Friday, March 14, 2025

Clutch Powers vs Chase McCain (LEGO vs LEGO City Undercover): Round 1 Fight Blogs

 

"Building dreams, one brick at a time.” - LEGO

Clutch Powers, the legendary exploring hero of LEGO City

Chase McCain, undercover cop extraordinaire of… LEGO City

LEGO has many heroes and adventurers in its vast catalogue of IP, but by far some of the greatest are its original characters. The greatest heroes in their worlds and legendary heroes, but also ones who learned to let others into their action-filled life. Can Powers Clutch this win? Or will McCain Chase down the dub?

Round 1: FIGHT!!!

Before We Start…

Both Clutch and Chase will receive most of their standard media. Clutch will get his original movie, along with the 4D “sequel” shown in Legoland. Chase has a bit more, but basically all of it is fair game. LEGO sets, children's books, and mini-movies are all usable here, but the primary focus is the original game. LEGO City: Undercover, both original and remake, are where we'll be focusing Chase's analysis, similar to Clutch with his own first movie. This also includes The Chase Begins, a prequel for the DS still set in the series chronological timeline.


As for what ISN'T used, we won't be looking at any crossovers with other LEGO IPs. Clutch will not receive his appearances in Ninjago, and stuff like LEGO Dimensions is off the table for Chase. We're aiming to keep this based on the original match, but for those still disappointed on this decision, we will discuss it all later in the blog. Similarly, both will get access to pretty much all tools or weapons they’ve used across their careers, with the exception of Red Bricks for Chase, as that would just grant him unlimited invincibility and end the debate right there.


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


Sources used:


Also, huge thanks to Flip for the custom images made for this blog, and to Normal for calculations done.

Background

Clutch Powers

“Welcome to LEGO Headquarters! You’ll be great explorers one day!”


Clutch Powers; possibly the greatest LEGO explorer ever. Women love him, men want to be him, and everyone in the known universe knows who he is. How did such a hero come about? Well, we don’t know much, but he was the son of Rock Powers, another legendary explorer. Rock was frequently out on adventures, which left Clutch all alone for a large portion of the time. This caused Clutch to not only harbor resentment towards his father for leaving him alone, but admire him for his ability to do all that he did alone. This was furthered when Rock disappeared while on a mission, which left Clutch with the desire to fill his father’s footsteps. Becoming an explorer himself, Clutch quickly rose to unprecedented fame for his skills and accomplishments, especially when working with LEGO HQ and his father’s old friend, Kjeld Playwell. On one such mission, Clutch was introduced to a team of adventurers just like himself: Brick Masterson, Peg Mooring, and Bernie von Beam. Together, they were to visit the prison planet out in outer space, and investigate a loss in communications. Clutch was initially opposed, but as his father had said, good adventurers “build on each other,” and so he joined the team as a skeptical leader.


After arriving, the team’s lack of… well, teamwork, caused them to be quickly dispatched by 3 escapees from the planet's prison, which included a sorcerer known as Mallock the Malign. Mallock quickly set his sights on conquering his old stomping grounds in the Medieval planet of Ashlar, and the LEGO Team were sent to save it from him. Once there, Clutch met Prince Varen, the young adult son of the former King, Revet. The aforementioned noble ruler had sacrificed his life to ensure Mallock be stopped, and Varen was left alone in the shadow of such a legend. With encouragement from a Troll named Hogar, Clutch set out to help Varen save his Kingdom from Mallock, and he himself became more open to working with others as a result. Even so, Mallock saw through their attack plan, and his soldiers were able to defeat the army, as well as capture Clutch and Varen.


In that instant of failure, Clutch realized what his father meant in saying heroes build on each other. No one will ever be strong enough to do something all alone, and will always require others to fill in the gaps where they are weak. That is the message behind LEGO itself; a piece by itself is just the piece in a puzzle, but multiple combined can make something greater than the sum of its parts. Upon realizing that, Clutch was able to rally his allies into fighting back, escape his prison with Varen, and face down Mallock with the Golden Sword of King Revet. Even when tempted with news about Rock’s vanishing, Clutch was unswayed, and held true the words that he had taught Varen; his father was always with him. Throwing the Sword to the prince, Clutch had built a force of trust that could overpower the greatest evil, and Varen triumphed over Mallock to do just that. With the boy rising to become the rightful ruler of Ashlar, Clutch and his Team returned home, only to journey across the universe once more to re-capture the remaining escapees. With his team at his back, the spark of creation aflame within, and his fathers words at heart? There is no end… to the Adventures of Clutch Powers.

Chase McCain

“Excuse me! Did anyone order a hero?”

Of the many police and cops patrolling LEGO City, none are quite as legendary as Chase McCain. He wasn’t always a legend though, but this is the tale of how he became one. Chase started off his days on the force as a promising young new officer, however despite his potential, he was sagged with Donut deliveries and Grunt work by Deputy Dunby (like fighting actual grunts). This led to the first criminal takedown he had, Tony “Knuckles” McGee. Starting Chase's impressive track record of criminal takedowns, from the prison Hostile Takeover, to their space facility getting robbed by an Astronaut criminal. The latter of which is how he met and fell in love with Natalia Kowalski, who had been kidnapped by Flash Johnson. After defrosting her, Chief Gleeson decided to move her to a different branch while they worked on getting her to testify against Rex Fury, who they believed to be behind all these crimes. but have failed to pin him down. So, she was moved down to the department in Bluebell Woods with Chase, where the cop discovered a plot to demolish the Woods under the orders of one Forrest Blackwell (information only given to him, and the player), so that he can build new apartments in the area. 


