally, because it is so, using the justification that Megamind scales to this version of baby Metro Man is not ideal, given you’d have to be cross scaling between the canon show and this contradictory flash game. There’s no direct scaling chain inside the game.

Even if you bought the flash game feat, we in Team Gru only believe that it would benefit Gru more. Even if the feats are not directly comparable, Vector (and the Minions) reacting while flying to Mars could be just as debatable as the flash game feat is. Vector reacts to the Minions mid-travel, and contrary to arguments against, we actually do have a notion of timeframe. The explosion between the ships and the fact that we see pieces of Vector’s feat around him while he’s laid down in Mars imply that he has reached Mars by the point the collision with the Minions happened. It couldn’t take so long given that Vector seems to be shocked when he opens his eyes. It’s important to note that we all don’t entirely buy this feat, but the argument here is that you could be just as insistent with the debatable nature of both feats, and the fact that it has a result of 65 times faster than light means it benefits Gru much more.

Additionally, the feat coming from a flash game and being a huge outlier opens even more avenues for Gru’s scaling: scaling to planet level feats. If you want to bring an example of outlier-ish feat for Megamind, there’s the Conductor’s storm that gets around 600 megatons to the gigatons range, but The Minions’ Hawaiian Roll ad feat gets to the ronnatons range, and one of them [the one in red] tanked the explosion point blank. You could be nitpicky and say because other equipment survived the explosion, it’s dubious in nature, but the whole short was presenting barbeques that were progressively getting better and better for the Hawaiian rolls. Plus, it’s cartoon logic; being nitpicky about tanking a frankly absurd feat like this is being way too strict to a cartoony feat. Another Minion, Scott, farted so hard he shook space, also getting planet level results, so it wouldn’t even be inconsistent across media, using the flash feat’s similar logic. These results would let Gru not only surpass B.I.N.K.E.Y. energy, but the Death Ray as well, straight up tanking the devastating power of the latter.

Overall, while Megamind’s mech and Death Ray are packing way more power, Felonious Gru takes stats in more ways, because of his entire army and equipment all scaling to the best feat, eclipsing the big majority of Megamind’s army and arsenal, and his speed is far greater than anything compared to Metro City’s hero.

Arsenal & Abilities

When comparing Gru and Megamind’s arsenals, there’s a fair amount going on here. Both do share a fair amount of similar weaponry. They also have various forcefields and shields for protection, a wide variety of explosives with Rocket Launchers and the Doom Barrage, and yes, some stinky tech like the Fart Gun and Instinkerator. These should all realistically cancel each other out in most metrics. Although it’s worth noting that Gru generally has more elaborate uses with the Fart Gun; not only does he have more of them on top of having stink bombs with pretty decent AoE but they are capable of corroding metal, negating a person’s gravity, change their clothing and teleport an object to the user’s hand. Not to mention that unlike Megamind, Gru has a gas mask to protect him from Megamind’s stink.

Let’s look at their one-shot options; weapons Gru and Megamind have at their disposal that could win the day instantly. Megamind himself has a fair amount that could definitely give him the win, especially with the De-Gun and options like Demoralize, Delete, Desintegrate, and yes, even Dehydrate. It’s a very versatile weapon though it does have its flaws, namely the fact that its rapid fire mode can cause the De-Gun to overheat and run out of “ammo” on top Megamind having very little control of it, its beams can be counteracted with something as simple as liquid, and it’s shown that strong electricity can even fry it, making it unusable. The Death Ray however, is by far the most dangerous weapon in this debate. It’s quite a powerful tool at Megamind’s disposal with its precise targeting, destructive capability, and AoE. The Battle Suit also poses a good challenge for Gru since it’s not exactly something he can fight head on.

But looking at the bigger picture, Gru has way more weapons at his disposal that are valid wincons in comparison. The Freeze Ray, which is capable of freezing multiple targets at once, including Vector and the Minions who have shown a decent resistance to the cold. Sure, humans in Despicable Me have “survived” it, and thus you can make a point that Megamind could too, but there are several issues with this, namely the nature of both franchises. Despicable Me is much more cartoonish in comparison and has survived plenty of things that would normally be fatal to characters in Megamind. On top of that, Megamind has not shown a resistance to this type of cold like at all, thus it’s weird and illogical to apply a verse equalization like this when there’s no proof of Megamind surviving a freezing that would kill a normal person almost instantly, especially if they’ve not shown a resistance to it.

