Monday, January 31, 2022

Mini-Death Prediction: Michael and Daniel vs Jake and Amir

 


What would you do if you were forced to work with someone not just insane, but whose very presence seems to sap the world of its sanity? From the late 00s to the early 10s, two rivaling internet companies  both had their own series involving a man from seemingly a normal realistic world being chained by his job to a dangerous lunatic with superpowers, becoming the lunatic's rock of sanity. But if these two pairs were to fight, who would win?

Michael and Daniel from Cracked's "Agents of Cracked."

VS

Jake and Amir from Collegehumor's "Jake and Amir."


For the purposes of this battle I'm using just these two series' feats, as I don't really know what the continuity of things like Hardly Working, Does Not Computer or the newer independent Jake and Amir content is to their original series. 


Michael and Daniel:

Existing before the beginning of the world was an ancient organization of demigods. Like the divinities of myth; they were ancient, powerful, and willing to screw anything they saw. However due to the damage one had recieved on his genitalia, his offspring was born mentally disabled. This child was known as "Michael Swaim." To save the world of the wrath of a mentally disabled demigod bringing havoc to the world, and to keep his identity secret from those who would try to expunge from his brain the secrets of enlightenment, Michael's father founded the humor-based website "Cracked.com" around him, where his humorous antics would be kept disgused from the world and where he would be kept distracted.

The plan was only partially a success. Michael's demigod brain began leaking the secrets of enlightenment into the articles of the site, causing several confrontations with other sites like their rival Broked.com, and Michael was only partially distracted. To keep him safe and in check, Michael was assigned a partner. The problem was that Michael's partners kept meeting grizzly fates, unable to contain his insanity. That is until Daniel O'Brien came in from the East Cost. Dan or DOB as he was nicknamed, was a beleagued often suffering nerdy type. 

Michael was initially hostile to this outsider into his world, but something about Dan's orderly rational temperment spoke to him and actually kept him somewhat within the bounds of legality and rationality. The two partners eventually became friends, helping each other with article-writing, getting laid, crime operations, surviving assassination attempts from Broked.com robots, you know usual best friends stuff. 

Also at the end of the series they become lovers.


Superhuman Physical Capabilities:

Agents of Cracked, or at least the Cracked.com building within takes place in some kind of supernatural world where violence is, if not common, at least more common than our world, and things like robots, clones, and demigods run around. Michael is explictly supernatural and is clearly stronger than normal humans in his universe.


Strength:

Michael is strong enough that when he struck the robot B-Tone he caused an explosion to burst out of the side of the building. If you scale the size of the explosion based on the area of the fire stream, this would be roughly 20 Kilojoules worth of energy, 4x baseline wall level (5,000 Joules) If you judge based on the fireball instead and assume the explosion was basically the size of the story, as possibly implied by the shaking, than the energy would be nearly 1,000x stronger at 16.673 Megajoules, bordering on small building level (0.005 tons of tnt worth.) It's possible that Michael could be scaled MASSIVELY higher as Michael is one of the ancient race of demigods and is implied to have contributed in the fight against B-Tone, B-Tone being unintimidated at the threat of having to face 3 demigods (and Dan) with one of them, The Chief, stating right before that he was looking forward to the fight as he hadn't felt pain since the last Big Bang. As such it's possible Michael could be scaled to universal, though this is mostly speculative.

Daniel is far more within the normal human range. He was required to kill a person for his Cracked interview and for his performance review, The Chief made him fight and kill an identical copy of himself in a Darth Vader costume. He was also confident in fighting his clone from Broked.com, scaling to his durability. He was able to throw the contents of a cup, which he thought was a liquid but was actually pens, into B-Tone's face, one of the pens penetrating into his eye from a throw. This suggests he would generally be in the athletic human level. He also caused Michael's head to explode, but given the sound effect it seems like this was from accidentally triggering the failsafe in Michael's head, especially as Michael was beating him before. 

There's some evidence Dan may scale to Michael. He hurt B-Tone though given it was a strike to his eye, it may not have required nearly as much force, and B-Tone physically scaling to Michael is already questionable. Dan has fought Michael twice, once at the end of season 1 where despite suffering heavily from a head injury, Michael was winning, the second time off-screen when Michael lunged at him with a potato peeler convinced Daniel was really him in a mask disgused. Considering Daniel was given a failsafe to use against Michael since it was presumed he couldn't stop Michael, and the fact that Daniel clearly considers himself weaker than the demigods and B-Tone saying "I'm not supernatural like the rest of you seem to be" as well as his lack of any particular superhuman feats, I'd say that's definitely a very highballed interpretation of Dan. 


Durability:

Dan was able to endure a glass bottle being dropped on his head from high up. While the energy of this isn't particularly impressive, only being about 30-40 joules, the fact that this is concentrated on a small part of his body that is relatively fragile is definitely an athletic human level feat, as these definitely have the possibility of killing a normal person. Michael has a similar feat though his isn't really required as he survived the epicenter of his explosion-causing strike. 


Endurance:

Dan's general endurance is stronger than most humans. For his first bonus, The Chief made Daniel sleep outside for a month, and he was able to withstand The Chief branding him and was able to walk and talk normally. 

Michael's endurance however is supernaturally high, to the point of being able to speak after his head exploded. He's also taken so many pills that he developed a general immunity to pills.


Speed:

Once after actor Nicholas Cage died the day Michael's article trashing on him came out, Dan rewrote the article as a loving tribute from scratch in less than 3 minutes. Wikipedia lists Cracked articles as being between 2,000-3,000 words for daily articles like this. Conversely the highest typing speed in recorded history was 216 words per minute and the average human typing rate is 40 words per minute, or 120 for 3 minutes, suggesting Dan can react/move his hands somewhere in the rate of 16.66... to 25x normal human rate, which if this translates to general movement speeds would translate to about 60-90 meters per second. Supporting this level of speed, Dan is implied to have avoided bullets in an enclosed space, though the person shooting them had closed his eyes and was firing blindly. Michael responds "yeah, he'll do that" suggesting that this is a regular to deal with at the Cracked office. Also while I don't know how one could quantify this, Daniel once tracked down every person that called Michael "a fag" online. As mentioned you could also scale Dan to Michael, but I think the evidence isn't very strong on that.

Speaking of Michael, he once traveled to Dan's apartment and back to the office before a bomb that was on 3 minutes, 54 seconds could go off, and when Michael brought the bomb to Dan it had 40 seconds left putting the absolute maxium timeframe of about 3 minutes. Average commute time in Los Angeles is 30.9 minutes or 1854 seconds, with average morning rush hour traffic speed at 23.6 mph or 10.55 meters per second suggesting the distance is likely in the ballpark of 19.5597 Kilometers. This isn't inconcievable as the average American commutes ~16 miles or ~25 kilometers to work. Traveling that distance in 180 seconds twice, would require a speed of 217.33 meters per second. or about Mach 0.64. This speed could be lower if you think Daniel lives close to the office, but honestly it's likely higher as the timeframe is likely very short. Michael was searching the office for a bomb as well as messing around, and went to Dan's apartment just to get the keys to check inside Dan's car. It's likely he spent most of the time searching the office. A very reasonable interpretation is that Michael had to reach or exceed the speed of sound.


Abilities and Skills:


Hammerspace:

Michael often seems to have what he needs on him and when he temporarily gained Michael's powers, Daniel found that he had the power to pull objects out of nowhere.


Astral Communication and Summoning:

Michael texted the dead president Garfield, though Garfield was unable to respond and Michael seems to have confused him with the newspaper comic character Garfield. Later on when Michael made the "Book of Faces", misunderstanding Facebook, he seemed to capture the souls of those he used within the Book and accidentally brought them out again including somehow Daniel from the past.


