“We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin” – André Berthiaume

Welcome to DBB

They say that when you're at your lowest, good things will come, sometimes you'll be sent a saving grace in the form of a good luck charm. But what happens when that saving grace brings nothing but bad luck, nothing but chaos and bloodshed. What happens when your prayers are answered by a god, but not a good one, one that only wants absolute slaughter. These two individuals were also at their lowest, and when they asked for an answer, their solution was a powerful mask that could help them down a path of vengeance, and carnage. Who were the subjects of such atrocities and witnesses of such powers?

Rick Taylor: The berserk subject of the terror mask, tasked to destroy the corrupted entities of the world.

The Mask: The big headed vessel of the ancient mask, tasked to spread as much chaos as possible.

You know me, FMT

And it's time to see which Masked Menace has the best Arsenal, Abilities and Actions to find out who will be sentenced to Death By Blog

Before We Begin

For this matchup we really want to go all out with the epic craziness, makes it more fun that way. Rick Taylor will be given all official Splatterhouse media, which includes the original trilogy, the Wanpaku Graffiti game, and the 2010 reboot; as well as some guidebooks and such. Meanwhile for the Mask, we'll be fully compositing his comic book media. Now I would do a complete comp, but let's be honest, the material would not mesh well considering how different both masks work and how different their backstories and purposes are. And having a far more cartoony heroic character in a fight like this is visually and aesthetically odd. So I'll be referring to this Mask as, “Gore Mask", and the more cartoonish and wacky versions as “Goofy Mask". Goofy Mask already has his own matchups like Beetlejuice or Freakazoid, which are pretty decent on their own, I think he has a lotta potential. But for Gore Mask, we'll be sticking to the mainline comic series, and any sideline comic issues that still display him as a chaotic and bloody figure that aren't too out of line for how he works. We'll be using DC crossovers but we won't scale him to the crossover characters, just the feats in the actual crossover.

Connections

Both stories involve ancient masks containing chaotic evil spirits that have been used by humans for hundreds and hundreds of years
Both Masks are capable of physically talking to their wearers and even haunting them in their nightmares
They mainly target poor losers who are desperate for help and need them to accomplish certain personal missions
They attempt to trick their wearers into commiting mass death and carnage for their personal gain, making them believe they're accomplishing their goals for the right reason

Background

Rick Taylor

"What have you done to me? What am I? What am I!?”

Rick Taylor was never all that special. He had horrid nightmares of beings beyond mortal comprehension as a child, and became enraptured in the study of Necrobiology as a young adult. Despite those qualms, Rick would eventually meet one Jennifer Willis; the most beautiful girl at his university. Against all odds and his own doubts, she fell in love with him, for him, and couldn’t care less about the words of others about Rick due to that love. When his fears and doubts were chased away by this angel descended from Heaven, Rick knew in his heart he wished to marry her, but before he could finally reach the Heaven he always dreamed of, he was dragged down screaming into Hell.

When the happy couple was invited to the mansion of one Dr. Henry West, a psychopath scientist hellbent on bringing his wife back to life through Jennifer, Rick was gutted like a fish and tossed to the wayside while his girlfriend was taken to the depths of Henry’s lair. As he lay dying in a pool of his own blood, Rick was introduced to an interdimensional parasite known as the Terror Mask, who offered to save Rick so he could save Jennifer. With no option left, Rick donned the Mask and was transformed into a hulking monstrosity with a thirst for blood and a lust for battle. With that power and desire to murder, Rick tore through the mansion and turned it into a veritable Splatterhouse, eventually saving Jennifer from her insane kidnapper.

In the original timeline, Rick actually failed to save Jennifer, and she died in his arms while thanking her for freeing him. Even as he escaped the Splatterhouse, Rick was plagued with the nightmares of his youth once more for months, until the Mask returned to him with the chance for repentance. Bringing Rick to the literal void between life and death, the Mask allowed him to save his girlfriend, all while benefiting from the ghastly carnage. Even after saving the love of his life, marrying her, having a son, and becoming wealthy enough to buy his own mansion by working on Wall Street, Rick was still under the curse of the Terror Mask. This culminated in the great Evil One plotting to steal an ancient stone; resurrecting his powers and taking over the world once more. The Mask then tried to take advantage of this after Rick stopped the Evil One, but by some illogical inconsistency, Rick Taylor finally destroyed the Terror Mask, and saved those he loved from the threat of the Splatterhouse once and for all. After dueling the monsters of Hell time and time again, Heaven may just be waiting for Rick, but be warned. Should you threaten his family with the powers of the undead, Rick may just embrace the laughter and bring back that terrifying mask to send you straight to Hell.

The Mask

"I must share these powers with mankind, use them to protect and serve others in need. But first-”

Stanley Ipkiss was nothing but a lonesome loser, everything went wrong for him, bad luck was constantly coming his way. He was getting beat up by bikers, his car was always a mess, his life was in shambles. All he could think about was fighting back, making those who made his life worse pay, swearing sweet sweet revenge against the assholes. He wasn't a bad man, he always wanted to make amends for any bad actions he's done, but like anyone else, he sometimes wished he had a way to defend himself and change things. However, that would change when a mask he bought from an antique store would start talking to him, and what he thought would be a fun prank, would become twisted irony. Stanley would put the mask on, and in only a second, would transform him into a dashing green faced and big headed thing. Ipkiss would hop out his balcony and into the streets, looking for someone to test his new “powers" on. He found that he could survive any damn injury, even being run over by a car. Stanley knew that he had superpowers, and that he could share these powers with mankind, and use them to protect others in need. But first–

He would use these powers to make those bikers pay for what they did to him, they would feel the same pain they inflicted on him…

Remember how I said Stanley wasn't really a bad man? Just a normal man affected by society? Well that changed really quickly, because that mask changed Stanley really quickly too. He would become obsessed with taking revenge against people who wronged him, he listed many people he wanted to kill, he wanted to make them ALL pay. This made him much more infuriating and aggressive than before, so much so he almost hit his own girlfriend before stopping himself. Before he could apologize or do ANYTHING to make amends for what he was about to do, he quickly went out for bloody vengeance once again. This time, he would visit the men who purposely messed his car up to make more money by impaling their bodies, and his old teacher that made his young life hell by embarrassing her and breaking her hip in front of her students (and killing her). He was clearly becoming worse and worse, his girlfriend attempted to throw the mask away to heal him, and for a moment he admitted to himself that the Mask was changing him for the worse. For a moment, he considered working it out for her.

A moment later he went right back to wanting the mask and being obsessed with ridding people, so she instantly kicked him out of her life. He would attempt to break into her house to steal the mask back, and with that came some more murder. Stan would don the mask again and kill some cops who were called there by his girlfriend, because he wanted to kill her. Multiple police cars were outside the apartment, dozens of cops ready to shoot this menace down. Stanley was on a rampage, he was murdering dozens of policemen, he was on the run and continued his murder spree against those trying to gun him down. Literally, an entire army of cops tried to gun him down, but of course it wouldn't do much against him. He would escape in a cop car and cause even more havoc and destruction, he would gun down everyone in his way, he would set fire to absolutely everything. Then, he got bored and escaped back into his old apartment, he planned to leave town with the Mask and live a new life. Fortunately he wouldn't get that opportunity as his own girlfriend donned the Mask and quickly shot him down, leaving Stanley Ipkiss dead in his own apartment. Kathy, his girlfriend attempted to turn the mask in to the police where Lieutenant Callaway promised he would keep it safe, and promised he would never put it on. But then once he got home, he was curious about what she was saying, so he picked the mask up, put It on, and…that's a story for another day.

Skill and Experience

Rick Taylor

In his many journeys across time and space and splattering many a face, Rick Taylor has faced damn near every monster that has ever walked the bounds of Hell. He’s faced your classic zombies, flesh monster worms, water-faring monsters and flesh creatures, a magic room trying to kill him with flying books, and even fought mirror clones of himself multiple times. This extends into experiencing all sorts of powers used against him, like fighting teleporting enemies, tiny flesh monsters, sludge creatures, reality warping demons, and small armies of monsters jumping him while on elevator or in the Underworld. With the Mask’s help, Rick has dueled all sorts of giant monsters, including the Corrupted manifested in mortal form from 10,000 monsters Rick had killed over the course of the 2010 reboot.

Of course, the skill and sheer talent to do something like this is far from exaggerated. Rick has caught spikes thrown by monsters to launch them back, fought immaterial monsters like liquid foes or spirits, escaped saw filled slaughterhouses, fought fire breathing demon clowns, and more! This includes weaponizing pretty much anything he comes across, like wielding ripped off chainsaw arms or the horned heads of his own enemies, using a foes bladed arm to wrench his own head off, and (befittingly) being described as a bar-room brawler. Both Rick and the Terror Mask are more than a simple Jason Voorhees enthusiast though, and have the examples to prove it. Rick is actually quite smart; being a university student who studies Necrobiology (the science of the dead) and is knowledgeable in ancient cultures like Aztec and Mayan.

