“Rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward place of the soul” - Plato
Alice Cooper, The Rock n’ roll Lord of Nightmares.
Rob Zombie, The Rockstar King of the Undead.
Music. An important piece of culture that’s been around since the dawn of man, it’s not just an art form. It’s a language, and a universal one at that, connecting to people all around the globe. But what happens if music mixes with another universal language, violence and dread? With the rhythm tying itself to your very soul and making your whole being rock up and down as the metal beat grasps you with cold undead hands. Well, you get these two influential and groovy terrors.
But what would happen if these two musical personas clashed in concert to shake all of Hell with its demonic melody. Will Rob Zombie live up to his name and fall 6 feet under? Or will Alice Cooper face a nightmare of his own? Get your money ready and order up on those tickets, because it's time to tune in and rock on in this DEATH BATTLE!
Before We Start…
As you can see, this blog is going to be much more unique and different then other blogs, as there hasn’t really been any coverage of musical characters like these two. So how will we do it? Much like YouTuber matchup, we are exclusively focusing on the personas that both Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie put on in their music and performances. Not the real people themselves obviously. With this in mind, the main piece we’re looking at is of course the music and performances themselves, any official album, song, music video, stage performance, commercials and even full on stage plays we can find is on the table. Because of this, we feel it’s fair to both to take whatever lyric is in their songs literally. At least to an extent that doesn’t go against the idea of the song itself.
We won’t stop just there though, we’ll be taking a look through their appearances across multiple forms of media, like comics and crossovers. What we won’t be doing however is scaling either to the series they’re crossing over with or abilities related to said series, only things that they themselves do in them. Only things that they can do and can have in that crossover. But for Rob Zombie’s game crossovers, we’re only really looking at gameplay and what he can do there, not anything else really. That way this’ll end up with a more interesting verdict then just let’s say, WWE vs… WWE. Oh and because a majority of Alice’s comic powers are specific to The Nightmare Place, we feel the fight taking place there would lead to a more interesting and fairer debate. Much like a certain other user of nightmares.
Okay, just one last thing, this blog will contain mature topics and imagery along with flashing lights through the links.
Background
Alice Cooper
Ever since he was a kid, Vincent Furnier always loved music and wanted nothing more than to express his creativity and inspiration in the form of singing. Year after year he tried, until the young rockstar gathered an audience big enough to span across the world. Here he would change his name and embrace a persona he put on for his plays, a horrifying one that quickly became known as the scariest man in the world, one who he would write into songs and albums as if it were a fictional character. This persona took the world by storm, and a violent one by that, this is the story of the Master of Madness himself, Alice Cooper.
The beginnings of Alice are shrouded in mystery, and this is intended as Alice is not what you would call a man, he’s a nightmare manifestation of our fears. In particular, he was created by mankind's lust for terror and excitement and made to entertain and satisfy all of our souls. It's our imagination that brought Alice to life like some sort of Frankenstein, and it's our imagination that gave him an upbringing. Because unlike other nightmare manifestations, he lived a majority of his life as human. We know he was a troublemaker and on the run from the place when he was only a teenager while also being a musician, but a kind musician he was not. Alice constantly got himself into street fights with strangers and other bands, sometimes even taking the lives of those who did so much as look at him funny. To be frank, Alice wasn’t necessarily a nice person. He was the kind of guy to poison a blind person’s dog and steal his cane, gift wrap a leper and mail him to his Aunt Jane and force feed a diabetic a candy cane. Still, the audience ate it up and Alice rose to the top of the world’s greatest musicians in no time.
But to say that his life was one of regularity would be a massive lie, Alice’s bread and butter consists of going toe to toe with the supernatural and dangerous on stage and out of it. He’s decapitated himself with a guillotine on stage, hung himself only to rise from the grave a few weeks later and been placed in the electric chair. This has led many to believe that Alice isn’t human at all, so what is he? He’s a nightmare being made up of the fears and anxiety of the world, residing in another realm of existence called The Nightmare Place. A realm where our greatest fears come to life in the form of hideous monsters. And while he knows damn well how to play the creature, it was in these performances in this very realm where we saw a much softer side of Alice Cooper. A side that so desperately tried to protect a being known as “Steven”, which is an abstract quality that resides in us all. Steven is the little boy that is scared of the dark, that wants to do and see everything and that wants to continue being a kid. All of this was before Alice died, somehow. Alice was sent to Hell and came face to face with Satan himself. As the ultimate con man of the living and the ultimate con man of the undead, the battle of the mind was key in Alice trying to manipulate Satan to let him out of Hell. Which ended up in Alice’s favor.
In the next album, From The Inside, which is much more connected to the real story of Alice Cooper, Alice was left a mess after his time in Hell and The Nightmare Place. Leading to him being thrown in a mental institution where he then resided, meeting fellow crazy faces like Millie and Billie and Jackknife Johnny. After he got out of the ward, Alice continued his career in music but his darker life in The Nightmare Place changed, instead of using it to enhance his music he would control it as the Lord of Nightmares. He would show the world that fear is necessary for love, and that fear you can control and overcome in the form of dreams. Not only protecting the dreams and nightmares of Steven, that little kid inside all of our hearts, but humanity as a whole, and not just humanity, but the monsters of The Nightmare Place too.
He sure as hell ain’t a perfect guy and he sure as hell ain’t as the Lord of Nightmares either, but Alice Cooper, much like the real Alice Cooper, will never stop trying and fighting for a better tomorrow. Don’t think for a second he’s gone soft, he’s still the scariest nightmare you've ever faced. So be warned figures of the dark to not test the Lord of Nightmares, for your fate is cast, your fears are his. And to those tuning in, you may be his forever but you're his tonight.
Rob Zombie
Growing up, Robert Cummings had a special passion for all things horror, experiencing any form of it that he could get his hands on. Always looking up to the figures behind these revolutionary means of terror and other producers such as Steven Spielburg, Stan Lee and… Alice Cooper!? These aspirations wouldn’t stay a fantasy however, Robert was ready to prove that even he, someone from a nowhere town, could make it and have fun while doing it. He would become a musician across various stage plays and performances. It was at that moment that he truly let his horror passion shine as he took on a new stage name fitting for his terrifying presence as a stage character he would play in his music. Placing the character in a variety of situations. Behold and make way for the Lord of The Undead, Rob Zombie.
Much like his earlier explained idol, Rob Zombie’s beginnings are mostly left unknown but we aren’t without information either. We know he is similar to his real world self in the fact that he’s a proud musician that took off during the rock scene in L.A, but the key difference is that this Rob Zombie is fresh out of mercy. He rampaged the streets of L.A and tore it apart with the mayhem he was causing, deeming his destruction as a way to “clean up” the lackluster and unexciting nature of entertainment. Instead he would give them a better sense of entertainment, pure and untamed chaos. It shows too, many of his performances involve references and oftentimes inspiration from popular pieces of horror media. Which implies not only does Rob Zombie share a love for horror above all, likely seeing it as relatable, and that he views it as the glory days of the entertainment industry. Meaning every horrific display he puts on he thinks of as a beautiful work of art. A work of art that should have the entire world shaking in fear.
This desire for what he thinks as the finest and scariest work Hollywood has seen in its life has taken Rob Zombie to some crazy places. He’s brought people back from the dead, took over entire towns with hordes of monsters, wrecked whole cities through his stunts, played his music whilst in a black hole and most importantly he wounded up in the infamous killing games of Twisted Metal, where the victor of brutal vehicular battles gets one wish, so right up this Zombie’s alleyway. Lucky for Rob Zombie, his skill and utter rage outmatch almost all of mankind combined. He’s seen everything from ghost, goblins, vampires, demons, zombies (naturally) and whatever the fuck is in between all of those because some of this stuff is plain and simple bizarre. With such skills, a wish would bound to be his eventually. But what would he wish for exactly? Well, he would use it to let the whole world experience the walls and warcries of a dead man’s soul. Which is really just a fancy way of saying he wants to blast his songs worldwide. Makes for an awesome way of saying it though.