Eventually, after enough takedowns, Chase was able to get a lead on Rex, who was planning an attack at city hall, and with the help of all his disguises (and aliens) he eventually thwarted Rex… even though Deputy Dunby took the credit for it himself. Chase approached Dunby while dazed, unaware of his credit being stolen, and accidentally told Dunby on camera that Natalia had agreed to testify against Rex. Thanks to that little mishap, Dunby shipped Chase off to the boonies for 2 years, until, that is, Rex Fury escaped. Befitting his namesake, Fury was furious about his capture, and organized a hostile takeover of Lego City, dramatically increasing its crime rate after breaking out. Gleeson, now Lego city's mayor, personally brought Chase back after all this time to put an end to Rex.. Returning to the department, Chase meets new friend Frank Honey, who helped show him around the new changes to the department. After learning Dunby has now been promoted to Chief and getting briefed by him on the case, Chase began the journey to track down Rex. 


While on it, Chase took down clown robbers, working Undercover with the mafia and other gangs, saving farms and the fire department, or even becoming an Astronaut. Throughout it all, he reunited with Natalia, and began to repair their relationship, as well as his past mistakes. As he was uncovering the Web of Crime Rex has left in his wake, Chase uncovered that the real person behind this all was Forrest Blackwell. After his plan to build apartments in the forest was foiled, Forrest decided to build his own base on the moon. He had enlisted Fury’s help to pull this off, but unfortunately for him, Chase was on their Case and put an end to both of their schemes. Finally having saved LEGO City from the crime wave and getting the recognition he deserved for taking down its most notorious criminal, Chase decided to turn down that honor. Instead, he finally recognized that some things were more important work, and retired from his police career to be with Natalia. Even so, before and since, LEGO City has never known a defender of justice quite like Chase McCain. 

Experience & Skill

Clutch Powers

Clutch Powers’ resume speaks for itself. As the son of Rock Powers, another legendary explorer (16:48), Clutch has since surpassed him and is hailed as possibly the greatest explorer ever (10:05). That same scene has Kjeld state “everyone” knows who he is, which seems like a stretch, but then again… aliens on a medieval planet across the galaxy know who he is (40:00). In relation to Rock, his vanishing 3 years ago (28:37) logically gives Clutch at least that many years of experience.


In general, Rock not being around much led to his son being taught to fend for himself (17:13), which seems like a pretty accurate statement. He knows rocket science and even implied it’s easy for him (27:09), and has knowledge of melee weapons like broadswords (48:18) and spears (56:26). It also goes without saying his actual resume of battling crooks, rock monsters, braving space travel, fighting medieval threats, and more is incredibly impressive.


Chase McCain

Chase isn’t a “police legend” (check description) for nothing. After starting as a rookie, Chase quickly caught master criminal Rex Fury, and was undeterred when sent to the boonies by arrogant ally Dunby. After 2 years, he returned a, quote “better, smarter, faster cop” and it shows. He’s pretty smart overall, like how he organized the cars of a dozen rookies into a steady organized line to fix the roadblock with his directions, or in his surprisingly effective moments of teaching rookies. This goes into other areas of intelligence, like clearing a prison break to re-capture all the escaped prisoners, infiltrating criminal organizations through gaining trust, breaking into a maximum security vault to steal the Bell Pepper Emerald, or escaping from several sentinel robot guards. Don’t underestimate his combat skill either, given his track record of flips and leg sweeps on crooks even when somewhat of a novice in combat. 


Once he had to up his game, he trained under the multi-decade seasoned Sensei Barry in Kung Fu, through a CD in moments. Now, he could challenge Barry directly (albeit briefly), launch attacks in slow motion for the rest of the world, and go further into his hidden potential through Advanced Combat. This let him frequently take on several opponents at once, use counters by timing a block right, as well as fire off several martial arts moves (spin attacks, helicopter kicks, launching enemies into each other, etc). Combining experience, intelligence, and skill, Chase is quite the threat. He flew a helicopter with no training (and is a master at literally every vehicle in the game), used a chain while jumping out of a helicopter to stop a speeding vehicle on the spot, and of course, he has matched and defeated Rex Fury. Not only has McCain himself called Rex a criminal Kingpin, but his Furious criminal career has been going on since he was 6 years old. Against Rex, who was a much stronger foe, he threw thugs to break his energy shield, and to damage him as well. 


Arsenal

Clutch Powers

Adventure Gear

Every adventurer needs their best tools on-hand, and Clutch has quite a few goodies to use. This includes a radio to speak with allies (1:06), a flashlight (1:21), and a Wrist Communicator to LEGO HQ (6:17). 


Suits

On adventures his regular Raiders-inspired gear won’t cover, Clutch has also worn helmets with goggles that can scan materials like minerals (1:11), or spacesuits for exploring the final frontier (12:56); complete with high-tech blasters (19:35).


