While Frieza has established himself as a legendary Dragon Ball villain and one of the franchise’s most recognizable characters, he has lately been eclipsed by a younger villain who has triumphed where Frieza has failed miserably. Frieza was dead for good during the Dragon Ball Z period when Future Trunks chopped him to pieces. Frieza reappeared in Dragon Ball Super, and after being murdered a second time by the Z-Fighters after attempting to conquer planet Earth, he was resurrected to aid Dragon Ball’s heroes in saving the universe during the Tournament of Power. Frieza has pledged to take up where he left off and conquer the world with his more permanent return to canon, despite the fact that he seems to have previously been exposed by a much more effective adversary.
Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball Z Chapter 53 “Planet Namek, Cold and Dark” introduced fans to Frieza. Frieza and his army attacked Planet Namek in quest of the wish-granting Dragon Balls in order for Frieza to achieve ultimate power. Frieza’s objectives, however, are thwarted when the Z-Fighters arrive on the planet and battle his men. Frieza challenges Goku to a last fight in a last-ditch attempt to win, a famous encounter during which Goku achieves Super Saiyan status for the first time. Goku totally kills Frieza, ripping him in two and blasting him with one last surge of energy while the whole world surrounding him crumbles into nothing but fragments of space rock, much to the tyrant’s humiliation.
Frieza failed spectacularly in his mission to acquire all of the Dragon Balls on Planet Namek, something that cannot be said of Goku and Vegeta’s most terrifying adversary. Moro, an ancient sorcerer fueled by the billions of people he’s slain from the various worlds he’s devoured, embarked on a search for the Dragon Balls on the new Planet Namek, and was successful in Dragon Ball Super Chapter 48 by Akira Toriyama and Toyotarou. Moro seeks to get the Dragon Balls in order to become the most powerful version of himself throughout that tale. Moro, unlike Frieza, is able to get all of the Dragon Balls and have his nefarious desire fulfilled, making him not only a more effective villain, but also a much more powerful one.
The startling parallels between Frieza and Moro’s quest for the Dragon Balls aren’t the only thing that connects this Dragon Ball Super plot to the Dragon Ball Z story. In Dragon Ball Z, Vegeta was seeking for the Dragon Balls at the same time as Frieza. While this may seem to be a positive thing in light of Vegeta’s newfound heroics, the Saiyan warrior was a dangerous adversary at the time. Vegeta destroys a whole town of Namekians in his own selfish pursuit for the Dragon Balls, an act he is ashamed of and spends the entire Dragon Ball Super plot atoning for.
With one major exception, this Dragon Ball Super plot is strikingly similar to the Namekian tale from Dragon Ball Z, from Vegeta’s efforts to atone for his past misdeeds to the parallels between Frieza and Moro’s path. Moro, the villain in Dragon Ball Super, succeeds in obtaining the Dragon Balls from the Namekians, thereby achieving what Frieza could not.
