Aphrodite IX vs Zeta (Top Cow vs DCAU)

 

 


Aphrodite IX, the amnesiac espionage unit from Cyberdata!

Zeta, the synthoid assassin turned pacifist fugitive of the NSA!

For decades writers have pondered what would happen if robots rebelled against mankind. Whether it’s to show the dangers of artificial intelligence or what happens when man tries to play God, the idea of robots killing their creators is a staple of sci-fi. But what would happen if the killer robot used its free will for something else? What if, instead of killing their creators, they reject killing altogether?

These two have gone under the radar for years, evading the authorities as they work to uncover their pasts. When they cross paths, who will still be functional and who will be rendered permanently offline? Let’s jack into the system and analyze who will win a DEATH BATTLE!
 

Background

Aphrodite 

When Aphrodite IX woke up, the only thing she remembered was falling 40 stories onto solid concrete and being attacked by guards for a crime she couldn’t remember committing. Her past was a complete blank, and she had no memory of what she’d been doing before, nor how she knew the man that rescued her, Robert Burch. It was only when Burch played some recordings of her past that she had a vague outline.

These recordings taught her a few things: she wasn’t human. She was an android built for assassinations, and this memory wipe always happened 15 minutes after she completed her assignments. And from Burch, she learned that she killed for money, had an entire arsenal to carry out her jobs, and there was another job coming up: the assassination of First District Councilman Grazno Floyd II. She was to infiltrate the party at his mansion in the sky and take him out. 

During this job, Aphrodite met a strangely familiar socialite named Neville Stewart, and following a botched escape he’d end up taking her back at his place and treating her wounds. Though her memory wipe had already activated by the time she woke up, this time something was different. As she laid in bed, Aphrodite began dreaming of her past, remembering her time with her creator, Tyson Mane, and how she’d killed a man, woman, and child during her first mission.

Haunted and confused by these strange memories, Aphrodite slowly retraced her steps, piecing together what she’d done during her missions and realizing how everyone she met already seemed to know her. This journey of rediscovery eventually led her and Burch to her creator’s lab where she was betrayed by Burch and discovered by the mysterious Chairwoman. The Chairwoman revealed Aphrodite’s memory loss after each mission was self-inflicted, and Burch had been her unknowing patsy as he sent Aphrodite to assassinate the Chairwoman’s former allies in her council. Thanks to her programming, Aphrodite was forced to obey the Chairwoman’s commands as she was given a new target: Neville Stewart.

However, as she prepared to kill Neville, her restored memories finally let her recognize why he was so familiar. She’d first met him when the Chairwoman issued a public test of her abilities by forcing Aphrodite to kill her own father. This same event was what traumatized her into wiping her memory after each mission, all so the guilt of killing wouldn’t force her to remember murdering her dad.

Enraged, Aphrodite spared Neville and returned to the Chairwoman, resisting her commands through sheer willpower and beating her within an inch of her life. As she stood on her knees, the Chairwoman urged Aphrodite to finish what she started and kill her, but despite the constant goading, Aphrodite refused. Even with the Chairwoman’s ominous threats about what would happen if she was spared, Aphrodite didn’t care, leaving her beaten, bloodied “mother” behind. 

Then the second series happens, and the continuity becomes a bit weird. Top Cow had rebooted their universe by this point, but according to the author and its final issue, the events of volume 1 still happened, just with a few changes.Regardless, Aphrodite’s new series began when she awakened from stasis in 2801. The world was now occupied by two warring tribes: the Gen, a race of genetically enhanced humans living under the monarchy of Genesis City, and the cyborgs of the totalitarian Speros City.

Despite being rendered a blank slate by the pods, Aphrodite quickly proved her worth to the people of Genesis by saving their prince, Marcus Dragovitch, from a group of cyborgs, and was welcomed by the royal family. Unfortunately, her old handler Robert Burch was discovered by Speros and joined their side, using his neural link to Aphrodite to turn her into a sleeper agent. Under this “slave mode,” Aphrodite assassinated Marcus’ mother and his girlfriend Lina. But when it came time to kill Marcus, Aphrodite’s willpower once again overcame her programming as she stabbed herself in the cheek, severing the neural link…

Just in time for Speros to launch an attack on Genesis. Aphrodite used her new freedom to defeat Speros’ forces and force them to retreat, but she was exiled into the desolate wasteland beyond as punishment for her crimes. Aphrodite would end up using this exile to her advantage by tracking down Burch and killing him.

Afterwards, she became entangled in a larger scheme set up decades ago by the Chairwoman: the Aphrodite Protocol. One of the Chairwoman’s other daughters, Velocity, had awakened the rest of the IXth generation cyborgs to ensure they were ready to fulfill their true purpose: ruling over what remained of humanity. After Velocity incinerated Genesis in an orbital strike, the self-proclaimed “gods” of the IXth generation established their own kingdoms and slaughtered the Gens, leaving only cyborgs behind.

By 2807, Speros had fallen and nine city-states had risen in its place. The cyborgs were now a working caste overseen by groups of mass-produced XVs, all modeled after the IXs in personality and appearance. By 2820, tensions had begun rising between the IXs, and by 2827 eight of the cities were either allied or at war with each other. The only safe haven was Aphrodite’s city of New Cythera, a politically neutral kingdom secretly harboring the few survivors of the Gen genocide and smuggling the downtrodden subjects of Ares, Hades, and Apollo.

