Superhero Media: Dragon Ball Z - Broly the Legendary Super Sayian

Oh Kami, I have three of these to get through now... Ok, so I'm not a fan of Broly, pretty much across the board, and that seems to cop me more flack from other Dragon Ball Z fans than when I point out that Goku has no personality, somehow. Starting with Broly the Legendary Super Sayian, the character has been a huge deal in the broader fandom despite not having any real character or personality until the Dragon Ball Super version, and none of his "movies" being all that good. It makes sense that Broly is popular, however, despite the fact he has little going for him, created by DBZ writer Takao Koyama, Broly is essentially an ascended OC, right down to the lack of real development and his creator continuing to insist that he is the "strongest" years later. For those blissfully unaware of the realms of fan-fiction, an OC is an "Original Character", created by the author and typically of unassailable power, even when compared to Goku and pals. Now, I've tried my hand at fan-fiction back in the day, so I can't point fingers too much, but yes, Broly is Koyama's pet OC, and the films suffer for that. 

In this first outing, Paragus, father of Broly, arrives on Earth and coaxes Vegeta to a "New [planet] Vegeta" so that he can be king. Most of the rest of the gang are dragged along so that Broly gets to beat on all of them, helping later "power scaling" arguments on early internet forums. After far too long, the team figures out that the "Legendary Super Sayian" they're looking for is Broly and the whole thing is a trap, with Paragus planning to kill Vegeta with a coming comet. You see, Vegeta's dad, Vegeta, tried to kill Paragus and a young Broly, because he feared Broly's power, so Paragus lures Vegeta to New Vegeta to get revenge on his dad, Vegeta. Meanwhile, Broly files into Hulk-like rages when he sees Goku, because Goku cried a lot when they were both babies. Ok, that's just dumb, but the odd thing? The fight is actually pretty good. It takes too long to get there through a mediocre plot, but once the battle starts, the action is solid, with a bit more bone-crunching than is typical in DBZ. 

In many ways, Broly reminds me of Venom, in that they're both dark inversions of the protagonist, with dodgy vendettas and cool designs, but not much else going for them. Somehow, that kind of character is always popular, as Broly clearly demonstrates, no matter how much I still don't get the appeal. There's no nuance to Broly, he just hits things and gets stronger, yes, the Dragon Ball Super version is better, but that's not the one that got things started, this is. The reason Freiza gets to keep coming back is that he has a personality and complex motivations beyond just wanting to destroy, even the continual bevy of Androids programmed to kill Goku have more personality than Broly. I'm really not looking forward to the next two films, but I'll push on for the sake of completion. Oh, and please stop asking me if you can play as Broly in the various DBZ card games, of course you can, but the deck, like the character, is pretty uninteresting.