The Atominator can also BFR Megamind and his entire army to Cyberspace, which is something he has no answers to, and the crucial part about the Atominator is its massive AoE as according to Gru. The updated version of said gun can teleport the entirety of his house, lab and all of the Minions into Cyberspace, which is an AoE just as effective as the Death Ray, maybe even more so. The Disintegrator Gun, the Minion Transmutation Ray, the Joystick that controls a target just by simply pointing at them, the Reality Warping Remote capable of manipulating technology to an extent and even transmuting others. Gru has a wide variety of more weapons to choose from to help win instantly, more than Megamind does. Gru also has options to help deal with the Battle Suit, such as maintaining a distance inside his flying vehicles and shooting rockets toward the glass made cockpit, similar to what he does to Bratt’s mech when he first encounters it.

The Shrink Ray can just shrink the mech or Gru could just use the Magnet Gun to blow it up since it’s metallic/robotic. Speaking of the Magnet Gun, it’s one of the most dangerous weapons Gru has at his disposal.  Not only can it be done from a distance, but as mentioned before, it can cause robots to completely shutdown and blow up. This is incredibly detrimental to someone who’s as tech savvy as Megamind since his army consists of robots, the Magnet Gun would be very useful in tearing through most of his forces. Megamind does however have the Tickle-Kinesis Glove (dumb name) which can stun people down and has rather questionable hacking capabilities, given the most we’ve seen it do is open up a door. And while Gru doesn’t have a specific counter to this, he can pretty easily replicate it with the joystick and again, the Magnet Gun is generally a much better tool for shutting off technology than the most we’ve seen the glove do so it’s not necessarily that much of an advantage for Megamind as Gru’s options cancel it out, not to mention a better hacking capability.

Another important thing to note is the usage of their vehicles, while it might seem even given that both can use them to maneuver around in the air. But contrary to that is that Gru’s vehicles are generally much faster than Megamind’s, even his iconic airship is capable of travelling between countries and even leave the Earth’s atmosphere and reach the moon, meanwhile Megamind’s is mainly just used to travel across the city, not to mention that Gru actually has weapons built in his like machine guns, missiles which he can lock onto Megamind’s, and even has a forcefield and shrink ray. In fact, as said before, the mobility of his vehicles can generally help him avoid not only the Battle Suit but quite possibly the death ray’s AoE similar to what Megamind did in Button of Doom, albeit this isn’t a reliable method as it requires Gru knowing what the Death Ray is (which possible considering Megamind pretty consistently shouts when it’s about to be used).

If you have noticed, the biggest thing helping Gru here is definitely just how many options he has in comparison to Megamind, who’s a bit more limited. Shooting Gru with the Dehydration Gun to transmute him into a cube? Gru could just as easily replicate this with the Reality Warping Remote or the Minion Transmutation Ray. Shooting Gru with settings like De-sintegrate or De-lete? Gru could just as easily do that too with the Disintegrator Gun. Shoot the Death Ray to annihilate everything on his path? Gru can just as easily use a big AoE move that Megamind cannot escape in the form of Atominator. Freezing Gru? Gru and his army resist any freezing options, contrary to Megamind having no defenses against it.

And from then, Gru has far more weapons that were mentioned above that can one-shot Megamind just as easily, proving it likely that Megamind needs a few openings to win, while basically everything Gru can do is a guaranteed win. And a big thing to note is that many of Megamind’s haxes are inserted into a singular gun; if he loses the De-Gun then he wouldn’t be able to replicate some of its abilities through other tech. Meanwhile Gru has actively shown that he has multiple of the same weapons like the fart gun and freeze ray, and more notably has a couple of equipment that allows him to steal technology from a distance with things like the sticky fingers which can also mimic his hand movements and the fart gun’s teleportation setting.

Megamind definitely has more destructive weapons at his disposal than Gru’s, but Gru overall has more in quantity to fall back on to secure the win. Having backup tech if he loses his current one, being able to match almost anything Megamind has, and generally having much more on hand weaponry giving him the advantage in arsenal and abilities.