Vehicles

LEGO has always been focused on unique vehicles and creations, so Clutch, being the greatest explorer they’ve ever had, should pretty evidently have quite the collection stashed in his garage. His average car has pretty high-speed showings and capability for sharp turns (6:17), but his really impressive showings lie in variety. He’s used a giant drill to break through rock while exploring underground (0:53 - 1:06), used a sea helicopter in miscellaneous exploits (1:18:15), and of course, a spaceship. Among lesser details, it comes equipped with a relativity ion burster (13:11), for intergalactic travel (30:29), along with powerful energy cannons that can blow up smaller ships with ease (25:10).


Mine Mech

Once Clutch was up against a rock monster his own power wasn’t enough to stop, he hopped in this mech for a fighting chance. With keys to turn it on like a car, plus spinning blade and pincer arms, it had the raw power to match the rock monster in a struggle for a time (3:33 - 4:10). However, Clutch can still be knocked out of it with enough force, and he appears a tad bit inexperienced in using it overall.


Hover Pack

After retrieving a special package from Arty, the local scientist of LEGO HQ, it was opened to reveal this means of travel. Clutch can obviously fly through the sky with it, and move much faster than normal 


Chase McCain

Police Communicator

Given to him by the resident police communicator Ellie Phillips, Chase wields his own personal communicator, which does everything his old phone did and more. As an obvious pairing for the Wii U, much of Chase’s police activity is directly built off of using it. This veritable swiss army knife can answer calls from Ellie first and foremost, but she also upgraded it several times over the course of the game for many functions.


Vehicles

One of the main draws of LEGO City Undercover is how it’s, for lack of a better word, Grand Theft Auto for kids. In layman’s terms, Chase can whistle down and drive civilian cars, or any other vehicle really. He’s skilled enough to pilot most vehicles with no training whatsoever, and he has… a lot of picks to choose from across the many types, affinities, and models the game has to offer. Most come with a Nitrous Boost, which enables high-speed travel before needing to recharge for a moment or two. With Super Bricks, Chase can build Vehicle Call-In Points at select locations, which allow him to call in any vehicle he owns at any point via helicopter. We won’t be naming all of them (we’d be here all day), but he has access to Squaddie and Trooper police cars, police motorcycles, Prison Transport Trucks, ATVs, Fire Trucks, ambulances, or flying vehicles like helicopters or even a UFO. Pretty much any police vehicle is at his disposal, and any that he doesn’t have? He’ll just flag down a civilian and “borrow” it.

Megafig

For his final challenge of the game, Chase suited up in the massive Megafig robot exoskeleton. It could square off against Rex’s T-Rex that Chase “acquired” earlier in the game, and had the horsepower to hurl canisters almost as big as it was, or pull a “So long, Gay Bowser!” on Rex’s dinosaur mech. Of note, he has also piloted similar robots in the prequel to the original game, so he’s no novice in this sort of combat.


Abilities

Clutch Powers

LEGO Physiology

As the original LEGO Movie protagonist, Clutch shares many of the traits LEGO toys do. While he hasn’t shown it himself, several others have, so he should be capable of the same. Brick Masterson has had his hand fall off and put it back on later (14:30 - 14:37), or had his head spun like a top with no ill effect (1:10:13 - 1:10:25). In Bernie’s case, his legs can get stuck to objects like real minifigures, and he even had them fully pulled off his body without an issue (1:07:40 - 1:08:06), though he was far less mobile as a result. Weirdly enough, Clutch can also break the 4th wall, and he spoke to the audience of his 4D Movie at LEGOLand.


Master Builder

Let’s be honest, Clutch Powers was a Master Builder before Emmet was even thought of. He’s such a master of building that he holds unmatched knowledge of how bricks of all shapes and sizes interact with each other, even knowing over 917 million ways to connect bricks (40:40 - 41:17). For specific examples, Clutch usually quickly thinks of items he needs, visualizes how to build them, and does so in seconds without a problem (4:23 - 5:19). He’s casually built a specific key to unlock a prison planets doors (20:11), constructed a massive bridge in seconds while creating afterimages (40:25 - 40:49), and kicked a ship to make it come apart at the seams before making a new one himself (27:33 - 27:53).


Resistances


Chase McCain

LEGO Physiology

Like most LEGO Game protagonists (fitting, given he’s one of the few original ones), Detective McCain has the average toy-like physiology of LEGO in general. Others in his world can have their hands pulled off and experience no real pain, and another criminal was even frozen to the point of shattering before Chase rebuilt him good as new. In the case of Chase, he’s been flattened against a wall like ye slapstick cartoons of olden times.


Master Builder

While not technically one (by The LEGO Movie standards anyway), Chase McCain might as well be a Master Builder. Like any LEGO game protagonist, Chase can destroy and rebuild basically anything to his heart's desire in moments. He’s rebuilt a damaged computer, remade a fully-functioning teleporter out of scrap, built a jet-powered snow plow to break out of a bank, and more. As for direct repurposing objects into others (like any fan of LEGO does), Chase has smashed a cabinet and rebuilt the debris into a fully-functional radio, destroyed a box and rebuilt it into costume booth, and rebuilt an electrical system record player after the original was damaged.