He unironically got rich enough through his smarts to work at wall street and buy his own mansion (which got turned into another Splatterhouse because of course it did), and his many adventures were often separated by multiple years. The Terror Mask however, is much more exposed to battle, and has exterminated entire civilizations. After all, it was the slave of the Corrupted “for an eternity,” and was so mighty that it claimed itself a threat to the entire world. Of course, that didn’t stop Rick FROM KILLING IT with its own powers at the end of Splatterhouse 3, which just goes to show how far this skittish nerd will go to keep his girlfriend safe.

The Mask

No matter which Mask, anyone who dons the magical artifact will still have their normal skills and experiences, just amplified to crazy degrees (literally). This happens with Lieutenant kellaway, who despite wearing the Mask, was able to keep his title as the Mask, busting crimes throughout the city (in his own crazy ways). This is even shown by Emily, who's knowledge of Kung Fu movies actually makes her a kung fu master as the Mask. It's noted that the Mask gave him so much “limitless energy", he was able to clean up the city and fight crime for the entire night. And keeping his cartoonish nature, the Mask is a good trickster as he was able to trick two men into shooting each other dead.

Now the actual mask has existed for hundreds of years, from what we know of. We don't know the exact origin, but it has been hinted towards a more African tribal origin, as it has been used for rituals and artifact collection for a very long time. Was it created for rituals? Or does it have a deeper origin? Other media like the movies and series portray it having a more Norse origin, and that its powers come from the Norse God Loki in order to conceal the God of Mischief's chaotic powers. Whether it's true or not, I can't truly say, but from what we know, the entity itself has existed for a VERY long time. So long in fact, it was in control of a space conqueror who plundered dozens of worlds, massacred entire governments, and destroyed many star fleets. It's stated to be more like a cosmic disease than any sort of mortal being..

Arsenal

Rick Taylor

Terror Mask

“You’re mine, Rick. Until Jen’s back safe in your arms… you’re mine.”

The name of the game is Splatterhouse, and it wouldn’t be much of a killing spree without this ancient asshole with a literal bloodlust; the Terror Mask. In the original trilogy, the Mask was found the in jungles of Cancun from an ancient Mayan temple, it was carved from a bone-like material and is the representation of a deity. It attaches to the wearer's head with straps fashioned akin to skeletal hands, and is noted to have an aura of power that brings forth a primal rush racing up your spine. In the reboot, it is an interdimensional being banished from its original world after it escaped from the Corrupted; its original masters. Regardless of its origins, the Terror Mask is always a sadistic son of a bitch who loves violence and bloodshed who molds its wearers into the perfect killing machine to sate its desires (even having killed entire civilizations before).

To that end, the Terror Mask has all sorts of crazy powers spawned from the darkest black. It is a powerful artifact containing an immortal soul, and with a little faith paired with wearing the Mask (when separated from the user it is nothing), it empowers the user in several ways on top of getting to inhabit a new body that bears bloodlust and incites carnage. On the mental side of this clearly symbiotic relationship, the Mask feeds on desires and fears to unlock immortality and power, and frequently tempts its users by playing with their emotions and baiting them into believing they need its power (even giving Rick repeated nightmares). In physical terms, the Terror Mask obviously saved Rick from death upon him putting it on, like when he was gutted in the remake. This process buffed his physicality, allowed shape-shifting into even stronger forms, and allowed it to know everything that goes on in Rick’s head.

For more esoteric powers, the Mask obviously has a thirst for blood, but the more it/Rick get their hands on, the stronger they get. To that end, The Mask can also smell emotions like insanity and fear, and bears plenty of its own powers even without a wielder. It can teleport and shapeshift however much it wants, fly while using telekinesis to fling objects around and shake a room, and make a portal through ritual to “the void” in order to bring back the souls of the dead. It did this to bring back Jennifer’s soul after she died in the original game, and made portals to and from this area frequently. Despite all of this, the Terror Mask isn’t invincible, and can be killed after being shattered into pieces.

Combat Items

Like the many killers (and heroes) of old horror movies, Rick has used plenty of weapons to take down the monster hordes he has encountered in Splatterhouse. These range from melee weapons, to ranged tools, to even the limbs of his enemies like blade arms or horned heads. Granted, all of them have a finite durability, so too much usage of them will result in their breaking. In the original trilogy he didn’t really have this problem, but it’s an issue nonetheless. As for those weapons…

2x4

One of Rick’s first weapons he usually wields, and easily one of the most iconic. Originally it was a wooden plank that he could paste your average Zombie with, but the reboot gave it a glow-up like never before with a massive wooden slab riddled with spikes for an extra kick, so to speak.

Cleaver

This saw-like butchers knife is the perfect tool to bisect most monsters with, and its been a series mainstay for years. It can hack and slash most foes pretty easily, and wrench off limbs just as quickly.

Pipe

As far back as the introduction comic to the original arcade game, one could always find Rick laying down a massive pipe on his enemies heads (heh). It makes for a great blunt tool that can smash back most foes, and is always a tool Rick’s happy to use to shatter skulls.

Baseball Bat

While seeming less impressive as swinging a steel pipe, the bat is just as strong as it and carries much of the same effects.

Chainsaw

Ever since Leatherface let loose a ripping and roaring Chainsaw back in 74’, you can bet your ass every horror icon worth their body count has used one at some point. Rick is no different, even if he is a hero, and has used one to slash through any monster in a veritable massacre. In the reboot, not only is it much stronger than before, but even deadlier than normal chainsaws in Rick’s world; deadly enough to cut an elephant in half.

Shotgun

For a more heroic homage to everyone’s favorite boomstick-wielding Ash Williams, Rick has frequently wielded a shotgun for spread-out smashing damage to Zombies and monsters alike. It usually has about 7-8 rounds (granted, its power and skill in destroying waves of monsters more than makes up for it), but the remake doesn’t seem to have this problem, and he can wield it for much longer as a result. The only downside is its knockback and overall weight means he can’t dodge or roll away from attacks while using it.

Miscellaneous

For more one-time tools, Rick has launched thrown knives, tossed literal rocks like a deadly baseball, flung thrown spears, launched potassium bombs or cinder blocks, wielded bone clubs, and swung axes with no prejudice whatsoever.

Eldritch Orbs

As the usual gaming macguffins from his 3rd outing, these orbs amplify the power of Rick’s flesh in order to give him access to his Mutated Form (later known as the Berserker Mode). In essence, they contain intense bursts of energy that magnify the effect of the Terror Mask on Rick, causing him to mutate into a bigger and stronger creature with better attacks so long as his Power Bar is charged (more on this in Forms).

The Mask

The Mask (Artifact)

“Deep in that fevered noggin of yours is a festering pool of resentment. I am merely an enabler, but you are the engine that drives me”

The power of The Mask is one that can rarely be rivalled, it harnesses the mischievous power that was transferred to it from ancient tribes and brings out your deepest desire. Once you put it on, you automatically transform into the Mask entity. It amplifies your strength and speed, and especially agility, to where you move and commit actions more like a cartoon character than a normal person. It has been theorized that the Mask operates on an existing personality dynamic, whether it projects a chaotic persona on the wearer, or the Mask allows a more mad personality inside of the user to emerge full-blown. Either makes sense considering just how differently you see the world while wearing the Mask, almost like a cartoon playground.

Unlike the film version, this mask actually talks to you as its own separate entity and urges you to put it on and do the worst things possible. Speaking of it being its own entity, even while you're the Mask, it can speak for its own and take control of your actions without you even wanting to do it. This can be countered by having enough control over yourself to ignore the Mask's deception. Even while you're physically the Mask, the chaotic spirit can talk to you in your mind as some sort of inner monologue. This is very consistent, no matter who's wearing it, the Mask always controls what you do, but you can break out of it if you realize you don't want to wear it. Although sometimes it can be very difficult since users have stated to have absolutely no control, like they're just the car the Mask is the driver. Trying to remove the human soul to render the Mask powerless won't do much either, considering the fact the Mask itself could just absorb the human soul back inside of him if it's ever separated.

However one more thing interesting about the Mask, is that the way it affects you is based on how you affect it. For example, one Mask user named Aldo would use the Mask to release his inner creativity, and his hatred. He expressed his anger and hatred through the catharsis of the Mask, while his mind was freed to create whatever he wished, because the hatred that prevented his creativity was being expressed through the Mask. This does explain why you become so bloodthirsty and out for revenge even if you're in control. It caused Aldo to constantly hallucinate, forget events he was committing as the Mask, and felt like he was on drugs. Aldo could even SEE the Mask entity because of these hallucinations and because it became more of an alter-ego in his mental space, even without wearing the Mask. Like the Mask states itself, “Deep in that fevered noggin of yours is a festering pool of resentment. I am merely an enabler, but you are the engine that drives me, us. Lookit cheeser, I'm just a lowly mystical artifact. It's the wearer who brings what I enable to bear. If you're a well-adjusted guy, I might just redecorate with elan. If you're a guy with ulcerating emotional baggage, then you'd better watch out.”