Suffice to say, with so much passion for the horror genre and the cruelty to put it to work, Rob Zombie became an absolute menace to show business across the world. He’s unrelenting and will never give in until the whole world gives into his vision of a future full of blood and guts. So next time you walk past a shady stage or a graveyard with a little bit too much excitement underneath the soil, beware. There are zombies afoot, and you are the dinner to their king, the almighty Wurdalak.
Experience & Skill
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper isn’t known as the scariest man on planet Earth as well as the Lord of Nightmares outside of Earth for being a regular joe, he’s been through a lot and is by all means no slouch in combat. He’s a demon slayer known by Lucifer himself and has fought hordes of demons at once, an army of skeletons while he was powerless, other bands alongside his own, his own fears incarnate in an entity known as Thomas (real threatening name I know) and another personification of himself, a being made up of all the negativity Alice emits, who Alice ripped the fear that the monster was feeding on out of its mouth. Dealing with supernatural occurrences and full on street brawls like these are Alice’s daily bread and butter, after all he’s been running from the police since he was a kid and ruled over the hostile Nightmare Place for years. He runs a haunted home inspector business that deals with all sorts of ghosts and ghouls that run about in peoples houses.
Outside of his experience and skill in head to head fights, Alice is naturally an expert in any instrument he touches and has a mighty impressive track record to prove it, no pun intended. He’s toured for over 30 years and beat Lucifer in a competition on who is the better musician, which Alice wagered his soul on, outwitting him every step of the way. Lucifer has recognized this and commended him on his smarts before. Makes sense as to why, we’re talking about a guy who’s able to make a metallic Frankenstein replica that functions on its own in seconds. In other encounters with the Devil, Alice has been able to con his way out of Hell and return to the living in the next album. Which is insane given Lucifer is eons old and one of the most powerful creatures in the universe.
Rob Zombie
Already 2 section in and we have to blur things
Thanks to his fittingly undying and unyielding passion towards the horror genre, Rob Zombie’s been through thick and thin and has always managed to prove himself as an agent of Hell itself. Over the course of several tracks we’ve seen him fight demons up close and personal while looking for a better place to call Hell and been called all sorts of impressive titles from “ghost master”, “lord dinosaur and commander-in-chief of a voodoo war. Implying he’s partaken in a full on supernatural war involving magic as the head of one side. This is backed up in crossovers like World of Tanks, where his role in the crew is as the commander of tanks waging a fierce battle on other tank crews. Showcasing his tactical genius and tenacity all in a single role.
He’s been tearing the streets of L.A up with his horror fanatic borderline terrorism for years up until he found himself in a competition with other people like him, the Twisted Metal Tournament. A championship where members fight to the death in an arena with nothing but themselves, some firepower and a vehicle of choice. Which in Rob Zombie’s case is his trusty Dragula. In Rob Zombie’s ending, he won the whole thing with skills unmatched by any contestant, power unparalleled by any being and a fiery rage unseen by any other mortal. Not like he’s mortal himself. He’s decently intelligent as well, at least when it comes to horror monsters. He knows the exact ingredients to combine together to make a monster suitable to terrorize people. Also, he can speak latin. How nice.
Equipment
Alice Cooper
Cane
As his trademark piece of equipment for showbiz, Alice keeps his trusty cane handy at basically all times. It can be used as a weapon to hold opponents back or if comic covers are anything to be believed, use magic.
Pirate Sword
An alternate to his cane and used in the song “Billion Dollar Babies”, Alice has a blade resembling that of a pirates sword he can use for suggestive and of course offensive means.
Fencing Sword
If he doesn’t feel like bargaining with pirates for a sword, he always has the option to pull out a fencing sword for practicing mid stage.
Crutch
Another alternative to his cane, this time used in “I’m 18”, Alice wields an oversized hospital crutch for god knows what reason.
Knife
During his fight with The Jets alongside the rest of his music team, Alice was able to catch a knife that was thrown at him and later use it to slit the throat of the poor fool that threw it.
Axe
As seen in a trailer for a rock cruise, he isn’t afraid to get messy to get the job done and if need be he’ll pull out an axe to chop apart anything he sees, like a giant spider that spawned more spiders when chopped.
Shovel
What use would rising from the grave be if you didn’t have a shovel to bury others in your grave?
Whip
A freaky weapon for a freaky guy.
Revolver
This gun may look like any normal gun, but it's one that Alice can enlarge to fire bullets big enough to carry two people on top of it at once. It’s also shown that Alice seems to carry this on him at all times.
Poison
Used in the song fittingly called Poison, at the end of it Alice gets his hands on an unknown type of poison capable of causing someone to collapse the moment they drink it.
Cardboard Cutout
Alice Cooper has a cardboard cutout of himself handy he frankly kind of abuses but can likely use for tricking and distracting his opponents in a fight setting. He did it first.
Cage
Out of what looks like nowhere, Alice can drop a giant cage to trap you along with anyone close to you with a pull of a lever, or I guess more accurately pull of a chain.
C-2 Bomb
A regularish wired explosive Alice has on him if he ever wants to feel a little dangerous.
Truck
Nothing really special here, just a truck with the words Alice Cooper on the side. Looks awesome though.
Car
A truck is far from the only vehicle in Alice’s arsenal used to get around, and for more urgent manners Alice has his own specially designed car that, while it may appear normal, can turn its wheels into rocket boosters that allow it to fly around at high speeds.
Guitar
As you might expect, A.C is more than qualified to jam out with a guitar. What you might not expect is that the frequencies he plays this thing at are enough to transmute you into stone, leaving you open for a clean hit that’ll turn you into pieces.
Angelic Guitar
Given to him by the Archangel Gabriel, this guitar is a bit different from his other one but still very supernatural. It was crafted in the spirit realm and uses a special type of connection to the foundation of all life to specifically target creatures from the dark realm. The louder Alice plays this bad boy, the larger area of effect it has. This also works against creatures from the dark realm however, aka Demons, otherwise it’s harmless.
Contracts
If you ever wanted to be a popular rockstar just like good ol’ Uncle Alice, you’re in luck. There’s a contract he can give you that’ll do just that, at the cost of selling your soul to the Devil but honestly that’s pretty negligible. You get to be Alice Cooper? Sign me up, literally!
Rob Zombie
The Creeper Armor
Not the best name I must say. Prioritizing sheer awesomeness over elegance, Rob Zombie’s got himself a suit of metallic material with extendable arms in the form of metal claws to thrash and hack his enemies up. While it is unknown on the exact structural integrity or purpose of these claws, what we do know is that despite there only appearing 3 per hand, there are actually 5000 fingers in total for each hand.
Suit of Armor
Kept around in his house in case there’s ever a need to wear it, this suit of armor sure does look cool.
Knife
Who says a ruler of the undead who's also a rockstar can’t carve pumpkins?
Finger Knives
Yeah that’s the best screenshot we can get of it, these videos are blurry okay. Anyway, Rob Zombie has dual wield Finger Knives used to hack and slash through his victims with nightmare precision. We can never escape that goddamn Dream Demon can we?
Sword
Simple but nightmarish, can’t say it isn’t effective though a Zombie with a sword doesn’t sound appealing to be around.
Sledgehammer
Still blurry. Rob Zombie’s been shown to wield a hammer he used to break a door down with a few swings.
Pickaxe
How low res must one's music videos be, never such a thing as too little. When stuck in a mineshaft with nothing to do, he’s certainly found numerous other practices for a pickaxe than digging.
Axe
Okay last one I promise. As said before, he’s not without ways to entertain himself while trapped in a cave, but his options are more varied than what others think. Hence why he has an axe.
Dragula
As the main vehicle used in Rob Zombie’s most popular song, Dragula, the car of the same name is an absolute beast. With some trippy visuals, it’s able to speed around other cars as a blur with speeds well above 100 miles per hour. It only got more dangerous when Rob Zombie got himself into the Twisted Metal tournament, where it can fire spinning skulls capable of drawing enemies in as it electrifies them before exploding and built in machine guns.