Master of Disguise

Chase is noted as a master of disguise in plenty of LEGO City media, and this shows the most in his suits and disguises, which he uses throughout the games. Speaking of…


Suits and Disguises

Befitting the aforementioned mastery of disguises, it’s only fitting Chase has used and worn several over the course of his adventures. All of them serve various purposes, and can be changed into on a whim (think the character select option in other LEGO games, but it’s just into other costumes). As for the ones he has…

Enhanced Agility/Acrobatics

With how often he runs across the rooftops of LEGO City, its no surprise Chase has parkour skills Cole MacGrath would be jealous of. He can swing between flagpoles like a gymnast, run on walls with a speed boost, run up building rooftops, leap up the side of a building, and scale virtually any kind in the City if he wants to.


Resistances

Feats

Clutch Powers

Overall

  • Hailed as possibly the greatest LEGO Explorer ever

  • Taught Prince Varen and helped him become a true King

  • Learned to work together with others, and formed the LEGO Team

  • Helped defeat Mallock the Malign

  • The first feature-length LEGO Movie

  • Returned in Ninjago (sort of)

Power

Physically


With Vehicles


Speed


Durability


Chase McCain

Overall

  • Became a legend on the police force

  • Saved LEGO City from Rex Fury twice

  • Infiltrated multiple criminal gangs and was never caught

  • Successfully became a criminal, a firefighter, a farmer, a miner, a construction worker, and an astronaut

  • Learned some things were more important than work, and retired from being a cop to be with Natalia

  • Defeated various criminals, Rex Fury, Forrest Blackwell

  • Made Grand Theft Auto for kids… and it works

Power

Physically (Costumes included)


Vehicles


Megafig


Speed


Durability


Scaling

Clutch Powers

LEGO Team and other Characters

Clutch is pretty frequently built up (heh) as the most legendary explorer ever. Given even his teammates know this, as do various other characters across the universe, it should be more than fair to compare him to most everyone we see in the movie. 


Brick has…


Peg has…


Bernie has…


Multiple or all of them have…


Miscellaneous characters have…


Rock Monsters

At a few points in the Clutch Powers movies, he comes into contact with some rock monsters. His mine mech was able to hold his own with the monster before it got pissed off enough to throw him out of the mech, so he should likely downscale it and comparable beings to no significant degree.


Mallock the Malign (Debatable)

As one of three criminals dubbed the most dangerous in the universe, Mallock was the primary antagonist of Clutch’s debut adventure. His supreme sorcery achieved many feats, of which Clutch could compare, with more information Before the Verdict.


Chase McCain

Rex Fury

As Chase’s capture that made him a legend and his main enemy throughout the game, Rex Fury is one monster of a criminal. While he is stronger physically, Chase has taken blows from, damaged, and defeated him in both the prequel and finale of Undercover, and his Megafig robot did the same to the T-Rex robot. 


LEGO City Police

Given his standing as a legendary policeman among the cops of LEGO City, Chase should more than compare his fellow boys and girls in blue. 


Thugs and Criminals

Similarly, Chase quite frequently and easily captures several criminals in LEGO's catalogue, with Rex specifically being noted as a much more impressive threat. So, Chase should easily scale to the thugs he can take down in seconds, and likely upscale given his taking down Rex Fury. 

Weaknesses

Clutch Powers

Clutch is certainly a legendary explorer, but he's not infallible. His tendency to work alone puts him on more danger than it should, and while he has worked past it generally speaking, it's still a hazard, as shown in his 4D Movie where he competed with his teammates over nothing. Aside from that, without suitable creations or weapons, Clutch isn't the most hax-heavy guy around, and he can even be thrown out of his vehicles with enough force (4:15).


Chase McCain

French Parrots.


Okay, seriously, Chase isn't a model cop. He's had his fair share of clumsy moments (that resulted in plenty of property damage) and some of that goofy nature has ensured he reveals police secrets on live television. Accidents do happen, and he's certainly much better about it now, but it's still a notable issue. Also, his vast arsenal is often dependent on the materials at hand, and he can't call any vehicle to his side without a nearby Point to do so.


Before The Verdict

No Crossovers? What if they were used?

I’m sure several of you are curious why crossovers were ignored for this one. Let’s cover this before things get too far in. 


In short, the main reason this is a factor is Clutch’s appearance in Ninjago, one of LEGO’s most popular and powerful properties in the VS scene or in general. Frankly, this becomes a problem with a lot of one-time or few-time crossovers in battle boarding, where people like to take instances like this and try to buff the characters to levels they wouldn’t be at normally. Crossovers in general do muddy up what is usable and what is not (take Courage the Cowardly Dog cross-scaling to Scooby-Doo as an example), but in Clutch’s case, it’s not much of an issue. For starters, the Clutch in Ninjago isn’t even the Clutch we are analyzing. Tommy Andreasen (co-creator of Ninjago) has stated on social media that Ninjago Clutch is simply the shows take on the character in an older and more jaded look at him. 