Another interesting aspect about the Mask that's not known is the fact it can choose to hop off of its user's face if it's sick of them. Yes, the Mask can just choose to hop off of their face if they really want to. That's not even the craziest part, the craziest part is that the Mask can MOVE. Yes, the Mask can just fly through the air and escape the clutches of anyone trying to steal it. Even when it's not attached to a living being, it can still project a spiritual form in order to trick anyone into following it. You may think that destroying the Mask will completely put a stop to it, but that's actually not true. While no one else will be able to wear the Mask, the chaotic spirit of it will still live on and continue to mock anyone around it, even after it was destroyed it was able to fucking possess the Statue of Liberty..all in all.. destroying this thing for good is almost IMPOSSIBLE.

The powers of the Mask are very extreme, you can basically do whatever you want while wearing it. Now it's not REAL toon force, he's not actually a cartoon character or anything. You see it's actually explained why the Mask can do such amazing things when someone's wearing it. The Mask has the ability to release our inhibitions which could completely reanimate our livelihood, its “toon force" is actually the Mask altering temporal and dimensional fields of reality. Basically, yes he's actually just warping reality to do whatever he wants. It reminds you of your trauma in order to bring out your hatred in order to make itself far more powerful.

Guns

The Mask holds many many many firearms in his arsenal, and they're all Smokin'!

Disguises

Men like these like to wear multiple masks to hide a true facade, in this case it's very literal. The big head has the consistent ability to create face masks that allow him to look like a normal person, in most cases they act just like human skin, perhaps he actually took the faces of people to wear them? Or he just transforms his face to create a human mask. These disguises don't just apply as masks, he can wear full body disguises. Almost every Mask does this, one of them even used the skin of a guy who was already dead.

Bat

Batter up, the Mask will your head just as big as his once he's done with ya’

Cigar Bomb

After a somewhat decent confrontation, Big Head was able to trick this man into believing he was getting off Scot free, until he revealed that he turned the cigar into a living bomb..well he wasn't alive to figure that out.

Magnet

A very large magnet always comes in handy when you least expect it, who knows, maybe it'll help you attract some mates.

Match

Throwing an already lighted match at someone doesn't usually create a fire as big as this, but I guess the Mask could do exactly that.

Harpoon Gun

Harpoons, harpoons, they're better than spoons! Reference aside, you don't want these things to be shot through your skull.

Bazooka

Great weapon for exploding as many people as possible, it's not clean but the more destructive the better amiright?

Grenade

Another good weapon that can be used for splodin’ stuff, splodin' stuff is awesome.

Sword

During a night of crime cleaning, Big Head would use a sword to chase down and maybe slice some criminals, while wearing a ninja outfit..

Sleeping Pills

They say that certain things are a piece of cake, well it really will be once Big Head pops some industrial strength sleeping pills in your piece of cake so you'll have a nice rest.

Mega Drill

Hehe..but anyways this is no ordinary drill, it's so strong that it could tear through a safe and get inside faster than most normal equipment.

Axe

Yeah what he said, he only axe-d them a fucking question…overreact much?

Guitar Axe

As if a normal Axe wasn't badass enough, he made one out of a guitar.

Mace

Obsolve, that's not even how you-

Yeah it's a mace, they're very powerful if you use it correctly.

Electric Guitar

The Mask can shred like a beast, he can basically rip and tear through the rock genre. With this sweet guitar, Big Head could even spawn smoke, flames, and electricity just from his presence alone.

Flamethrower

Flamethrowers are cool too, Big Head used this to literally burn through dozens of cops and light the entire city block on fire.

Chainsaw

Going full Texas Chainsaw Massacre I see, the Mask can utilize this when he attempts to replicate the killer Leatherface.

Dynamite

It's the classic weapon used for cartoonish destruction and demolition.

Jetpack

He who fights and runs away, still gets caught at the end of the day! Eh, I guess the Mask is pretty good at that.

Bomb

When you say “cheese" but end up being deceased, I don't know..I can't think of a pun. But more showings of the Mask and his explosive love for splodin'.

Cartoon Bomb

Basically a normal bomb but it resembles a more cartoony version, it even affects you like a cartoon bomb would.

Tank

Yes, that's right, a tank..Gofuckyeself..

Abilities

Rick Taylor

Mutant Physiology

Due to being essentially a steroid-enhanced Mr. Hyde thanks to the Terror Mask, Rick has plenty of boons as a result even aside from “near-unlimited power and strength.” His skin is plenty durable, and he can literally punch away blades with no lacerations on it whatsoever (he can still be cut, but it’s notable nonetheless). Speaking of punching, he can harm and even kill literal spirits as well, or just… bat back energy blasts with his bare hands. Aside from that, the Terror Mask has enabled Rick to fight monsters in the Void (basically Hell/the Underworld), make pretty impressive jumps with enhanced agility, and manipulate his body in multiple ways. Primarily, he can control and generate bones for spiky arm blades or raising them from the ground in a skewering splattack.

Combat Moves

When it comes to actually using all these insane buffs and powers, Rick has plenty of combat moves and attack combos to fire away at any monster. These include slide attacks, kicks, judo throws, repeated headbutts, and many more. He can upgrade pretty much all of them in the reboot for many different variations of his standard combo moves, like fast attacks or heavy attacks. For the more impressive tricks, Splatterhouse 3 introduced the Quad Spin Kick for a deadly helicopter style kick, while in his Berserker Mode he can use the Megaton Driver Suplex. This also includes his Splatter Kills, which are basically just mini-cutscenes for brutal showings of his raw strength, such as yanking a creature's spine out of its anus… yes, really.

Mask Vision

While it isn’t as emphasized as much as combat (fair), the Terror Mask gave Rick a power known as Mask Vision that can find clues or highlight important objects.

Splatter Siphon

Since the Mask hungers for blood, it can be assumed pretty generously that getting ahold of the stuff makes it stronger. While it does do that, it also has the benefit of lending that stolen life to Rick himself and restoring his health. By draining blood from enemies in extended bone spikes from his body, Rick steals health from enemies and lends it to himself, which even works on much larger enemies.

Blood Manipulation and Absorption

Since the Terror Mask is so built on blood and carnage, it stands to reason that it can manipulate it as well. That would in fact be the case, as the Splatter Siphon move shows it can drain blood and health from enemies to add to itself. Rick even passively absorbs the blood of creatures he kills to further amplify his own powers, and this enabled the unlikely pair to even kill the Corrupted; eldritch gods beyond our scope of reality.

Regeneration

Taking on an entire mansion of monsters in a single night is not easy, even for someone like Rick Taylor. Don’t worry though, since even when he does suffer brutal damage, he can heal it lickety-split. We’ll talk more about it in a moment, but the energy known as Necro (dead people juice) is what fuels Rick’s slaughter to save Jennifer, and that blood thus gives him life. He can rebuild his body back from mere bones such as his arms even without help, like how the Terror Mask has healed him from the initial impalement and gutting to begin with by pulling the blood back into his body. As things progress, Rick could fight with chunks torn out of his chest that expose his ribs, extreme blunt trauma like from a meteor striking him head-on, and even regrow torn off limbs in seconds. He can also absorb blood to speed up this process, but it isn’t a perfect one, and the regeneration has limits when he procures too much damage. The Terror Mask also showed up to begin with on a decayed corpse, meaning it couldn’t save Rick from something like that.

Necro Energy

We talked about it a bit in controlling blood, but specifically, Necro Energy is the essence of life and death that he can tap into through blood, which comes from both states of being. It can help him heal wounds, summon masses of bone and flesh for attacks, and even unlock a mutated form for higher power (more in Forms). This Necro Meter gets built up by inflicting damage and killing enemies, and you can activate Berserker Mode when at least 3 bars are built up, or perform individual Mask Attacks at the cost of one meter. More specifically, he can repurpose this Necro Energy through his Splatter Slash and Splatter Smash Necro Moves. These unleash wide blade slashes to a large area or a focused blunt force smash, on top of various Jump, Smash, or Shredder variations of both. There are various examples of this throughout the game, but these attacks can also inexplicably bypass shielding immune to his normal physical blows.

4th Wall Breaking

Strangely enough, the Terror Mask has proven aware of the 4th Wall in the 2010 remake. It is aware of the games’ M for Mature rating, recollects “old times” in levels based on the retro games (which it has also talked about elsewhere), and even knows the title of the game itself.

The Mask

Invulnerability

Laugh off the pain they say, you won't feel nothin’, well the same is pretty much the same here. The Mask is mostly invulnerable to damage, which means attempting to hurt him will be harder than you think. This is because as a toon-inspired character, he'll walk away from any pain that comes his way, because he finds pain funny. But when he doesn't find it funny, then he won't even react to your insane act, he'll just look really annoyed or disappointed at you.

Regeneration

An added bonus to being the Mask aside from the dashing good looks and the invulnerability to pain, you could practically regenerate from any injury. As seen above the Mask was able to shoot a hole in his hand, and just a couple pages later it was back to normal. Not even a barrage of bullets will keep him down, the big head will just laugh it off. Blowing a hole in his head or even the middle of his damn chest won't do anything but slightly annoy him because you stained his fresh new clothes. Want something crazier? The Mask once blew himself up with dynamite, and all that was left was his footprints and a miniscule amount of dust. Yet one page later, Kellaway and the Mask itself were completely fine, so a pretty neat showing of dust regen. This was done another time but more instantaneously, where a Mask voodoo doll was burned to ash but the Mask was completely fine to even Kellaway’s surprise.

