While Vegeta and Goku are in a seemingly endless struggle to become stronger than the other, with Vegeta regularly trailing just one step behind Goku throughout most of his Dragon Ball career, there is one category that Vegeta has complete and utter supremacy over: coolness–and his first Super Saiyan transformation proves it.
Goku was introduced in the first chapter of Dragon Ball, but Vegeta wouldn’t come into play until roughly two-hundred chapters later, though when he did, he changed the game forever. While the two started off as enemies, they quickly found themselves fighting side-by-side against even greater foes. Vegeta first joined the Z Fighters after he broke away from Frieza’s control while on Planet Namek, and then he stayed with them upon their victorious trip back to Earth. While Vegeta claimed he was only hanging around so that he could surpass Goku and prove himself as the superior Saiyan, it quickly became clear that Vegeta found his true family, both figuratively and literally, and he didn’t want to leave their side–including and especially when he trained harder than he ever had before to become strong enough to protect the Earth from the threat of the Androids.
In Dragon Ball chapter 343 by Akira Toriyama, Vegeta arrives at the battlefield set by the Z Fighters and Androids 19 and 20 who were threatening to decimate the world. When he gets there, Vegeta wastes little time displaying the new level of power he attained during his three-year training session: the Super Saiyan transformation. When Vegeta transformed into a Super Saiyan before the eyes of friend and foe alike, everyone around him was shocked to the point of speechlessness, until Vegeta broke the silence by looking the Androids straight in the eye, with a cocky half-smirk on his face, and said, “You don’t feel pain, do you? Lucky you.”
That line is so unbelievably badass that the Androids should have just given up right there and handed Vegeta the win, but instead the villain decided to test Vegeta’s might–and it was certainly lucky for the Androids that they couldn’t feel pain. Vegeta absolutely demolishes Android 19, literally tearing him limb-from-limb without breaking a sweat before sending Android 20 running for the hills. Not only did Vegeta deliver one of the coolest lines of dialogue in Dragon Ball history upon his Super Saiyan transformation, but he was also able to back it up without failure, which just made the whole scene that much cooler.
While Goku’s first time going Super Saiyan was emotional and intense as it was right after Krillin was killed by Frieza and Goku used that rage to avenge his friend’s death, it was almost too loaded to be ‘cool’ in the way Vegeta’s transformation was. There was no tragedy or vengeful duty surrounding Vegeta’s transformation, he simply powered up, delivered an awesome line, and wiped the floor with the villains he spent the last three years training to defeat–proving that, while he may not be as strong as Goku (though that’s debatable), Vegeta will certainly always be cooler, and his first time going Super Saiyan cements that fact forever in Dragon Ball history.
