Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Jaws vs Ecco the Dolphin (Universal vs Sega)

 

"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.” - Jacques Cousteau

Jaws, the classic Spielberg monstrosity of the deep

Ecco the Dolphin, Sega's time traveling aquatic ass-kicker

Under the sea lies all manner of strange and amazing creatures of an entirely different world than us air-breathers can comprehend. Down there it's wetter, but certainly not better, at least, not for anybody stupid enough to cross these wacky underwater powerhouses of the 80's and 90's.

Round 1: FIGHT!!!

Before We Start…

We'll use both Jaws and Ecco's standard media for this, so Jaws gets all his movies and other media, while Ecco will get all the games he's starred in as well as the 2 runs in Fleetway’s Sonic the Comic.


Secondly, huge thanks to NormallyNormal and TheBiteRaptor for the calculations, and to ThiccGrimes for the Jaws research, as well as joining the blog himself.


Enough of that though, let's get into it!

Background

Jaws

“We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”


Amity Island was a summer’s paradise, just waiting for its beaches to be unveiled by its visitors. As the palm trees swayed and the parties raved, the ocean shore was waiting to be explored. As the sun was going down, Chrissy Watkins decided to go for a swim while her boyfriend dozed out. She swam out towards a buoy, when she was seized and grabbed by something below the surface. It tossed her around a little, and suddenly she disappeared from sight. Her boyfriend reported her as having gone missing, and the Deputy of police chief, Martin Brody, was sent to the beach. Her remains were found, and according to a medical examiner, Chrissie was killed by a great white shark. A man-eating shark would spell disaster for the beaches of Amity Island, and Chief Brody was ready to close the beaches. But the interests of Mayor Vaughn superseded the safety of his people, as a killer shark would ruin the towns primary income that comes from the many tourists. 


The death of Chrissie was ruled out as a boating accident, and the beaches remained open. Chief Brody reluctantly partook in the beach relaxation, looking out at the ocean blue somewhat confused. However, the ocean had a stain on it, and the further he looked, he saw something; an attack. The shark had struck again, killing a young boy while on his raft, causing widespread terror and panic as everyone struggled to get out of the water. Now, the problem could no longer be ignored. The mother of the young boy put up a bounty for anyone who was willing to kill the demon of the sea, which sparked many attempts from amateur shark hunters, but more importantly, attracted the attention of a professional shark hunter, Captain Quint. Many attempts were made to find and kill the shark, and at some point, shark hunters found and killed a tiger shark, which was believed to be the culprit, causing the townspeople to rejoice as the case is closed.

But Chief Brody wanted to be sure, but was denied in seeing the stomach of the tiger shark, so he had to sneak around at night to find the truth, and sure enough, it wasn’t the tiger shark, as there was no evidence. The shark was still out there, and Chief Brody headed to sea with Matt Hooper to find it, but the trail was cold, only finding the wreckage of a ship and the corpse of its owner. Mayor Vaughn refused to close the beach still without evidence, but it turns out there was evidence; Chief Brody’s son Mikey came stumbling in, going into shock after narrowly escaping a shark attack from a rowboat near a cove. Vaughn was left with no choice but to hire Captain Quint, who reluctantly allowed Brody and Hooper to accompany him on finding the beast, setting sail in Quint’s boat, The Orca.


While Brody was laying out a chum line, a great white shark appeared before the boat, circling it, giving the trio a good look at the kind of monster they were dealing with; its size, rows of teeth…they knew they had found the monster. A failed harpoon attempt drives the shark underwater, giving the men time to retire to the cabin. The good morning would be interrupted with a damaged hull, and enraged, Quint broke the phone, and back-up wouldn’t come for a while. It was up to them to kill the shark. They managed to harpoon two more barrels onto the shark, but it dragged the boat backwards, causing the deck to flood and the engine to nearly go out. While Hooper got into his scuba gear to immobilize the shark with a hypodermic spear, Quint tried to take on the shark himself, but was quickly overpowered and dragged to his death. When it attacked Brody, he shoved a scuba tank in the shark's mouth, seizing Quint’s rifle and climbing onto the mast, shooting the tank and blowing up the shark from the inside. 


The shark was defeated, and the two men returned to shore with the barrel. But the ocean map is only 7% explored, and much life exists out there. That shark out there wasn’t alone, with a family of its own, apparently possessed by a witch doctor who practices voodoo to forever hunt the Brody family, being drawn to them wherever they may be, to take revenge on what happened to the first of their kind. But no one will forget the original set of teeth, the true blockbuster of the mid 70s…Jaws.

Ecco

“All of the lengths of water I have traveled so far have shown me nothing. Yet, every reef hides a secret.”