Tertiary Factors

Let’s break this down; Gru and Megamind wouldn’t gain their reputation for nothing if it weren’t for their feats they have done in their criminal world. After all, both gained a pretty big name among the villains they come across. But who out of the two is better at villainy? A question that is important to take on given their tactics is partially what decides the likelihood of their win conditions. Though at first it would seem that given Megamind is actually the one doing his inventions unlike Gru who partially had Nefario helping him out, he’d be taking tertiaries easily but there are more factors to consider. Megamind being more intelligent overall is good, but not when we have more to go over.

Let’s start from a general close ranged fight, because when it comes to actually throwing punches, Megamind has practically almost no feats, at best his skills at fighting at close range is throwing a punch with a strong glove but that didn’t really get him far. Gru, on the other hand, not only has been stated to know several martial arts, but also has been shown to adapt quickly on foot to countermeasure his opponent’s style of fighting. In a matter of few days, Gru managed to not only adapt to Bratt’s dancing fighting style, outdoing him at his own game, but also managed to sneakily steal his own weaponry midway through the fight. This is so insane to pull off and very useful cause it also means that in a close range Gru can very easily steal Megamind’s equipment and just use it against him!

In overall experience, Gru has the advantage here too. He has fought and confronted a plethora of far more unique opponents throughout his life. Even when he was a kid, he was able to beat the Vicious Six, and they were the greatest villains at the time. Gru has encountered many villains with all sorts of tactics, some of which even Megamind uses. Megamind, on the other hand, has a much smaller experience in comparison. Yes, he has fought against Metro Man through basically his entire life, but this is just one guy, with the same set of abilities. And considering Megamind has lost practically all of his fights against Metro City’s former superhero, this is basically no help in this field for him. Even in Rules, it doesn’t come close to what Gru has dealt with.

And stealing just midway through combat isn’t the only thing to brag about, Gru in general is just a much better thief. As impressive as Megamind’s stealth options are whether it be an invisible car or disguise watch, Megamind himself hasn’t really implemented stealth as his tactic all that often. And without something like a disguise watch, Megamind kind of falls flat at stealth, to the point he even failed to actually escape from a prison without his main gadget at hand. Or when he was going against Machiavillain he also failed to keep himself hidden purely out of his own ego.

On the other hand Gru was able to either successfully escape from Vector’s highly defensive lair or get in and out of Bratt’s lair with his skill and improvisation in mind rather than relying solely on technology to do its thing (especially given he was able to perform heists successfully despite Dru and Cookie Bots being partially a liability at the given moment). Hell, even as a kid Gru was able to steal not only an Imperial State Crown, but also a Zodiac Stone and Mona Lisa painting right under the noses of several villains, all in very quick success, being stealthy, sneaky and stealing stuff is a thing Gru has shown much more expertise making it not only more likely for him to try and use stealth in the fight, but also more likely for him to be successful at it because, unlike Megamind, Gru has been doing stealth far more often.

Though speaking of stealing Zodiac Stone from several villains, it is worth establishing that Gru also has more experience going against a foe while being at a numbers disadvantage. “How do I defeat 4 villains at once???” and Megamind’s general struggle against several villains at once in the show aside, Megamind generally hasn’t really been in a conflict where he had to literally fight against a very big amount of foes, nor was he giving orders for Brainbots to commit against something with a big number against him.

Now you may call out an example of second half of Megamind Rules, where Machiavillain turned people of Metro City to his side and then even mind controlled, but even in that conflict there never was an actual fight between Megamind and and all of Metro City, mostly hiding in one place and then trying to turn off a machine that’s been mind controlling people, so there wasn’t really any explicit big conflict, with the Brainbot stage show being the maximum Megamind demonstrated (and even in it, it was still merely a distraction and meat shield).

On the flipside Gru has experience in more massive fight in numbers such as when he was up against El Macho and his big army of Purple Evil Minions: in it despite being at numbers disadvantage, with actual weaponry at hands Gru was able to keep his cool and fight off against every nearby Minion, furthermore, Minions and Nefario themselves were even in that dynamic and without a word were acting coordinated without Gru saying anything but that’s more for a later topic.

But with something like operating at a bigger scale and with Purple Minion fight, the other subject that insists in being mentioned is their aim. With lots of their main weapons being guns, how much good of a shot they are is pretty important to consider. Megamind’s best aiming feat is most likely when he was up against Fish Gang and hit two of them by shooting at a disco ball. Not bad but all that flex aside, not only was it against opponents who weren’t fighting him in the scene, it was against opponents so bad you might as well consider them dummies.