Technopathy:

Michael somehow caused a computer to play music no matter how Daniel tried to turn it off, even when the computer wasn't plugged into anything.


Supernatural Charisma and Resistance:

Michael is extremely charismatic, causing crowds to go along with his often immoral and illegal actions, including convincing an entire bar to go to his house to have an orgy. The only one who has ever shown resistance is Daniel.


Enhanced Senses:

After Daniel was temporarily blinded, his other senses became highly enhanced for instance telling that Mary made fresh brownies because her hands had the scent of ingrediants, could tell that Ben had a wallet that was all artifical leather, and that Michael had a heart problem. 


Fourth Wall Awareness:

Michael referenced an event happened back in episode 2, and Dan was able to look into Mandy's story, though this may be a narrative device showing him reacting to what she was describing. Also in the official trailer for the series, the two react to the narrator, although they don't know what it is calling it "sky voice."


Ability-Swapping:

Once when Michael was kept calm forcibly by medication, Dan was able to put on wacky clothing and the two swapped abilities, with Dan getting Michael's strange hammerspace and supernatural charisma, though this also caused them to gain the others' psychological weaknesses instead.


Standard Equipment:

Both Michael and Daniel were given standard issue Cracked guns who were capable of killing the robot T-Bone although Michael never seems to use his. Michael also has a molotov, and he has planted knives all over the world to use in case he needs them, including in the jacket of the person interviewing him. He once also pulled out a grenade although since he was in Sarge's office, he may have just picked it up. In melee he uses a chain weapon.

Daniel was given some tools to try and keep Michael under control including a net, knock-out gas as well as bear tranquilizers. He was also given a failsafe, a remote that would cause Michael's head to explode if he went out of control. Michael did survive this being used, though it clearly left him in a bad state and probably required outside help as it was deliberately meant to stop him and it was stated that once pressed, there's no going back. The failsafe remote looks just like his car key remote.


Intelligence:

Michael's intelligence varies dramatically due to his insanity and focus problems. At his worst he has been completely childlike in intelligence; acting on basic impulses, forgot how to count down, could not name a number higher than 680, did not know how to spell "tool", and described an idiot savant. However this may just be from his extreme distractability, as he was also the brains of a criminal organization, went to Harvard and became a judge for a time, and totally destroyed a rival company's attempt to sue Cracked by himself. Also his brain literally holds the secrets to enlightenment. Usually he seems to be of roughly average, if highly eccentric intelligence. 

Daniel is a pop culture nerd with a wide variety of pop culture trivia. While not particularly a genius or anything, he's clearly above average in intelligence, if low in social intelligence.

Both of them have also seemingly gained some combat experience at the Cracked offices with Dan stalemating in a gunfight with several guards as part of Michael's criminal organization and Michael being described as really good with a chain weapon.


Weaknesses:

Michael's perception is insanely hallucinatory, a mess of rainbow colors and delusions not at all conforming to reality. He's psychotic to the point that he claimed if Dan lied to him, he'd shoot everyone in the office and is wanted for animal rape. He has absurdly low focus to the point of forgetting meeting Dan and his his animosity towards him within a minute, and his common sense is so low that he was considering the n-word and "Hitler revisited" for Dan's nicknames and his idea of pranks are literally disfiguring. Also despite his durability and endurance, he's kind of a wimp to pain, crying because he lightly walked into a wall, and his ego is highly fragile.

Dan for his part is a relatively normal socially awkward nerd, who is easy to intimidate. He is not supernatural and has a mild case of asthma. From working with Michael he's become a mild alcoholic, drinking before work and at work. He also likes horses, which is apparently an extremely embarrasing hobby in the Agents of Cracked-universe.


Personalities:

Michael:

Daniel describes Michael as "every sitcom neighbor wrapped up in sociopath." Michael acts like what he is, a mentally disabled demigod in a world made for his distraction, an overgrown child acting on the most transient of impulses. Despite his insanely damaged perception causing him to act selfish and dangerous to himself and everyone around him, he does have at least some basic consideration for others, like when he took the fall for the Cracked leak thinking Daniel was guilty the whole time but wanting to protect him. The only problem is he very rarely understands what would make others happy.

Overall Michael is an immature personality that shifts moods rapidly, but is overall upbeat and quick to try and explore new things and get involved in every idea he has, even when he really shouldn't.

Daniel:

Daniel is a nerdy, awkward person who, when not driven by basic need to survive, generally acts to assuage his own insecurities, allowing others to take advantage of him. He spent most of his adolescence campaining for meaningless club positions like Latin club treasurer, and allowed his temporary girlfriend to completely walk all over him and use him. Over the series he grows an envy for Michael's total abandon and confidence in himself, and when Daniel temporarily took Michael's place he said it was much more fun and mocked Michael saying he lost something great taking Dan's place.

Dan is the opposite of Michael, someone who is constantly plagued by the world and forced to be mature and cynical in exchange. For all the horrible things Michael does to Daniel, he does not hold it against him seemingly because Dan wishes he could be Michael.


Jake and Amir:

Amir Valerie Blumenfeld had a tumultuous childhood. Amir's father was a military traitor given the Black Heart for giving the names and locations of over 1,000 of his comrades and his mother attempted to abort Amir before he was born by drinking whiskey while pregnant. The two were verbally and physically abusive to him, throwing knives at him and forcing him to spend the first few years of his life trapped in a wood shed. He was abduced as a child from the age of 6-11, a time he calls "the best five years of my life." Amir was regularly outcasted by his peers and teachers spending 9.5 years in the second grade. Worst of all, his dad moved....a lot. 

All this chaos changed Amir psychologically into a being of chaos, and is possibly where the strange chaos that seems to follow him comes from. Amir's dad chickened out of a suicide pact with father of Collegehumor writer Murph indebting him to Murph for life. His cousin Linford was able to get Collegehumor to give him a job making video content for them, where he was sat across from Jacob "Jake" Hurwitz. Jake was a relatively normal person with an obsession for chasing after what was cool. His attempt to look cool worked too well and Amir soon became freakishly obssessed with him, Jake becoming the order to his chaos.

Amir would constantly belabor Jake with his chaotic antics, though as much as Jake protested, he began to start feeling oddly protective of Amir. Particularly once it became clear that Jake's own brother was simply manipulating him to get money out of him and Amir tried to protect Jake from him, Jake started treating Amir like the annoying but genuine brother he never had, even though Amir's obsession with him never stopped creeping him out. Despite, or perhaps because, of their arguments the two became close enough that people speculated they were secretly lovers, not helped by them eventually living together.

But they were something perhaps even closer...best friends.


Superhuman Physical Characteristics:

Amir, and more rarely Jake show sporadic feats of superhuman physical abilities due to toonforce that seems to exist in their universe. 


Strength:

Jake often exercises in an attempt to look cool and become popular with girls leading to him becoming much stronger than average. He was easily able to overpower Patrick Cassels and completely one-shot him, suggesting he's several times stronger than average. He also was able to throw a pencil into Amir's neck and crack Amir's ribs with one shot. The next episode has Amir expressly state it was a "clean break." To break a human bone generally requires energy between 375 joules to upwards of 10,000 joules depending on angle, and Jake doing it from straight on or perpendicular suggests closer to the upper end. For comparison the average human strike is around 100 joules, and the maximum strongest punch recorded by a human was just over 1,000 joules putting Jake pretty solidly as athletic human to low level superhuman. 