Admittedly, the post stating this was deleted, but others recounting this from when it was still up stated the same thing; that it is just Ninjago’s version of Clutch Powers. Even without that hard confirmation that they aren’t the same people, Ninjago really doesn’t line up with Clutch’s own canon. None of his older allies or other characters like his father are ever mentioned, and he’s pretty much entirely disconnected from the story of the original movie. LEGO City or any other location visited in his adventures are never seen, and all of this does make sense, because again, this is Ninjago’s take on the character, not the original character and his lore slapped into Ninjago.


Even so, what if you wanted to take this into account anyway? Well, it probably wouldn’t change much if at all. Ninjago Clutch doesn’t really fight or do anything to warrant any sort of scaling to bigger feats to our knowledge, and actually researching this version of him, which again isn’t canon to the Clutch Powers we are using, would ultimately do nothing besides grant potentially higher stats. Even if we did? Chase is actually the perfect answer to that, because he has showed up in 2 spin-offs of his own, with the first being LEGO Dimensions. That little multiverse hopping story is in a similar boat to Clutch appearing in Ninjago, except it has more backing through context. Chase outright mentions several details and characters directly from his original game (Rex Fury, Frank Honey, Chief Dunby, his Satnav), which is a stark contrast with Clutch’s crossovers ignoring his history entirely. Dimensions' existence as a multiverse tied to its many properties, in which LEGO City is a major part of it, means it makes a lot more sense than Clutch’s to be taken seriously.


Similarly, Chase also appears as the Officer character in LEGO Quest & Collect; a short-lived RPG with several different LEGO characters. This is a little less solid than either case, but the point with both of them is that Chase holds very similar cases to Clutch in terms of canon, which benefit him FAR more should they be used. Case in point? Ninjago, Clutch’s own potential scaling example, is prevalent in both games, and Chase would then scale to whatever Clutch could by default. Even worse is how he would get the many power-ups and abilities present in both, while Clutch would be left high and dry.


So, neither of their crossovers should be used which would take away from the point of the match, but if they were? Chase would simply win thanks to equal scaling but even more weapons

Mallock Scaling

Due to being the big bad of the movie, Mallock invites the most powerful feats shown off in it, which then leads to the inquiry of if Clutch scales to him, as well as relevant factors like his electricity.


Starting with Mallock’s own standing and powers, let’s start with his lightning, and if it is legitimate. Mallock’s powers have electrocuted people (35:39), and he has manipulated storm clouds before (1:01:33); even flying around in them (1:12:05) or manifesting as them in an entrance (1:09:15 - 1:09:39). His attacks also make thunder effects (1:12:52), so, given the frequent cloud relation, it’s likely they are actual lightning bolts, and move at around Mach 286. For power, Mallock’s main example is his shaking a room (1:09:15 - 1:09:39), among more unquantifiable examples like casting a spell that blocks technology over an entire planet. He also threw Hogar across a forest, which earns about 10.2826 Tons of TNT. One argument that could be made is how a large storm was dispelled upon his defeat (1:13:14), implying he created and maintained it. It is unclear, but regarding the actual storm, it didn’t appear all too large in cloud sizing (it’s upper makeup appeared like a thin veil rather than larger clouds that would make this more impressive), which would likely impact it negatively if it were to be actually calculated. Regardless, it is an impressive feat, but would Clutch scale?


In the movie, for those who interact with Mallock, the team fights him on the prison planet (23:25), where Mallock’s magic restrains or one-shots every party there, Clutch included. Specifically, he grabbed and threw back Bernie/Brick before they could counter, and did the same to Peg but more based on restraining. For Clutch, he attempted to shoot back, but Mallock shot him first, and then ripped debris out of the wall to nail him to one, all before he could counterattack. Aside from that his major appearances include teleporting Clutch via blast later before he can reach him by intercepting him (56:59), and fighting Varen at the end of the movie. During that battle, both Varen and Mallock dodged the latter’s lightning (when Varen reflected it back at him), and Varen’s sword was able to counter the magic of the lightning-staff, as well as absorb it and defeat the wizard when all was said and done. The Sword itself is a good metric to scale to Mallock directly, but besides it, not so much. 


Multiple characters do take blasts from Mallock, like Varen and Clutch himself (1:11:17 and 1:11:49), but pretty much every example is more of an attempt to shove them away then an outright attempt to kill them. The biggest examples would be his blasting Varen to shut him up when attempting to trick Clutch into giving him the Sword, where all of it was focused on getting the sword first and foremost. Still, one could argue it, but the most you’d get is downscaling. This does relate back to speed, as once again, almost nobody actually dodges Mallock’s lightning. Clutch and Varen dodge it being dragged across the ground like a beam and not the actual blast itself (1:06:30), Clutch’s entire team was blasted or intercepted by Mallock early on before they could react, and the only person who actually stands up to Mallock is Varen with his father’s sword, which gives him power over “the greatest evil” (1:08:40). The power of the sword is stated as such by Hogar (47:02), and he also confirmed Mallock using its might would be unstoppable (47:27).


We already established the sword scales to Mallock’s magic, and that people can potentially downscale in strength, but in speed only Varen (1:12:27 and 1:13:13) and Mallock himself (1:12:37) dodge those blasts. Given Varen is still a young man without Clutch’s experience, it would seem a bit silly if he was that much faster than Clutch, so you could potentially downscale him from Varen, but beyond that, there’s nothing notable.