When comparing aim, it’s more important to consider not only how convoluted the target is but also the swiftness in the action, and this is where Gru alongside his crew shined a lot. Because when facing Purple Minions and using Jam as an antidote, Gru alongside the rest of his team had to shoot precisely into the mouth, and Gru while moving and rotating himself was able to make several shots into multiple moving minions that were attacking him, and he didn’t miss a single target. Even as a kid, he was able to shoot Scarlet Overkill and her husband with the Freeze Ray amongst a crowd of people in front of him—beyond impressive. This is far more superior aiming given not only how hard it is to hit the specific part, but also because he was able to do it successfully while in active motion. To say in shooter terms, one is doing an impressive shot in a training mode while standing, while the other is doing multiple perfect headshots while in motion against several opponents that are also in motion. The difference sort of speaks for itself.

There is also the matter of both being rather direct in their approaches to resolving a conflict. While Megamind does have a history of instantly going for the De-Gun, it’s usually always the Dehydration option, which will be talked about soon, and while he does eventually switch to options like Desintegrate, that’s still gonna cost him some time. Even the Death Ray is usually not something he goes for early in a fight, as seen many times throughout the Megamind franchise: in Button of Doom, Megamind used the Death Ray because it was his only option to go against Mega-Megamind, since he had sold literally all of his weapons that were not that. In Rules, he has a more direct usage of the Death Ray, but it was to fire a beam at his antenna to get rid of Machiavillain’s control of Megamind’s Brainbots.

You could certainly argue he would eventually use the Death Ray, but definitely not early on. Different from Megamind, Gru is shown to be even more direct and consistent with using his best options early on. This can be seen with him usually going for the Freeze Ray in most Despicable Me movies, from the first time he met Lucy to avoiding the line at the coffee shop. Gru also instantly went for using a rocket on Butler Fritz since he wasn’t in the mood to talk to him, and in his fight against Bratt, he was literally going to shoot him point blank in the face, only to not have the right weapon on him. But should things go wrong, Gru has many options to fall back on given the amount of instant win weapons he has at his disposal, as mentioned earlier in this verdict, and he is strategic enough to switch over to them on a whim.

Another thing to consider is Megamind’s manipulation as he’s been capable of getting the Doom Syndicate to fight each other with a simple “Ok but which one of you is the real boss” basically. But the chances of being able to apply this to Gru are a bit slim; Gru is most certainly not dumb enough to let Megamind talk him down and get him to lower his guard, especially in the middle of a fight like this as there’s nothing really stopping Gru from just…punching Megamind mid sentence, what helps this is Gru’s skepticism against an out of shape El Macho trying to act like a completely different person after the results of his “death” but Gru was the first to deduce that the guy was still alive.

To quickly go over a few other factors, Gru and Megamind both possess methods of double jumping and numerous ways to fly through the air, so their mobility options are roughly similar albeit Gru’s vehicles are better equipped for combat. Range and Area of Effect, however, mostly benefit Gru. Basically most of his weapons can be used at either close or long range, and options like the Joystick can select at a target with only sight—as seen in the short. Shrink Ray can cover the entire moon in seconds, and—mentioned in the arsenal section—the Atominator has a devastating range, equally or even better than the Death Ray. Megamind definitely has weapons that have matching range, but his are not as potent as Gru’s weapons, discussed above.

To put it a bit more blunt while you can say that Megamind is more Book Smart, in other areas more important in this fight, whether it be a matter of stealth, martial arts, experience of a big army fight, aim, AoE, range, and most of all an approach to a fight, Gru has proven to be far more competent of an opponent.

Army

In terms of armies and support, both have their longtime pals on their side, Dr. Nefario and Chum respectively. Responsible for providing Gru and Megamind for what they need and generally helping them out when it comes to strategy. They can both help their respective sides in a lot of ways, but admittedly, Chum being capable of doing insane things like hacking to modify Megamind’s turret and check security systems, detecting enemies and amongst other tactical things to help Megamind [like scanning weaknesses] are more helpful than any support Nefario could bring. Though, it is situational; requiring Minion to be inside Megamind’s lair. Even so then, it wouldn’t be as relevant because of key components of their armies. There is a much bigger elephant in the room; thousands of them, in fact! Which we feel could tip the debate’s scale entirely as it’s the most important aspect of both sides that could very much impact the winner here. Those being the Minions & The Brainbots.