You can't even decapitate him to remove the mask, since he could just pop it back onto his head or spawn spider legs to move as just a head, or just keep living as a full on skeleton. Even his torn off limbs can become sentient and he's capable of still attacking as mere blood. He can regenerate from getting blown up into a bloody pulp, and he even notes that his regeneration is instant, as opposed to other healing factors like Lobo's who need to repair rather than replace. He's even been fully blown up by alien weaponry several times during the Lobo crossover, only to come back good as new. Hell, the Mask himself states that whoever wears it can never die, and Lobo later reaffirmed that he considered the Mask impossible to get rid of. While Lobo was wearing him, he could regenerate from getting turned into a pile of ash while keeping on fighting as a spirit

Hammerspace/Summoning

Like most cartoon characters with a lot of tricks up their sleeves, which I mean in the most literal way, the Mask could just reach into their shirt or pants and use any kind of weapon their mind could think of. A hammer? An axe? A gun? Whatever fits the situation, the Mask could summon it out of thin air if he really wants to. Or he could just sit on the floor and instantly summon a mini car to drive into madness. Still not crazy for you? He could also summon an entire brigade of random bullshit. Like a bunch of large and small animals, robots, clowns, acrobats, tentacle monsters, astronauts and more..yeah literally whatever he randomly thinks of. Including a barrel of drunk monkey's with power tools to wreak havoc.

Transmutation/Transformation

The Mask has the blatant ability to transmute any seemingly normal object into a weapon of his choosing, like turning a balloon animal into a Tommy Gun! Or turning a normal cigarette into a bomb! Or turning his head into a bomb! Or turning two pairs of swords into fucking rockets he launched at Walter! The Mask could even shapeshift himself to look like a completely different person or the user themselves, it was so efficient that nobody could tell that the user was wearing the Mask in the first place. The transformation on himself can act as more than a disguise, it can transform his whole body. Whether it turns him monochrome, or into a large buff man, Leatherface, a roughhouser, a pirate, a doctor, or a magician, transforming himself into these actually gives him the skills that lots of those kinds people would usually have. This is especially evident when Big Head transformed into Bruce Lee and a professional boxer, and actually gained those skills in combat. He can even apply Transmutation to other objects around him, like turning an ordinary taxi cab into a monstrous suped up war machine with cannons and bombs capable of circling the world. They can turn themselves into unimaginable horrors, turn into giant unfathomable beasts, turn their head into a wolf, or turn into a fetus and transform into a womb for the a giant endoskeleton that could shoot lasers out of their eyes and nipples..wtf.

Teleportation

The Mask has the blatant ability to teleport anywhere he wishes in order to surprise his opponent with a sneak attack, he can even shoot people instantly after someone else already spotted him. He's also used this for escaping certain situations, like when he jumped into a water puddle and popped out of a toilet in his apartment.

Elasticity

As if trying to actually kill them wasn't hard enough, trying to overpower or manhandle is just as difficult. This is because the Mask could stretch their limbs and other parts of their body, as shown above Walter wasn't able to rip her head off because it just stretched. His limbs and neck can stretch to even more absurd lengths, as can his head. He can even stretch his body thin enough to slip through sewage pipelines.

4th Wall Awareness

This may not come off as a surprise, but the Mask isn't new to the 4th wall..insert Deadpool vs the Mask joke (even if he's never 4th wall broken on that level but ahem, anyways…) throughout this comic, the Mask was able to comment over the events of the entire story, like a narrator. While the ending may make it seem like he's just recalling events, he talks about panels that he should have no way of knowing, but he talks about it anyways. So Bighead itself is aware of the comic book and is able to commentate over events that are happening at that moment. And as seen above he's aware of Dark Horse comics as an entity and addresses it to the reader. He can type text shown up on the comic itself and notice it as well, view the comic like a movie, and speak directly to the readers along with the editor. He can even grab the very text bubbles of the comic and shove them down Lobo's throat; literally making him eat his own words. Somehow, he can also create an avatar to sing broadshow tunes with a Lobo partner

Dimensional Travel

While the image above may not seem impressive, what he says may give you a hint. “But I seem to remember some kind of oath on Blarney's stone to get as far out of this state of existence as possible..” So he does exactly that! The Mask actually creates a portal that links him to an inter-dimensional vortex, and literally swims inside of it and pops out in the Dark Horse universe. And if you don't believe me, even the user who left the Mask commented that this was an Alternate Dimension.

Fire Manipulation

By eating a match and a buncha gasoline, the Mask gains the ability to shoot a large amount of fire out of his mouth. He could also light a chariot on fire and use it to shoot fireballs around him.

Duplication

A VERY odd ability the Mask has is the ability to duplicate parts of his body. As seen above, the Mask can duplicate his head and morph them to look like different individuals. He could also duplicate his arms so he could cook up a delicious 5-star meal twice as fast. While wearing the Mask, Lobo could split up into dozens of tiny clones with all his other toon-powers and pull himself back together just fine off-screen.

Size Manipulation

If he's feeling a little silly, the Mask could enlarge his limbs to any size or shape, like making his head big enough to eat an alien whole. He can even turn himself into a giant life-size king kong, become a giant cyborg beast, or become a lumberjack larger than a building while also enlarging a chainsaw.

Fragrance Manipulation

Huh…anyways the Mask has a very unique power. He can release toxic farts that are so horrid, they cause you to throw up blood and make your skin melt away like acid or flame.

Dream Manipulation

Anyone affected by the Mask will forever be haunted by it, no, literally. Victims of the Mask have stated that the spirit of it is attempting to contact them, talking to them in their dreams trying to convince them to seek it once again. This was because the Mask wasn't satisfied with how bitchy its current user was, so it wanted an old friend to use it again. Even the 3rd guy below was a VERY recent user but was still getting these nightmares and visits from the chaotic spirit.

Possession

Like I stated before, even when the physical Mask was destroyed, the spirit of it was alive, which left the spirit of the Mask to roam around and do whatever it wanted. Like here where it's seen possessing the Statue of Liberty and speaking through it.

Miscellaneous

Mind Reading - Lobo wearing the Mask could literally open up one's mind and thread his thoughts.

Self-Explosion - While royally pissed off, Lobo wearing the Mask turned into a nuclear blast all on his own.

Fusionism - The Mask while bodiless was able to fuse with a headless corpse and morph it to make it it's new body

X-ray vision - well it was supposed to be X-ray vision, turns out he was actually incinerating people with radiation and poisoning their blood with strobes.

Forms

Rick Taylor

Berserker Mode

Ever since Splatterhouse 3, Rick has had the ability to enter a literal Berserker Mode for all sorts of carnage and splatter mayhem. He originally collected Eldritch Orbs that enhanced the Terror Mask’s hold on him, making him mutate into a bigger and stronger monster until the energy ran out and he reverted to normal. This also gave him moves like the Megaton Driver Suplex, as well as an omnidirectional bone smash attack extended from his body. In the reboot, this form got much more impressive.

Built upon Necro Energy and needing at least 3 bars of the stuff to use, this mode stockpiles the blood and Necro until they literally spill over. It fills up his health, makes him temporarily invincible, doubles the BLOOD points he earns in combat, and ensures the Splatter Slash and Splatter Smash attacks are now available whenever he wants without consuming extra Necro.. This form also obviously increases his strength (enough to stop the stomps of giant monsters and catch meteors), even up to the point of killing the Corrupted when they take mortal form, grows spikes on his body, and makes him much bigger. At maximum upgrade, this form lasts 20 seconds in the reboot, while in the original time it was used it could remain active for over a minute.

The Mask

Lost-Control

Lots of Mask users have had to deal with almost losing control over themselves and letting the Mask take over. That can be very dangerous if it's left unchecked, and will lead to complete and utter chaos. As shown with this user who almost let the Mask take full control of him, sometimes it leads to them being even crazier than before, or it can transform you into a giant crazed monster. While this isn't specifically what happens, it's just an example for when someone loses control.

Ghost Form

As I have mentioned before, the Mask itself is basically a chaotic spirit resonating inside of a wooden artifact. Big Head himself technically has two souls, the human soul, and the Mask soul. The Mask soul can show up as a spiritual protection off of the Mask object and basically do what it always does, but as seen above it could also still enact violence and chaos even as a spirit. Still being able to throw hands, still being able to be a crazy bastitch.

Resistances

Rick Taylor

He doesn't have any..