The depths of the sea have birthed plenty of amazing animals, like one of the most famous, and the most playful, the Dolphin. Intelligent, friendly, and with a sense of humor, they have lived side by side with mankind for centuries. However, in those centuries mankind has also warred with an alien Foe in the form of the demonic Vortex, who seek to conquer other planets merely for sport or for food. They have tried several times to conquer the earth, and nearly succeeded in each try, but the Vortex were always stopped by the great soldier of the deep. This unlikely hero was but a Dolphin, but every landlubber or ocean-dweller worth their salt knows him as Ecco the Dolphin; the stone that split the stream of time.


Born to Darana and Elisia, Ecco was always a curious little bundle of joy, but much of that became diminished when his family was attacked by a shark, and his mother sacrificed herself to save him. Scars of this incident appeared physically as well as mentally, and a constellation-like mark would persist on his head in the form of the Delphinus Constellation. Despite this tragedy, Ecco's friends would believe this a mark that he was meant to be unlike all other Dolphins, and protected from harm by the Heavens themselves. As he grew up, Ecco would go on several adventures, even to the great sea to sing for a legendary whale. However, this happiness would not last, as the Vortex would soon create a vortex to steal away mass amounts of sealife to feed upon, which included Ecco's pod. 


Desperate to save his family, Ecco journeyed to find the Asterite, the oldest and most powerful sea creature of them all. He gave Ecco the power to defeat the Vortex, and after journeying across all of time, even to ancient Atlantis, he did just that to their monstrous queen. This would just be the beginning of Ecco's legend, as he defeated the Vortex Queen after she came to Earth for a rematch, and even saved the entire future on several alternate timelines when the Foe messed with time. Throughout that, not only did he save the literal core emotional traits of all Dolphins, but restore their bonds with humans, and defeat the Foe's Queen to once more save the entire planet. This legendary Dolphin was honored as a hero with a statue built in his honor, with the songs of his tale echoing out across all of time.


Experience & Skill

Jaws

Jaws is a shark, which means its primary tactics revolve around hunting prey and using cunning strategies to get the jump on unsuspecting opponents. Bruce is a very intelligent shark, being called a “smart fish” by Captain Quint and consistently being able to kill prey by attacking them from above and below the water without being seen, due to being harder to see in the ocean. It was such a dangerous shark despite only killing five people that Jaws had a bounty of 3,000$ (Which in the 70s was a lot of money), and was later valued at 10,000 by Captain Sam Quint.


In various games such as Jaws: Ultimate Predator or Jaws i.o, Jaws is proven to be even smarter and deadlier in how he fights and operates. He knows how to use key cards, knows how to use explosive barrels and torpedoes (As well as explosives in general), and knows how to deactivate electronic doors. This is somewhat consistent with Jaws in the Text Adventure Game where he…contemplates his own existence? He knows how to skillfully fight whales, employing tail attacks and combinations of hits to wear whales down, and can even use this tail attack to redirect missiles to an attacker.

Ecco

Dolphins are rather intelligent in general, but Ecco is by far its greatest example of this. He has been traveling the seas since childhood, even finding the legendary whale to sing him a song. His many journeys through the deep blue as an adult have had him navigate through an underwater maze that required great knowledge of the seas, travel back in time to Atlantis 55 million years ago before his kind existed, and travel through said ancient city. Of course, in Defender of the Future, Ecco's journey got considerably more difficult. Thanks to being a quick learner in Dolphin skills, Ecco is an extremely skilled warrior, which has been furthered by instruction from the Guardian of the Earth to use his wits when battling bigger and stronger foes. 


Ecco has taken on several sharks without his powers even though he got tired soon, fought other sharks while still a newbie with his actual powers, and even killed a Great White via blitzing (which he also replicated on a giant octopus once). He’s also no stranger to battling other Dolphins; even ones with similar powers to him or a pyro and cryokinetic dolphin through using the respective elements against him. Don't forget his smarts either, as he has used his sonar to operate future machinery, navigated several water tunnels in the air above an island, caused an avalanche to defeat an advanced robot enemy, and somehow hid in a Groupers mouth while invisible. In terms of a general foe list (heh), he's fought virtually all hostile members of the deep, and obviously the Vortex/Foe, as well as their nearly building sized queen on several occasions.


Arsenal

Jaws

None notable. 

Ecco

Glyphs

Throughout the series, Ecco can find indestructible crystalline Glyphs, bestowed with power and knowledge to aid him in his journeys. In Defender of the Future, these lend multiple powers through collectable crystal power-ups, of which he can use multiple at once (Examples here seconds after, with another showcasing grabbing 3 at the same time).