Let’s first talk about the Brainbots. While durability wise they’re not impressive, getting destroyed by a simple stick of dynamite, but, given their name it’s pretty obvious that these bots were not programmed to be particularly strong. After all, their real strength relies on their brain…bots. They’re incredibly self-dependent and coordinated, able to make a giant Megamind head all together which was estimated to be composed of nearly 100,000 of them—bigger than the 10,400 Minions! They can fly, bite people, shock them, shoot lasers and even project laser-cages which were strong enough to hold the Doom Syndicate inside, and keep in mind that this comes from a single Brainbot, imagine a whole group of them doing this. They’re generally one of Megamind’s greatest assets as they’re also capable of taking Megamind away from the scene so he can avoid danger.

Now how do the Minions compare? Well…. for one, their power-gap. The brainbots are glass-cannons compared to the Minions (hell, several got exploded by a single dynamite), physically the Minions would be thousands of times superior than the Brainbots. Meaning while the army size is outnumbering the Minion tribe roughly 10 to 1, they wouldn’t have the means to overpower the Minions physically nor be capable of surviving their weaponry or powers; the sentient-fireworks for example would create an explosive construct, a launcher that shoots the hard-headed minions, minion hand, minion ladder, minion scream, soundwaves, freeze rays, guns, laser guns, forcefields, BFR weapons, multiple fart guns (gulp), broadway force through Bob. While Minion (Ol’ Chum) does have the same thing in the form of dance music speakers, it is notably much inferior than Bob’s given we’ve only seen it affect 2 people meanwhile Bob’s affected an entire crowd, they have dynamites, explosives… so many explosives and more!

All is great, but what the Minions really excel at is their independent mindset. It is true the Minions follow commands, but the difference here is that the Brainbots’ offense and defense are commanded through Megamind. Meanwhile, the Minions do not need Gru to tell them to do anything. With Megamind and Minion potentially being frozen or incapacitated, the Brainbots become sitting ducks. Through natural instincts alone, Minions ranging from the most disloyal to loyal have shown to act first and save Gru even if he was cruel. They act out of love and appreciation for Gru! They aren’t stupid as we think either, besides their child-like personality, they’ve shown throughout time and time again from their French war days to now that they are more experienced working in as a group. Since the dawn of time the Minions have worked together and kept each other alive! Now this doesn’t make the Minions uncatchable, there is no doubt they would get Minions trapped in the Porta-Prison; however, there are flaws in its design:

1. The Brainbots need to be commanded, which Megamind is very specific and it can be easy to deduce.
2. The special effects that are featured are straight up electricity strong enough to zap all of the Doom Syndicate.
3. Its wide open spots.
4. When the brainbot casting the cage malfunctions or dies, it ends up taking down the cage with them.

Four issues that comes to play is that how its designed is nothing new to the Minions — the tribe has been trained for this very moment on evading multitude of laser walls with similar electrical features, dealing with one or several ahead would not be an issue and even if they are struck, the Minions have shown to get through regardless of that electrified-state. Not to mention the potency difference, the best we see is it impressively zapping Behemoth, a being with a magma-inorganic biology. In comparison, the Minions were able to survive electricity that has shown of vaporizing their shorts, and Kevin was able to endure large amounts of lava in his insides.

Heck, that’s scratching the surface as even some Minions are shown just completely unbothered by heat, and Minions can tank lasers as powerful as Mega Minion Mel’s. That’s another thing, alongside their durability comes a pain tolerance. Their tolerance is unbelievable and should show it would resort to the Minions being targeted by Megamind’s arsenal specifically. As said before, they tolerated extreme heat! Also being flattened, crushed, turned into mush, blown up by bombs and nukes, et cetera. With this out the way, there is no reason to assume the Minions would not only out-skill the brainbots, but overwhelm them in the stat trinity. If Gru is in trouble, the minions can aid him without him needing to call upon them. The issue here is that the Brainbots are like trained dogs, they need to be commanded in order to act while Minions can act on their own and willingly choose to save Gru and themselves. When commanded, it still won’t do Megamind any better.