The Mask

Pain Manipulation - Thanks to the power of the mask, you're unable to feel any physical pain, it's more funny than anything.
Electricity Manipulation - Resisted the power of an electrical wire that incapacitated another guy
Fire Manipulation - could resist being completely engulfed in flames
Poison - a fast-acting poison dart that could instantly kill you was basically nothing to Emily while wearing the Mask.
Power Nullification - Was hit by all seven of Wild Tigers mystical shafts, which could “neutralize demonic energy aura” and drain his power, but he recovered from it almost instantly to Wild Tiger's surprise

Actions

Rick Taylor

Overall

Fought his way through the Splatterhouse on multiple occasions
Saved Jennifer from Splatterhouse multiple times, including their son
Outmatched the eldritch beings known as the Corrupted and saved all of existence from their wrath
Destroyed the Terror Mask and forever freed himself from its influence
Defeated countless monsters, the Abyss/Corrupted, Terror Mask
Splatterhouse 2010 is a fantastic game y’all

Strength

Base

Can break the jaws of monsters, tear them in half, and rip spines out of monster assholes with various Splatterkills
Tossed this fat enemy

He’s also killed plenty of other giant zombies and such

Can fight and kill mirror clones of himself, and has done so multiple times
Destroyed the Terror Mask after it had absorbed all Dark Magic from “the World” (See Scaling and Before the Verdict)

Berserker Mode

Speed

Base

Note that their green blood looks the same elsewhere, so it could be something else

Berserker Mode

Dodged multiple meteorites and caught one head on (Mach 32.84 - Mach 211.14)

Durability

Tanked a fall and being buried under rubble
Fought and can tank hits from mirror clones of himself
Got hit by a huge meteor and walked it off (with regeneration albeit)
Tanked and dodged multiple meteorites

The Mask

Overall

Once possessed a space conqueror that was seen as an intergalactic terror
Successfully became the president of the United States of America
Almost nuked every single country in the world and wipe out humanity
He'll Jim Carrey your ass out the door you bitch, cuz he's the best green guy he's played since the Grinch
Basically won in the end of the final issue
The first couple of issues are actually very good (Hunt for Green October is underrated)

Strength

Was able to effortlessly throw Listor into a window and through the door
With an Axe, was able to slice a police car in half
Was able to kill an entire group of people just by ramming into them
Could break through a wall just by running through it
Created a large snot rocket that shot out like…a snot rocket.
With an explosive pistol, could blow off pieces of a building
Became larger than a building and was going to saw it in half
Was able to push over multiple buildings at once, like dominos.
Punched through a guy's face and force-fed so much chocolate syrup to a woman she blew up
With just an axe, he was able to cut down a very tall building
Both Lobo & The Mask crashed into each other, which created an absolutely gargantuan blast (322 Teratons of TNT)

Speed

Could continuously dodge multiple rounds of bullets
Hit a baseball so hard it caught on fire and knocked over multiple people
Ran so fast back into the building that he left a small trail of flame
Could react to and evade the Grifter's laser rifle
Made a vehicle that was capable of contesting with Lobo's spacehog (See Lobo Scaling)

In the crossover, the space hog was able to fly from another planet to earth in only a day

Said planet was across the galaxy

Circled the globe several times over during a race with Lobo (21.43% the speed of light)

Durability

Survived getting punched through a light pole by Walter, who was already overpowering him
Survived a firing squad full of heavy weaponry and even rockets without even a scratch or reaction
Survives falling off a building and landing on top of a car
Survived this large bomb explosion that caused massive AOE
Survives this massive explosion that eviscerated most of the block
Survived exploding into fireworks
Could've survived a thermonuclear warhead that was stated to be in the 50 Megaton range (City)

Harley states that it had the power to destroy Gotham City

Survived this very large explosion

Scaling

Rick Taylor

Various Monsters

As the unstoppable master of monster manslaughter, Rick has obviously killed every bloodsucker, brainmuncher, and soul-stealer he’s fought in the games, and should thus exceed their capabilities given he outmatched them.

The Evil One

Can’t get much deadlier than the Evil One himself. This was the semi-final boss to Splatterhouse 3, and by far the deadliest villain in the original trilogy besides the Terror Mask itself. Rick did also defeat said Mask after it stole the Evil One’s power, so the scaling is pretty solid all things considered.

This includes the magic that crumbled the original mansion and dispelled a large storm
It would return all his powers to him, and the Terror Mask stole this power before being beaten by Rick.

The Corrupted/The Abyss

The Corrupted are the main enemies of the Splatterhouse reboot, and they are not one to be messed with. Otherwise known as the Abyss in the original games, these interdimensional monsters are the cream of the monster crop, and Rick has killed them in both traditional and recent gaming terms, so he should definitely scale to them (NOTE: in the remake, the Corrupted inhabit a place known as the Abyss, just to clarify).

Originally, the Abyss (Corrupted original form) “doesn’t understand time” and is a primal fury before science and fire

The remake also describes them as watching with eyes older than time

They inhabit, the Abyss, which is described as Eternal by Dr. Henry West
The Corrupted are referred to as “a higher power” that forces reality itself to bow down to them, and frequently implies a threat to humanity on a worldwide scale. Similarly, reality itself started to unravel as the Corrupted drew near.

The Terror Mask has also stated it could hear the stars start to scream and that the universe was afraid that the Corrupted were coming

According to the Terror Mask (who was their slave for an eternity), the Corrupted are as follows: The Corrupted are “everything and nothing. The many-angled ones; unknowable, timeless, eternal. They inhabit the Abyss, the gulf between what’s said and what’s understood. The place from whence stems all Human suffering. Mankind can only trace their jagged silhouette around the shadow they cast across the world. They are famine, conflict, genocide; they are now and forever, amen… and they are coming your way.”

The Mask

Walter

Survive being shocked by large amounts of electricity
Tanked attacks from the Mask
Survived being burned by a flamethrower, damn, stone faced.
Survived being hit by a car and exploding along with multiple gas tanks
Was once again able to overpower the Mask, Big Head once again being surprised at how powerful he is

And again, he made the Mask just give up instead of fighting

Could easily smash through a brick wall and take down multiple officers
Bitch slapped a guy so hard he quickly flew through a car
Was able to smash and stop a piano that fell on him with his bare hands
Survived a large explosion in a car that was caused by an RPG

Lobo

When two of the meanest mother-hubbers this side of Deadpool (who they both murdered) met each other, Mask crossed paths with DC’s main man; Lobo. The Mask fought Lobo when he was hired to bag “the ultimate bastich” and this, of course, led into a fight sparking their adventures. This duel showcased Mask matching and exceeding Lobo quite easily in multiple areas, like damaging him with explosions, keeping up with him physically, and outspeeding his regeneration. The only reason Lobo won when all was said and done, was his using a guilt bomb to, well, guilt him into taking the Mask off. He then proceeded to frag the universe with its powers, and this then got explained through a complicated paradox. So, scaling is pretty blatant, but since most argue it's an elseworlds Lobo, we’ll only be using feats from the crossover specifically.

Lobo’s SpaceHog traveled to Earth from across the galaxy in about a day (36.533 Millions C)

Other aliens from the same planet he was on were stated to be from across the galaxy, and an alien he was speaking to earlier noted Earth was in another system

Singing clones of him and the Mask narrowly survived a blast (only their bones remained) from a Chain Reaction Gun, which destroyed an entire solar system planet by planet (Large Planet)
Working with the Mask, the Duo killed both a Moon and a Sun God who are depicted as the actual celestial bodies (Star)

Lobo with the Mask survived being in a massive black hole and a subsequent blast from an alien armada
Slaughtered countless worlds in a trip that crossed the universe in about a month, give or take (1.144 Trillions C)

Weaknesses

Rick Taylor

Rick Taylor may seem almost unstoppable, but even he is not immune to drawbacks. The Terror Mask and its sadistic whisperings in his ear could always win out at some point, and its bloodthirsty nature in general could be exploited by a smart enough foe. Even aside from that, the majority of Rick’s tools have finite ammo and can be broken after enough strikes, with the Mask itself not being exempt from this flaw. It has stated itself that the healing factor it gives Rick has limits, and too much damage will kill them both.

While they can patch up wounds with Necro Meter by draining life from enemies to heal Rick’s body, too much accumulated damage without that Necro energy or blood to heal should be fatal. This is also proved by the Mask being present on the decayed corpse of its last host (which it presumably could not save itself from), and the Mask itself can be killed by shattering it, like Rick did himself at the end of the original series.

The Mask

While the Mask is incredibly powerful, it does have its blatant weaknesses. Of course, like I mentioned before, it's not trapped or sealed on a person's body, the user can remove it if they really want to. Yes the Mask will attempt to trick the user into keeping it on by trying to control them, but many users have simply ignored the Mask's commands and take it off regardless. Hell, even becoming aware of the wrong you're doing and realizing that you don't want to wear it can let you power through the control the Mask enforces. While the Mask itself is a psychotic serial killer who thrives on Carnage, the consciousness of its wearer is not always that, and can be swayed into taking the Mask off when flooded with guilt for example.

And finally, there's one blatant weakness. The Mask doesn't make you some unstoppable toon force entity that always wins because “he's a cartoon character so he never loses and will never take damage!" I'd like you to meet a man named Walter. You see, Walter doesn't have any powers, he's not superhuman or anything, he's a guy who's built different. When Kathy believed that wearing the Mask meant she could easily defeat him, she was proven wrong when none of her attacks were doing anything to him, he didn't even react and ended up just overpowering her.

Yes he was unable to kill her, but she was doing much less to him because of how strong he was. Even when she kept using guns and pulling out her random weapons, he just kept coming back again and again and again.