As time passed, the threat of full scale war grew more prominent when others began working from the shadows. Over the past two decades, Velocity had gone mad with paranoia after discovering the true purpose of the Aphrodite Protocol: resurrecting the Chairwoman. Hoping to prevent this, she manipulated the IXs into turning against each other and slaughtered the few who discovered her. 

Things only became worse when Hephaestus and Aphrodite discovered the existence of 13 Artifacts from Earth’s distant past, and the ensuing chaos allowed the Chairwoman to upload her consciousness into Velocity’s daughter Hermes and stab her through the gut. As she lay bleeding to death on the ground, Velocity entrusted Aphrodite with the Wheel of Shadows, an Artifact that allowed its wielder control over time.

Aphrodite and Fransesca fought for centuries in a seemingly unending battle, and by the end of it everyone Aphrodite knew was dead. Realizing there was only one way this would truly end, she used the Wheel of Shadows to go back in time and killed Fransesca as a child, expecting the resulting time paradox to take her as well. When this didn’t happen, she returned to the future, only to find it was still intact. The once prosperous cities had been reduced to burning ruins, and the few people that remained were now mindless drones awaiting her command.

Aphrodite had killed the Chairwoman, just as she’d been programmed to all those centuries ago. Now she had no choice but to take up that role. She had become the new Chairwoman, left to rule over a barren wasteland.

Even though this sounds like a definitive ending, the series ends on the possibility of a sequel, but this never happened. The closest we got was Top Cow rebooting Cyberforce again and passing this one off as the result of IXth Generation’s ending. And considering that reboot lasted 11 issues before it got axed for low sales, that should tell you how well it went. 

Zeta

 

During the late 2030’s, the United States government had begun work on Project Zeta, a top secret robotics project designed to create the perfect infiltration troops. Equipped with holographic emitters that could cover and shrink their bodies, the synthoids were deployed by the government to replace or assassinate targets and infiltrate organizations. This project eventually bore fruit in Infiltration Unit Zeta, but when he was sent out on one of his missions, something odd happened.

The NSA had sent Zeta to go undercover as Eugene Dolan, an accountant currently on vacation and believed to have ties to the terrorist organization Brother’s Day. Zeta was assigned to stay with the Dolan family and keep tabs on his connections to the terrorists, but the longer he stayed with Eugene’s family, the more he began to grow attached and even feel emotions. As Zeta continued his undercover work, he discovered that Dolan was innocent, nothing more than a pencil pusher who was unknowingly being used by the agents in Brother’s Day.

Just as Zeta was about to abort his mission, he accidentally ran into the real Eugene, and following his prime directive, Zeta nearly killed him to maintain his cover. But when Dolan pleaded for his life and said he had a family, Zeta became overwhelmed and spared him, deciding from then on that he would no longer take a life.

When the NSA discovered Zeta had abandoned his post, they assumed Brother’s Day had gotten to him and dispatched Agent James Bennet and his team to bring him in. Now considered a fugitive, Zeta received help from an ex-gang member named Rosalie “Ro” Rowan, who’d go on to become his closest friend and ally.

Zeta and Ro would spend the next two years searching for his creator Dr. Eli Selig, hoping through the doctor’s testimony he could clear his name and learn why he had suddenly developed free will. This journey took them across America, letting them meet new allies like Batman and the hacker Bucky Buenaventura while continually ducking the NSA. And after tracking Dr. Selig to Knossos, the mobile sea fortress where Project Zeta began, Zeta finally learned the reason for his defection: a conscience chip Selig had experimentally placed in him so he could grow as a person. Unfortunately, Zeta never got the chance for more answers, as Brother’s Day had unleashed an attack on Knossos, ending in Selig’s apparent death.

The last person who could prove Zeta’s innocence was gone, but Ro assured him that they’d still find a way to clear his name… but that never happened. After a final episode that felt like filler, the show was canceled.

Were the series to continue, we probably would’ve gotten a resolution to the cliffhanger where Selig survived his supposed death, and Zeta likely could’ve had crossovers with other characters from the Beyond era of the show, like the future version of Static or the Justice League of the time. Alas, this was the final show in the DCAU, and no comics were made of him. Seriously. NONE.


Experience, Intelligence, and Skill

Aphrodite

By the time of her first series, Aphrodite had killed at least 30 people through methods like strangling, impalement, drowning, headshots, blunt force trauma, poisons, decapitation, electrocution, perforated lungs, or artificially-induced cardiac arrest.

She’s taken down three waves of ninjas, torn through massive Darklings with the Witchblade, terminated a next generation robot called Aphrodite XV, and battled the Chairwoman for centuries before achieving a close victory.

She’s said to have unparalleled skill in combat and espionage, and was trained in quiet, quick kills and manipulating and seducing men. According to one of the guidebooks, she’s been programmed with knowledge of all martial arts disciplines and the use of all known weapons. She’s also got an excellent memory, able to perfectly recall every second since she woke up, and even with amnesia, she’s a quick learner, having learned how to operate Neville’s car by watching him.