It wouldn’t be the Minion section if not for their big five… six if you count Mega Minion Sam.. we introduce the Mega Minions! The Minions already have a natural screaming ability that would cause a whole neighborhood’s windows to all collectively shatter at once or Kevin, Bob, and Stuart using Chow’s technique to blast away the amplified Vicious Six with ease! Impressive, when combined to an amplified soundwave from Jerry that can send cars and humans flying back, it would result in the Brainbots being eradicated through their crazy AoE.. heck Minion’s (Ol’ Chum) helmet would shatter from these sounds leaving him a fish out of water.

With Jerry’s rocky-body in mind, it is shown to be far more durable than the average Minion making this hard for the Brainbots to handle and their projectiles will not help because Jerry is unfazed by Mel’s laser… The elephant in the room… Mega Minion Mel. Its range is capable of reaching the back of the earth to a whole satellite. With precise head movement, Mel would instantly turn hundreds to thousands of Brainbot and there is a chance where he accidentally splits the Death Ray in half! Megamind and his army has never faced extreme heats like these, it would be disingenuous to say their showings of heat tolerance would match up with the laser.

While it is true that Chum’s Brainbot dodged laser projectiles, there is no way of saying it would be the same. Comparing them, it is a full-on beam larger than anything a Brainbot has evaded. Next here comes the muscle of the group, similar to Tighten, Dave is not aware how to control his new found strength. He could throw objects at the army or he might launch minions to strike through several! Next is a tricky one that the Brainbots would have the most trouble against, Mega Minion Gus, the high-flyer of the group.. His power is super flight. With the tolerance of a regular Minion, he shrugged off being hit by Mel’s laser and evaded several blasts from it, even outspeeding one in a frame! With Gus keeping sight, he would punch through any Brainbots with ease. Noticing the cages being casted, he would save the day! It is important to mention he is usually airborne so the prisons would not get him. FANTASTIC! Mega Minion Tim enters the frame! An elastic minion shown to fit through extreme small spaces and his power ends up leaving slap marks on the base Minions! No containment or a rampage of Brainbots will do anything, Tim’s elastic powers and strengths alone can hold off and bounce off a train. Next is Mega Minion Sam! The Brainbots might poop, but they don’t fart rainbows..

Overall the numbers are in favor of Megamind’s army, but it would be inconceivable to say Megamind and his army are more experienced in the field of teamwork or war. With the amount of fodder that the Brainbots are contrasting the indestructible and varied Minions it is clear that numbers aren’t everything. The Brainbots can coordinate, but they lack independence and it is usually through Megamind’s commands. They follow and act upon command which again contrasts the Minions are all about wanting to save Gru and acting fast. They had ultimate power in their hands and chose to save the kidnapped Gru first instead of retrieving the Zodiac Stone and they quickly caught Gru and Margo who fell off a ship.

They cover Gru’s weak spots and actively know about him and his arsenal which gives the Minions the advantage of using them, important to keep in mind, Gru’s love and affection has shown to free his once corrupted evil baby who hated him, and the Minions have been with him since he was a child. Mel, the most disloyal minion becomes loyal, one of the most loyal after getting hit with a flashback regarding his time with Gru and Mel had conquered prison with the other Minions by his side. With Social Influencing like this, there are chances that demoralize or any other mind/mental options wouldn’t work all the time. Their survivability and abilities prove to be too much — ranging from hypnosis, shrink rays (even a sentient one too that can fly) possible time travel, soundwaves, indestructibility, teleportation items, body puppetry, boogie time, transmutation wands to not only transmute others but rendering Megamind’s dehydration setting completely moot through reversing the effects and among more but more notably the Mega Minions are the cherry on top and would be far more difficult to keep hold of. The Minions unpeeled this L into a W!

Conclusion

“And now he knows he could never part. From those three little kittens, who changed his heart. The end.”

Advantages:

• Has the power advantage in a much bigger quantity, and even completely if you buy higher ends…
• Faster, regardless of ends, either by a notable gap or a small one depending on what you buy
• Has—overall—a better arsenal, and multiple ways [and way more options than Megamind, to the point of overwhelming him] to instantly end the fight
• Can steal Megamind’s weapons at a distance with the Fart Gun & Sticky Fingers
• The Magnet Gun and other weapons can disable and explode the majority of Megamind’s arsenal and Brainbots
• The Atominator is just as much of a threat as the Death Ray is
• Much superior combat skill and experience, including in fights involving hundreds [to more] opponents
• Far more direct; way more likely to go for the kill first
• Overall more range and AoE
• The Minions & Mega Minions completely overwhelm the Brainbots and the rest of Megamind’s support, resisting and besting their best utilities and overall being a much better support to help Gru in the fight
• Steve Carell
• Defeated FIVE Villains at once!