However he could be even stronger as he's not only broken Amir's ribs but in 2 of the three on-camera fights Jake had with Amir, Jake won (Snack Attack and Airline Scam) and the third was inconclusive (The Godfather). Amir also instinctively cowered from Jake in Girlfriend Part 8, and in Ace and Jocelyn 8 after Amir knocks Jack unconcious with a sneak attack, it's strongly implied Jake beat him up. Overall, it seems more like Jake is Amir's superior, although the two can damage each other and when enraged Amir was able to overpower Jake.

Amir also has numerous other strength feats such as kicking Jake's tongue off, casually ripping through his own flesh and bone without noticing, and killing someone by throwing a mundane object into their head accidentally 3 seperate times; once with a football, once with a piece of bread, and once with a nerf ball, the last time super casually, supporting that he's dramatically stronger than a normal person. 


Durability:

Jake claimed he was hit by a bus earlier that morning despite no injuries. It's possible he was lying for clout although given his character it's likely he would have brought it up earier if he was just trying to lie to be impressive. The energy of getting hit by a bus going at city speed is somewhere in the range of 4,000 to 14,000 joules which fits pretty well with the above feat of casually breaking Amir's ribs. Consider he didn't even seen at all injured this value could be massively higher, closer to the value of totally tanking a bus collision which at the speeds it would be going at in a city would be roughly between 666,000 joules and 2,200,000 joules (a little bit over 0.0005 tons of tnt or 10% small building level) which is a a much higherballed version of the feat.

Amir has many more durability feats. He has none even approaching the higher estimate of the prior feat, but he has one that does exceed the lowerballed estimate which is when he crashed through a hotel window naked and fell for 2-3 seconds, only getting a mildly bloodied mouth from the collision. A freefall for 2 seconds would have required a starting height of 19.6 meters, while one for 3 seconds would require a starting height for 44.13 meters. Such a fall would mean he would impact with a force of between 13,454 joules and 30,273 joules.


Endurance:

Amir has a very large number of comically high pain resistance feats as well as general associated endurance feats. He twice has broken his neck and been completely fine, could act and move fine after comically dislocating his arm, got bitten by his snake 5 times including once in the neck and was fine, survived a glass of orange juice exploding in his mouth, survives boiling split pea soup falling onto his face and neck, can survive and talk normally after a pencil is thrown into his neck, and castrated himself seemingly without any pain. He also survived being trapped in a vending machine for several days, survived an unspecified but long time unconscious in a stream, and held his breath for 17 minutes.

Jake is nowhere near as extreme but despite clear massive agony was able to stay concious and crawl around after Amir kicked his tongue off.


Speed:

Amir has a very large number of instances where he moves fast enough that Jake can't tell what just happened, it's arguably his most consistent ability. Generally these feats consistent of Jake looking directly at Amir, with Amir changing clothes or grabbing an item in a single jumpcut, often with Jake mentioning how weirdly fast that was.

During the Sick Day arc Amir physically traveled from Jake's home to the Office in 6 seconds. NYC has highest average commute time at 33.3 minutes or 1998 seconds. At 10.55 meters per second, that's a distance of 12,079 meters and traveling it in 6 seconds would be 3513 meters per second or Mach 10.32. Even if Jake lives closer to the Collegehumor office, something which is implied against since the plots of whole eps have taken place on the trip from his house to their office, this would likely be a supersonic feat. Amir has also gone from McDonalds to work in seconds and once went from his desk to a Forever 21 and back before Jake could react.

Jake doesn't really have any speed feats. While his fights with Amir could potentially imply their speed isn't too different, Jake is regularly impressed by Amir's speed and can't react to his actions, strongly implying Amir is much faster than him.


Abilities and Skills:


Hammerspace:

Amir  regularly pulls objects out of nowhere.


Teleportation:

Amir has shown teleportation, even very precise teleportation such as teleporting into a room right next to Jake causing Jake to yell "WHAT are you?" He also teleported inside a box, and seemingly either teleported or ran from New York to California.


Time Manipulation:

In one of the earliest episodes Jake showed the ability to put himself on fast foward by seemingly 5x and also to slow Amir down by 5x. Also in High Five, Jake and Amir freeze frame in midair while Amir plays "Torn" but I'm not actually sure if one of them doing that. 


Precognition:

On several instances Amir has predicted highly specific events that would happen a day in advance including Loud Movie, Thanksgiving Scroll, and Fish Scroll.


Stealth:

Amir is highly accomplished in stealth. He expertly snuck above Jake in a bathroom stall without Jake noticing, stole Jake's cereal and manuvered to hide from him in close range and pulled Jake's genitals out of his pants without him noticing, among other similar feats of stealth. Stealth is one of his most commonly used abilities. 


Regen:

Jake and going by his statement Amir both seemingly regened their tongues. Amir also regenerated the usage of his legs over one night after breaking them last night.


Malleability:

Jake and Amir have an absolutely incredible body malleability able to fit within a normally sized blueberry muffin. It's later off-hand mentioned they still live there. Considering the sheer scale of size difference, crushing their bodies will pretty much never kill them against someone their own tier, and injuring them requires piercing a vital organ of theirs or cutting parts of them off.


Heat Emanation:

Somehow grills a sausage on his teeth by asserting 'he is the sun." This isn't particularly impressive energy-wise unless you take the statement at all at face-value, but it is another power he technically has.


Voice Mimicry:

Amir can mimic Jake's voice freakishly well. Whether he can do this with other voices is unknown.


Metafictional Music Creation:

Amir displays the ability to play background music.


Technopathy/Telekinesis/Trans-Time Aspect Attack:

Amir chokes his rival Doobs to death through a pre-recorded message Doobs sent to Jake and Amir. Also in terms of technopathy, he somehow entered in an annual income dropdown menu into "Flappy the Dolphin is my guarantor! Give me the gold card!"


Limited Causality Manipulation:

Whenever Amir mentions the low scores of Football (Soccer), a goal is scored.


Astral Plane Interactions:

Jake and Amir were able to speak to a ghost with Amir even punching her.


Fourth Wall Awareness:

Amir has numerous times spoken directly to the audience. Jake is less aware of it though sometimes seems to notice the camera confused suggesting a lesser form of fourth wall awareness.


Supernatural Charisma and Resistance:

Amir has a supernaturally good ability to charm and manipulate people going into straight up mind control. Most famously he is really good at starting chants. Beyond that he got a group of normal business people to turn against Jake and attempt to execute him on his orders, and was able to even manipulate the editor of their videos, showing possibly his charisma manipulating people on a metafictional scale. The only one who ever seems to resist his supernatural charisma is Jake who will note when crowds improbably follow him. 


Standard Equipment:

Amir has used many types of firearms including a rifle and a personally fit Kimber Stainless Raptor II and melee weapons including a hammer, a bat, and knives that can cut through his own fingers. He also used an astronaut costume which while not much armor, is probably better than nothing.

Jake has never been seen to use any weapons as far as I can tell.


Intelligence:

Jake's intelligence is pretty much universally shown to be about average, though he does at one point use some kind of weird neck strike that seems to make it difficult for Amir to breath. Amir's intelligence by contrast is anything but. His intelligence has at time regressed to extreme levels where he could not do equations like "1+1", not known the alphabet, couldn't get out of a net a baby could get out of, and at the most extreme point, regressed into not even being able to speak becoming little more than an animal. Sometimes however he's shown a devious cunning streak, knowing that Pat was trying to scam people with his bake sale, solving the Rubik's cube without even trying, submitting a perfect March Madness bracket, and a few times tricking Jake into doing what he wants him to do. He's also demonstrated proficiency in a lot of mundane skills including magic tricks, freestyle rapping, and origami. He may also have some martial arts knowledge as he attended at least one all-night karate course. Usually Amir is somewhere between in being somewhat dim and not knowledgable about the world.