Before the verdict

Rick Taylor: Cosmic Arguments

Splatterhouse is known to have very crazy arguments for their stats, whether or not they're legit is what we're about to figure out! First off, Universe and beyond Rick Taylor. There are many statements from the games about world ending or cosmic effects caused by the corrupted. Rick was able to sense beings (the corrupted) that wanted to tear at this world from the other, this isn't very far fetched when the corrupted are seen wanting to break down the barriers of reality in order to be let into our dimension, basically confirming what Rick was feeling. The barriers of reality can be weaker in certain places, allowing Rick to travel to the past or parallel dimensions. These “barriers of reality" are what seemingly connect all these dimensions together, if they're tainted with who knows what could happen. Interdimensional nonsense isn't exactly new to this series, the Mask itself is an Interdimensional being along with the Corrupted. These corrupted beings make up a dimension called the Abyss, this dimension is described to be Eternal, it is the gulf between what’s said and what’s understood. So with all these dimensions intertwined, what does that mean in terms of scaling? The Terror Mask states himself that it could hear the stars start to scream, and that the universe was afraid that the Corrupted were coming. The corrupted would've threatened reality itself, they are said to be a higher power than reality, and it would unravel as the corrupted were drawing near. There are many other statements about this kind of power affecting our world, they were said to be draining it until it would be gone entirely, and beings like the evil one would've spread darkness throughout it. What does the world mean exactly you may ask? Does it mean the universe or the planet? There are some cases showing both, in Splatterhouse 3, darkness spreading across the world in Japanese guidebooks refers to our world as the earth itself, so that would likely not be as impressive. However in the reboot, the world mostly refers to a dimension, the Mask was banished from his “world" which is the Abyss, they constantly refer to other dimensions in guidebooks and statements from the game itself, and "the planet” being the context in some statements wouldn't really make too much sense if I'm going to be honest. So we have beings that could unravel reality, break through the barriers of it, and would drain everything until it would eventually be destroyed, that gives us a good idea of the kind of destruction that could do. And since Reality as a whole intertwines multiple dimensions including the Abyss which is considered eternal, that would mean the Corrupted and anyone who could scale to them (like Rick himself) would be Low Multiversal level. But how about for the speed arguments?

You see Rick Taylor has Immeasurable arguments made for his series, do they work or not? The first argument for Immeasurable Splatterhouse comes from a statement about the Abyss, they describe this eternal void as “not understanding of time", primal fury, waiting for a tool and is a realm before science itself. Now this may mean that the Abyss has existed before anything, and not understanding of time may mean it has existed before time? The arg attempts to call the Abyss a timeless dimension, however a dimension being timeless and moving in it doesn't make you Immeasurable, it means you could resist time stopping. As for the other Immeasurable argument, it comes from the corrupted themselves. They're stated to be timeless beings, and watching over reality with eyes older than time itself. You could interpret this as them having Immeasurable perception since they perceive reality normally despite not having to experience the concept of time, the fact they could perceive time anyways in a physical form does give them some perception potential. However it would most likely not be Immeasurable, considering the fact they're technically limited by their physical forms and the actual statements on those reg ards are very vague. They don't exactly move or do anything in the abyss, they're more so trapped, so them having Immeasurable perception is most likely not the case. Overall Immeasurable Splatterhouse probably isn't legit.

Cartoon Mask?

You're probably wondering, what about the cartoon Mask? Where's the love for Goofy Mask? Know, with the movies, the shows and the comics related to that content. Funnily enough both of these versions have separate continuities, even the cartoon media has connected canon like these comics do. So for documentation purposes, there will be a solo blog for Cartoon Mask that'll be released later down the line! They work very differently, and you'll be very surprised by what your favorite goofy boy has, but please, enjoy this blog for now! And make sure to check out the cartoon blog when it releases!

Bonus Fanart!

(By Roxx)

(By Radjagal)

(By Landontalksalot)

(By KingHero)

Script

Hey I made a script for this hehehe!

Check it out!

Verdict

Now this matchup is a lot closer than I originally thought, well it always was, making fun of the Mask was just funny to see people react to. But this matchup has a pretty good debate to talk about, from their survivability, to their abilities, to their weapons. Which Masked Menace will prove to be the greater chaotic pursuer? Will the Terror Mask kill another corrupted, or will the Mask continue his bloody rampage. Let's talk about it!

Experience/Skill

Both of these ancient beings have been around for a very VERY long time, they've caused death, carnage, and absolute chaos on their journey to absolute to terror. The Terror Mask itself has been stated to be a slave of the corrupted for an Eternity, implying it's existed since they existed which has been before time itself. It has exterminated entire civilizations for fun and was even noted by Dr. West, a brilliant scientist who has been alive for so long he connected with the corrupted for so long, comments that the Terror Mask holds extraordinary power. Rick himself is no slouch in terms of intelligence, he studies Necrobiology and is pretty knowledgeable on ancient cultures like the Aztec and the Mayan. But the Terror Mask and Rick Taylor together, they're real beasts. Many of their adventures together take place over multiple years, considering the fact Splatterhouse 3 takes place 5 years after Splatterhouse 2. They've faced zombies, a multitude of monster types, poltergeists, reality warping demons, enemies that could teleport, giant monsters, and have even fought a ton of mirror versions of himself from a parallel universe, he fought himself multiple times and has won. Rick has defeated the most evil being in the universe, fought armies of demons in the underworld (also while in an elevator rescuing his girlfriend), has escaped hundreds of different levels in the mansions with a ton of different versatile enemies, and killed a physical manifestation of the corrupted themselves. How you may ask? He fought every single monster he's ever killed in his journey, 10,000 monsters, mixed together into one entity, and BEAT it with his bare hands. Rick Taylor is an actual demon….

As for the Big Headed Menace, the Mask entity has also existed for a long time, hundreds and hundreds of years. Having been used for rituals and artifact collection, the Mask has really been all over the place, you could say he goes around. One time it was used by an intergalactic space conqueror who plundered dozens of worlds, massacred entire governments, and destroyed many star fleets in the galaxy. It's even stated to be more like a cosmic disease than any sort of mortal being by ambassadors and world rulers. The influence the Mask has on its victims also shows some skill, especially in terms of how his wearers use him in the first place. Anyone who wears the mysterious artifact will basically retain all of their already set skills and experiences, but use it to an extreme. You could become a pro boxer, or a skilled martial artist if you like to watch Bruce Lee. Your intelligence is kept too, since people like Lieutenant Kellaway, an experienced detective, could retain his lieutenant skills to bust criminals all over the city without rest. And you also of course become more of a cartoon trickster, being able to trick people into killing themselves or each other for laughs. Really it depends on what the wearer could do, but the Mask is an ancient intergalactic evil for a reason.

Now both are very old and ancient beings, and have been through a lot with their wearers, so it may seem difficult to debate who's more skilled than the other. While the Mask has more experience with different users, The Terror Mask's further experience with Rick is far more impressive considering everything they've fought and been through, while the Mask doesn't usually last too long. And sure, the Mask could learn martial arts and is extremely consistent with guns, but it very much depends on who's wearing the Mask. He doesn't necessarily become a master in martial arts, he just fights pretty well because he watched some movies, and Rick himself is already a great fighter. While the Mask was able to fight people like Lobo and went on a whole adventure with him, Rick has fought against far more insane beings and has defeated a more versatile set of monsters. Both Mask's have been on earth for a few hundred years, but the Terror Mask has far more experience in the abyss and has dealt with far more evil and chaotic beings than the Mask for eternity. And yeah the Mask may be a trickster, but Rick is definitely smart enough to call bullshit and not fall for them. Also while the wearer may keep most of their skill, the Mask will eventually take full control and will become full on insane to no end, while we know Rick can maintain control almost constantly. This category goes to RICK TAYLOR.

Arsenal/Equipment

Both of these characters have a ton of weapons at their disposal, lots of guns, lots of killer shit and of course the Mask's themselves. Rick Taylor on his quest to kill the corrupted uses a large spiky 2x4, a large cleaver, a large pipe, a large baseball bat, a large chainsaw, a large shotgun (a lot of large weapons), and can even use the limbs of his opponents to fight. Rick has some other random weapons like throwing knives, rocks, spears, potassium bomb vials, cinder blocks, bones clubs, axes, and Eldritch Orbs that allow him to continuously power up and amplify the Mask's effects. The Terror Mask itself is very powerful, it has an extreme aura that can bring forth a primal rush up the wearer's spine, and contains an immortal soul within it. It feeds on human desires and suffering to unlock immortality, it can give you nightmares to tempt you into using him, and was able to save Rick from death once he was gutted. It can smell emotions, can create Interdimensional portals, and can get stronger from blood. Even without a wearer, the Terror Mask could teleport and shapeshift, levitate into the air and could use telekinesis to fling around and shake objects in the room. Overall a decent set of arsenal..