Fish

When damaged, Ecco can always snack on fish from nearby schools to regain health, and he can even gain allies in Light fish, which illuminate dark areas for him


Teleport Rings

Made by the Atlanteans, these teleport Ecco great distances and only work for him, which makes traversing land rapidly exceedingly easy. However, they aren’t exactly “teleport” rings, as they instead lead Ecco directly to the sea he wants to travel to, where swimming through more teleport rings increases his speed to the point that he traverses entire oceans in mere minutes.


Atlantean Harness

After becoming a crimson dolphin through several trials in a dark future, Ecco gained this harness made by the Atlanteans. This allows his song control over the works of man in this future, like to operate machinery.


Abilities

Jaws

Great White Shark Physiology

Jaws is a Carcharodon Carcharias, or Great White Shark, the largest lamniform shark, weighing up to 1,500 - 2,400 lbs, with a length of 11-13 ft on average, with Bruce in particular being measured at 25 ft and 3 Tons by Captain Quint. They are closely related to the Mako Sharks, and have a lifespan of 30-70 years. Its body is torpedo-shaped, with gills on the sides of its body, sporting two dorsal fins and two pectoral films. They have white underbellies and darker dorsal areas, allowing them to be harder to see by prey, from above or below, and can stay in water for many hours at a time before surfacing for a breath.

Teeth

Great White Sharks have 23-28 teeth in their upper jaw, and 20-26 teeth in their lower jaw, each tooth having serrated edges like steak knives to cut through flesh and bone. The first Shark’s teeth were so big, they entertained the idea of it being a small Megalodon.

Heightened Senses

Great Whites can sense weak electrical currents, electromagnetic fields, vibrations, magnetic fields and blood with electrical sensors, sometimes called electroreception that allows them to home in on prey without being seen. 

Super Jumping

Bruce can leap out of the water pretty high, able to snag low flying birds and even airplanes out of the air.

Accelerated Growth

The more boats or obstacles Jaws eats, the larger he gets in size.

Shark Vision

Shark Vision highlights targets in green to track them through the water.

Regeneration

Can replenish its health by eating.

Telepathic Link

In the novels, apparently the Sharks are under the influence of a witch doctor, wanting revenge on the Brody bloodline. This led to the Shark having a weird telekinetic link with Ellen Brody, allowing it to track her and her family over massive distances, this case being from Amity Island Massachusetts to the Bahamas.

Sound Manipulation

Despite being…a shark, the one in Jaws 4 was able to roar.

Resistances


Ecco

Bottlenose Dolphin Physiology

In case it wasn't clear, Ecco is FAR from your average bottlenose dolphin. The 5 stars on his head are synonymous with bright stars in the sky, and supposedly a sign that he is favored by the ocean. For average facts on these cheerful creatures, they often approach ships and boats, and are wonderful to watch at play. They are graceful and agile, and rarely if ever rudely jostle each other for position. Bottlenoses usually group in small social units of about 15 dolphins or less, and while feeding, each dolphin follows its own track, rising up in the water two or three times a minute. Dolphins live all over the globe in warm and temperate waters, and their secret is a omnivore diet. Bottlenoses eat 15 - 33 pounds of food a day, usually inshore bottom-dwelling fish in shallow waters. They've also been know to dine on eels, catfish, rays, shrimp, and even sharks apparently.


Sonar

While real Dolphins can use a Sonar for a few purposes, none of them can use it quite like Ecco can. After amplification from the Asterite/Guardian, Ecco can blast enemies back, to shatter stone and such, unleash omnidirectional attacks, launch in several different directions at the same time on multiple occasions, and more. The Sonic the Comic miniseries even describes his Sonar Attack as decreasing the pitch of it to sub-levels, capable of destroying anything in his path. Not only that, but it can act as a tractor beam on certain objects, and does legitimately function as a Sonar. Through it, he can communicate with other animals through learning their songs, like orca, other dolphins, old whales, actual pteranodons, and even the ancient Asterite.


Even better, his Sonar bounces back information about the area to Ecco for a clear map of the area in Echolocation. It can be used to find friends and navigate areas, scan an area for enemies, healing items, or just the general layout, and he's done so on several different occasions. This includes scanning much more open areas, and even several different labyrinths, with the comics noting he can do this on areas “greater than what the eye may see.” His songs also have much more practical uses as well, thanks to learning them through allies to help him traverse the seas. For example, around the start of Protector of the Deep, he learned a song to mess with the heads of sharks and stun them in place, making them confused and easy targets for battering senseless. Among other usages, Ecco can scatter stingrays, and open certain glyph doors.