Conclusion: Clutch can only downscale strength and speed numbers from Mallock and Varen given the narrative and instances of weakness to these sorts of powers.

Higher Speed Arguments

Both Clutch and Chase have a few higher-speed arguments that should be gone over, and will be here.


Clutch

First, the obvious one for Clutch would be the matter of his spaceship, which brings the usual bevy of piloting troubles, given it flies through space. Specifically, Clutch piloted it as it left atmosphere (15:21 - 15:44), and other characters are shown piloting it while in space. Where they fly is clearly a huge distance from Earth given the areas (15:48) and other planets showcased (17:44), such as the medieval planet of Ashlar (28:58). You could likely assume this was in another solar system or even galaxy from Earth, but Clutch can’t really scale to either in piloting speed. For one thing, he has no instance (nor does anyone) of being in an actual dogfight at those speeds, and even if he did, it wouldn’t actually be faster than light anyway, surprisingly enough. The ship was directly stated to be moving 1.6 Million Kilometers per Hour (16:00), which equates to 444.444.44444444 meters per second (about Mach 1,300). This would be the average speed of the ship, but again, Clutch has no examples of piloting it in terms that would reliably earn reaction speed.


As for the massively faster than light angle, that would be true in a sense, because the end of the movie has the gang set off for a planet “on the other side of the galaxy” (1:15:55). The problem? Both this and flying to a place like Ashlar are achieved through a relativity ion burster (13:11) for intergalactic travel (30:29) like this. It’s the equivalent of a Hyper Drive from Star Wars, or any other sci-fi method of intergalactic travel that nobody ever really pilots. The same is true here, and so, Clutch wouldn’t really scale to either the ship’s massively hypersonic speed or its massively faster than light speeds. To close out, one related argument would be Brick getting launched back by the ship’s speed (15:21 - 15:44), where a similar argument to Chase’s example can be made for it scaling to his physicals. Going through that real quick, Brick should fall into the upper echelon of men in muscle and stature given his build (heh) shown through the film, so I’ll assume something like 230 lbs/104.3262451 kilograms. The ship’s speed, as shown above, is 444.444.44444444 meters per second. 


Now, plugging this into the formula for kinetic energy (0.5 x mass/kilograms x velocity/meters per second^2) would get a little over 10 trillion Joules (10,303,826,676,543 if you’re curious), which translates to 2,462.6736798621 tons of TNT, or 2.462 Kilotons. One could argue this is a little illogical, since he only took the speed of it leaving the atmosphere and not the confirmed speed it was stated in later. However, since it doesn’t show signs of changing speed, we think it should be fine.


So, speed of the ship in both cases don’t scale to his physicals, and Brick’s getting launched by the spaceship’s speed would result in 2.462 Kilotons scaling to his physicals.


Chase

Chase is a little easier to go over. His higher speed arguments come from laser beams that exist in his game. To start off, the lasers are actually legitimate, surprisingly enough. They are distinctly referred to as “laser beams” instead of generic lasers, heat up and destroy gold objects instead of exploding or exerting force, and reflect off a silver spray or other reflective objects specifically because they are laser beams. So, it looks like Chase would scale in speed, considering he can dodge them in freefall, right? Well, sadly no. The lasers he dodges, while similar in theory, also explode on contact with surfaces (check the metal beam), which real lightspeed lasers don’t do. It doesn’t help his case that the museum lasers are frame 1, making it impossible to gauge in-tandem movement or get his speed from it. 


So, laser timing is unusable.


LEGO Physiology Concerns

(Credits: Jason Freeny)


This is mainly to sum up the inherent advantages and limitations both Clutch and Chase's LEGO bodies bring. 


Both of them share similar capabilities, like to pop off hands and limbs without a problem (the crook who had his hands pulled off and Brick Masterson having similar pulled on him). This makes actually doing “fatal” damage tricky, but in a different capacity.


For Clutch, this is more defined, since we are reminded of how these characters can perish multiple times through “extinguishing one's creation spark.” We aren't exactly shown what this means, but Mallock did this to King Varet in the past of the film (56:05). He also brings this up in threats and the like involving killing others (because it's a kids movie) but death as an idea is still fully possible here. 


In Chase's case, he's shown minor toonforce while being flattened, and other LEGO City characters have similar attributes to Clutch Powers characters like the hand mentions. A hard limit is how Vinnie was frozen into ice and broken into pieces, which made him effectively dead until Chase literally rebuilt him.  


In both cases, despite their LEGO nature, bashing them into pieces should prove fatal given established capabilities and requirements for “death” in their worlds; barring further effort and requirement to get there of course.


That’s no (normal) Moon

Relating to the final saga of Chase’s game, many of the more impressive feats within it revolve around his trip to the moon. 