Onto the Mask, he uses many weapons for his enjoyment, as y'all know he can easily summon any weapon he absolutely wants. These weapons include guns (a shit ton of em, like a LOTTA guns including a Tommy Gun, Hand Gun, Machine Gun, Revolver, Rifle, Submachine Gun, Mini-gun, Pistol Gun, and a whole buncha other crazy shit), face disguises, a bat, a cigar disguised as a bomb, a large magnet, a match, a harpoon gun, a Bazooka, grenade, sword, sleeping pills, Mega Drills, Axe, Guitar Axe, a Mace, Flamethrower, Chainsaw, Dynamite, Jetpack, a large bomb, and even a fucking Tank. Yeah the Mask has a shit ton of crazy things at his disposal, again because he can just summon any weapon he wants. The Mask itself is very powerful, it can talk to the wearer as its own physical entity, and can take control of their actions while wearing the Mask without the wearer even noticing. You can counter this by having enough control over it, but it is still pretty difficult to do so. It can project its spirit inside your head to talk to you and become a voice inside you, and if the human soul is ever separated the Mask entity could just absorb it back. It can force you to have hallucinations of it, believing that it's in the same room as you, and it can haunt your dreams in a way just to tempt you into putting it back on. The Mask in this continuity can even move on its own, being able to pop off of its users face and fly around while projecting its spirit. Even destroying the Mask permanently won't get rid of it since its spirit will still be alive and well, and could even possess anything while the spirit is running amok. And of course, in this continuity the Mask's toon force abilities aren't actually toon force, it's altering temporal and dimensional fields of reality, basically reality warping.

Now both of these guys have a lot to talk about in terms of arsenal, they do generally match each other in most regards. They have guns, explosive projectiles, CQC weapons, bladed arsenal, etc etc. Rick can basically use anything around him as a weapon, including his own opponents, and Eldritch Orbs will help him power up if he's ever low on his blood meter. However, the Mask is just REALLY REALLY versatile. He can summon any kind of weapon he wants, from nukes to bat shit insane guns, to things that are just far to unpredictable for Rick to predict. Rick is very environmental but that only goes so far when you're opponent can just make his weapon as destructive as he pleases, or just overwhelm you with a large amount of them. Now between the actual Mask's, both do have pretty similar abilities. They can both move, fly, and speak on their own, can haunt the dreams of their wearers and inspire lots of carnage and death into their head. While spirit projection is helpful and destroying the Mask won't do anything, the Terror Mask is generally more versatile. On its own it could create Interdimensional portals, teleport, shapeshift, and its telekinesis could counter anything the Mask could do if it ever came to the Mask's if they lost their wearers. While Rick wins the Mask fight, the Mask himself is far too versatile, overwhelming, and straight up unpredictable for Taylor to fight back against. This category goes to THE MASK.

Abilities/Powers

These guys are pretty fucking powerful when it comes to their actual powers, atp we could make this debate a kill count fight with how many people they've killed with their insane abilities. Rick Taylor is basically a steroid-enhanced Mr. Hyde, with near unlimited power and strength. This guy is so powerful he could bat away energy blasts with his bare hands, and can evil kill spirits just by fucking punching them. Rick has a lot of combat moves he could use to make a real splatter in house, whether it's slide attacks, ramming into entire hoards of monsters like a bull, wrestling looking moves, or just yanking out your spine and ripping through your intestines. He has Mask vision which he could use to find clues and highlight objects, can create Interdimensional portals, can manipulate blood from entities whether they're small or gigantic, can siphon or absorb taby blood to amplify his powers and stats; also draining the health from his enemies which is very much passive for him. He could regenerate in mere seconds from impalement and gutting, having his arm ripped off, having his ribs exposed, and could use blood to make the process faster (although too much damage will eventually keep Rick down). Rick can even build up Necro energy in order to amplify himself EVEN more. Necro Energy is basically the essence of life and death, which Rick could tap into through his blood absorption, which comes from both states of being. The Necro meter gets built up by inflicting as much damage as possible and killing the shit out of enemies, and Necro energy allows Rick to access his powerful Berserker state. This state amplifies Rick's power immensely, his health fills up instantly and makes him temporarily invincible. He grows bone-like spikes from his back and arms in order to make more room for his slaughterhouse, he can summon masses of bone and flesh from the Abyss as a sort of ground projectile, and the attacks from this form can also inexplicably bypass shielding immune to his normal physical blows. While in the reboot it lasts 20 seconds, it lasts a minute long in the original games.

The Mask is absolutely insane regarding his abilities, there's a reason people refer to him as a Toon Force god. As everyone knows, the Mask is basically invulnerable to pain, he can't feel anything no matter the damage. This doesn't mean he can't bleed or get damaged, he can still absolutely get cut in the neck or shot in the guns and bleed out but he won't feel a thing! But don't worry, while he can still be damaged his amazing regeneration will help with that! He could regenerate from a barrage of bullets, holes in his head or chest, can pop his head back on if he gets decapitated or move as a head, or just keep going as a skeleton. His torn off limbs could become sentient, can attack you as blood, and could keep fighting as a spirit if you do manage to kill him down to ash. But don't worry he can counter that too, because the Mask could also instantly regenerate from ash and nothing but a miniscule amount of dust! The Mask could summon anything he wants, from weapons to vehicles to entire brigades full of random bullshit. He could transmute any object into whatever he wants, whether it's turning a balloon animal into a Tommy Gun, a cigarette into a bomb, swords into a rocket, a taxi cab into a war machine, or his very own face. The Mask is very well known for his transformations, dude could become whatever he wants like a Bruce Lee figure of a boxer or unimaginable horrors that'll haunt your nightmares. He even transforms his very size to make his head large enough to swallow someone, becoming a giant King Kong, or just becoming larger than a building with a house sized chainsaw. He could teleport and take people by surprise, stretch his body to extreme lengths, can also dimensional travel and transport to Interdimensional vortexes, can breathe fire, can duplicate his head, arms and could split up into tiny clones, can make your skin melt with his farts, can read minds, self-explode into a nuclear bomb, fuse with corpses, and has X-Ray vision that can incinerate you with radiation.

Overall both do have a lot to talk about, they have ways to counter the other and basically keep going no matter what happens. In terms of this category on its own, once again the Mask is just wayyy to versatile with his abilities. He can constantly overwhelm Rick with his size, shapeshifting, summoning, and just about everything the big headed bastard could do. Sure Rick has his dimensional travel, but the Mask could counter it by making his own portal and just following Rick in a Interdimensional chase. The Mask is just way too much for Rick to really handle all at once. Not to mention, killing him will be fucking impossible. Rick can try as much as he can, but the Mask can not only regenerate faster than Rick, but his regeneration is overall much better. The dude has regenerated from dust, nothing Rick will do is keeping him down for good. Hell, even with all of Rick's weapons, the Mask could just transmute all of them whenever he has the chance, which he could easily do. Now this doesn't mean Rick has no advantages in the ability debate, the Size advantage is pretty big but to be fair Rick is very experienced with fighting gigantic enemies. The Mask is also basically an endless blood supply, he can't feel the pain but he's constantly been shown to bleed despite it, so battling the Mask will constantly charge him up. Also if the time comes, he does have a way of permanently killing the bastard, that being destroying his soul. The Mask has never resisted that before and it's an outcome that could eventually happen if the fight goes on long enough. You could even argue blood siphoning allowing Rick to physically adapt to the Mask the whole fight since he's used blood to adapt against bosses in his game, that's basically how you level up and face harder monsters. While the Mask could resist power nullification, Rick could still absorb the blood and get the goods, the Mask would just remain unchanged. Despite his own yadvantages, like everything else, the Mask simply has MORE and would be a lot to handle for Rick in the end. This category goes to THE MASK.

Scaling/Stats

Both of these guys are real powerhouses, they went through a lot in their life and have fucked up a lotta people. But who's the strongest, fastest, and absolutely more cracked individual? We'll use the low ends, then the high more reasonable ends, and then we'll talk about the scaling for both. Rick has many feats displaying his strength, he could break the jaws of large monsters, smash through large pillars by ramming through them, can punch wooden crates to bits, can punch monsters so hard they ignite, could destroy the terror Mask, fight parallel versions of himself, and could catch a fucking meteorite. Rick is fast enough of course catch the meteor, intercept and dodge knives, and is durable enough to tank multiple of those meteorites. Rick fights the corrupted in a physical form, and is able to defeat them alone with his bare hands. He could also defeat the Evil One, who's basically the ultimate evil in the Splatterhouse series. He absorbed all of the dark magic in the world, which includes the magic that crumbled the original mansion and dispelled a large storm, which would get around City level. The Evil One also obscured the moon with a large shadow mimicking an eclipse, which got around MHS+ and Large Planet. And finally regarding the cosmic arguments, Rick scales to the Corrupteds physical form, and was able to directly defeat them. We already talked about this, their own arrival was affecting all of reality and making the Universe itself scared, and reality intertwines multiple dimensions in the Splatterhouse Cosmology. We also talked about how Immeasurable wouldn't really work, so with low ends Rick is Small Planet and MHS+, and with higher ends he's Low Multiversal and MHS+.