Zeta

Zeta’s been active for an unknown amount of time prior to his defection, but it is implied his line of Infiltration Units goes as far back as the heyday of the Justice League, and that his is the sixth advancement on top of that. (The latter clue mostly comes from the name of his successor model being Infiltration Unit Seven.) This’d place his programming the accumulation of at least four decades of knowledge and robotic advancement, given the time gap between the end of Batman: The Animated Series (vaguely late 90’s) and the start of Batman Beyond (2039). This is added to by over two years spent on the run from the NSA, the exact time frame is unknown.

As we have seen him in the series, he's gone on multiple undercover missions during his infiltrations, including posing as Eugene Dolan, the father of a young daughter, having successfully integrated himself into Eugene’s work and home life. This leads to the two-or-more years he’s spent on the run where he has continually evaded the NSA, kept up with the Terry McGinnis Batman, defeated villains like the psychically powered Mind Pack and the cyborg killer Rodin Krick, and even his own successor model IU7 on multiple occasions.

He can fight in antigravity and operate under deep water and in subzero temperatures with either minimal risk or the ability to restore himself afterwards. His self-repair functions have allowed him to remain on the run despite taking what would be fatal damage to many machines, including being ripped in half. Even times when his body or disguises are electrically disrupted, to the point where his body is disabled, he gets back up in a few seconds with at worst the need to repair himself or remove the source of disruption separately. (Though there are also times he is taken out for longer.)

He’s been able to tell structural integrity from a glance, predicted damages from severe weather, designed a filter to disrupt his homing beacon, used his surroundings in an old candy factory to to cause a distraction and save Agent Lee, has studied the schematics for an aging machine, and once bypassed the NSA erasing his memory by copying it into other parts of his brain.

Equipment

Aphrodite

CDI Model V. 9

 

An internal computer linked to Aphrodite through the “beauty mark” on her cheek. It provides her with 25x10^17 calculations per second, and its AI has an extensive list of functions. It can detect heat signatures, scan the environment for hazards and adjust her body to handle them, translate languages, scan people to determine their species and possible weapons, detect danger, analyze weapons and vehicles for possible weaknesses, locate concealed weapons and flaws in armor, and tell Aphrodite the most effective way to kill with her current weapon.

When used in battle, the AI turns Aphrodite’s eyes red and endlessly cycles through strategies while analyzing the environment and surroundings for possible threats, and it can automatically activate systems like the Seduction Matrix. If Aphrodite’s inside her ship, the AI can engage its autopilot mode, activate its weapons, scan the area for certain targets, lock onto them, and hack their communications.

Even if the AI is somehow disabled, Aphrodite can still use its targeting systems, and it will eventually return given enough time.

Coin of Solomon

One of the 13 Artifacts, the Coin of Solomon was forged during the reign of King Solomon using a mysterious metal found in his mines. This coin proved instrumental in the creation of the Aphrodite Protocol, giving the Chairwoman the intelligence necessary to start it.

Originally fused to Aphrodite’s frontal lobe, she later had it removed and turned into a necklace. Regardless of where it is, the coin provides her with great insight, enhanced intellect, epiphanic leaps of knowledge, and jumps in evolutionary biology. She’s used these abilities to locate the other Artifacts on Velocity’s lunar base.

Seduction Matrix


When she isn’t using her natural beauty and psychological manipulation to seduce men, Aphrodite can activate a Seduction Matrix to release pheromones that cloud their judgment, leaving them distracted and confused.

Trans-Dermal Sleep Inducer


To ensure Neville wouldn’t follow her, Aphrodite used this to force him to sleep with a kiss.

Dual Pistols

Aphrodite’s preferred firearms when carrying out her jobs.

Machine Gun

Used during her first mission to execute a Deputy Minister, his wife, and their daughter.

Submachine Gun

Used during a brawl with some cops.

Rifle

Contains a scope with thermal vision to let her see through walls.

Knives

If she wants to go for a more up close kill, Aphrodite can use knives to stab her target through the back, slit their throat, or throw them into someone’s head.

Blade Tonfas

During her time with Aphrodite XV, April donned a pair of electrically-charged tonfas as her main weapons, using them against several waves of ninjas, the robots in Ares IX’s sanctuary, Speros City’s guards, and Hades.

Flight Pack

A winged harness with anti-grav technology that lets the wearer fly.

The Witchblade

Another of the 13 Artifacts, Aphrodite discovered it inside the Lunar Sanctum, and it almost immediately bonded to her.

The Witchblade is a gauntlet of living metal made to act as a balance between the light and dark, keeping them from destroying each other and everything else. To do this, the Witchblade will bond to one woman per generation in both body and soul. Upon attaching itself to a "bearer," the Witchblade's mind becomes bonded with hers, responding to her thoughts and communicating with her. It can even give her information about what‘s attacking her.

When not in use, the Witchblade takes the form of a bracelet or necklace, activating in response to the bearer’s anger or when it senses danger, even if the bearer isn’t aware of it. 

The Witchblade will automatically defend its bearer from anyone or anything it sees as a threat, including her allies, former bearers, and unhealthy habits, even if she’s unconscious. With enough time, their bond will progress to the point where it can act and transform on its own without her needing to think about it, and it can defend herwithout being attached.