Twisted Metal Weapons
Speaking of Twisted Metal, Rob Zombie’s meddling multiple levels has given him access to several means of offense besides his vehicle in the form of items. Consider these sort of like add-ons that Rob Zombie can fire from the Dragula, meaning they are limited but very strong at the same time.
Fire Missile: A common weapon found around the battlefield, fire missiles will make a slight course on their enemy, usually lingering more the higher an opponent's evasive skill, and will do a fair bit of damage when successfully hit.
Homing Missile: These missiles are considered the weakest of all missile types but they more than make up for it by, well read the name. Only the speediest racers are able to outpace this missile's deadly accuracy.
Power Missile: Rounding out the main missile types, power missiles are extraordinarily powerful. Dealing heavy amounts of damage and greater amounts of force strong enough to launch enemy vehicles through the sky and off ledges. To make up for this power however, they aren’t able to home in on their targets and only travel in a straight line.
Speed Missile: As the name implies, the speed missile is a fast traveling missile which, although weaker than your average missile, can deliver great force to even the largest of cars.
Remote Bomb: Self explanatory, these bombs can be laid as traps to devastate unsuspecting victims that tread over it.
Freeze Remote: Another trap weapon, this one gets rid of the plain old exploding bit for a detonation that freezes any enemy caught in its range in ice.
Napalm: What can only be described as a portable fireball, this item fires an arc of fireballs that do massive damage despite lacking in range.
Mortar: Similar to napalm except instead of a fireball this fires a remote with incredible range and homing ability, dealing a good amount of damage in the process.
Ricochet Bomb: A grenade that’s able to bounce off of walls and nail enemies midair.
Proximity Mine: Yet another trap mentioned, the sucker who next drives in the radius of this bad boy is going to have to get a new car, in hell! These mines can also be chained together for a bigger area of effect.
Lightning: Although rare, lightning is one nasty zapper that inflicts insane damage.
M.I.R.V: The Multiple Independently-targeted Reentry Vehicle, or M.I.R.V for short, sends a missile upwards that redirects to enemies within its vicinity.
Rain Missile: While very different to the weapon of the same name in Twisted Metal 3, the weapon we’ve seen Rob Zombie have access to operates the same as M.I.R.V but replaces missiles with napalm that deal more damage then regular napalm and spreads flames.
Auto Lob: Literally the same as the M.I.R.V but much stronger in a shorter ranger.
The Dragula T-55AGM
Call me crazy but I don’t think this is a car. In any case, Rob Zombie joined in on the chaos going on in World of Tanks with his own medium tank complete with all the features you dread a tank to have.
Mecha-Spider
Rawest thing ever made. Not much too this thing but, cmon, look at it.
Beatbox Robot
If the music wasn’t loud enough to spook the whole neighborhood already, with this behemoth of a bot, the music is sure as hell loud enough now.
Abilities
Alice Cooper
Fear/Nightmare Manipulation
Alice didn’t get his name as the Lord of Nightmares for nothing, he’s an expert at commanding and guiding the monsters that are now abundant in The Nightmare Place. The Nightmare Place is a realm of the subconscious where anxieties and fears become manifest in the form of Nightmare creatures. We go to The Nightmare Realm everytime we sleep or experience illusions and in there, people can fantasize things and in turn weaponize it or make it happen. Alice, being the king of this realm, not only has authority over all monsters in The Nightmare Place, but he can channel fears for attacks. He can bring your greatest fears to life and just as easily get rid of them and turn your fears into reality by doing things such as aging you until you turn to dust. Of course, he needs to know your fear before doing this but don’t think just because you’re tough you have no fears. Alice has provoked fear in nightmare demons made of things before with things as tame as teddy bears.
Energy Projection
By harnessing enough fear energy, Alice can fire beams of Nightmare Energy at his foes or upward to send shockwaves all throughout his concert.
Mind Manipulation
Alice at his peak was able to live inside of our head and feed upon the potential inside of it, slowly rotting your mind and causing nightmares. He still retains this ability in some regard, as he’s able to hypnotize and confuse you by exposing you to his magic and smell your thoughts to obtain any knowledge he needs. Not read mind you, but smell.
Soul Manipulation
To go along with his tampering of the mental realm of The Nightmare Place, Alice has demonstrated a strong sense of controlling spirits in his acts. He made spirits rise from the grave and join him as a dancing partner before he absorbed the spirit outright, later releasing it to wreak havoc on the Muppets work place. In the Nightmare album it was even stated that he can squeeze all of the love out of your soul and leave you as a mere spirit wandering the living.
Teleportation/BFR
For a cool but not very exciting entrance all things considered, he can slowly disappear from sight and bring anyone currently touching him with.
Lightning Manipulation
Now THAT’S what I call an entrance. Alice can utilize storm clouds above to cause lightning to strike down on the stage and teleporting him to said stage, he’s also been shown to create electricity just by playing his guitar well.
Fire Manipulation
When infecting an ATM for some reason, Alice can pop his head out of the machine and let out a wave of flames as he does so, all so he can scare someone trying to get some cash. This fire is apparently so powerful it can set your very soul ablaze.
Explosion Manipulation
With just a motion of a hand, Alice can make things combust randomly and chaotically to pair with the lyrics of “School’s been blown to pieces.” Not exactly a school level explosion but good enough.
Summoning
If Alice is ever having trouble dealing with the dark alone, he can always use his trademark ability of summoning all sorts of demented creatures to do his dirty work. Like his demonic snake Kachina or a murder of crows that will stop at nothing to chase you.
Weapon Creation
If he ever needs help in traversing in the dark, Alice can summon a trusty lamp in the palm of his hands through magic.
Stealth Mastery
Being buds with Jason has gotta mean something and in Alice’s case, he’s picked a sense of stealth similar to that of his masked friend here. He literally lives in places where there is an absence of light and can dart to cover the moment you try to turn around.
Immortality/Regeneration
Alice’s exposure to all things supernatural has resulted in him becoming less human and more supernatural himself. For example, in the illusionary place of The Nightmare Realm he can continue to speak out of his head and move his body after being beheaded by a guillotine, simply snapping his head back on his shoulders and regenerating the damage as if nothing had happened. Alice has been directly implied that he was able to con his way out of Hell, since next album titled “From The Inside”, which is a continuation of Alice Goes To Hell, he’s shown back on earth with no ill effect. In other cases, he can rise up from his grave as some sort of ghost skeleton spirit to haunt the living or his usual tangible appearance, whichever one scares you more honestly. But his ghost form is especially tricky to deal with, as his ghost can still physically interact with our world. He doesn’t have to die to fight on as a ghost either, as his soul’s been willing to leave his flesh behind in other songs.
Size Manipulation
While putting his head back on from decapitation by guillotine that was mentioned before, he grew his body large enough to tower over a concert. This type of rapid size growth is something he has done on more than once occasion.
Slight Blindness Inducement
By flexing his muscles, Alice can apparently fog up your glasses and reach your eyes where you then think you’re going blind from the flexing. Not totally blind per say, although it is left very unclear.
Duplication
In the album “Alice Does Alice”, we see that Alice was somehow able to create an exact replica of himself down to having the same singing voice. Although these extra Alices don’t really get along, Alice has convinced his other self to sing along with him, meaning they can and likely will fight together if it means taking down a bigger opponent.
Biological Manipulation
I didn’t really expect the album name of “Raise your first and yell” to be taken seriously. I would scream too if I had Alice Cooper’s face on my fist.
Transmutation/Corruption
In the Muppets crossover, Alice was able to charm his way into getting Miss Piggy to sign a contract with The Devil, how you may ask? By turning her into a weird monster bird thing for a musical number of course. He can reverse this type of transmutation too, as he turned Miss Piggy back into her normal self lickity split after their singing was over. But to truly send shivers down all of our spines, Alice can do what non-rock fans fear most, becoming somewhat of a fan of the genre. No really, by listening to his music or by glancing your way he can turn your normal everyday appearance into an emo version of yourself.