Weaknesses:

Jake is insecure and can be kind of a douche at times in an attempt to protect his ego. He can also be VERY suspectible to any kind of manipulation targeted at making him feel cool. Also he's afraid of puppets.

Amir is a being of chaos psychologically, and his physical/mental capabilities are highly inconsistent, usually seeming to depend on if it would be funny or not. He can range from being weak enough that Jake can physically dominate him and mentally hopeless to be a reality-warper and a devious trickster. He's also rather lazy to the point of not wanting to rake a yard to get out of a lifetime jail sentence, dramatically lacks common sense to the point of legal insanity, and is easily scared.



Personalities:

Jake:

Jake represents the normality of the status quo and order in the Jake and Amir duo. Usually this means he acts as the relatable straight man to Amir's antics. Sometimes he represents the worst of the status quo, chasing after vain popularity. During the Sick Day arc when Jake moves to California he works with the one who hypothetically should be his ideal workmate, an attractive woman who is into him, thinks he's cool and trash talks Amir but he becomes defensive of Amir and comes to realize that he needs some level of chaos to encourage him to be better.

While Jake is frustated with Amir, he treats him in the series' more emotional moments like a naive little brother and goes out of his way to defend him. Jake is brash and insecure but also the type of extraverted willful person that would befriend someone who has never had anyone like him, and stand up for him when literally no one else would.


Amir:

Amir is meant to be something of a pathetic character. He's an ignorant sadist, taking out his frustrations on others with little perception or self-awareness. He's an overly enthusiastic "diva roach" who thinks way too highly of himself, does as he pleases, and not only doesn't care at who gets hurt but will sometimes laugh at the misery of others. That said he's also a lot like his old dog Rotem, a beast abused by the world without ability to tell what is normal. He arguably clings to Jake just to have a sense of what "normal" is. In the Sick Day arc Amir was paired with someone who hypothetically should be his ideal workmate, a guy willing to just go along with whatever Amir wanted only to realize that instead of Jake's honest frustration, this guy was just taking advantage of Amir not knowing what was normal to try and get in his pants. Jake acts as a guide to tell Amir what is and isn't the boundaries of normal behavior.

Amir is a contradictory mess of opposing terms made most evidence by his dating profile claiming he's "a pro-gun control anti-abortion neonazi liberal lesbian rabbi" who is 0% matched with anyone. He represents the fringe of human experience, the chaotic outside domain of normal human experience. In some strange way, this is perhaps what makes him most human as he tries his best like any outcast to understand the way most people do things. 


Alrig...

"Jake" Amir yelled nervously, breaking my intro. "Jake! We're in a crossover death match!" Jake annoyedly replied "A what?"

Meanwhile in a complete seperate office.

Daniel turned to Michael as they were walking down an office hallway and calmly asked "Did you hear that?" Michael was looking around curiously. "Sounded like someone said we were in a crossover death match." He replied, without any concern.

Later in a blank corporate board room, Jake was sitting across from Daniel as Michael boredly sat by his side. Michael noticed the strange little man sitting next to Jake looking at him suspiciously and the two caught each other's glances, a tense verbal back and forth of the eyes.

"So yeah I definitely think that a colloboration with Cracked could really increase both sites' revenue." Jake said calmly, silently praying Amir didn't do anything weird to screw over this deal but knowing he would. Guy across from him looked like a real nerd and Amir doing.... really anything could ruin the deal.

Little did he know Daniel was having somewhat parallel thoughts. "Yeah, our numbers..." Daniel awkwardly looked around for the graph he was holding "definitely seem to suggest that company crossovers are popular at the moment." Daniel could just feel Michael's stirring aggression and Dan was definitely not prepared for another inter-company war.

Just then Daniel and Mike's phone buzzed. Daniel paused and said "Could you excuse us for just a second..." After the two left the room Amir immediatly turned to Jake and said "Jake, listen to me." Amir's expression was intense, which Jake knew meant trouble. Jake interrupted "look Amir, remember what we talked about. If you could do this whole meeting without messing it up, we could go get dinner at the Ds." Amir shook his head "Trust me, I read about this in the Top 10 "Top 10 web series ideas" Scroll, those guys are actually going to try and kill us." 

Jake rolled his eyes "Try and kill us, we're at a business meeting. With another comedy website..." but Jake was interrupted by one of the side doors slamming open.

After Daniel and Michael went outside the room, Daniel checked his phone. Michael said excitedly "It's the Chief! You know I heard that guy was in a Death Battle but he punched his enemy so hard the episode was deleted!" Daniel quickly picked it up and the Chief's gravely voice came through. "Daniel! Do you remember the 'anomaly' we were talking about, some unknown entity causing strange things to happen. It's the guy in there!" Michael's face lit up and he exclaimed "Don't worry Chief, I've got this!" Michael began charging towards the side door with Dan worriedly raising his arm exclaiming "Wait Michael, no!"

Michael stormed in, gun in hand. "Alright outlaws...reach for the stars!" It was then that Michael noticed Jake and Amir weren't in front of him. Daniel came up behind him and said "Michael we went out the side door. Michael without changing expression or pose turned 90 degrees facing the sudden clapping sound. Amir was slowly clapping while Jake looked on in total bewilderment. "You were righ..." Jake asked confused but Amir ignored him. Michael's face was angry, determined and willful, looking for all the world like a man who had finally caught a wanted criminal. Amir's face was sardonic, grinning like a madman. "Well done, officer" Amir said, "But if you think you've got me at the end of my rope...." Amir grabbed at the edge of his nose which expanded and contracted, causing Daniel's eyes to widen in horror as rope began to pour from Amir's nose, until he pulled out his old Raptor, rising the handgun in one swift decisive action. Amir's eyebrows wiggled slightly as he matched Michael's expression with a sinister grin "I've got some surprises for you."

Michael and Amir held their guns ready, cocked towards each other as Dan tried to awkardly hide behind Michael and Jake stepped back slowly.

Fight!

Moving faster than the eye can track Amir and Michael darted to the side of the board room, firing bullets the whole way at each other.

Daniel dove for cover, darting to one corner, bumping right into Jake who was looking on at the gunfight in horror. Mistaking Daniel's dive as a charge, Jake pushed him off and put up his fists. He tried to sound confident though his voice betrayed his insecurity. "You wanna go nerd, come on...come on....come at me." Dan quickly took notice of how he was hanging back and his insecure posture and put his hands up in a sign of surrender. 

"No, no I didn't mean...you're clearly way stronger..." memories flooded Dan's mind of his vicious schoolyear bullying "I don't want any trouble." Jake was surprised but standing straight said while eye-ing him up and down "You're goddamn right..." 

Taking advantage of his opponent's momentary distraction Dan lunged and socked Jake clean in the face with a joyous expression. His expression soon turned to horror when Jake stood right back up one hand holding a very slightly bleeding nose. Jake swore and angrily swiped back punching Dan with a strike to the gut, sending him back into the wall. A few pained breathes and Dan darted from the room. Jake yelled and ran after him.

Meanwhile Amir and Michael had run out of bullets and stood at close range. Amir pulled a knife from nowhere. "Now what, Mikey?" Amir said sadistically. Michael waved one finger dismissively and reached behind Amir's ear. Amir, curious, looked at him with one eyebrow raised but not moving as Michael pulled back his arm to reveal a knife. 

Amir laughed and pointed at the knife and Michael nodded, grinning innocently "Cool right? I planted a knife in your head last week." Amir tilted his head in affirmation saying "I THOUGHT it felt kinda painful there for some reason."

Michael lunged with his knife slicing back and forth but Amir casually sidestepped back out of the way. "Guess it's true what they say..." Amir's voice was mockingly putting on an air of wisdom "You couldn't hit a guy with glasses."