Metamorphosis

As a powerful ability both the Asterite and the Guardian grant to him, Ecco can change into other sea creatures upon touching a Metasphere, allowing him to bypass the weakness of a dolphin and gain the strengths of other animals. He can become a seagull for flying over cliff barriers, a Jellyfish for blending in with others in full tunnels, a smaller fish to get through tighter spaces, and even his enemies. This includes turning into a shark, or the Foe as well in order to fly and launch energy blasts to blow up ships.


Resistances

  • Cold Temperature - Ecco can venture around in the open ocean, which is noted to be very cold, and has traveled to even colder ice zones reminiscent of arctic waters with no issue.


Feats

Jaws

Overall

Power

Speed

Durability


Ecco

Overall


Power


Speed


Durability

(Ok that’s not Ecco at all but he never gets hit by anything in a cutscene or etc)


Scaling

Jaws

Chief Brody


Shark > human. Duh.


Ecco

Foe Queen/Vortex Queen

In all of his main adventures besides the Jr games, Ecco battles and defeats of his Foe, the Vortex…or the Foe as in the race called the Foe. In case these seem confusing, Defender of the Future is essentially a remake of the series proper, in the same way something like 2014’s Strider is of the original Strider arcade game. Both examples are the same story and fighting the same foe (heh) with both ending in Ecco solidly defeating this ultimate enemy despite her imposing size.


The Vortex Queen has…

The Foe Queen has…


Asterite/The Guardian

As the opposite to the Queen of an evil alien race, the Asterite is an ancient and benevolent being that decided to help Ecco in the original games in defeating the Vortex, while the Guardian portrayed a similar role in Defender of the Future. More information will be given further on the details of this, as context is fairly important.


The Asterite has…


The Guardian has…



Weaknesses

Jaws

Most of the weaknesses Jaws could have are related to being a great white shark, such as damage to the gills potentially being problematic for their breathing. If they are turned over on their belly while in the water, they are far more vulnerable and can become paralyzed as a result. 

Ecco


Ecco's not without Weaknesses. As a Dolphin, he does ultimately need air to survive, and prolonged battles without it drain his health in turn. He can get quickly damaged if caught in the jaws of large beasts, and got tired after fighting multiple foes at once before he received his powers.

Before The Verdict

Lightning Speed Jaws?

Fairly simple. This is just hyperbole, and a common notion regular people use to describe something fast. If this was in a more out-there verse with other massively hypersonic feats to support it, it might hold some weight, but otherwise it’s just unsupported and a description from an unreliable source.

Ecco’s massively hypersonic swimming

You may be curious about the impressive speed numbers from Ecco’s feats, and how they are reasonable, so this will serve to clarify those details. The first example is the Teleport Rings, which, despite their namel don’t exactly “teleport” Ecco. They instead act as a quick path to other oceans/levels entirely, and Ecco is stated to cover vast distances with these in only a few moments. In case you’re curious, the levels themselves do indicate similar, weirdly enough. They have Ecco swim through the seas while the scenery changes depending on the level, and it works by having him build up speed while traveling through more Rings, while obviously landing him in other seas entirely, with the end of the level simply depicting him as swimming away instead of warping there like “teleport” would imply. You may of course be asking “How does this apply to Ecco? He’s using the teleport rings to get there?” and you would be right for his travel speed…in a sense. While it boosts his travel speed which is also attributed to the boost rings, this wouldn’t apply to his reactionary speed, as he is still moving and swimming at those speeds, while dodging dozens of enemies or debris in quick succession, meaning we can apply it to his reactions, and another factor later.


Next, let’s talk about the Asterite speed feat of bursting through the atmosphere. This is pretty straightforward and easy to apply to Ecco, but it’s best explained in the Asterite’s own BTV later on, so we’ll explain it there. 


MFTL Ecco?

Take EVERYTHING from the prior BTV, and then ask it again when I unironically talk about a Massively Faster than Light Dolphin with a straight face. Strap in for this one.


Okay, so, the main example we are speaking of is Ecco seemingly swimming directly to Vortex, which is an alien planet. Seems like an easily debunked feat due to context right? Well…no, crazy as it sounds, it's just…legitimate.


First off, let’s cover the actual distance to Vortex, so we can gauge other factors. Fortunately, it is outright stated by Glyphs (which hold knowledge recorded by others in Ecco’s world, therefore they are trustworthy sources meant to spread lore details and such) that Vortex is the 3rd planet in the Cassandra star system at the head of the Pegasus Constellation, with the nearest constellations to that being Delphineus. While the Cassandra star system is fictional, the Constellations listed are not, with the Pegasus Constellation’s head star Enif being about 690 Light-Years from Earth. This is also supported by it being noted as near to the constellation Delpineus (the real-world version is spelled Delphinus) which itself is over 100-200 Light-Years from Earth. and the Vortex planet being noted to be in Deep Space, which typically refers to space outside our solar system. Even at a baseline level, the planet is clearly outside the solar system, as it has been stated several light-years away from Earth in Ecco 2’s Manual recapping the first game.