Immersion
A strangely consistent visual trick used in his music videos, Alice may look funny and harmless enough when put on a screen but don’t be deceived, he can very quickly reach his arm or whole body out of the screen to interact with the reality out of said screen.
Time Manipulation
As shown in one of his earlier songs, that being “Clones”, Alice and his crusade ended up with the culminating destruction of all of time. Not much too it besides that but it’s implied to be caused by Alice, so.
Fourth Wall Awareness
He may be crazy but Alice has been shown to directly speak to the reader of his comics. I don’t think he can communicate all that well though, cuz he’s kinda not mentally okay to say the least.
Resistances
Pain Manipulation: No longer feels any pain at all, like injuries comparable to his previous ones such as getting stitches and stung right on the face.
Fire Manipulation: Can walk through a field of fire willy nilly.
Electricity Manipulation: Survived the electric chair with no apparent issue.
Radiation Manipulation: Is infected by nuclear radiation.
Poison Manipulation: Reportedly has poison running through his veins.
Soul Manipulation: While a ghost and in The Nightmare Place, he came back from being bitten several times by multiple gigantic black widows. He can shrug off his soul being smoldered, shot and resist it being torn out by a Devil.
Mind Manipulation: His mind is scrambled like an egg and gets injured and or erased on occasion, yet he keeps going regardless.
Transmutation: Just as his magic is able to transmute and corrupt things, he can also undo transmutation on others or himself as long as he’s able to use his magic.
Rob Zombie
Corruption
Courtesy of being a member of the walking dead, Rob Zombie has all the perks any iconic zombie has in a nice little buddle of flesh. Which of course includes the ability to transfer his zombie physiology to others, although unknown how he does this, it can likely be guessed from the lyric “eliminating you” being played immediately after the duplicating that he does this by killing you and then turning you into a zombie. If physical alterations aren’t what he’s looking for at the moment, no matter, he can corrupt your soul.
Soul Manipulation
The moment Rob Zombie gets his hands on you, it might as well be too late to save you. His hands are soul crushing and can drain the lifeforce from your soul if he gets a hold of you, leaving you an empty soulless husk. He won’t hesitate to do this to you if you get in his way, after all he’s been referred as the one who strips your soul away and has been shown to corrupt souls in the past. It’s gotten to a point where his soul altering abilities have affected himself, not that he minds though, he’ll tear his soul apart and eat it all for fun. He, being a zombie and all, still prefers eating your soul instead however.
Necromancy/Summoning
A Lord of Zombies wouldn’t be complete without willing henchmen, in this case Rob Zombie can summon his underworld friends from the grave to assist him in combat all with lightning speed.
Supernatural Vomit
Yeah there’s really no other way to put it. Rob Zombie in his boss fight in Rock Of The Dead weaponizes his own body to shoot out balls of vomit to act as projectiles or to spawn in zombie minions. Gross, but fitting I suppose. Hey, that rhymes!
Fire Manipulation
To compliment the fiery rage kept inside Mr. Zombie that exceeds any mortal, Rob Zombie can channel his fierce emotions into the form of fire to hold in the palm of his hand or to shoot up out of the stage by doing devil horns.
Levitation
What can possibly be scarier than a murderous zombie you may ask, why a floating zombie with the same murderous intent of course!
Body Control/Elasticity
Even when appearing as human, Rob Zombie can morph and stretch his limbs to absurd degrees like turning his arm into foldable silhouettes of a crowd.
Shapeshifting
You don’t want to see the wolf inside of me, kid… In all seriousness Rob Zombie’s ability to bend his body past the limit allows him to perform actions like turning himself into a werewolf out of the blue.
Size Manipulation
Through his shapeshifting, Rob Zombie can appear giant and loom over you, making for one intense boss fight.
Immortality/Regeneration
As you can probably tell by his name and the nature of most zombies in fiction, Rob Zombie is by no means an easy fucker to kill. He’s had his head peeled open to where his brain was showing and his head blown up only to appear later the same as usual. More damningly, he’s been shown to be perfectly intact after being reduced to just a skeleton, also being able to put his limbs back on when they fell off with nothing but glue.
Energy Attacks
Much like in all Twisted Metal games, Twisted Metal 4 has its own unique Energy Attacks its combatants can use to rip each other to shreds, Rob Zombie included. We are only given him the energy attacks in 4 though, as it's the only ones he’s been shown to be able to use. These energy attacks include freezing people around you, teleport to a random spot on the map, turn invisible, let out a massive attack in the form of missiles sent by the front and rear, freeze anyone behind the rear of the car and form a shield around his car. They are fairly limited in use however, as they need to recharge from a continuously regenerating bar.
Crew Perks
Rob Zombie eventually found his way into the world of… tanks. Not an exaggeration the game is literally called World of Tanks. During this time Rob Zombie managed to sneak in a bunch of perks that increase his efficiency as a team leader as well as an individual.
Commander Perks
Recond: Increases view range by 2% and reduces the penalty to damaged observation devices by 20%.
Emergency: Increases the crew efficiency bonus by 5% for 15 s after taking enemy damage. The effect does not stack.
Mentor: Increases the amount of XP earned by 20% for all crew members. Enables the Commander to replace knocked-out members with 65% effectiveness.
Coordination: Increases aiming speed by 12.5% for 15 s after you spot an enemy vehicle. The effect does not stack.
Sound Detection: Issues an alert about enemy SPG fire with a 0.1 s delay and identifies the direction of the shot. Decreases the negative effect of stunning by 10%.
Practically: Decreases consumable cooldown time by 10%.
Gunner Perks
Snap Shot: Decreases gun dispersion during turret rotation by 7.5%.
Deadeye: Increases the chance of critically damaging enemy vehicle modules and injuring enemy crew members with all types of shells by 3%.
Designated Target: Increases the time before an enemy vehicle is no longer visible inside the Gunner's viewing area by 2 s. Enables identification of damaged modules with a 0.5 s delay.
Concentration: Decreases the gun dispersion of a stationary vehicle by 3.5%. The effect starts 3 s after the vehicle stops.
Quick Aiming: Increases aiming speed and turret rotation speed by 2.5%.
Armorer: Reduces the range of potential damage and penetration to ±20%. Decreases gun dispersion by 1.5%.
Driver Perks
Clutch Braking: Increases hull traverse speed by 5%.
Smooth Ride: Decreases gun dispersion when firing on the move by 4%.
Off-Road Driving: Reduces speed loss on moderately soft terrain by 5% and makes speed loss on soft terrain equal to 100% of the resulting value.
Reliable Placement: Increases HE shells damage absorption by 10% and decreases damage received from falling by 30%.
Controlled Impact: Increases ramming damage to enemy vehicles by 20%. Reduces ramming damage to your vehicle by 25% and to your suspension by 50%.
Engineer: Increases the top forward and reverse speed of your vehicle by 1 km/h. Reduces the penalty to a damaged engine by 20%.
Loader Perks
Adrenaline Rush: Decreases gun loading time by 5% if your vehicle has under 25% of its hit points left.
Safe Stowage: Increases ammo rack durability by 25%.
Intuition: Decreases the time of changing shell types in a loaded gun by 60%.
Perfect Change: Increases shell velocity by 10%.
Close Combat: Decreases gun loading time by 2.5% at distances of 50 m or less from the enemy vehicle.
Ammo Turning: Increases minimum potential damage and minimum potential penetration by 2%.
Radio Operator Perks
Situational Awareness: Increases view range by 3%.
Side By Side: Increases the crew efficiency bonus by 2.5% at distances of 50 m or less from an allied vehicle of the same type.
Jamming: Decreases the time your vehicle remains spotted by the enemy by 1 s.
Signal Interception: Decreases the time to determine whether your vehicle has been spotted by the enemy by 0.75 s.
Communication Expert: Increases the crew efficiency bonus by 2.5% if the amount of damage you assist with exceeds your vehicle's initial hit points.
Firefighting: Increases fire extinguishing speed by 80%.
Group Perks
Brothers In Arms: When fully trained for all crew members, increases the crew efficiency bonus of the entire crew by 5%.