Despite its nature as the balance between light and dark, the Witchblade is naturally malevolent, requiring a strong enough bearer to keep it in check. Failure to do so will cause the bearer to become overwhelmed by bloodlust, relishing the violence she causes, becoming more violent, and actively trying to kill.

While Aphrodite’s never shown its full capabilities, she has used the Witchblade to create multiple razor sharp tendrils, regular or giant arm blades, and a barrier to protect her from Hades’ self destruct.
After its energies were absorbed by the Chairwoman, the Witchblade was left powerless and abandoned inside the lunar sanctum, forcing Aphrodite to find something to replace it. 

The Wheel of Shadows

Given to her by a dying Velocity in her final moments, the Wheel of Shadows was the Artifact used most extensively by Aphrodite.

The Wheel of Shadows grants its wielder complete control over the effects and passage of time, and whenever they use it, their body turns pitch black. They can speed up or slow down time at their whim, letting them get a speed boost by slipping between seconds, rapidly age humans or monsters, or reverse it and restore youth to the elderly. Even immortals who can resist the aging effects will still have their strength drained.

The time acceleration can be unleashed as an AOE attack, aging those around the user to death in seconds and decaying their surroundings.

It’s shown a few other abilities like solidifying time to create a defensive barrier or giving its user visions of the future, but they’re nothing compared to the Wheel’s ultimate power.

After wielding the Wheel for centuries, Aphrodite eventually mastered it, learning how to go back in time so she could kill Fransesca. Despite it being implied that changing the past would erase the user, she was still alive and the future was still intact afterward, implying the Wheel either protects the user from time paradoxes or creates alternate timelines (it’s vague which one it is).

The Blood Sword 


Also known as the Ketsuma no Katana, this sword was forged when a shaman summoned a demon and bound its essence into a katana. It’s been passed to various wielders throughout the centuries, and Aphrodite is the latest to claim it, having used it to kill the Chairwoman in the present and past.

When first unsheathed, it appears as a regular blade, but if blood is spilled near it or a fight begins, it will start glowing red.

The Blood Sword can communicate with its wielder and increases their strength based on the amount of blood spilled, but anyone who uses it becomes compelled to kill and a slave to their own bloodlust even without the sword. 

In terms of other abilities, the Blood Sword can create an aura around its wielder to prevent them from being aged to death, and it fuels their strength from the rage of the souls it’s claimed.

Technically, Aphrodite’s never shown to suffer its effects or use its powers since she only had it for four pages. However, she’s seen them in action with first-time wielders like Hephaestus and Fransesca, so maybe you could argue she’d be able to replicate its powers, though this is a stretch.

Ship


A custom fighter jet exclusive to Aphrodite. It fits multiple passengers, has an autopilot mode, and its weaponry includes two forward mounted accelerated fusion beams, two wing-mounted null space missiles for planetary bombardment, and rear mounted flechette scatter bombs for defensive fire. The fusion beams are particularly strong, able to completely destroy massive, spaceship-sized Darklings.

Misc. Weapons


While never shown using them, Aphrodite had a wide assortment of weapons at her disposal while she was with Burch. These include pistols, shotguns, a revolver attached to a super soaker, machine guns, hook blades, daggers, and brass knuckles, just to name a few.
 

Zeta

Holographic Emitter

An onboard built-in projector that displays Zeta’s disguise over his body. While he typically prefers disguising himself as a man in a purple jacket, light purple shirt, and gray pants, he can disguise as anyone he sees, alter his clothes and hair with a thought, or mix and match disguises to create entirely new ones. These holograms are intricate enough that he can convincingly simulate damage and other devices, disguise himself as a child, alter hairstyles on contact, fool retinal scanners by changing his eyes, and create a credit card with infinite money. And as long as he’s touching someone, he can include them in the disguise, whether that’s as a pregnant woman, an old woman, a couple on a train, maintenance robots, other synthoids, or objects he’s carrying.

These holograms let him conceal any hidden weaponry or items on hand. While most of the series establishes the holograms are intangible, Ro grabs his collar near the end of the series, which either implies they gained solidity or might be an animation error.

Aside from full body holograms, Zeta has a smaller projector in his hand to display images, recordings, and private records.

Scanners 

 

 Jack

A built-in, extendable jack that can plug into other technology to drive vehicles, disable bombs, communicate with the NSA, regulate temperatures, or download information. Even if the jack is severed during the download process, Zeta will still have partial files.

Extendable Limbs

Zeta can extend any of his limbs at will to disarm enemies or reach places he normally wouldn’t be able to. They’re strong enough to catch a hovercar and pull it back, stop a falling elevator from inside (0:15), can act as a grapple line with an absurdly long range, or reach distant blimps and helicopters.

Finger Tools


Zeta’s got a few tools stored in his fingers, including a periscope, lockpick, mini grapple line, screwdriver, and clippers on the sides.

Pistols

Claws

Zeta’s hands can transform into claws capable of tearing through train cars and cutting into the hull of an air shuttle.

Buzzsaws


Hidden in his wrist, Zeta can use them to decapitate robots or help with rescues and menial labor. He typically only uses one, but can deploy two if needed.

Laser


Another weapon in his wrist that can carve through metal ships and rocks, be rapidly fired, burn straight through metal doors, and… melt wood?

Welding Torch

Another device stored in his side, Zeta can use this to seal fusion reactors and his own injuries or tear through metal cables, cuffs, and dumpsters.