Michael stopped swinging, and stepped back, hand to his chest. "Is THAT what they're saying about me?" The accusation clearly hurt.

His hesitation made Amir stop for a moment, the two looking at each other Michael looking much like a reprimanded puppy as Amir's face morphed into a strange expression, unused to people just believing him. "Well, you see," Amir said, trying his best to sound authoriative when Michael under-handedly flicked his chain whip, the very tip of it sending Amir flying across the room, causing him to painfully indent into the wall.

In Michael's perception huge neon colors flew by saying "You Win! Level Up!" As Michael walked over to Amir to collect health packs he mentally congratulated himself, when suddenly Amir, acting on primordial instinct lunged out biting Michael's hand. 

"OOOWWWWWW" Michael yelled as the burning teeth touched his flesh, with a single swing of his arm he brought Amir up over his head and back down on the big executive desk in the middle of the room, shattering it completely. Amir winced in pain as he felt the solid table break under him. Meanwhile Michael was holding his burned hand, facing the other way. "Ow Ow Ow...." Michael waved his hand till the pain subsided. He looked back at the shattered desk to find no one there. 

"Wait...what was I doing?" Michael asked, oblivious of Amir clinging to the ceiling above him. Amir looked down at the strange man and his seeming obliviousness and pointed a finger at the sky playing club music. Michael gasped with excitement as he heard the dulcent sounds of alcohol, drugs and loose women, like a child in a candy story. He excitedly ran out of the room with the stealthy Amir following, a confident smirk coming to his face.

As those two were fighting Daniel was running for his life from a pissed off Jake. "Jeez, Jeez" Dan said to himself...was it just him or was this guy getting faster...the hallway gave way to a clearing. As Jake came to the edge, he saw it was a large room on one of the upper floors filled with computers and desks with a window to the outside world.

Jake stepped more hesistantly. He knew that Dan could be hiding anywhere. However he wouldn't have to wait for long. As soon as he walked into the room's clearing Dan popped out from the corner and raised a gun. At the last moment, Jake pushed his arm upwards at fast foward, sending Dan's gun arm into the air sending a bullet into the light above, plunging the room into darkness. A clatter was heard as Dan's gun was sent flying from Jake's strength, but Dan smiled regardless smelling from Jake's cheap cologne, his exact position. 

Letting loose a fierce flurry of blows Dan struck at Jake's head and midsection several times in a combo, declaring in his mind "C-C-C-Combo!" with a massive grin. He could feel Jake trying to counterattack but too slow in the dark, and Dan got low and hit at Jake's groin with a single upwards strike assuming this would end the fight.

To his shock, he found Jake barely flinched from his strikes. Jake gave a grunt of anger, and as his hand gripped the edge of Dan's vest, Dan felt like he was a baby caught up by a storm as Jake flung him against the wall, holding him firmly with one hand and raising his other hand. 

"M..Michael!" Dan yelled in fear.

As if summoned, Michael just burst through the room "OH...yeah" Michael declared as he did so, a light from the prior room casting the whole area in a dim light causing Jake to recoil in fear. Dan yelped and dove behind Michael as Michael surveyed the area with disinterest. "So what's going on?"

Suddenly with a battle yell Amir pounced on Michael from behind, bringing his bat down on Michael's head, the bat shattering from the impact. Michael, annoyed grabbed the back of his head. "Owww" and with a single flick threw Amir around onto the floor next to Jake, the two of them painting for air. With the motion of the throw, a book fell out of Michael's pocket. A book covered in the faces of children.

In the dim light of the room vengeful apparitions appeared. Amir took it well and yelled in fear before starting to run away. Jake's eyes widened and he called out "Wait!" Jake knew that he needed Amir if he was going to have any chance of getting out of here alive. "Jocelyn!" Amir stopped in his tracks and turned "Yes, Ace?" Jake brought his hand to his face not believing this was working but also knowing he needed to think fast. "These aren't ghosts...they're aliens from the planet ... Gha-host sent by emperor...whatever." Amir slid next to Jake suddenly in his astronaut outfit. "You're right Ace, they tried to play me for a fool. But a good astronaut accountant never gives up!" Saying so Amir yelled and charged into the ghosts punching them around.

Meanwhile Michael was standing watching the scene with a sudden bag of popcorn. Daniel came up to his shoulder and whispered "Shouldn't we be doing something?" Michael shushed him saying "This is my favorite part." Daniel looked at him for a second in confusion before saying "Well, I'm gonna get my tools..." Michael responded "Bring me a soda will you?"

Amir stood triumphant over the ghosts. "We did it Ace, we saved the Tabulon Galaxy." Jake exasperated replied "Right now can we get to the two other guys that were trying to kill us?" Amir outstretched his hand and moved it horizontally dramatically sweeping over the room "History will remember this day as..."

As he spoke one more ghost appeared, a ghost that looked strangely like Daniel O'Brien, dressed differently. Seeing the scene of ghost carnage, he tried to run. At just that moment the Dan of today returned and non-chalantly said "Hey Michael, I got the..."

Amir saw the remaining ghost and shouted "We got a runner!" before clenching his hands as though he were choke-ing someone. Dan's ghost was gripped and stopped moving clawing at his neck desperately. At the same time the other Dan was being similarly choked in front of Michael's eyes. His eyes went wide and a sudden anger swept him. "Hey!" He yelled, "Let go of my partner!" Michael rushed the two of them moving so fast that a violent sound rang through the air as the wind flew away almost in a sonic boom.

Amir and Jake had just enough time to put up their hands, both catching one of Michael's outraised fists, the collision sending the nearby desks and chairs flying, their feet digging into the ground. "Oh Sh" Jake started but his voice was overcome by the violent rush of wind. 

Jake and Amir attempted to hold back Michael's strength but feeling little resistance the angry demigod lifted the two of them and pressed into their arms, breaking both out of their sockets and sending a shockwave of force that blew away the back half of the room, causing people outside to run in fear from the sudden seeming explosion that had just come from high up of an office building. Jake blubbered in terror "OOOWWWW OH MY GOD Please don't kill me, please don't kill me, I'm so sorry" while Amir looked oddly calm at this.

Michael blinked confused. 

"Kill you? I'm not gonna kill you...all you did was..." Michael turned confused "Hey what did you do again?" From the other end of the room Daniel shot a tranquilizer at his two enemies. However in the sudden blink of an eye Amir teleported out of Michael's grasp leaving him confusedly looking for the little guy.

"Nice try comprende" Amir said confidently despite his dislocated arm "Looks like you were too slow on the draw." But Amir's smile faded instantly when he saw Jake in Michael's hand, knocked out by the tranquilizer. To Amir however, it didn't look like he was knocked out.

"Jake!" Amir yelled in horror. Amir's features twisted with rage at Michael, thinking he had taken his only friend from him. "I'll kill you!" and Amir grabbed his hands in midair and clenched his hands angrily. The demigod strength of Michael meant his telekinesis wasn't strong enough to crush his larynx and Michael looked at him confused "What are you trying to do there guy, you trying to force choke me? Unfortunately for you I'm the Sith Master." Dan was also confused at what he was seeing but as he blinked, in the darkness he could hear the slightest of shifting in his pocket. "No!" He yelled but it was too late.

Amir's mind technopathically pressed the button in Dan's pocket, and Michael's head exploded. Amir darted over to Jake pounding on his chest with his off-hand to try and rescusitate him like Leron had tried to show him how to do. Daniel yelled "Oh Jeez" and quickly activated the knock-out gas device, filling the room quickly with knock-out gas, running into the other room. 