Meanwhile for Big Head, his stats are almost as big. The Mask is strong enough to slice a police car in half, blow off pieces of a building, saw a building in half, and could even push buildings over each other like they were falling dominos. The Mask is fast enough to consistently dodge multiple rounds of bullets, hit a baseball so hard it caught on fire which usually gets mach 5, could react to a laser rifle which is debatably rela, and even ran so fast he left a trail of flame which gets hypersonic. And of course we can't forget his most notable showings of feats, his durability. He survives a firing squad with rockets included, falling off a building, a large bomb explosion, exploding into fireworks, and could even survive a 50 Megaton nuclear warhead which gets around the City range. As we all know, Walter is one of the most powerful foes the Mask has ever fought, and has gone through absolute hell during his own personal adventures! He can survive electricity, being burned by a flamethrower, being hit by a car and blown up by gas tanks, could smash through a brick wall, smack people through cars, and even survive an RPG explosion. Now the Mask's cosmic stats basically come from the Mask/Lobo crossover, because the crossover is more seperate from the comic continuity in comparison to anything else, and is funnily enough much higher in scale. We're still going to use because, duh it's cool. Lobo’s spacehog traveled to earth from another galaxy in a day which gets Millions C, survives a blast that destroyed a solar system along with he Mask which gets Large Planet, survive being in a black hole, killed a sun god which gets around the Star range, and went on a Trillions C trip around the universe. So with low ends the Mask is City and Hypersonic, high ends he's Star and Trillions C.

In terms of their low ends, Rick would have the greater stats seeing as he's Small Planet and MHS+ at best, while the Mask is city and Hypersonic. But with their more cosmic higher ends, Rick is Low Multi and…still MHS+, while the Mask is Star and Trillions C. Low ends isn't necessary to say that their high ends can't or shouldn't be used, it's just to compare what they have if you don't really want to use those certain ends. But regardless, the high ends should be used and are the peak of their powers; in the end Rick is much much stronger, while the Mask is much much faster. Rick being much stronger is very important to the debate, but we can talk about that during the conclusion which is coming up! Overall, strength goes to RICK TAYLOR, while speed goes to THE MASK.

Summary

Rick Taylor

"We all have our Demons Rick; it’s time to face yours.”

Advantages

Infinitely stronger than the Mask
With his splatter siphon, the Mask is basically an endless blood supply
Eldritch Orbs helps him out if he ever runs out of blood and needs to power up
Generally more experienced and skilled than the Mask, and has fought a bigger variety of monsters
Could eventually wait for the Mask to get tired, or for the wearer to give up and take the Mask off
Blood absorption helps Rick possibly adapt to the physicality of the Mask
Far more in control of himself
Could actually kill the Mask via soul destruction
The Terror Mask is far more powerful and versatile without a wearer
Jim Cummings as the Terror Mask (fucking Winnie the Pooh)
The entire voice cast of Splatterhouse 2010

Bro is voiced by The Spectacular Spider-Man, tortured by Winnie the Pooh, dating Larxene, and fighting Richard Doyle

Disadvantages

….also infinitely slower than the Mask
Regeneration is absolutely worse in comparison
Not as versatile in hax and abilities
Can be drained of blood if he doesn't fight for long enough
Basically all of his weapons are vulnerable to Transmutation
Never got a sequel to the remake…
Splatterhouse 3 bed ending…

The Mask

“When I'm in the front–i’m in the back!

When I'm alive–you’re dead!!

Advantages

Infinitely faster than Rick Taylor
Has much better regeneration/quicker and more instant
More versatile in abilities and arsenal
Generally more unkillable no matter how strong Rick is
Could eventually wait out the blood meter so Rick dies from lack of energy
Could easily transmute any weapon Rick has at his disposal
Takes the size advantage and could keep fighting no matter the state he's in
Jim Carrey as the Mask in the movie adaptation
One of the most underrated comic book runs ever (I recommend y'all check them out yourselves)

Disadvantages

….also infinitely weaker than Rick Taylor.
His wearer could eventually get tired or just give up the Mask which has happened before
Far more unstable and can lose control of himself if the Mask gains control
Much more vulnerable without a wearer
Has been useless against people much more powerful than him before, like Walter
The Mask: World Tour……
Has a pretty bad ending to the series.

Conclusion

Overall this was a VERY interesting debate to talk about, both of these guys are very powerful, almost unkillable, and are absolutely bloody as hell. This was probably my most fun blog experience just because of how insane these bastitches are. But ultimately only one of these crazy motherfuckers comes out on top, and when we add everything together, it's easy to see exactly who is the more superior Mask of carnage. The Mask being infinitely faster does mean that Rick will have a harder time trying to even catch him, all of his weapons are negged by the Mask just transmuting them, the Mask has far more abilities and weapons in general since he's basically a reality warper who could summon anything he wants, and he's just impossible to kill for good. He can come back from powder and dust for crying out loud, him being extremely unkillable is his main thing. Not to mention if Rick is unable to actually land a hit on the Mask, he'll eventually lose a lot of blood, which will eventually make him much more vulnerable to attacks. Rick doesn't even have a way incapping him either, the Mask could keep fighting as a ghost or even as pure blood. And while Rick's regeneration is very very good, the Mask's is just far more instant, again, he could regenerate from Dust in an instant. So with all these factors, it seems like the Mask easily wins this right? Wrong. Rick is infinitely much more powerful than the Mask, and with the Mask's tendency to mess with his opponents and get up close in a fight, he's basically punching a brick wall and getting bloody while doing it. All Rick needs to really do is catch him off guard and the Mask is an infinite blood supply, which isn't hard to do since the wearer can be talked to like a normal person, he can be reasoned with. Even if he runs out of blood, the Eldritch Orbs could still help him power up if he gets weakened, even achieving his mutant state. Rick is also much smarter and more experienced with creatures similar to the Mask as he has faced a very versatile amount of monsters and demons, meanwhile the Mask usually fights normal guys and the occasional superhero. The Mask may have the ability to develop skills he wouldn't know of beforehand, he can still quickly lose control and attack without thinking. And if you do argue Rick stonewalls and the Mask is basically punching into concrete over and over again, blood could debatably let Rick match the Mask's level. Because remember, blood in Splatterhouse makes him more powerful based on the monster he's killing, if he kills a boss, he gets a lot more blood and unlocks many more skills. It makes him stronger and helps him adapt to stronger enemies, it's how he develops through the game, so he could possibly just eventually catch up to the Big Headed Killer. And finally, y'all knew we were going to talk about this in the conclusion, Walter..that bastard. Walter proves that the Mask has a physical limit, if he's fighting someone much stronger than him, then he won't really be able to do anything. While he has “toon force", it rarely did anything to Walter, and eventually the Mask just gives up or runs away. Realistically, the same thing would happen here, the Mask would attempt to attack and blitz as much as he wants but he doesn't have a way to incap Rick. While the Mask has unlimited energy to catch criminals for an entire night, he has gotten tired fighting against Walter multiple times, he has retorted to running away or simply giving the Mask up. There's still a person under there, someone who probably doesn't want to fight forever, inevitably there's a chance the wearer would just choose to give up and drop the Mask which has happened many many times before. While the Mask can commit actions by itself, if this ever came to a Mask fight, the Terror Mask is wayy more versatile on its own and could end it very quickly. And while the Mask can project itself as a spirit and could possess another object even if the Mask is destroyed, Rick can destroy souls with his bare hands, therefore having a way to kill the Mask for good. In the end, while the Mask is extremely versatile, EXTREMELY insane, and almost unkillable, Rick had everything he needed by himself to win this, he's simply too strong, too experienced with this kinda thing, and had a way to put the Mask down for good. The Mask's L was bigger than his head, while Rick made this fight a real Splatterhouse.

Rick Taylor has escaped this deadly fate and is tonight's winner

The Mask on the other hand, has been sentenced to Death By Blog

THE WINNER IS RICK TAYLOR

What's Next?

Credits:

Deadpool vs the Mask by Death Battle

Thank you to RedheadedElf of course for doing funny calcs, really helped for the low ends! And of course thank you to Round1Fight who helped with the Splatterhouse research and helped with some of the Mask's stuff, including calcs and sources. He was a big help and helped the blog come out to something I'm really proud of! Thank you all for reading and remember to check out the Cartoon Mask blog when it releases!

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

Death By Blog: Rick Taylor vs the Mask

Welcome to DBB

Before We Begin

Connections

Background

Rick Taylor

The Mask

Skill and Experience

Rick Taylor

The Mask

Arsenal

Rick Taylor

Terror Mask

Combat Items

2x4

Cleaver

Pipe

Baseball Bat

Chainsaw

Shotgun

Miscellaneous

Eldritch Orbs

The Mask

The Mask (Artifact)

Guns

Disguises

Bat

Cigar Bomb

Magnet

Match

Harpoon Gun

Bazooka

Grenade

Sword

Sleeping Pills

Mega Drill

Axe

Guitar Axe

Mace

Electric Guitar

Flamethrower

Chainsaw

Dynamite

Jetpack

Bomb

Cartoon Bomb

Tank

Abilities

Rick Taylor

Mutant Physiology

Combat Moves

Mask Vision

Splatter Siphon

Blood Manipulation and Absorption

Regeneration

Necro Energy

4th Wall Breaking

The Mask

Invulnerability

Regeneration

Hammerspace/Summoning

Transmutation/Transformation

Teleportation

Elasticity

4th Wall Awareness

Dimensional Travel

Fire Manipulation

Duplication

Size Manipulation

Fragrance Manipulation

Dream Manipulation

Possession

Miscellaneous

Forms

Rick Taylor

Berserker Mode

The Mask

Lost-Control

Ghost Form