Self-Repair Tools

When damaged beyond what his systems can repair, Zeta can deploy a set of tools to patch up his damaged chassis, including a laser that seals up gunshots and lacerations and automatically deploys if he’s knocked out by an inhibitor device.

Misc. Tools

Marksmanship


Aphrodite’s training and programming allow her to wield numerous guns with pinpoint accuracy. She’s taken men out with submachine guns, regular machine guns, and revolvers, and thrown knives into people’s heads. 

Endurance

Can operate for 14 days without sleep before shutting down. She’ll stop functioning if she doesn’t receive food after 75 days and water after 5.

Zeta

Stealth


Zeta’s hologram disguise abilities and near-complete denial of the law of conversation of mass give him incredible utility to blend into any environment, provided that whoever is facing him isn’t actively looking for him with the ability to see through holo-emissions. He is not restricted by size, and has experience moving and even fighting at the size of a child, his full strength still available at all times when his body isn’t disrupted.

Aside from holograms, he also has the ability to perfectly replicate a person’s voice even if he’s only heard it once, can play their audio back, and his body’s stretchiness lets him disguise as anything from a child to debris.

Agility

Can jump between high speed train cars and outran a laser while balancing atop support beams on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Hacking

Has shown on several occasions that he can hack into secure databases or machines. He logged into the NSA from a school computer to uncover his schematics, hacked into old automatons from a candy factory, and affected other holographic emitters to display his appearance and voice.

While it’s unknown if Zeta can replicate this, other synthoids like IU7 have hacked into other technology just by looking at it while simultaneously hacking into the NSA, all through a computer he was controlling with his memory circuit! AND rebuilding himself…via a WEBCAM.

Powers

Aphrodite

Shapeshifting

Aphrodite can change her appearance at will, altering anything from clothes to hair to blend in with a crowd. The only catch is she can’t get rid of the green dot on her face, meaning she often has to obscure it with some type of headgear.

Regeneration

Aphrodite can heal bullet wounds in seconds and quickly regenerated from half her skin being blown off by missiles and gunshots. Even injuries that are fatal to a normal person are healed in a week.

In the one-shots, it was shown that other IXs are able to regenerate from deep lacerations or being stabbed and cut across the back, and other Aphrodite models have regenerated from having their collarbones broken or their synthetic skin and hairbeing completely incinerated.

Redlining

A focused adreno-glycaline surge that temporarily boosts her physical abilities, but quickly tires her. In this state, she can bench press 600 kg (1323 lbs), deadlift up to 685 (1510 lbs), has a striking pressure of 25 Newtons per square Millimeter (3626 pounds per square inch), sprint 100 meters in 7 seconds, and has a processing speed of 40 times 10^17th calculations per second.

Zeta

Enhanced Senses

In addition to seeing objects and people from long distances, Zeta can hear conversations from that range. He can even hear them clearly through walls.

Repair Systems

He can reattach severed limbs and heal in seconds after being ripped in half, though the severed parts need to be close by.

Going off IU7, he should be able to regrow his hands if they’re destroyed, and if his memory circuit’s inserted in a computer, he can fully construct a new body overnight using spare parts!

Electricity Manipulation

During his brief fight with Batman, Zeta was able to absorb electricity and fire it from his hands, which was strong enough to briefly knock Terry out.

Technology Manipulation


Once took control of a giant gatling gun by plugging a loose cable into himself. Another synthoid, IU7, possessed a computer after his memory circuit was inserted into it and hacked nearby technology just by looking at it through the webcam.

Resistances

Aphrodite


Electricity:
Despite being knocked out by a stun gun, Aphrodite later showed that she could endure being shocked by her restraints, and later powered through electrocution from Aphrodite XV.

Mental Manipulation:
In their first encounters, The Chairwoman’s commands overrode Aphrodite’s free will and forced her to kill those close to her. By the time Aphrodite regained her memories, she overcame this control through willpower.

It’s also said that if Aphrodite’s slaving program exceeds 20 minutes, she’ll start to fight back and her brain will shut down.

Radiation and Gravity Manipulation:
According to her official profile, she can resist radiation by 175% and survive up to 9 g’s.

Scanners:
Unable to be scanned by the Speros’ officers' technology.

Zeta

Extreme Temperatures:
He was unharmed despite being exposed to fire during a shootout, though the heat did force his hologram to wear off.

Later on he was able to endure prolonged exposure to Selig’s cryostasis chamber, which froze and shattered a metal crate in seconds, yet Zeta was unharmed. His internal heating even kept himself and Selig alive despite the lethality of being removed from the cryostasis chamber.

He’s survived at the bottom of a reef, endured the friction of ships and jets moving at high velocity, and despite the threat that it would eventually melt him, he was able to keep fighting after being dropped into 2000° Celsius (3632° Fahrenheit) molten metal.

Electricity:
Aside from absorbing it, Zeta’s endured electrocution on multiple occasions without issue, including a prolonged period from the NSA’s taser ropes.


Telepaths:
As a robot, he doesn’t have a mind for telepaths to read.

Remote Hacking:
Thanks to Bucky’s adjustments, Zeta can’t be hacked or controlled via remotes. 

