Dragon Ball Character: Moro

Frieza was an absurdly strong, spoiled child with control over his father's army.

Androids 17 and 18 were programmed for destruction.

Jiren was determined to protect his universe.

Beerus was bored.

The Dragon Ball universe has produced dozens of enemies to Earth's heroes, with just as many different motivations. Now we have a villain who kills because he's hungry. The recent arc in the manga, the Galactic Patrol Prisoner Saga, has brought us the fascinating Dragon Ball character Moro, an emaciated goat dressed in puffy shorts, who was sentenced to death but was too strong to kill, and who swallows worlds whole.

Dragon Ball heroes have dealt with this before.

It should be noted that this isn't the first time Goku, Vegeta, and friends have been faced with an enemy that could absorb their energy.

Back in Dragon Ball Z, Majin Buu swallowed nearly the entire team, including Piccolo and Gotenks. The sum of all their powers became his. Before that, Android 19 charged himself by absorbing energy through interfaces on his hands. He stole strength from the ki blasts thrown at him or by grabbing hold of a powerful individual and sapping energy from them.

Neither of those individuals defeated our heroes. Even as Android 19 was attempting to drain him, Vegeta tore off the robot's arms, sent him running, and blew him up, then made fun of his creator. Majin Buu was a little more difficult, but not unbeatable. Goku and Vegeta had to fuse to form Vegito to defeat him, but defeat him they did.

All this was long before the days of Super Saiyan God-level powers. At this point, our boys have gone toe-to-toe with the likes ofLegendary Super Saiyans and Gods of Destruction (dominated the former, invoked the mercy of the latter), and they've reached new levels of power to commit such feats. These are the days of Super Saiyan Blue and Ultra Instinct—godly powers no one would have expected the two Saiyans could reach. A decrepit old goat should be no problem, right?

He's not too tough... at first.

After the events of Dragon Ball Super: Broly, the character Moro winds up escaping after being imprisoned for over 10 million years.

"Why, it's nothing but a feeble old man."—Vegeta, Dragon Ball Super, Chapter 44

Upon meeting him, neither of the Saiyans are impressed by the great Planet Eater Moro. He spent a very long time in prison after all. Earlier in the same book, Moro himself admits that his "magical abilities are in a pathetic state," as scanning the universe for energy (and realizing that Goku is searching for him) exhausts him.

He's a hungry goat by the time he lands on New Namek, which could mean it's completely acceptable for him to lunge at the first possible meal to present itself—just less so when that meal turns out to be a Namekian child.

To his credit, while Goku is screaming, "Cut that out," Vegeta attacks Moro, saving the kid. With Vegeta's strange, toxically masculine, very-much-spoken agreement with Goku to stay out of each others' fights, as well as his past with the Namekians and the guilt that must come with it (which could be an entire series of articles in and of itself), I'll leave you with this: Moro winds up fighting the Saiyan Prince.

In Dragon Ball Super's Tournament of Power, the Maiden Squadron... existed, with their odd little dance rituals and rain of flowers. So did The Trio of Danger, wolf brothers who circled Universe 7's warriors and attacked them with poison.

So when Moro began his schtick with ripping trees up from the dirt in the Chapter 44 manga, Vegeta was not impressed.

"We've come up against plenty of bizarre powers in our fights. So this is nothing new."—Vegeta, Dragon Ball Super Chapter 44

The Prince and the Planet Eater seem fairly evenly matched for a while, with Vegeta hoping to protect the Namekians from any further pain they may have inflicted on them as a result of the Planet Eater's hunger.

But Moro is feared for a reason. Moro gains more and more strength throughout the fight, and he begins to believe that he is easily overpowering Vegeta—who allows this, manipulating Moro into admitting why he's going after the Dragon Balls. As it turns out, and to no one's surprise, Moro is nowhere near his past strength—he wants the Dragon Balls to restore him. Unable to hold his own against Vegeta, Moro then attacks "with the life energy of the very planet we stand on."

That gets the Prince's attention.

Goku and Vegeta have fought some of the hardest battles to ever be shown on TV, with the highest stakes we could imagine. We've gotten to the point where if the two are concerned, it means something.

I said before that Moro, like Buu and the Androids, could absorb life energy from individuals. It's nothing special. What is special is Moro's ability to steal energy from entire planets, as well as everything on it.