Disadvantages:

• …but Megamind’s mech and Death Ray scale way higher if you don’’t consider the big high-ends
• Can still be one-shotted by certain settings of the De-Gun, or incapacitated/stunned by some of Megamind’s weapons
• The Death Ray would instantly end the fight if used before Gru’s options
• Inferior intelligence
• Albeit situational, if Minion [Chum] is in the lair, he could analyze Gru and the Minions to locate them and track their weaknesses
• Minions Paradise shut down after only a year wth   

This matchup has a lot more to cover than you’d ever think. Megamind’s peak with the BINKEY gadgets, mech and Death Ray are abnormally stronger, but Gru’s more spread; him and his army are all scaling to the best feats of the verse by a good margin, which is far greater than Megamind’s overall attack potency in most metrics. In speed, Megamind is also at a notable disadvantage; mach 900 VS 1% SoL is quite a blitz, but if you go for 3% SoL to 31% SoL arguments, Gru would still be matching these with his scaling to 70% SoL. You could go for higher interpretations of stats, but Gru is gonna generally get the upper hand in all of them. From this, a lot of things are in his favor, especially the arsenal interaction and their levels of skill and experience

Gru has much more weapons that one-shot compared to Megamind, some of which include his favorite weapons—all with decent range to go for in either close or long distance. We could be listing all of the possible interactions, but the view is clear. And while Megamind has other options to go for like his Battle Suit mech and the powerhouse that is the Death Ray, Gru can match and counter these options with the Magnet Gun, the Shrink Ray or the Atominator. Not to mention, Gru is the only one of the two that has answers to weapons (not all of them, but some) while Megamind lacks the counters and resistances, and he can even shut down or steal Megamind’s arsenal. Essentially, Megamind is limited to a few options to have a chance to win, while basically anything Gru pulls has a high chance of one-shotting. With the speed gap always favoring Felonious, this would be an even bigger problem to Metro City’s blue savior.

Speed is not the only thing helping Gru to pull these off quicker; his experience and skill demonstrate that too. He has shown better aim, better combat skills, more experience [with more variety], and—overall—approaches in a more direct way consistently. He’s sneaky and stealthier too, in ways that are more impressive than Megamind, given most of the time he’s relying on gadgets. This isn’t to say Megamind is dumb (despite what his sequels imply); he is definitely skilled and has managed to come up with strategies surrounding his arsenal, but Gru’s kind of the master of pulling out the best weapons according to the situation on the fly to end whatever situation he’s dealing with quick. After all, he is a bit short-tempered, after all.

Lastly, Gru’s army is just too much for Megamind’s. The Minions may not outnumber the Brainbots, and Dr. Nefario might not be as much of a support as Minion is, but they compensate significantly with their power, unkillability, insane arsenal and physiology, and above all, loyalty. The sheer number of possibilities this could go in their favor is insane: their strength and resistances makes them super hard for the Brainbots to reliably defeat or trap, and their amount of weapons, range and AoE can take multiple of them at once. And the mechs are not doing anything against their arsenal. While the Brainbots are quite mobile and can get Megamind out of dire situations—excluding the speed gap—, the Minions also can support Gru in many ways, like countering the effects of the De-Gun with transmutation/summoning water, which is Megamind’s usual way to start a fight. And, from there, the Minions are going to overwhelm Megamind and his options before he can switch to another strategy. And they would do it, because no matter what, their big boss’ safety is what matters most, even if they have to risk the lives of some of them.

Megamind had the destructive power, the insane gadgets, and the support worthy of a magnificent presentation, but Gru’s more spread power advantage, speed, overwhelming arsenal, skill, experience & his Minions ultimately proved too much for his adversary. You could say Megamind’s not gonna be so happy about this bad, bad day, because today, he was stolen of the biggest, greatest value of all: the win!

The winner is Felonious Gru. And The Minions!

Final Tally

Gru (7) – Ame, Gamer Brutality, ishi_yuki, Oleggator, 27thUltra, Riley, Spidey

Megamind (6) – Brobuscus, Garf, Noah Green, NormallyNormal, Stationsearcher, TripleCx3

Next Time…

April 30th