Feats

Aphrodite

Overall

  • Has carried out over 30 murders
  • Defied her original programming to kill the Chairwoman
  • Regained her original memories by refusing to kill Marcus
  • Was the only member of the IXth generation to establish a peaceful rule and keep her original body
  • Successfully smuggled inhabitants of Ares, Hades, and Apollo’s cities to New Cythera
  • Killed Dr. Mane, Grazno Floyd, Abraxis, Lina, Aphrodite XV, Burch, and the Chairwoman
  • Became the new Chairwoman
     

Strength


Speed 


Zeta

Overall

  • Has avoided capture from the NSA on multiple occasions
  • Saved a child from a fusion reactor
  • Stopped a train crash despite suffering malfunctions from its transformers
  • Saved Hicksburg’s theater from being destroyed
  • Saved Dr. Selig after he was cryogenically frozen and thawed him out
  • Rescued Agent Benet and his son James from a broken submarine at the bottom of a reef
  • Is a good kisser?

Strength

 

Speed

 

Durability


Scaling

Aphrodite

Being the ninth model of her line, Aphrodite should naturally upscale from previous models and even future ones seeing how she destroyed Aphrodite XV.

Aphrodite IV

 

Aphrodite V


Aphrodite XV


Zeta

Everyone listed has repeatedly fought Zeta, and he’s harmed or taken hits from them without any major damage (barring things like IU7 ripping him in half). As such, it would make sense for him to scale to their feats.

Batman (Terry McGinnis)

 

IU7

 

Krick 

 

Blake

 

Weaknesses

Aphrodite


Aphrodite might’ve been designed as the perfect assassin, but she still has a few shortcomings. Unlike the other Aphrodites who are fully robotic, April is still human and requires food, water, sleep, and oxygen. If she’s deprived of any of these, she’ll eventually die, though it takes several days for this to happen. The spinoffs also show that IXs are vulnerable to poisons.

Because of her guilt over her past murders, she’s somewhat reckless and has no problem sacrificing herself to do what’s necessary.

Despite her healing factor mostly being quick, there’s one spot that’s vulnerable: the dot on her cheek. If the neural link in her cheek is severed, she will lose her strategic AI for over a week, though it will eventually return after a week of healing and being rebooted by exposure to electricity.

This last one is more a fault of the writing, but she barely has any screentime with the Artifacts and we don’t know her full capabilities with them. She never replicates the Blood Sword or Witchblade’s more esoteric powers, and aside from getting “fleeting glimpses of women throughout history,” there’s no evidence she inherited the connection to past Witchblade bearers.

Zeta 

Since he’s a robot, Zeta is vulnerable to magnets, being electrocuted, and hacking, though that last one has an asterisk. While Bucky’s adjustments made him immune to remote hacking, Zeta can still be hacked through actively interfacing with him and disabling his memory preservation and conscience modules.

His holograms aren’t tangible, as people and objects can still pass through his “skin” and “clothes” even if they’re inside the hologram. Scanning technology can see through (0:12) his disguises without fail, and they’ll malfunction while passing through a bullet train’s mag-lev transformers, causing him to take on the appearance (or just the head) of the last person or animal he sees. Even more damning is that any damage he receives- whether that’s being shot, cut, buried under rubble, exposed to fire and electricity, or just being thrown into a crate -will instantly disable his disguise.

His weaponry has trouble cutting through cyborgs, and while the jack is useful at hacking into technology, its range is horribly limited, and if Zeta wants to do anything else while it’s out he’ll have to choose one or the other. He’s also vulnerable to having certain features disabled by molecular chips.

Laser weaponry is capable of tearing through his metal chassis, and he’s been incapacitated by stun beams and EM devices in the past, which have put his disguises on the fritz at best or completely disabled them at worst. Sonic disruptors, electrostatic netting, and EM pulse grenades can take him down, MRIs will tear him to pieces, and exposure to 2000° Celsius or high exhaust temperatures will melt him.

Synthoids also have a few pathetic weaknesses. Their targeting systems can be disrupted by having bananas in their eyes, and despite having a stretchy body, buzzsaws, and lasers, Zeta somehow couldn’t escape from being pinned by a forklift, a boulder falling on top of him, or getting tied to a post.

Before the Verdict

Aphrodite

Witchblade scaling?

In a bonus section for Aphrodite IX/Cyber Force, Top Cow president/editor Matt Hawkins confirmed that the Witchblade anime is officially canon to the events of Aphrodite IX’s series. Considering there are similar statements like Masane’s Witchblade in the anime is the same as Sara’s from the comics and how Masane makes a cameo in the comics alongside numerous other future Witchblade bearers, you could use this to argue Aphrodite scales to the Witchblade causing an earthquake that flooded Tokyo or creating a shockwave that could blow up all of Tokyo, which would get high megatons, low gigatons, or hundreds of gigatons…

But we’re not going to. She doesn’t need it.

Zeta

Is that it for Zeta?

He had a few Flash games, but from what footage exists online, they're completely worthless.


Verdict


Stats

This is an easy one to figure out.

In terms of strength, Aphrodite can snap titanium mesh handcuffs with a tensile strength of 240 MPa, break necks with her heel and break them through armor, kill an armored man with her bare hands while Redlining, and destroy heavily armored drones with both punches and kicks. Numbers wise, her best strength feat is a striking pressure of 10.5 Newtons per square Millimeter (1522 pounds per square inch) and 25 Newtons per square Millimeter (3626 pounds per square inch) while Redlining.