Now, after we know that the planet is several light-years away, let's establish how. The level shows Ecco swimming through a tunnel the Vortex used to suck up all sealife, through jumping into it on Earth and ending up at the Machine (Vortex's world). So in essence he's kind of just…swimming to another solar system entirely. As insane as that sounds on paper, there is precedence for it. It is expressly noted that every 500 years there is a clear path between Vortex and Earth, where they get food to feed on, making it the opportune time to strike. Secondly, it is actually consistent. After beating the Vortex Queen, we are shown Ecco and his pod swimming back to Earth from that same tunnel, and the Vortex Queen is outright noted to have “followed” Ecco from her planet, arriving on Earth in the second game. Granted, this clearly took longer than an hour, but the point still stands that Ecco has 2 examples on his own of traveling the distance, and an enemy he beat doing the same.


For final arguments and ways to poke holes in it, the comics had Ecco simply find a portal there instead of traveling straight to the world… but it was in another dimension entirely, apparently. Secondly, and perhaps the greatest evidence, it is outright stated in the Ecco 2 manual (which recounts the events of the first game where Ecco swam through the tunnel) also notes that Ecco did in fact travel to the planet Vortex, while noting the aforementioned distance of several light-years from Earth. So… yeah, it's kind of impossible to really poke holes in this. We are given several examples of how far Vortex is away from Earth, consistent examples of characters traveling these distances, reasoning for why they can, and confirmation Ecco did in fact travel there. Frankly, it is somewhat consistent in another sense, where in Defender of the Future, Man and Dolphin went to explore the vastness of space, which is shown in-game as them flying out of the atmosphere in weird bubble-pods at bare minimum relativistic speeds. The Foe ships in this game frequently display similar, so strangely, there is just a mountain of evidence for it.


TL;DR: Ecco is apparently MFTL. Legitimately and seriously. We'll be ignoring it for the Verdict in a sense, as this is a tad wacky all things considered.


Scaling to the Asterite and Guardian

This should be fairly straightforward in both cases, but it's necessary regardless. The greatest feats across Ecco the Dolphin come from the Asterite and the Guardian; two godlike entities who aid Ecco on his adventures. So, does he scale to them?


Starting with the Asterite, the answer is undoubtedly yes. Ecco is blatantly powered by the Asterite in the original games, and a large part of Ecco 2 revolves around the Vortex Queen targeting the Asterite early on, due to it powering Ecco to defeat her in the first game. In said original game, Ecco was noted to fight the Vortex Queen after getting new powers from the Asterite, who explicitly noted he required his full power to help Ecco, meaning he would scale to anything the Asterite can do. Even more blatant is Ecco fighting the Asterite himself in both the game and the comic. In the Fleetway comics, Ecco fought the Asterite without his powers, with the fight having the Asterite block his powers, but be visibly surprised by his strength further in. While he did win the fight, the Asterite was visibly impressed by Ecco’s strength and will, and outright stated so. Of course, any doubts about that are immediately removed by Ecco outright defeating the Asterite in the first game as well (excuse the commentary, couldn’t find a good version of the fight besides it) outright cementing his scaling to it all-around.


As for what that means? Well, the Asterite has frequently displayed massively hypersonic speeds with no issue, all of which involve sending itself or objects out of orbit. It flew out of orbit to its original home at the comics end, shot a beam out of orbit near instantly, and flew Ecco himself out of orbit in mere seconds, landing a sweet Mach 233 and a kinetic energy of 134 tons of TNT. If you're curious on why that scales back to Ecco due to his relying on the Asterite to fly him… he has the Asterite's powers. The thing that directly moved him with equivalent energy is something he is empowered by, and even then he outright defeated the Asterite in the first game, which includes tanking his attacks. Likewise, if you really think about it, one of his main attacks is ramming you in the first place, so this shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Finally, Ecco has obviously defeated the Vortex Queen twice, who killed the Asterite in the sequel due to viewing it as a threat regarding her defeat prior. In other terms, that means Ecco and the Asterite's powers combined defeated her, showing overall, yes, Ecco scales to the Asterite.


Moving on to the Guardian, these waters are a bit more murky. For context, The Guardian is the greatest creation of Dolphin kind, and shielded the earth with its great power. The Foe continually rammed it over and over until they found a moment of weakness, where it did break, seemingly causing an explosion visible against the curvature of the Earth. So, does Ecco scale to that? Well, not really, and it's still more complicated than “country ahh Dolphin.” 