Inside Daniel breathed in and out deeply. Michael could be revived if he got him help soon enough, but Chief warned them about the Anomaly, he couldn't take any chances.

Amir felt the gas entering the room and took a big breath before pulling Jake's body out. Amir could feel Jake's chest move up and down slowly. He was alive...but he was in danger. Amir felt him scattered mind pull together.

As the gas quickly left the room via the giant gaping hole, police sirens distantly being heard in the background, Amir calmly stepped into the room, his fists balled. To his surprise Dan came out dressed in a ridiculous outfit.

"Hey, Ol Slappy..." Dan said cheerily, "you seem different." 

"So do you." Amir said, his nose making a distinct humming noise with his anger. 

Dan learnt against the wall, "Well I figured if I were going to be fighting you, I'd need ol Michael's powers...I forgot just how fun it was to be free like this; no rules, no responsibilities...it's like the world and I are playing tag and I finally got to home base."

Amir shook his head "No, no I know what you're doing" he turned his head angrily "I care too much about this." before turning back to him and saying defiantly "Oh Danny Boy oh Brain." Daniel gave a self-assured shrug and said "Suit yourself...wanna do this nerdf*, than why don't you come at me."

"Maybe I....WILL" Amir said as he lunged forward, fast enough to split the air in a boom before suddenly finding himself raised upside down by his ankles.

"Oh yeah that," DOB said with with a laugh in his voice "That's the net trap I set before I changed." He grabbed the net and began spinning it around and around , the net beginning to come undone from sheer speed. Amir tried to escape the net but couldn't figure it out "How do babies make it look so easily?" He thought desperately as he started vomiting from the centrifugal motion. Dan at the last moment hurled the net and Amir far off into the distance, hitting the edge of the wall sending more debris flying.

Dan dusted his hands off but as he turned he saw the smiling face of Amir, standing there looking completely normal and smug. 

"Oh hey there!"

DOB surprised by the sudden appearence yelled and threw a quick punch, the force being strong enough to make a loud boom but Amir casually stepped to one side avoiding the blow. Amir dodged blow after blow, sometimes seemingly just appearing out of nowhere. Dan threw blow widely in every direction.

Daniel stopped to catch his breath, looking every direction for Amir, not knowing Amir was hiding beneath him, matching his every motion perfectly. A deep sigh filled Dan and he closed his eyes, smelling the distinct smell of garbage and chicken nuggets, before suddenly rushing backwards, slamming Amir backwards against the wall opposite the giant hole in the room with a sickening THWACK. Amir painfully stood, limping as Dan approached. Dan approached him. Daniel felt the spirit of Michael flow through his power, a power Dan could only imagine, a freedom he never could. Amir through the pain felt Jake's presence with him, telling him to focus, painful and meaningful as reality itself. The two nerds, beaten down by the world, faced each other with recognition and loathing mixed in their eyes. 

Amir teleported in front of Dan and struck downwards at Dan's groin. Daniel grunted in pain but as he reciprocated, he felt nothing, only the shattering of thighbones. Amir leant forwards and laughed in Dan's face, spraying blood in his eyes, blinding Dan. Dan brought his other arm in close enough for even Amir to find difficult to dodge, a blow Amir had felt as earlier as the day before in his visions, with force that blazed like a big bang. As Amir felt it enclose on him...

"Alright, I like this part", Amir said, standing normally in a completely differnet room, talking to the editor. But I think we should try and keep it light, keep it fun. What if....just spitballing here....Dan suddenly lost his powers at the end?"

Dan's fist connected with Amir's jaw, and Amir only grinned mischeivously before saying in a wholly deep voice totally unlike his "Game Over!" and with a single strike knocked Daniel's head from his shoulders.


Later Jake rose, rubbing his pained head, the last few hours a blur to see Amir's annoying goofy grin. "Amir..." he said unsure. 

"So we going to the Ds or not?" Amir said impatiently.

K.O.


So one of the difficulties with this matchup is that while Dan and Jake's scaling are relatively straightfoward, Michael's mental capabilities and Amir's physical AND mental capabilities are prone to high variability. To get around this problem I compared them in three scenarios. First is the lowball scenario where the characters have the most conservative estimates of their feats, their mental abilities are at their lowest, and Amir is only using his abilites he often uses, if only because he's not smart enough to use most well. Second is the midball scenario where the characters get the interpretation of their abilities that seems most reasonable to me, Michael and Amir are both at the mental level they would be on a normal episode, and Amir can use all his abilities, although still suboptimally. Finally a highball scenario where both sides get benefit of the doubt in terms of feat interpretation, Michael and Amir are both at their smartest and most efficient, and they are both using their abilities most optimally. I did this to try and get a sense of the general trend of the matchup, and to give an overall sense of the matchup. So get ready because this is going to be a pretty long analysis.

In a lowball match, Daniel is more durable and likely stronger than a normal human due to his feats of withstanding a bottle being dropped on his head and throwing a pen through B-Tone's eye putting him at some unspecified amount above 0.1 kilojoules or average human level. Jake, even without scaling to Amir, has similar feats of being notably stronger than an average human including throwing a pencil through Amir's neck, breaking a bone with a punch requiring energy at least upwards of 0.4 kilojoules, and one-shotting normal people. Jake actually has several similar feats to Daniel but Jake's are noticably more casual in every regard. While Daniel had to kill a guy with unspecified difficulty, Jake one-shot Pat with a sudden strike in very close quarters without space to build up momentum. While Dan hurled a pen through an eye, Jake casually threw a pencil into the neck, harder than the eye. This suggests Jake, as you might guess from a guy who works out often would beat up Daniel in melee, though the difference is nowhere near the tanking level and Dan would still be able to easily overcome Jake's dura with any weapon

Amir even lowballed scales from his clear feat of falling from his hotel window, a feat between 13 kilojoules and 30 kilojoules roughly. Combined with him easily tearing through his own bone, that's a difference massive enough that Amir could easily one-shot Dan, and which means Dan would be unable to injure Amir with anything but his gun. Conversely, a lowballed Michael's strike was a 20 kilojoule strike. This means he might have a slight advantage against Amir, being around 1.5x stronger, however that's the lowest estimate of Amir's feat, and Amir withstood that with only a slightly bloodied mouth, while Michael's strike was when he was clearly angry and giving a full force swing, suggesting Amir may equal or even surpass Michael in lowballed raw power. In any case, the difference is certainly not enough to tank a force multiplier like a melee weapon.

Speedwise, Lowballed Jake has no speed feats though his time manipulation setting him to fast speed can hypothetically make him 5x faster than a normal human and could even hypothetically let him fight as though 25 times faster if he slows down an enemy by 5x as well. Going just by his base he would easily be the slowest lowballed. Dan scales lowballed to 16.66 times faster than a normal human with at least his hand speed suggesting he would be faster than even a 5x speed Jake by 3.33x, which would be within the range of human speed differential, like a normal human fighting a peak human speedwise. If Jake can slow down Dan at the same time, Jake would end up ~1.5x faster, which is a marginal speed difference. Lowballed Michael and Amir are hard to place but both are clearly dramatically faster than Dan to the point Daniel and Jake would struggle to be relevant in a battle between Michael and Amir, and Amir would likely be faster. Both have feats of traveling to other buildings and back quickly, but compare Michael's some amount of time less than 3 minutes to Amir's traveling to the upper section Forever 21 before Jake could react. This is consistent with how speed is actually probably Amir's most consistent power with the most instances of it occuring outside maybe hammerspace. Even if the buildings they traveled to are lowballed to "at least the next building over", compared to Dan being 16.66 times faster than a normal human, it would clearly take a normal human far more than 16.66 seconds to go to Forever 21 and back. Just intuitively it would take several minutes for a normal human to do so. Michael might not be signifigantly slower, considering how casual his feat is, but Amir is clearly the fastest here.