Concealment: When fully trained for all crew members, increases vehicle concealment by 80%.
Repairs: When fully trained for all crew members, increases the repair speed of the vehicle's damaged modules by 80%.
Resistances
Gasoline: Can and does drink gasoline. Very cool.
Fire Manipulation: Most likely because of his exposure to the amount of fire he puts on stage, Rob Zombie is referred to as fireproof.
Electricity Manipulation: His electric chair no longer works as he broke it, implying he managed to break the electric chair due to his resistance to the shocks.
Gravity Manipulation/Black Holes: Him and his band can rock ‘n roll in a black hole without any problems.
Mind Manipulation: Shrugs off mind control used by people trying to interrogate him.
Soul Manipulation: As a hobby, Rob Zombie tears his own soul apart and eats it unaffected and resists having his soul sucked out by a factory in his dreams.
Support
Alice Cooper
Dog
Awesome. Very nice.
Kachina
If there’s one trait to remember Alice by, it's his love for snakes. This applies to the character of Alice Cooper as well, since he’s also had a bunch of snakes throughout the years. But the one that has been by his side the longest is Kachina, she acts as Alice’s right hand both in reality and The Nightmare Place and Alice can summon her anytime he wants to use her python strength to squeeze the life out of monsters and anyone else who gets in the Lord of Nightmares way.
Nightmare Monsters
Fitting that a demonic rockstar can’t be without a demonic band. Alice has used his authority over monsters that reside within The Nightmare Place to assemble one hell of a band. Nightmare Monsters are the manifestations of fears and anxieties that we feel, and while they’re usually hostile, they have a massive respect for Alice and will listen to him on their own accord. Good thing too because these monsters want to rock more than anything else, evident in their ability to play their instruments so intensely that they create electricity they can use for attacks.
Rob Zombie
Dog
Awesome. Very nice.
Main Band
Rob Zombie isn’t the only persona put on by the members in the real persons band, the rest play their own characters obsessed with the idea of bringing horror back into Hollywood. Rob Zombie’s hand quite a few members over the years, his most popular of each, L.A. Rats, consists of Nikki Six, John 5 and Tommy Cluefetos. His current band however, is Mike Riggs, a fellow Rob in Rob Nicholson and Ginger Fish. Whatever the members, we do know that his band shares their own supernatural traits. They can cause explosions at random by singing and turn into monsters at a moment's notice.
Zombies
Did you really expect the Lord of Zombies of all people to not have a horde of zombies straight from the underworld at his command at all times? Rob Zombie, with lightning speed, can raise a horde of the undead capable of eating flesh and feast upon your soul like some sort of Deadite.
Goblins
Zombies are far from the only thing at Mr. Zombie's disposal, he’s respected all around the underworld by creatures such as man-eating Goblins. Who view him as their master.
Robots
Throughout multiple music videos by Rob Zombie, take Dragula for instance, Rob Zombie’s shown hanging around with robotic entities and making banger after banger with them.
Vehicle Crew
Rob Zombie’s role in World of Tanks isn’t as some random tank of a higher power, he’s a full on commander with potential for a completely unique team of individuals and tanks to lead. As the commander, his training level influences all of his vehicle’s view, range and general crew performance. Each tank typically has around 4 people in it, each with their own distinct role in the matter.
Gunner: Influences the gun traverse speed, aiming time of the reticle, and gun accuracy.
Driver: Influences the maneuverability of the vehicle.
Radio Operator: Influences the vehicle's view and signal range, which determines the distance at which enemy vehicles are displayed on the minimap.
Loader: Influences the gun loading time and shell type switching.
Feats
Alice Cooper
Overall
Ruled over the Nightmare Place as the Lord of Nightmares for years.
Survived an encounter with Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger all at once.
Defeated Lucifer in a music battle, which he wagered his soul on.
Beat an evil version of himself who was using the power of the Nightmare Place to feed nightmares all around the world.
One of the most famous musicians in history.
Power
Kicked a demon across a room.
Broke a chair by picking it up and throwing it on the floor. (1.9 - 5 Kilojoules)
Shattered the upper half of a petrified demon with his guitar.
Scales to both his guitarists, who can run through wooden walls and break them. (516 Kilojoules)
Ripped himself from out of his grave, causing shaking around his tombstone.
Can reportedly blow down your house.
His magical blast when shot upward during a concert, split the thunderclouds that were above his concert. (52.4 Gigatons of TNT)
Speed
Dodged an attack from a demon.
Previously mentioned revolver shot swiped the couple it was shot at off their rollercoaster ride and onto the bullet, where they were able to steer and react to it travelling midair.
Went mile across mile in a second. (Mach 4.69)
Can drive his truck rollin’ like thunder at lightning speed.
Scales to his guitarists, who can move in tandem with the lightning effect in the background. (Mach 962.1)
Can hold onto lightning coming down from a storm like a spider.
In order to search the planet of a beautiful girl, Alice walked millions of miles across the world. (2.4% c)
Is reportedly able to cross the universe to be right where his lover is. (6.8 Quadrillion c) (Debatable, See Before The Verdict)
Durability
Alice is referred to as bulletproof due to his lack of fear of higher powers.
Lived after being thrown into the water from a high distance.
Survived an energy blast from Satan, who is one of the strongest beings in the universe.
Had a lightning bolt hit him from the sky and was fine. (0.38 Tons of TNT)
Scales to the parents in “Hey Stoopid”, who survived their house blowing up.
Rob Zombie
Overall
Terrorized the streets of Hollywood for years on end.
Became the master to all sorts of undead creatures in the Underworld.
Won the Twisted Metal Tournament on instances, with his wish once he won letting the entire world hear his wails and warcries.
Made his own horror comic series, while killing any critic of it.
“Living dead girl“ was featured in Bride of Chucky
One of the most famous musicians in history.
Power
He’s claimed he’s able to penetrate demons. I pray to god that means with some sort of weapon and not the other way.
Broke down a door with a sledgehammer.
Ripped off a human head with one fell swoop.
With a frightening motion, he can crack open your spine. (101,971 Kgf)
Scales to his guitarists, who can play their guitars so hard that they cause explosions.
With his Dragula, he can use missiles capable of shattering stone walls like glass.
While in front of a group of kids, he created an explosion with his movements which later resulted in a blast similar to that of a nuclear tested bomb. (31 Kilotons of TNT)
There’s several footage of explosions afterward with the same group of kids and clown, meaning this isn’t just a one off visual.
Speed
Drove around on his speeding Dragula, avoiding other cars and going fast enough to move as a blur.
Can move at the speed of sound. (Mach 1)
Able to compete with Twisted Metal 4 characters and their feats, which includes being able to dodge attacks from an ion blast. (Mach 117)
His car is said to move at a million miles an hour. (Mach 1303)
Twisted Metal characters Rob Zombie should be comparable to those who can avoid and move in tandem with a pulse of microwave radiation.
Reacts to and drives a car, which is described as an infernal machine that can move at the speed of light. (1c)
Near the end of “Warp Asylum”, he went beyond a million miles per hour and was able to reach the sun. (1.23c)
Durability
While in the Dragula, he can survive being hit with missiles, bombs and landmines.
One of his concerts took place in the middle of a black hole and he and his band continued playing as if nothing was happening. (Debatable, See Before The Verdict)
Weaknesses
Alice Cooper
While a dangerous and crooked individual in his own right, Alice isn’t without his faults. His rank as the Lord of Nightmares and a musician may sound like a match made in Hell, but this also means that he’s bound by contracts. Lucius trapped Alice in a contract he couldn’t refuse where no mundane, paranormal, supernatural, ethereal or magical realm or spells could break. Alice was forced to become a musical slave pumping out money for Lucius with no way to get out besides being bounded by another person and then let out on their command. But contracts are only the half of it, Alice’s biggest weakness isn’t within nobody's hands. It's his mentality and recklessness, he’s sometimes too confident in his ability to control the fears of humanity and in From The Inside, he was admitted to a mental institution and acted uncontrollably.