Unlike the Asterite, the Guardian doesn't really power Ecco on his journey, he just soloes it because he's built like that. So he isn't powered by energy that can shield an entire planet. Likewise, the way the Guardian is defeated originally doesn't backscale to much either. The initial ram that caused a country sized explosion is rather obviously an outlier, as earlier examples of the Foe ships ramming it didn't create explosions anywhere close to that size. Even then, there really isn't much precedence to that, as Ecco's only method of scaling would be destroying a similar Foe ship while in the form of one, and obviously killing Foe legions like that one as well as their strongest in the Foe Queen. They don't really grant similarities to the ramming in general, as the shield was only broken through attacking a weak spot. Other than that, with the 5 power jewels, the Guardian would restore its power, but Ecco doesn't really get scaling off of collecting them. 


So in regards to both, Ecco scales to the Asterite, but does not scale to the Guardian.


Verdict


Stats

Concerning the stats of the destroyer and protector of the deep, both have a decent range to draw from, but they do generally share the same result. With the lowest ends, they do share similar feats, like smashing through large objects and boulders, causing explosions, battling giant sea monsters, and etc. For more calculable values, Jaws can tank attacks from the Megalodon, which can smash through rocks with energy worth 7.764 tons of TNT. In contrast, Ecco can damage and defeat another Dolphin, whose cryokinetic freezing feats clock in at just over 3 tons of TNT. This is over a 2 times advantage in Jaws favor, however, this Dolphin was one Ecco defeated roughly middle through the game, and he proceeded to defeat stronger sentries right after, as well as even stronger threats like the Foe Queen, so it's not as much as an edge as you think. Moving to higher numbers, Jaws can survive submarine missiles, with those same blasts being capable of decimating columns of rock in destruction at the level of 493.486 tons of TNT. In comparison, Ecco defeated the Asterite and can obviously scale to his power, via tanking its blasts or, y’know, being powered by it. That includes the Asterite sending Ecco into orbit at massively hypersonic speeds, which reaches 133.9 tons of TNT, making Jaws about 3.7 times stronger. So, overall, Jaws would be stronger, but this isn’t really anything Ecco can’t overtake. Let’s talk speed.


At his fastest, Jaws can dodge missiles and minigun fire, landing just above Mach 6. Meanwhile, Ecco’s Teleport Ring swimming makes his reaction and dodging speed Mach 13 at minimum, and twice as fast. That’s nowhere near his limit either, as scaling to the Asterite and possessing its powers compares Ecco to several massively hypersonic feats, like launching beams out of orbit, or the main example of enabling Ecco to do the very same at Mach 233.38, which is nearly 40 times faster than Jaws. That’s easily a much bigger and notable difference than the strength comparison, and would give Ecco more than enough time to wear Jaws down even if he is weaker. Of course, this also ignores his portal explosion feat, which would be several times stronger than Jaws outright, making all stats favor Ecco. However, that feat is more debatable, as there are differing size calculations that one could make that would lessen it. Thus, you could ignore it if you wanted, but the remaining results still give Ecco an extraordinary speed advantage, and more than enough time to wear down his stronger foe.


So, Jaws takes strength by most metrics in about a 3.7 times advantage, while Ecco takes speed to a much higher degree in about a 37 times difference.

Arsenal & Abilities

Moving to the weapons and powers these sea-faring rivals wield, it's pretty clear who takes the edge. Jaws has impressive senses to track prey, being a shark and all, as well as a Shark Vision that lets him hone in on targets. Unlike a normal shark, Jaws can grow to gigantic proportions by eating ships and obstacles, or just eating any prey really to heal wounds. For Ecco, he can heal his own wounds through eating fish, and is a master at using his Sonar. This ranged attack can be shot all-around his body for area of effect moves, scan the area for its layout (which includes healing items, power-ups, and enemies), and be utilized in songs, like one to stun Sharks and make them easy targets for counterattack. Metamorphosis can turn Ecco into various sea creatures for other purposes, while the Glyphs have all their own tricks. This includes invisibility to basically all sea creatures, boosting his power/Sonar, enhancing his durability or air supply, and making him invincible. It should be evidently obvious Ecco takes this category. 