Compared to her direct feats, Zeta’s sound more impressive. He can tear through the metal hood of a futuristic car and a fusion reactor’s metal casing, force an elevator to a halt with bare strength and pry open its doors, support the weight of a collapsing walkway, and beat up a giant robot.

However, speed and durability are a different story. 

Aphrodite is able to cross 13 meters in 1.2 seconds, sprint 100 meters in 11 seconds (7 seconds while Redlining), and has a processing speed of 25 times 10^17th calculations per second (40 times 10^17th calculations per second while Redlining). Comparing processing to reaction speed, this means she would be able to react at speeds a little over Mach 3 in base, and nearly Mach 5 when she’s Redlining.

Zeta has some feats that sound good on paper like dodging gunfire and rockets, but at best this would amount to Subsonic reactions. You could look at his laser dodging feat and argue him higher… if it wasn’t for the same clip and previous scenes showing the laser exploding, meaning the thing he’s dodging wouldn’t be an actual laser moving at lightspeed.

Durability-wise, Aphrodite’s survived falling from a 40 story clock tower, faceplanting into pavement, then being repeatedly shot in the back. She’s been hit by missiles multiple times, and most impressively claimed she could survive 1.25 megatons of explosives. You could chalk this up to boasting, but it’s backed up in an official guidebook, so it should still count. This would mean Aphrodite’s durability is better overall.

However, Zeta does still have some impressive pain tolerance. He’s taken a beating from Batman that destroyed a hospital door and briefly withstood a defibrillator, been knocked through walls, crushed under an exploding tractor and his own best feat: being unharmed at the epicenter of a massive oil explosion. But even if we’re generous and assume that oil explosion was the highest end of Large Building level (11 tons of TNT), Aphrodite would still be 113636.36 times more durable than the best Zeta’s shown.

Aphrodite already dominates with direct feats, but when we use scaling, the gap in stats becomes worse. Zeta would have some wall to maybe building feats, like Terry’s batsuit punching through walls and him being knocked through walls, Blake throwing a desk through a concrete wall, or IU7 destroying a yacht with three rockets and surviving an explosion that destroyed two warehouses.

Aphrodite’s scaling not only gets higher, but the feats she’d scale to have actual numbers. Starting small, we could scale her to Aphrodite XV breaking collarbones, piercing skulls, and decapitating advanced cyborgs. You’ve got Aphrodite V kicking a metal door off its hinges, shattering a manhole cover with a punch, moving faster than a bullet can leave a gun, and getting thrown through a concrete wall.

But most impressively, we can scale Aphrodite to her long obsolete predecessor, Aphrodite IV. IV’s been able to casually knock out Sara Pezzini, a woman who survived an oil tanker explosion worth 2.61 tons of TNT and tanked building-busting explosions at 0.078 and 9 tons of TNT, respectively. Or you could scale IX to IV fighting the members of Cyberforce, who have survived exploding buildings in the past.

Regardless of what we use, Aphrodite takes stats.

Tertiaries

This one’s weird to talk about. While we don’t get exact numbers or timespans for how long Aphrodite and Zeta were killing under their superiors’ orders, Aphrodite has a higher body count and far more knowledge in killing methods. And by the end of her series, she DEFINITELY has more combat experience with how she spent centuries fighting the Chairwoman.

Intelligence is also strange to talk about. Aphrodite possesses a seemingly photographic memory and is stated to have unparalleled skill in combat and espionage, but her actual showings leave much to be desired compared to Zeta’s holograms and infiltrations. Combat-wise, Aphrodite has the benefit of actual training and was programmed with knowledge of all martial arts disciplines and the use of all known weapons. Zeta does have some good showings of intelligence with his hacking, inventing, causing distractions to rescue others, and countering attempts to erase his memory, but this amounts to little with Aphrodite’s more plentiful showings and statements.

Aphrodite takes Tertiaries.

Equipment

Zeta’s on-board equipment pales in comparison to even just what Aphrodite carries around. There’s really no point of going into the minutiae here…Zeta has even weaker versions of mid-grade Robot Master weaponry, and Aphrodite has the Wheel of @#$%ing Shadows. Zeta has blinding flashlights, and Aphrodite has the @#$%ing Witchblade. Zeta has little laser pistols, and Aphrodite has…well, a lot of other guns and blades and the like. She's even got a ship capable of planetary strikes, which Zeta would completely die to! Maybe the future-tech in the DCAU is somewhat impressive here, but even then, Zeta didn’t even keep all of his guns due to his will to be a pacifist.

But let’s presume he keeps everything he’s ever had. Is there really anything else he can do to her? Vanna, do we have a time manipulation on the board? Yes indeed! Sure, perhaps she can’t put him to sleep with a kiss, as he doesn’t have a real mouth (not in the same sense as humans do anyway). The best he’ll get to do is shoot her, shock her, slice her, and she can do all of that and so much more. He’s not an ant staring at a boot, he’s a cockroach staring at an Infinity Stone. We really do not need to elaborate further…

…save one note. Thanks to being upgraded by Bucky towards the end of his show, it is unlikely Zeta will be hackable by Aphrodite's ship. Even if its onboard AI can remotely hack anything else with ease to put more of the fight in Aphrodite's favor. Zeta just won’t be one of them.