The Namekians are the first to realize it, as they feel themselves growing weaker. Nature can't talk, but I'm sure it would've said something too, had it had a voice. Goku and Vegeta are the last to notice.

They decide that Super Saiyan Blue is the way to beat him. In a rare moment of snark, Goku harasses Vegeta to get on with it and power up.

But he can't. He can't even turn Super Saiyan.

How will they beat him?

Goku and Vegeta can't rely on their Super Saiyan transformations to carry them through this one, and Moro only gets stronger the longer he absorbs energy from the planet he's standing on. When he grabs the two in a chokehold, even he is shocked at how much their energy rejuvenates him. They are enough to restore him to a youthful, muscular goat (though a goat nonetheless). Had he had the opportunity to grab hold of them as they were Super Saiyan Gods, he likely would have grown even stronger.

For our heroes, this leaves them with technique and wit.

Fortunately, our heroes have those elements of battle under control. Vegeta is all about wit. He has what martial artists call fight intelligence—the ability to understand his opponent's style, abilities, tendencies—and how those match up against his own. And Goku's such a master of fighting that his mastery of Ultra Instinct serves his fight intelligence just as well (if not a little better for now). Combat, both offensive and defensive, is second nature to both of them.

There are numerous paths the two could go down to defeat him, but the question about how remains.

An obvious one is that the two fuse again, forming either Vegito or Gogeta. Both fusion forms are considered among the strongest characters of the Dragon Ball universe, and both combine the best of each hero's fighting abilities. They should be able to break the weird-looking goat wizard. The downside is that, if Moro got a hold on Gogeta, both heroes would be finished. For all we know, they wouldn't even separate after being drained in their fused state. Would Chi-Chi and Bulma have to bury—thus, cry over—the same body? That'd be weird.

Will teamwork save the day?

The other obvious route is that they work side by side. Though they have quite a rivalry—even if Vegeta may not be willing to admit it—they make an outstanding team. The true potential of their double-team was shown in the 2018 Broly movie. They found each other in the chaos and, back to back amidst flashing lights and incessant offense, battered Broly with ki blasts. This seems like the more likely route, seeing as Vegeta actively avoids fusing with Goku and, should Moro get his hands on one of them, the other would still be around to fight—and more importantly, protect the Nameks.

Will our heroes need to rely on Ultra Instinct?

Ultra Instinct is not technically an energy level. Though during the Tournament of Power it revealed Goku's energy in beautiful, flowing, silver-blue light overtaking the entire stadium, Ultra Instinct is defined as a state of mind. It is a fighter's ability to clear his mind, to be so in tune with both his body and his surroundings that thinking is unnecessary—an inconvenience even.

This, possibly, means Moro cannot steal it from our heroes.

Even when beaten to a pulp and swaying on his feet, looking more like a zombie than a proud warrior, Goku powered through the rest of his fight with Jiren after mastering Ultra Instinct. Should Moro suck all the strength from him—taking away all the transformations, god powers, and flashy theatrics—Goku could still use Ultra Instinct against the big goat.

Will they need backup?

Strong as they are, it's unlikely Goku and Vegeta have the power to seal Moro's magic powers away. At the height of his power, it took several deities—the Daikaioh and the South Supreme Kai—to stop Moro from destroying hundreds of planets for his lunch.

As of now, there's no word on whether or not Beerus was involved in the battle between the Moro and the Kais, but it's likely he was napping. In the manga's current events, Beerus is shown relaxing and fishing, indifferent when Whis tells him a planet is being destroyed. He's comfortable letting one of those go to waste. Should Moro go on a rampage, though, that may change.

Beerus facing a worthy opponent—one who is of his level of power, able to pull him into a dog fight and push him to his limits—is one of the most wished-for events of the Dragon Ball fanbase. So far, only other Gods of Destruction have been able to make him sweat. (Even then, they had to team up on him like they did in Chapter 28 of the Dragon Ball Super manga. It's a shame that fight never made it to the anime.) Zamasu couldn't compete. Neither could Vegeta in a state of rage, nor Goku with the power of his and five other Saiyans running through him. If Moro eats enough power to challenge one of the most powerful creatures in the universe, then the scraggly goat-man will be a lot more interesting.

Or will Moro defeat our heroes?

The new Dragon Ball character Moro will be bringing a new dynamic to the Dragon Ball universe as one of the strongest Dragon Ball characters to enter the series, and it will be interesting to see how the heroes overcome this.