Rob Zombie
Despite his resilience making him appear as so, Rob Zombie is by no means unstoppable. His thirst for a chance to show the world a taste of what horror is like has got him into plenty of crazy situations, but it’s also made him very sensitive to criticism and act uncontrollably when he hears any of it. If someone does so much as criticize his work, he’ll stop at nothing to find them and torture them to death. This does make him terrifying, but it also leads to the high chance of being manipulated along with his rage blinding him to obvious openings. Even in Twisted Metal, he was ready to give everything up for a wish that could have easily been twisted against him if it was, say, Calypso granting the wish instead of Sweet Tooth.
Before The Verdict…
Cosmic Feats For Both?
As you might’ve seen in Feats, both have incredibly impressive feats of speed and durability respectively with Alice Cooper being able to cross the universe/a billion miles in "Might As Well Be On Mars" and Rob Zombie surviving being in a black hole in “Rock and Roll (In a Black Hole)”. Being above all their other showcases of speed and durability, these two song feats are massive game changers and turn the tables on who takes what advantage if we were to buy either or, but they are also left very vague with little explanations or confirmations. Due to being, y’know, song lyrics and all. So are they viable? Eh. If you didn’t catch it at the start of a blog, an important rule that we are following is taking song lyrics literally but we still have to follow the song’s theme itself. We can’t just interpret one lyric as a feat at the cost of ignoring all the themes of the song, but we can interpret lyrics as feats if it does align with the song.
This rule is especially important when regarding these feats. Alice’s feat directly references planets in space and the themes of the song are centered around the distance of Alice’s lover compared to him. But it is still left vague and hyperbolic, using words such as “like” and phrasing that makes it sound like the universe crossing part is really just a saying of how far Alice is willing to go to be with his love. Rob Zombie’s feat has basically no context behind it on how they ended up in a black hole and isn’t even described, the song’s whole lyrics is just saying “We're all dancing in a black hole When all we wanna do is rock and roll.” We don’t have context on the black hole, if it is a black hole in the first place, or how they ended up there and we don’t have the size of the black hole or anything to use for a solid calc. It’s just sort of there with no lyrics or themes to really give it any meaning. You can interpret both of these as literal or vague and hyperbolic, but the important thing is that they fall under the same issue of being song lyrics with little context and meaning, so if you buy one there’s no reason to not buy the other.
Verdict
Stats
Given how both of these musical characters were no strangers to supernatural affairs or bloody confrontations, even on stage, they’re not easy to break but breaking people like us is easy for them at the same time. So it makes sense that deciding their stats was not an easy game. As the ranges on how strong, fast or durable they could be is constantly ranging, leading to some scenarios where stats were completely flip flopped in either’s favor. Speaking of those stats, let’s just get straight to it.
Starting off with power and durability, Alice’s notable feats of such include busting a wall sized hole through a giant skeletons ribcage in his entrances along with scaling to similar wall breaking feats that usually get around 516 Kilojoules judging from how they’re portrayed. He’s survived lightning strikes worth 0.38 Tons of TNT, is able to scale to characters in his music videos capable of surviving a house explosion and caused his own house explosion upon getting his Nightmare powers back, this time the explosion was much larger however. The main feat of raw power we will be looking at for Alice is the time he split the clouds by shooting his magic into the sky, a feat that got up to 52.4 Gigatons of TNT. This feat scales to his physicals too since he could tank a magical blast from Lucifer, whose magic is much stronger then his own. Rob Zombie meanwhile can rip off human heads for 101,971 Kilograms of Force, scale to his band member who can create explosions by playing the guitar and his weaponry in Twisted Metal 4 can shatter stone walls like nothing, which contestants like him can survive physically as well. Much like Alice, he does have a main feat we’re using in this comparison, that being him causing a nuclear explosion. Judging by the background and general blast footage (given that its stock footage lol), we found out the footage is most likely the nuclear blast of Operation Buster–Jangle, which is a blast worth 31 Kilotons of TNT. Overall, they were most likely on par with their lower end feats but with the big feats that we do think are genuinely viable, Alice had a massive advantage with a gap of over 1,690,982x favoring him. Taking power with relative ease.
Speed was a different story however, Alice could keep up with people capable of piloting a speed bullet, can travel a mile every second or moving at Mach 4.69 speeds, scale to others who can move in tandem with lightning which got Mach 962, which is further supported by he himself catching onto a lightning bolt, and can walk a million miles, a feat that can get up to 2.4% c using the timeframe of the song itself. Which should work in this case. Rob Zombie has much more blatant and direct speed feats, like being referred to as moving at the speed of sound, or Mach 1, a million miles per hour, or Mach 1303, and at the speed of light, which is 1c believe it or not. He has other speed feats though, like dodging and moving in tandem with projectiles in Twisted Metal 4 which can go Mach 117 to 1c via Quatro’s pulse of microwave radiation. Most impressively, he’s flown to the sun at speeds exceeding a million miles per hour and up to 1.23c. As you can tell, Rob Zombie had a distinct advantage in basically any end you go with, with the speed gap being 1.35x with Massively Hypersonic ends and 40x - 49x with their lightspeed ends. Speed goes to Rob Zombie.
All of this is without mentioning the big cosmic elephant currently in the room, their cosmic feats. While it's clear that Alice Cooper was stronger and Rob Zombie was faster, the high ends for either completely flip flop who takes what. With these feats, Alice crossing the universe with incredible speeds of 6.8 Quadrillion c blitzed any feat Rob Zombie could perform with a staggering 5.56 Quadrillion times gap. Rob Zombie had his own in the shape of a black hole feat, which although we know nothing about the black hole enough to actually calculate the force, is well above any of Alice Cooper’s feats of raw power at a glance. As said in Before The Verdict, we don’t particularly buy either of these feats due to them being far too vague with too little information to properly work with, but if you buy one you buy the other most likely. As they fall under the same issues. Rob Zombie’s exclusion in Twisted Metal 4 and scaling him to non-gameplay feats there could get him to scale to a black hole feat that gets up to 4,923,072 c in terms of speed, but again this is non-gameplay element and we have said we’re only strictly taking gameplay feats from crossovers. Wouldn’t be very interesting if we had both scale to Eddie The Head and Calypso respectively due to crossovers and had the verdict be decided on that now would it? Either way this could lessen the gap, although with a still crazy gap of Alice being over 1 billion times faster with his cosmic feat. Back to the topic at hand though, cosmic feats will be talked about later on in how they could shake up the debate but generally, we don’t buy them.
Arsenal & Abilities
So, these seem pretty straightforward, Alice was more powerful and durable while Rob Zombie was handily faster with both of these gaps being very decent. Alice could one shot Rob Zombie but Rob Zombie was blitzing, this leads into the discussion of what the other can do to negate the others advantage and land the killing blow first. Both have quite the expansive kit so determining who had the better methods to kill who was crucial to deciding the verdict. The problem was that a lot of their abilities directly matched with the others' own variation of that ability, for example both can grow in size, channel flames, summon their support at any time etc. They even shared a variety of resistances that rendered their typical methods of dealing with each other obsolete, both’s main go-tos in Mind and Soul Manipulation wouldn’t do squat due to the frankly extreme resistances both had in that field.
Right off the bat, let’s discuss their immortality. Alice Cooper can continue functioning after having his head chopped off and can regenerate it back by snapping it onto place, finding a way out of hell to crawl out the grave, but if it wants another way to rise from the grave, how about as a ghost? Alice can become a spirit if he ever dies or at his own command, being able to haunt people like any ghost can or continue the fight as a ghost since he can still physically interact with tangible things. Rob Zombie more then lives up to his name through his immortality, he’s regenerated from having his head peeled off and blown up in an explosion of blood and can keep going as a skeleton, being able to put his bones back together with super glue and regenerate the rest of his body in seconds. Meaning that Alice had the better immortality with his ghost form in mind and Rob Zombie had the better regeneration.