From simply a general quantity standpoint, Ecco simply has more to throw at Jaws than vice versa, just from all the ways he can use his Sonar, which doubles as a quality advantage. Not only does it allow him to fight from a distance thanks to its ranged nature, but launch in a 360 degree angle to always land hits on Jaws. Even better, its ability to scan the environment allows Ecco to always have a clear bead on Jaws, as well as any item or power-up he’d need for much greater area control. Granted, Jaws isn’t totally outmatched, as his senses and Shark Sense can give him similar ways to find Ecco, or food to heal from damage. This could also likely counter Ecco’s invincibility as well (the senses wouldn’t, given that sharks in-game can’t sense him, but the Shark Sense would). However, in a general healing sense, Ecco has it much easier in the long run. Not only does he have Glyphs that can increase his health while making him more durable, but all he needs to heal is a few fishes, while Jaws needs more meat to replenish, inherently requiring more effort to go and find such food while in a fight when Ecco needs less of it. What’s more, Ecco’s ability to communicate with other sea creatures would allow him to warn any nearby sea life of the danger, ensuring they flee and Jaws runs out of options to heal himself.


Also, Ecco’s Endurance and Vigor/Sonar Glyph powers give him ample ways to enhance his durability and strength, which he can combine with all the other Glyphs at the same time, making him able to mitigate any stat difference even easier. Jaws does have a potential trump card in growing to the size of a giant through eating boats and the like, but this in itself is pretty situational. He’d have to find and eat these things before Ecco could stop him, in a fight to the death no less, and even then this isn’t as much of a boon as you’d think. While it would make him much bigger and stronger, it would make it even easier for Ecco to hit him via his much greater speed, and harder for Jaws to counterstrike given Ecco is much smaller and faster. Even then, Ecco’s own trump cards are much easier to access and better in comparison. The prime example of this would be the Shark Song, which outright stuns Sharks in place, and allows Ecco ample time to attack however he wants. None of them can resist this, and Ecco can do it as much as he wants, allowing him to effectively stunlock Jaws before he can grow to a larger size, or simply freeze him in place anyway to batter him senseless until he runs out of energy to fight back. To further that advantage is Ecco’s invincibility, which makes Jaws unable to hurt him for a time, damaged on contact, and all the easier for Ecco to evade damage while Jaws only sustains more. 


Ecco comfortably takes versatility.


Tertiary Factors

Arriving at tertiary factors, both have their advantages and counters to each other. At a baseline level, both have shown similar experience and intelligence, with countless examples of battling other sea life, giant monsters, several foes at once, etc. It is likely Ecco has been doing this for longer overall given his adventures across the seas as a child in the Jr games, but it’s not anything notable. However, Ecco is more skilled, and has displayed more actual technique and intelligence put into his thoughts beyond just being generally crafty like Jaws is. 


Beyond those, there are more important factors as well. Jaws is always going to be a much bigger target based on his size, especially when he grows, and given Ecco’s much greater speed as well as smaller size, he’s really not in any position to utilize his greater strength. Jaws can hold his breath for longer (Sharks can do so for hours while Dolphins can so for multiple minutes) and does have better stamina examples, so he should be able to keep things up longer than Ecco. The issue is, Ecco holds practically every other major advantage, and his own powers are not exactly something Jaws can work around. Even against his giant form, Ecco has flatout killed much stronger giants several times before via blizting them with rapid attack, such as giant sharks or the Vortex/Foe Queen. 


Ecco takes tertiary factors.

Conclusion

Jaws


Advantages

  • Stronger and tougher in most metrics…

  • His senses can likely counter Ecco's invisibility when combined with the Shark Sense

  • Can certainly kill weaker forms Ecco takes in Metamorphosis

  • Larger form would be harder to kill…

  • Rocking the Boat - Ice Nine Kills

  • BlĂ„haj :3


Equal:

  • Intelligence and experience generally

  • Healing methods for the most part


Disadvantages:

  • …But is outclassed by Ecco's strongest end

  • Blitzed and outsped no matter where Ecco is placed

  • Much less versatile overall, and lacks answers to many of Ecco's attack methods like spamming from a distance

  • …but Ecco has fought giant opponents many times before, and used his greater speed to blitz them as well

  • Completely vulnerable to Ecco's shark song

  • Can't bypass Ecco's Invincibility

  • Less skilled

  • Franchise is dead

  • Single-handedly ruined the reputation of sharks for decades

    • Seriously, sharks are good bois


Ecco

Advantages:

  • Stronger at his best examples

  • Always much faster, even without MFTL arguments, and this only furthers the larger Jaws gets

  • Has much better powers and a wider arsenal

  • Can spam projectiles from a distance, make himself tougher, or flat-out invincible to Jaws

  • His Shark Song is the perfect advantage here, and can stunlock Jaws at any point

  • The invincibility is extremely useful

  • Ecco has fought and killed giant opponents several times before, making Jaws potential giant form not much of a boon

  • Generally more skilled

  • Defender of the Future is a complete and utter masterpiece

  • Has a descendant in the future (meaning he got lucky at some point)


Equal

  • Intelligence and experience

  • Healing methods


Disadvantages:

  • Weaker in some metrics

  • Metamorphosis could allow Jaws to kill his weaker forms easier

  • Invisibility is countered by Jaws’ Shark Sense

  • Franchise is dead

  • Dolphins are evil


To sum up, Ecco has everything he needs to prevail. While he is weaker in some metrics, he is always much faster to the point of a serious blitz, allowing him to wear down Jaws given his much better arsenal. This includes ways to buff his power and durability, making any difference not mean much, but also much more variance through tricks like Metamorphosis. While Jaws can likely see through his invisibility and chomp through most of his transformations, he can't exactly bite through an invincible superform that harms him on contact, or find food to heal when Ecco possesses much better AOE that can double as a warning to any sea creatures Jaws could eat. Even worse, Ecco's Shark Song is tailor made for messing with Sharks and stunning them, allowing Ecco to get in as many hits as he wants whenever he wants. Jaws could potentially grow to a giant size, but Ecco has killed several monsters bigger and stronger than him through blitzing, like the Vortex/Foe Queen, while already possessing pretty much every notable advantage. Add in their comparable experience/intelligence, Ecco's superior skill, and all the other factors discussed? It's no surprise the Defender of the Future was Leagues ahead of Jaws, and his victory over this foul destroyer will Echo out through all of time.


The winner…is Echo the Dolphin.

Final Tally


Jaws (2) - Fenic. V, pagekettle (Pity votes)


Ecco (5) - Bang, theelemental2, iceking, Round 1 Fight, ThiccGrimes (I F$CKING HATE THAT SMUG DOLPHIN)


Next Time…

So, brief rant and/or progress update for those who have been reading my blogs for a while.


Long story short, my original Wave 2 (this wave) looked VERY different, but frankly, shit hit the fan. I originally planned (SPOILERS) Dipper vs Dib (Gravity Falls vs Invader Zim) and Monk vs Light vs Columbo (Monk vs Death Note vs Columbo) as blogs for this wave, along with Kingpin vs Penguin (Marvel vs DC) and another match, let's call it A vs B, for specific dates. You may have noticed Dipper teased in my original teaser nearly half a year ago, and the latter is really fun, so what gives? Well, another blog did Dipper vs Dib before I did via starting work earlier and all that (it’s nobody's fault or anything, just planning and my not being aware of it) and we all know DB is doing Light vs Columbo as of the Kickstarter. At that point I fell out of favor with doing it, because it would just result in people dogging on my idea saying I did it in relation to its announcement (we were working on it for months) and I didn't feel like doing more work when it would actually get a better blog and episode through G1 and the actual show that would just make me feel worse.


So, I did some more rearranging, but still tried to make blogs for general specific release dates. That didn't go well. For personal and contextual reasons, Eren vs Kaneki for example took 2 months to release (not really a bad thing considering it was in the top 10 longest blogs and near-universally loved lol) but after a project as short as Krypto vs Underdog took nearly that long, it unintentionally fudged up the release of multiple blogs. For example, I planned to release The Batman vs The Spectacular Spider-Man on September 28th (Greg Weisman, one of the writers for the show's birthday), and hoped to have ErenKaneki done sooner so I could work on that, and then get on to Kingpin vs Penguin, which I originally planned to release around the finale of the Penguin show. Horribly misjudged that and the amount of time it would take to complete, so after I announced it with ErenKaneki's release, it became clear, even with the help I was getting, that I couldn't make the deadline or even month of November. That also messed with a blog I planned to release in early December (A vs B) that itself requires a decent amount of work after the onslaught that is Kingpin vs Penguin. So? Restructuring.


TLDR: Kingpin vs Penguin is getting pushed back as a blog until we are actually ready. We've gained many soldiers thanks to the DB Cast (I lost my mind when that got announced btw) but it's still the comic version of the Org BR due to how much we're including for each. As of right now, I'd expect a February release if we can finish Kingpin's initial research by December, but who knows (I'll give updates on progress in future blogs). A vs B is having similar, where I'll just start production at a later date, potentially my 3rd Wave, depending on when the commemoration in question is applicable in 2025. Ax the intelligence BR and my wave is looking mighty different, so be ready for that. Finally, I announced it months ago, but I am remaking the majority of my Wave 1 blogs due to poor aging, changing writing styles, and my accidentally nuking the images in 3 blogs because I dumb. After some unfortunate planning yet again, I'm finally going to get on that, and am intending to release Slapstick vs Freakazoid (Marvel vs Kids WB) either before the year ends or early January. After that I'll move on to the rest and get all my blogging back on track. Thanks for listening to this rant, apologies for any miscommunication or errors, and I'll see you for the future of my blogs. Speaking of, how about that Next Time?





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