Midballed, Daniel doesn't really scale to any more power feats. Jake and Amir midballed together scale from roughly 10 kilojoules to 30 kilojoules from Jake's feat of crushing Amir's bone, Amir easily withstanding falling from a multistory hotel room, and possibly the lower end value for Jake getting hit by a bus, the two of them almost always being treated as relative to each other in raw power. This means a single strike from them would one-shot Dan being nearly 100 times stronger, and he couldn't hurt them save with his gun, if that. Meanwhile Michael could be scaled either at the prior level meaning he would be slightly stronger than Jake and Amir, if that, or he could scale to the creating an explosion whose fireball was roughly the size of a skyscraper story, an energy of 16,673 kilojoules, an energy in the range of 1,000x stronger than Jake and Amir's feats, meaning he would be able to one-shot either of them, and neither could hurt him with physical strikes.

Speedwise in a midballed fight, Daniel scales to the upper end of his speed calc at 25x faster than a normal human meaning with full time manipulation Jake would only just equal him, even assuming Dan doesn't blitz him immediatly (which in fairness is not in-character) Both however are slow compared to Amir and Michael to the point that they would struggle to impact the fight as Amir realistically scales above the speed of sound, around 100 times normal human running speed, and Michael's feat conservatively would be at least 217.33 meters per second, or around 70 times.

In a highballed fight giving full benefit of doubt, Jake and Amir scale collectively to Jake taking a bus impact with seemingly no injuries, a feat between 666 and 2,200 kilojoules. Conversely Michael (and Daniel as highballed Daniel has reason to be scaled to Michael) scale to 16,673 kilojoules putting them at least around 7.5-25x stronger than them which would still be a pretty dramatic advantage and if you think they scale to the big bang, then they would be over 10^65x stronger. Conversely in a highballed fight Daniel and Michael scale to likely faster than sound while Jake and Amir scale to Amir going from Jake's apartment to work in 6 seconds, a feat most likely Mach 10.32, suggesting they'd be 10x faster, a difference allowing them to blitz and avoid strikes indefinitely.

Overall:

Lowballed:

Power: Michael>~Amir>>Jake>Dan

Speed: Amir>Michael>>Dan>~Jake

Midballed:

Power: Michael>> or >~ Jake and Amir>>Dan

Speed: Amir>Michael>>Dan>~Jake

Highballed:

Power: Michael and Dan>>> or >>Jake and Amir

Speed: Jake and Amir>>Michael and Dan

In all matches between Michael and Amir, Michael is stronger and Amir is faster, with the difference growing with each level higher one assumes they are, to the point that Highballed Michael will never conventionally hit Amir and Amir will never conventionally hurt Michael.

Michael and Dan do have advantages in intelligence and skill. Lowballed Michael has intelligence comparable to a child; acting on impulse, lacking common sense, and not knowing numbers and letters while Amir has many appearences on that level of intellect, he's also had intelligence valleys where he was baby-level intelligent unable to get out of a net a baby could, and animal level intelligence where he lacked normal cognition. Normally Michael is of fairly normal intelligence, if lacking in common sense while Amir is often depicted as somewhat dim. Highballed Michael is of brilliant intelligence, attending Harvard, becoming a judge and becoming the brains behind a criminal organization. Highballed Amir is relatively clever, but the only feat he has that might compete with that is submitting a perfect March Madness bracket, which may just have been his precognition. Jake is also of roughly average intelligence while Daniel is clearly of above average intelligence. Michael and Daniel are of consistently slightly superior intelligence. Similarly with skill Jake and Amir both are of roughly average human combat skill, maybe somewhat higher due to Amir's crash Karate course, Jake's odd neck strike feat, and their general coordination possibly translating to combat potential. Because of how violent Dan and Michael's world is you'd think they would have a fairly good skill feat, but there isn't really much. The best feats are Daniel stalemating some guards in a firefight, Michael easily beating Dan and stated to be able to beat anyone with a chain, and both being implied to have to avoid bullets often. While they're probably more skilled than Jake and Amir, the difference is comparing two Mid to High D Tier skilled fighters by my system to two High D to low C tier skilled fighters.

Jake and Amir was a series that ran vastly longer than Agents of Cracked (Over 700 episodes vs 32 episodes) however Agents of Cracked was a series that took place in a violent supernatural world while Jake and Amir was mostly a slice of life comedy with Amir's chaotic aura sometimes causing strange things to happen. As such I knew at the beginning it would be basically a fight of Amir's accumulated abilities vs the Agents of Cracked's stats. However while Dan and Michael did have superior stats, it wasn't to a very large degree, Jake and Amir were competitive in intelligence and skill, Amir had the advantage in speed, and the two could possibly still do conventional damage to Michael. This isn't good for DOB and Michael because they really needed a more clear stat superiority, and Amir has the advantage in other secondary stats.

Stamina-wise, Daniel's feats are of roughly normal human levels, like working all night, and his endurance while impressive for a normal human are still within the human range. Michael has hypotheticall higher stamina and endurance to the point of being able to talk after his head exploded, his lack of focus and pain tolerance means functionally his stamina and endurance are lower than normal. Amir on the other hand very consistently has dramatically superhuman endurance, and Jake also has endurance probably outreaching Daniel's. While Amir has a large number of character faults, he consistently has an obsessive tendency an ability to withstand prolonged damage such as being trapped in a vending machine for several days.

Range is mostly unimportant here, though Amir's rifle gives him technically a superior range to Dan and Michael's handguns, though both of them have higher range than Jake who basically requires melee range. Amir also has an absolutely immense stealth advantage. This is a major strength in this match as Michael is particularly weak to stealth-strategies. When something leaves Michael's highly hallucinatory field of view, his short attention span means he's liable to forget it quickly. When the Kleptomaniac Kelly came in the Cracked Office, her comedic speed and stealth allowed her to easily steal Michael's stuff and mess with him without him being able to stop her. Amir has the exact same set of abilities, down to same presentation of speed, and crucially Amir's speed and stealth are two of his most common abilities even when he's on the lower end of his intelligence.

While Dan should be able to detect Amir with his supernaturally good hearing and smell, there's two problems with relying on that. Firstly Amir and Michael are signifigantly faster than Dan in all but the most generous scenario to Dan meaning that Amir can blitz Dan with or without stealth and if Dan tried to warn Michael, by the time he's done so Amir could be somewhere else. Secondly, smell and sound travel. Amir may be moving too fast for Daniel to effectively track him via smell, and in a highballed scenario even by hearing. 

Jake has dramatically less abilities than Amir and just with body malleability able to fit in a blueberry muffin and tank it, along with mild healing factor and endurance lessens what they could do to him. Michael could rip him apart with superior strength, use an explosion from either his strike or or potentially a grenade to blow him up and Dan can use bear tranquilizers, if they can penetrate his skin or knock-out gas though that would also potentially knock himself and anyone else around out. Both can also maybe shoot a vital organ of his.

Amir due to his even higher endurance and speed would be even harder for them to kill. Amir at his highball can outrun even bullets and explosions, or just teleport away if he sees them in relative slow motion try to use a weapon like that against him. He could avoid bear tranquilizers the same way, and if Dan tried to use knockout gas, Amir can simply hold his breath for upwards of 17 minutes, while everyone else falls unconscious. Also Dan might be able to just catch Amir in a net if Amir's intelligence is on the lowest end it has ever been, though most of the time he would just know to teleport out of it. While Jake and Amir don't have many defensive abilities, they do have some while Michael and Dan don't outside heightened endurance, meaning that if somone can get over their durability, they can one-shot them. While Michael also has the durability to keep Amir from doing so, Amir is fast enough he could just punch out Daniel regardless of what height of interpretation unless you are really highballing them both. 