Now onto what Alice can do, his arsenal, while not terrible, was hardly going to do him many favors. But there were a few that could really do some damage, an interesting case is his angelic guitar, which has a special type of connection to the very foundations of life that allows it to target any demonic creature and make them explode. Depending on how interpret “only hurts creatures of the dark realm” or Hell and half of Rob Zombie’s support being creatures from the “Underworld” (think Zombies and Goblins) it can dura negate a majority of Rob Zombies viable support options. The louder Alice plays this guitar, the larger the AOE of it is, meaning it can wipe out multiple hordes of enemies with a simple rift. If you really want to push the interpretation, it could potentially work on Rob Zombie himself, since he’s a zombie much like the zombies he’s the master of, and therefore from the underworld.
Speaking of guitars, Alice’s Transmutation options in his magic and yes, guitar, were pretty obvious ways to get around Rob Zombie’s immortality. Yeah he can quickly regenerate from nearly any means of physical damage, but he can’t counter being turned to stone by Alice playing his guitar or into a different type of monster. Latter of which Alice can do at any range with a snap of his fingers. His transmutation also provided much needed coverage to his support, as Alice’s ability to snap anyone back to their original state got rid of the possibility of most of his support being turned into zombies or being frozen by Twisted Metal’s freezing equipment. As well as giving him a method to survive Rob Zombie’s biggest potential win con, but we’ll get to that later.
Alice’s strength advantage doesn’t just come into play at close quarters, his energy projection being able to span a whole concert and split the clouds gives him a long ranged and AOE option capable of plain and simply obliterating Rob Zombie’s everything. Destroying his flesh and his skeleton, leaving nothing to come back from. Simple but very effective.
Alice’s biggest trump card however was in his Nightmare Manipulation, an extremely powerful form of Reality Warping that lets Alice control The Nightmare Place and the various fears that can manifest within it. Nightmare Manipulation has been shown to affect several people at once and encompass a large area. This lets Alice do basically whatever he wants, he can fantasize events and bring weapons to life, create monsters out of your greatest fears and turn your fears into reality, like aging you into dust. It may seem weird for Rob Zombie to have a fear, but if a Nightmare Demon on par with Alice has a fear, Rob Zombie having one really isn’t the weirdest thing. Especially since his affinity to Horror and bringing it to the main stage has taken him to extreme lengths, it would also take him to extreme lengths if that was taken away from him or worse destroyed. Luckily for Alice, he’s dealt with the fears of someone trying to control the whole world with fear, aka, himself. He fought an evil version of himself who was manipulating everyone's fears and ripped the fear out of him. But wouldn’t Alice need to know his fear first? Well, yes. But this is an easily avoidable problem due to the fact that he can smell your mind and figure out what’s wrong with you.Rob Zombie really only has mental protection involving mind control, nothing about having his mind read, let alone smelled.
Moving onto Rob Zombie, he didn’t have a super explicit way to deal with Ghost Alice, but he was by no means without arguments. The main argument we will be talking about as his main wincon is not by targeting Alice's soul directly, since he resists basic soul manipulation, but by corrupting his soul. This form of corruption was far more combat applicable then Alice’s own, his form of corruption was just sorta the equivalent of turning you emo. Certainly unique but by no means as threatening as having your freaking soul corrupted. The only problem, which we will explain in more detail soon enough, this ability has is that it's very vague. We don’t know exactly what it does or how it's done, leading to some confusing comparisons. With or without soul corruption however, this is far from Rob Zombie’s first rodeo with a ghost, he’s called the ghost master after all and is very knowledgeable on just about any horror monster trope. He has a whole song about him explaining how to make a perfect monster for crying out loud.
With his horror knowledge and experience combined with his weaponry, Rob Zombie is more than equipped for the job. On the topic of weaponry, Rob Zombie frankly had an absurd advantage in terms of firepower and mobility. His tanks, Mecha-Spiders and Beatbox Robot were self explanatory but his Dragula has built in machine guns and is able to fire spinning skull capable of reeling enemies in with electricity before promptly exploding and this is all without mentioning the weapons he gets in Twisted Metal, which offers him a variety of missiles, bombs, traps and more. Suffice to say, with such firepower and mobility on Rob Zombie's side, Alice didn’t really have a whole lot of means to keep up. His flying car is neat but isn’t shown to have any punch to it, so it’ll most likely be shot from the sky anywho. Going back to his Twisted Metal weapons, one was especially interesting, that being the Freeze Remote. With this, Rob Zombie can temporarily freeze Alice or his support in place, leaving them open for his other weapons or his previously mentioned soul corruption.
Along with soul corruption, Rob Zombie and his Zombie minions alike had the typical zombie ability to transmit a sort of virus to turn other people into zombies. Most likely through killing them first but that may not be the case. Either way, this’ll keep the fight and the support advantage favoring Rob Zombie while keeping Alice occupied and wide open to attacks.
How could Rob Zombie get close you may be asking? Well, Energy Attacks. Energy Attacks can grant Rob Zombie multiple abilities that help closing the gap much easier. With these he can turn invisible and teleport to anywhere on the battlefield. They also help do other things such as freezing people and letting out wide scale attacks on Alice’s support. The only real problem that these abilities face is the fact that Energy Attacks require a bar to be filled up before using them, the bar is regenerating rapidly and with Rob Zombie’s several means of keeping Alice busy through his support and projectiles. It’s not so big of an issue that it gets rid of the advantage all together.
Still, Alice having Teleportation through Lightning manipulation and other means he can do at any time was much more beneficial for keeping his distance or getting up close. Especially when you factor in his stealth and his ability to create duplicates to keep Rob Zombie on his toes and make finding him all the much harder. In general, Alice Cooper had the far more versatile magic with tricks up his sleeves at every conceivable moment, many of which Rob Zombie struggled to get past. Take for example, Alice flexing so hard he blinds Rob Zombie, him jumping into a piece of fictional media like a movie screen or a poster to where Rob Zombie can’t follow, Teleporting Rob Zombie with him into an area where he’s wide open to an attack and destroying time to stump Rob Zombie in his place. The latter of which is admittedly vague in of itself but it's useful to bring up. As you can see, Alice Cooper’s magical powers were simply just far too versatile and unpredictable for Rob Zombie to keep up with for very long.
Remember how we said that Rob Zombie’s soul corruption is only really a potential wincon? Well, not only is it vague in of itself on how it exactly works or if it’ll even end the fight right there and then. But Alice actually has arguments for resisting it, well not exactly resisting it but undoing it. Alice’s magic was able to snap back Miss Piggy to her original state after she was turned into a weird monster bird thing by Alice. Alice resisting soul manipulation and continuing to operate as a ghost implies that he’ll still be able to semi-use his magic. So if anything, Alice could just as potentially survive Rob Zombie’s soul corruption as the corruption could potentially kill him. If you don’t count either of these abilities the same, that’d make sense but you can’t really make an exact argument on it because the soul corruption is never explained. We don’t know what it does, how it works, what Rob Zombie needs to do to activate it etc.
All and all, Alice’s ways of getting around Rob Zombie's immortality were much more straightforward, easier and require less assumptions to pull off. Look at it like this, Alice had 2 wincons which were guaranteed to work (Transmutation and Nightmare Manipulation) and 1 that had potential to (Angelic Guitar) while Rob Zombie had 1 potential wincon in his Soul Corruption that could just as likely not work. Even with Rob Zombie’s ridiculous firepower, mobility and experience with this sort of thing, we’ve never seen any way he can possibly deal with ghosts. Meaning that his victory is always going to be more vague and something he’ll likely need to perform in the long run, which when fighting a character like Alice who is much stronger with more options to kill him, isn’t going to be particularly easy.