As that doesn’t even things out in the least, Aphrodite utterly dominates in Equipment.

Skills and Powers

When strictly discussing inherent powers not related to any equipment the two hold, Zeta has a servo up here. His self-repair systems are potentially inferior, given he does not regenerate from being incinerated like many Aphrodites, though we have not seen this happen to Aphrodite IX herself. Still, no matter the damage, he can repair himself mechanically provided he has access to the pieces of his body. He also has additional resistances to electricity, additional means of hacking, and perhaps his biggest advantage of all: vastly superior shapeshifting.

Aphrodite’s beauty mark has to be hidden physically while Zeta’s holograms and very adjustable body frame allow him to take the shape and size of things far larger or smaller than he is. (Potentially he can match IU7, whose rebuilt scrap body was still successfully able to shrink to the size of a human child with zero issue and back again.) The shapeshifting has also come in handy to aid his reach and the speed at which he can escape to various altitudes or across high-speed train lines.

Skill-wise, the difference between the two is hard to define. Supposedly Aphrodite has superior aim, but we do not have a base of comparison for Zeta. Due to his reluctance to use firearms after his peaceful turn, he is never shown to aim for something and then miss, while he has performed many successful infiltration and assassination missions prior. His stealth skills, being a top-of-the-line Infiltration Unit, could also easily be said to be comparable with Aphrodite’s, but again we don’t have a solid point of comparison there.

What we can compare is their long-term operability, should the fight come down to it. (Doubtful it will.) Zeta is never shown to tire, and something actively has to happen to him to disrupt his disguise or function. (Granted, much does in the show, because they need to have a plot.) Conversely, Aphrodite has a time limit, the need to eat and drink, and many things Zeta does not. Though, oddly enough, Zeta does have olfactory sensors, and Aphrodite has a Seduction Matrix as mentioned before…do with that what you will, since Zeta has never shown emotion sophisticated enough to be attracted to anyone. (Only a conscience, which would probably make sure he DOESN’T fall in love with Ro. Go figure.)

While we cannot determine Skills, Zeta takes Powers…for as much good as that’ll do him.

Conclusion

The DCAU gave us a version of Amazo so powerful it might even, at least by the end of the comic sequel made of his story, outshine the mainline comic version in terms of powers, and certainly does in terms of narrative. One would hope that a robot creation of its own, given enough love to get his own show in a spinoff of a spinoff of the miraculous Batman: The Animated Series would be a competent fighter, getting a decent showing whether or not facing someone as impressive as Aphrodite.

About that.

Besides a Plastic Man-based cameo in a comic, Zeta has nothing beyond his two-season show and being voiced by future Batman Deidrich Bader. And the same applies to the debate here. Sure, we did give him an advantage in terms of Powers, but that only came about by stripping away from that category anything that didn’t come attached to either combatant. He can’t be hacked by a computer, but he can be hacked by a big enough blade. And the Witchblade, let alone all the other knicknacks Aphrodite carries around, is more than big enough to do it.

The best we can give Zeta is that he’ll be able to stay in disguises even Aphrodite won’t expect, like hiding as a small child or even random objects. He’ll get a few shots or blows in, manipulate the environment to make her life slightly more difficult…and then have all of that turned on him when he has to move out of the way.

Not to give an overly critical line, but all this Zeta’s function did was identify the prime opportunities for Aphrodite to LXXXVI him.

(It’s a play on Euler-Reimann…math jokes. You get math jokes.)

The winner is Aphrodite IX.

 


Summary

Aphrodite


Advantages:
  • Has the edge in stats with both direct feats and scaling
  • WAAAAAAAY more experienced and intelligent
  • Eclipses Zeta’s arsenal, especially with the Witchblade and Wheel of Shadows
  • Zeta has no counter to her ship nuking him from orbit
  • Possibly more skilled at marksmanship, though it’s vague
  • No reliance on outside help to get out of most situations
  • Far better grasp on human behavior (and especially fashion)
  • Can hack anything BUT Zeta remotely, which is still incredibly useful
  • Potentially regenerates from worse damage

Disadvantages:
  • Her series’ cliffhanger never got resolved
  • Shapeshifting abilities are comparatively inadequate
  • Be honest, you never heard of her before this blog

Zeta

Advantages:
  • Far superior shapeshifting abilities
  • Cannot be hacked remotely
  • Likely immune to the Seduction Matrix and sleep inducer
  • Defies the law of conservation of mass often
  • Possibly more skilled at stealth, though it’s vague
  • Met one Batman and voiced by another


Disadvantages:
  • His show’s cliffhanger never got resolved
  • Armaments weaker than your average Wily-built robot
  • No counter to two out of every three things Aphrodite brings to the fight overall
  • Scaling to Batman and his own enemies does not matter
  • Seriously, how does he not have any comics? They made one of plenty of characters who DIDN’T show up in the DCAU, even Power Girl’s a thing there while Galatea already existed--okay we’re getting off track here
  • You probably haven’t even watched his show, have you? And to think you call yourselves DCAU fans--okay SERIOUSLY off track here
  • Agent West’s existence as a character

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