Starting off with the actual trip itself, you may have noticed the several hundred kiloton calculation present in Chase’s durability section. Essentially, Chase was blasted to the moon in his spaceship and promptly thrown into the side of it due to no seatbelts, which is an insane amount of force to be taken seriously. It is important to note that the moon is canonically both closer to Earth and smaller than it should be, but calculations of how far it is from Earth based on it’s size while on the moon by Normal still find it to be over 47 million meters away (29,242.822706767 Miles away, or a little over a tenth of the moon’s real life distance from Earth). With that in mind, we can thus apply kinetic energy to Chase. Don’t get it twisted, he’s not tanking the ship’s energy, but rather his own as he is accelerated to that speed and launched into an object, forcing him to rapidly decelerate and come to a complete stop in moments. This is similar to other feats across fictional rockets, like Vector being yanked by Gru’s rocket in Despicable Me, and given the nature of it, it should be fine to use.


Moving onto the speed angle, while Chase doesn’t scale to the rocket in reactions, he actually manually goes through re-entry in the final level, while dodging debris and obstacles in order to move as fast as he can and catch up to Natalia in a crashing spaceship. When getting the shown distance he is from the Earth and scaling it back, we can find that he was about 2.2 million meters up, or 1,375.19 Miles high. With that, we can simply take the time he spent falling, which the level gives a timer of in 3 minutes. Covering that much distance in that timeframe gets Mach 36, which is actually consistent with how re-entry speed is about Mach 25. So, both feats are scalable to Chase.

Verdict

Like recently, there’s a script I wrote for y’all (albeit a late one). Enjoy!

Stats

Starting off in this battle of builders would be their physical capabilities, and how far they extend. 


Strength

Lower Ends: In more base feats of strength, Chase is clearly much better off than Clutch. Both can lift and move decently sized constructs like large drills, but Clutch doesn’t have nearly as many examples as wrecking large crates or straight up destroying junkyard cars as Chase does. In general, Chase has always been portrayed as more superhuman than Clutch, regardless of actual scaling. Chase wins in lower ends.


Middle Ends and Vehicles: Beyond actual shown strength, there’s also some scaling and examples of vehicle damage beyond their capabilities that could turn the tide. Clutch’s car can ram through billboards and his spaceship can destroy similarly sized spacecraft. His Mine Mech can also match the Rock Monster despite being portrayed as inferior, which can tear chunks out of building like structures and survive similar falling on him. Chase’s vehicles can destroy armored trucks or bash through the front of a museum, and the Megafig can toss around objects weighing likely over a hundred tons, as well as match and damage the T-Rex Robot, which can annihilate police cars in one attack. In comparison, Chase is either equal or holds a tangible advantage. 


His base vehicles do more damage than Clutch’s car (destroying a billboard vs tearing away half of a building) and the Megafig comparing to vehicle destruction in power is similar to Chase’s spaceship examples, while also likely being stronger than his Mine Mech. Chase wins in middle ends.


High Ends and Scaling: Now, for their highest ends. Clutch’s greatest scaling comes from Mallock the Malign, who has flung Hogar with over 10 Tons worth in TNT, and potentially maintained a storm above his castle. It’s unclear how powerful that would be, or if it was the case at all, but let’s entertain it as something like a few kilotons anyway. The problem is that Clutch wouldn’t even scale to Mallock entirely given prior reasoning, and would at best downscale in both cases (Hogar is also portrayed as much stronger than Clutch so that scaling is also debatable). Either way, both ends don’t mean much to Chase.


He upscales criminals who can tank TNT blasts worth nearly a ton on their own, and potentially up to 60 tons of TNT. The former would place him somewhere at the least close to Clutch (<<10.2826 Tons vs >>0.75 Tons) while the latter would have him outmatch it entirely and become six times stronger. Mallock’s storm is unclear, but both Chase and Rex survived at least a 2 kiloton explosion (similar to small storm calculations), and then there’s the matter of his ship feat. Both parties actually have the same kind of feat (being launched by the speed of the ship into a wall to thus gain a kinetic energy durability feat) but given the speed of Chase’s ship was faster, he holds the advantage in magnitude over 100 times over (2.462 Kilotons vs 342.735 Kilotons). Such a gap is something Clutch has no means to bypass, and it’s unlikley even Mallock had that kind of power through theoretical storms. Chase wins in high ends.


Speed

Speed is a bit more obvious to discuss. Both don’t have many specific examples, but their best are Clutch’s potential lightning timing scaling and Chase’s fall from orbit, as their space-travel and laser-timing examples don’t apply. As a reminder, Clutch would only get this speed from scaling to Revet, as all other examples of this lightning intercept the heroes without a hitch. So, Clutch would only really downscale lightning timing, which can get any number of hypersonic values, but we’ll place a cap on it at Mach 286, the speed of lightning. For Chase, his fall while dodging debris places him at Mach 36, which grants Clutch up to an eight times speed advantage.


Conclusion

Chase holds strength in spades at over one-hundred times over, while Clutch maxes out at being potentially eight times faster.

Arsenal & Abilities

Since we’re allowing these adventurers all their gear, let’s compare it all to each other!