Tertiary Factors
Support was a strangely important factor when talking about all the ways they can win, so whoever had better strength in numbers was going to have an easier time overwhelming the other. Alice’s support wasn’t bad by any means, Kachina being his right hand assistant that could be summoned at any time helped greatly when confronting Rob Zombie head on. Being a Boa Constrictor, Kachina has a pretty handy way to minimize Rob Zombie’s speed advantage by ambushing him and holding him in place, Kachina’s whole thing is wrapping around foes and squeezing the life out of them and besides Teleportation via Energy Attacks, Rob Zombie didn’t have a solid way out that wasn’t killing Kachina. Even doing that won’t get rid of Kachina forever as Alice has summoned her after she’s been killed before. But Kachina was really the only ace in Alice’s pockets. The Nightmare Monsters are tough but they were outnumbered and outgunned by Rob Zombie’s borderline army of band members who can strike randomly with explosions, Zombies capable of eating your soul, Goblins, Robots and full tank crews that Rob Zombie commands. In terms of sheer support, there was a lot stacked against Alice.
Skill and experience was a tougher call, on the surface they both seem pretty comparable as the Lord of Nightmares and Lord of Zombies respectively but there were differences that gave one the advantage over the others. Firstly, Alice has held his title and protected the Nightmare Place as its ruler for nearly 30 years at this point and has been through several arcs in the comics about balancing dreams and nightmares, fears and joy, which equate to him figuring out more about his powers pretty much. Along with him being shown to fight directly on far more instances then Rob Zombie has, with or without his powers he’s taken on hordes of enemies and fought an evil version of himself by getting his powers back by ripping the fear out of him. Alice is obviously more experienced and skilled in direct combat. But with support and Rob Zombie’s firepower in mind, skill in combat wasn’t going to cut it for taking skill. Rob Zombie, throughout his appearances in Twisted Metal and World of Tanks, has been shown to be a strategic genius and very skilled in commanding. He won the Twisted Metal tournament with skills unmatched and with rage unparalleled and commanded his own squad of tanks before. Rob Zombie’s the better leader in terms of tactical plays and overall commanding for sure. They were fairly equal in other categories too, Alice runs his own haunted house business while Rob Zombie’s referred to as the ghost master, Alice is the king of The Nightmare Place while Rob Zombie is the commander-in-chief of a voodoo war, Alice has made monsters by himself and Rob Zombie knows the exact way to make a monster.
Intelligence was far more clear, not to call Rob Zombie stupid he’s a very skilled tatican and monster maker, but he couldn’t hold a candle to Alice’s smarts. Alice is uncannily cunning, he made a robotic frankenstein replica that functioned on its own in seconds, outsmarted and had his intelligence complimented by Lucifer who is eons old and successfully managed to con his way out of Hell and back into the world of the living. Beating the greatest con man in existence, Satan, at his own game. With a level of intelligence and sly planning like that, combined with his ability to smell Rob Zombie's mind, Alice would be able to figure Rob Zombie all out and plan an assault that would ultimately put this zombie 6 feet under. He might even be able to manipulate Rob Zombie given Rob Zombie's frantic rage whenever someone criticizes his form of art. Alice Cooper might have the weaker mental state with being full on looney tunes at points, which would potentially have him mess up or put himself in a vulnerable position, but in terms of who can take advantage of the others mentality. Alice’s wit gave him a clear edge.
Conclusion
Alice Cooper
Advantages:
Far stronger and more durable at lower ends…
Overall more versatile magic.
Nightmare Manipulation, especially with his mind smelling, offered more potent magic control and methods to end the fight - such as aging Rob Zombie to dust.
Guitar and his magic can Transmutate Rob Zombie to get around his immortality.
Duplication, on the demand teleportation and stealth made catching him difficult.
Rob Zombie didn't have any direct means of dealing with Ghost Alice, who could continue the fight if Alice's physical condition was ever compromised or if he was killed.
Much more experienced in direct combat and using his magic.
Far more intelligent and cunning.
Equal:
Similar pool of abilities and resistances.
Mostly similar arsenal with only a few key differences.
Disadvantages:
…But was much weaker with higher ends.
Overall slower.
Potentially weak to Rob Zombie’s soul corruption.
Worse support and mobility.
NightmareManipulation requires him to smell Rob Zombie's mind first.
More vulnerable mental state.
Likes Golf.
Rob Zombie
Advantages:
Much faster at lower ends…
Greater firepower and mobility options in vehicles/items, all of which outclassed any of Alice's transportation.
Soul Corruption was a potential way to deal with Ghost Alice…
Teleportation and Invisibility through Energy Attacks allows him to close the gap on Alice…
Superior regenerative abilities that rendered most of Alice's usual means of offense moot.
Heavily outclassed Alice’s support with his own, with many of his abilities centered around amping his support.
More skilled tactician and commander in combat.
DaFuqBoom apparently was a fan of his before he made Skibidi Toilet.
Equal:
Similar pool of abilities and resistances.
Mostly similar arsenal with only a few key differences.
Disadvantages:
...But was much slower with higher ends.
Overall weaker.
Cannot withstand Alice’s Transmutation or Nightmare Manipulation.
…But we don’t have much context on the exact usage of it and it's just as likely that Alice could undo it.
…But these are much more limited than Alice’s own teleportation.
Not as skilled in a direct confrontation.
Made the reboots of Halloween 1 and 2.
(Alice Cooper is Pink, Rob Zombie is Green)
In conclusion, this is by far one of the most chaotic, interesting and closest debates we’ve ever seen. Alice Cooper held a strong lead in terms of power and Rob Zombie did with speed as well, with gaps that were more than enough to oneshot and blitz the other, combining the stat ratio with both needing a way to bypass the others' immortality. Winning for either of them was going to be no easy feat. What it really came down to was their ways to their stat advantage, whether it be AOE through powers and weaponry, planning through intelligence and tactics or overwhelming the other with support and magic.
Alice needed to negate Rob Zombie's immortality by making sure he can’t come back as a skeleton or regenerate any damage Alice did, to do this he had a variety of options. He could potentially negate his durability by targeting Rob Zombie’s underworld physiology with his angelic guitar, transmutate him into stone or into a monster with either his guitar or magic or use his Nightmare Manipulation to completely seize control over the battlefield and warp reality to do things such as bring Rob Zombie’s greatest fears to life or age him to dust. Meanwhile, Rob Zombie's only potential way to deal with Ghost Alice was through his soul corruption. A very vague power we know nothing about that Alice has arguments to negate through his ability to restore people to their original state with a snap of his fingers. It didn’t help that Alice was far more experienced and skilled in using his magic as well as in a direct confrontation, Rob Zombie may be the ghost master but without a shown way to deal with ghosts, it's unlikely that he could pull anything off before it was too late.
What would happen if we take their higher ends into account? Well, Alice would actually have an easier time than anything. If we were to give Rob Zombie the full benefit of the doubt and give him the black hole feat as well as Twisted Metal’s MFTL feat, he’d be far stronger but way more slower. Making it way more easy for Alice to pull off his wincons immediately before Rob Zombie even has a chance to make use of his new found strength advantage. No matter if you buy high ends or not, this fight favored Alice Cooper regardless.
Rob Zombie’s insane support options and firepower along with his speed were able to keep him in the game for longer then you might expect, but the Lord of Nightmares ridiculous power, versatile abilities and magical experience were enough to take down the Lord of Zombies. Call it a coop out, but Alice had everything he needed to rob this zombie of a victory in a zom-breeze.
The Winner is Alice Cooper.
Final Tally
Alice Cooper (3) - Spycrab, Iceking, Fiction
Rob Zombie (2) - DoRitto, Hade
Next Time…
Hey everyone, Spycrab here! This was certainly an interesting one to research and write for, I do hope you enjoy my and all of the other blog members' hard work! I would like to thank G.G for the calc on Alice’s cloud split as well as Hade for helping out with Twisted Metal’s side of things and arguing for Rob Zombie. DoRitto did about 50% of the Rob Zombie research here (with me doing the other half which was just sorta albums), Fiction for helping out with Alice debating and Iceking for helping out with Alice research as well as suggesting this matchup in the first place. I’ve grown to really like this matchup and am more fond of musical matchups in general after this.
Oh yeah, and you did read that right, we’re going to try to stick to a consistent next time schedule (hopefully).
So without further ado, the next time is…
Hank J. Wimbleton Vs. Jack Cayman (Madness Combat vs Madworld)
Bet you didn’t expect a non-horror blog from us huh?