Pretty much all of the Agents of Cracked's options, Amir can counter or equal in some way. Michael can summon ghosts, but Amir can punch out ghosts and if Michael summoned a past Daniel, Amir could retroactively attack him killing him in the past. Both Amir and Michael have supernatural charisma but not only does Amir have arguably greater supernatural charisma to the point of effecting even his editor, and able to completely control people as opposed to just making them like him, Amir is faster and could simply use his first. 

The biggest threat to Amir in most interpretations is the fact that Michael is likely stronger, maybe even dramatically stronger than Amir and given Amir's often overconfidence and laziness might let himself get tagged and one-shot. However Amir's cowardice has been shown to overpower his overconfidence (and his precognitive abilities might warn him of the danger) and Amir has a wide range of distracting abilities like playing metafictional music Michael can hear, magic tricks, freestyle rapping, voice mimicry etc. Combined with the fact that he can make his body burning hot which might ward off the pain-averse Michael and the fact that he can stealth, plus his general speed, around it would likely give Amir signifigant time. What's particular notable about that is that the failsafe in Michael is a piece of technology Amir could possibly trigger with his technopathy or just gank it from Daniel's pocket faster than he could see. While he wouldn't know about it at first, it is completely within Amir's character to steal a button and click it just to see what would happen, something that would get past Michael's power advantage. While Michael could try to resist with his own technopathy, Amir's is arguably superior and he would have to react in an unrealistically short timeframe, If Dan scales to power that high either from power-switching or from massive highballing, Amir would be unable to hurt him conventionally but a highballed Amir can potentially manipulate the editor to give him the win. And a highballed Amir would actually know to do this due to his precognitive abilities. 

So Amir definitely has all the tools to win, but that doesn't mean he will necessarily. Amir has always had the tools he needs to succeed but on any average episode Amir is signifigantly less competent than Michael is even in most of his worst episodes. It's completely possible Amir just waltz up to them all overconfident and Michael grabs Amir and pops his head. However while possible, there's two points that make me think Amir would be able to optimally use his powers in this case. First of all, two of Amir's most common powers are stealth and speed, his speed never being contradicted unless you count fighting with Jake at even speeds at a contradiction, they are recurring abilities of Amir even in his worst appearences. Speed and stealth are something that Dan and Michael struggled with all by itself in the Kelly incident, and something the two don't really have any strong counter too collectively. This suggest to me at the very least it would take a while for Dan and Michael to put down Amir. 

The other however is how his relationship with Jake works compared to Michael's with Dan. Michael clearly cares for Dan, but is so hallucinatory and his focus so limited, he's been shown to completely forgot who Dan is and not be able to name him at times. Dan also has a number of their abilities. This means that if Dan falls, Michael might not even notice, and even if he does and he becomes enraged, when Michael becomes enraged he goes psychotic and stops fighting intelligently.

Amir on the other is characteristically obsessive over his best friend Jake, and a few times he tries to act more maturely and seriously for him. If he thought Jake's life was seriously threatened, or Jake actually did fall, Amir would likely focus and use his abilities more seriously. While Daniel was hired to protect the world from Michael, Jake protects Amir from the world, and while both Michael and Amir might randomly get a burst of anger and homocidal rage, Amir is the only one of the two with the continual focus-ing motivation of protecting the most important thing in his world.

While it might seem strange given their general depictions and Michael being a demigod, Amir's more varied ability set and greater ability to focus for a goal would allow Jake and Amir to outdo the Agents of Cracked.

The Winners...are Jake and Amir

3 comments:

  1. Well that fight was completely insane! I didnt know anything about these two dynamic dunces, despite me having seen several Cracked and College Humor Videos over the years. Its really funny to see the totally random seeming powers these two have accumulated over their wacky skits come to a full surface and interact with each other, and ESPECIALLY Fun with how you painstakingly included like every single one of them into the fight itself which made it extremely chaotic, and i loved it. I Thought it was pretty sweet how it basically felt like two nerds and their stronger bodyguards, but who clearly cared about each other and saved one another at several points. I think some of my favorite moments from the fight included the fun office shootout that broke out, and the hilarious Ghost fight, and that epic final fight between Dan and Amir at the end. I love how you contrasted how Dan and Amir are both total losers beaten down by the world, and how Amir basically won by charming the editor to let him, kinda showing the slice of life strats over the more epical straigforward superhero ones. The Explaination was REALLY Indepth and thorough, it felt like the entire blog i made yesturday just as your results section with how deep it dove in, but i was really glad to have called this right!
    Thanks for the fun fight imp, it was a surpisingly fun treat to read

    ReplyDelete
  2. I expected this to be a very funny, comedic blog and it was, but I was also treated to some surprisingly heavy emotional stuff too. From Amir's tragic backstory, to love blooming between Michael and Dan, there was a lot more going on here besides wacky antics. Your character study of each pair's personalities and relationship was fantastically done; I really felt the love. Perhaps even more impressive was the role your analysis had of this aspect of the combatants as it turned out to be a strong deciding factor for the battle! Of course, that wasn't the only factor. I was quite impressed by how long and detailed your concluding arguments were for this one; examining three different battles in search of trends to reach an overall victor was a great idea and when you lay it all out like that, I can't help but agree with you entirely. Way to create order out of chaos.

    I'm putting the cart before the horse a bit, talking about the end of the blog first, but I think for a blog with so much chaos it's only fitting lol. I didn't know Michael and Dan's series at all before this blog, had never even heard of them. As for Jake & Amir, I had seen a few of their sketches before. So I was going in mostly blind but that just made the learning experience all the more fun! You made it clear what their comedic styles are and I think your writing very much lived up to those styles as you took the characters into your own hands and made them fight. Love that interruption of the narrator to kick things off; it's always fun when you play with the blog's structure like that.

    The fight itself was brilliant and quite smoothly written for all the chaos you had to control. Amir vs Michael in the first half was my favorite of the various battles that took place during the match, though my favorite moment overall was the ending with the final line spoken by Amir. I love when scenes call back to something small that was mentioned earlier after a huge flurry of action makes the audience temporarily forget about it in their distraction. Amir had his eyes on the prize! Speaking of which, I had a feeling he and Jake would win as their powers and feats felt more impressive to me, but I wasn't sure how to measure Amir's “chaos factor” so to speak and whether he could be relied on to pull off the win. Foolish of me to doubt his bond with his best bro when you already showed how strong it is in their section. The part you wrote at the end about it was beautiful and touching, well done. I had a lot of fun reading through this one and it continues to show you have a talent not just for writing, but for comedy too. Looking forward to whatever comes next Imp, thanks for the blog!

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  3. Well that was a ridiculous blog :P. Admittedly, I haven't watched either series from what I remember (though I have read Cracked articles) but I knew this battle would be chaotic just from Cracked's and College Humor's reputations. Just from reading, I think I like Michael and Daniel a little bit more between the mythology-based backstory for Cracked.com and stuff like hiding knives all over the world in case their needed. Both duo's antics seemed equally silly though. The fight felt like a true internet sketch; I think the moments that stood out most to me for were when Amir was taken aback by Michael just believing him or when he suddenly declared to have saved the Tabulon galaxy in the middle of the fight (though now I'm wondering if I like Jake and Amir more XD).The fight analysis was probably the most impressive part, between their relatively grounded stats (despite their comedically ridiculous feats) and the large assortment of random variables, but I impressed by how you broke down the whole fight. So great job and congrats for probably giving these internet series more of an analysis than they ever received before haha

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