Weapons and Gear: Clutch’s average loadout consists of a flashlight, material scanner helmet, wrist watch for communicating with HQ, a radio to further that, and a space-blaster. Chase uses his Communicator for quick talk with Ellie, as well as other police-related tasks like scanning footprints to follow someone or scanning entire buildings for criminals. His standard Cop uniform also has handcuffs which he snaps on people his first try, and a grappling hook to yank around objects, reach higher heights, or launch restraining rope to immobilize enemies. In comparison, Chase’s gear is much more useful for keeping track of Clutch if he tries stealthy options, and his communication with allies is both easier and more relied on, as Chase isn’t much of a loner in comparison. He also has two options to restrain Clutch, which are super noteworthy if even for a time considering how they would trip him up and allow Chase an even easier time fighting him. Chase takes the advantage in weapons and gear.


Vehicles: This one shouldn’t come as a surprise. Clutch may have mighty impressive cars and spaceships at his disposal, but Chase has access to dozens upon dozens of these thanks to Call-In Points, and can easily just flag down an extra one should he need it. As mentioned in stats, his vehicles are stronger on average, and he’s even used spacecraft like UFO’s, so he won’t be left high-and-dry in an aerial battle. Chase takes the advantage in vehicles.


Suits: This one should also not be much of a surprise. Clutch has used space-suits and their own blasters, but really doesn’t have anything to compare with Chase’s multiple extra costumes he can switch into on the fly. Not only would these act as quite the surprise to Clutch, but they also give Chase even more toys to play with, like color guns, pickaxes and dynamite, fire extinguishers and axes, jackhammers, a jetpack, or a stun gun that shocks enemies in place for a time. Chase takes the advantage in suits.


Power Armor: Finally, with both their armors, Chase once again prevails. In stats, we covered how his Megafig armor matches and surpasses the Mine Mech, while also not having the same weakness of being able to be launched out of it. Chase has also been in more mech battles, in both Undercover and it’s prequel, so he would be more experienced in this sort of combat at the end of the day. Chase takes the advantage in Power Armor.


For their abilities, it’s also an advantage for Chase. Both of their physiologies are similar and could likely allow them to take more punishment than more human characters, but Chase’s examples are more cartoon-y, and thus he’d be harder to actually put down purely from that standpoint. Meanwhile, we know characters in Clutch’s world can still be outmatched and overwhelmed, like King Revet was against Mallock. So, enough physical force should do the trick, and since Chase is leagues stronger, he would be more than capable of the same once he gets a good hit in. Both are masters of building, but Clutch should be the better of the two, given his faster and grander examples of this, along with his knowledge of LEGO in general.


Overall, Chase takes abilities.

Tertiary Factors

Finally, with their more tertiary matters, both are more even then anything else.


Experience: Both have been adventuring for at least a few years that we know of, but Clutch should have more of this considering his standing in his universe and the wealth of knowledge about him. Both have fought an absurd bevy of villains (robots, criminals, giant monsters, etc) so they are about tied, but Clutch would have more from a numerical standpoint.


Skill: Unlike experience, Chase is certainly the more skilled of the two. He’s trained in martial arts and defeated several users of it, while Clutch’s own knowledge of things like swords is more limited to our knowledge. 


Intelligence: Clutch should prevail here. Both are more smart than they appear and have still had their embarrassing moments, but Clutch is more based on creativity and building better solutions, on top of enacting schemes on a much faster rate, like in Mallock’s palace. That’s not to say Chase is stupid, considering his infiltrating criminal organizations and the various other accomplishments across his game, but Clutch should overall be superior in this regard.


Overall, they are generally even, but Clutch has more examples of experience and intelligence, while Chase is the more skilled in hand-to-hand combat.



Conclusion

Clutch Powers

“You know our motto; we build on each other! Go Team!”

Advantages: 

  • Faster

  • More experienced and intelligent

  • Greater at building

  • Underrated movie


Disadvantages:

  • Consistently much weaker

  • Less skilled in a pure brawl

  • Vulnerable to incapacitation from several of Chase’s gadgets

  • Outclassed in versatility

  • Inferior suits, weaponry, and armor

  • Never did find his dad (Sonic Underground much?)

Chase McCain

“You know what? You can have it, Chief. Some things are more important than work.”

Advantages:

  • Much stronger

  • More skilled 

  • Wields several restraining or stun weapons to freeze Clutch in place

  • Much more versatile in weaponry, gear, vehicles, and armor

  • Harder to damage given physiology

  • Massively underrated game

  • Got Best Girl


Disadvantages:

  • Slower

  • Not as experienced or intelligent

  • Less effective in master building

  • Kind of stupid at times


Closing this out, Chase has all the advantages he needs to win. His stat advantage makes him more than able to push through Clutch’s higher speed, and his absurd versatility advantage in all categories, like stun or restraining weapons or power armor, make him more than able to outlast Clutch. While he is inferior in a few categories like intelligence or master building, his own physiology makes him far harder to get rid of than the other way around, and the sheer volume of his advantages is sure to prevail in the long run. At the end of this Chase, it looks like McCain had just enough Powers to Clutch the win in spades.


The winner… is Chase McCain.

Final Tally


Clutch Powers (0) - Not very adventurous man…


Chase McCain (4) - Gigan, doritto, Markx, Round 1 Fight


Next Time…




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1 comment:

  1. HeavenBlogsMarch 15, 2025 at 4:42 AM

    Pretty good, I'm a huge fan of Lego City Undercover, so this was pretty nostoligic. Anywho, I would totally be interested in helping vote for any of these if that's fine with ya.

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