Highlights
- Freeza and Cell are two different flavors of evil in Dragon Ball, with different goals and motivations.
- Freeza is given the luxury of being reintroduced and considered for the Tournament of Power.
- Cell, while easier to appeal to with promises of strength, was overlooked in favor of Freeza due to uncertainties.
Between Freeza and Cell, Dragon Ball has always shown these two to be different flavors of evil. Freeza is an evil tyrant and Cell is an egocentric battle-maniac. Despite being similar to each other, the two villains don’t have the same goals or motivations half the time. That’s not to say people wouldn’t be excited if both of these villains made a comeback or were reintroduced. However, Freeza is the only one of the two to be given that luxury, even being considered for the Tournament Of Power as a last resort. However, that took convincing from Goku and a promise of resurrection back to the world of Dragon Ball.
However, why not Cell? Cell may be an evil egomaniac, but he is easier to appeal to with the promise of stronger opponents and proving his superiority. While the answer to that may take some digging, there are different places we can look to.
What Cell Could Have Offered
A Possible Explanation of His Contribution
To understand Cell, we need to remind ourselves of the last time he had a power-up and how he was defeated at the time. Going from imperfect, to semi-perfect, to perfect, and eventually regenerating from near death to a Super Perfect Cell; Cell has always been shown to be able to grow stronger, whether through absorbing bio-matter as his first two forms, or regenerating from near death thanks to his Saiyan Biology. While they were on a really short time frame at the time, the Z-Fighters relying on Freeza was confirmed to be like working with a possibly traitorous teammate that couldn’t hold back, or would kill for fun. In comparison, it’s easy to appeal to Cell’s ego, so all they would have to do is to easily give him a reason to not just become beyond perfect, but also take advantage of his Zenkai boost and regeneration.
On top of that, if Cell Max’s color scheme was any indication, Cell could potentially reach stronger forms that push his cells and body to their absolute limit during the Tournament of Power. Whether it be by exploiting his Zenkai Boost in the middle of the tournament, or learning new techniques and picking up the ability to use God Ki from Goku and Vegeta. Even if he would have a lot of trouble against Jiren regardless, at the end of the day, Cell’s regeneration isn’t against the rules of the Tournament, so he could technically also be clever and use it to his advantage. With Cell’s potential for growth, thanks to his cells and ability to adapt, may make him a powerful opponent and asset for Universe 7. Of course, while all of these reasons make a case for him, there are other reasons why he wasn’t mentioned or even brought up.
Why Cell Was Overlooked
The Emperor’s Advantage
To begin with, Cell has been canonically dead thanks to Gohan for almost a decade. 7 years of peace passed, and Buu became the biggest threat at the time, before he was inevitably defeated as well. When Freeza made his return to Dragon Ball, not only did he become stronger thanks to training, but he also destroyed the earth once before Whis reversed time. On top of that, Freeza was able to go up against Super Saiyan Blue with no problems, and he was proven to have gotten stronger in the Tournament of Power. Needless to say, while Cell has a lot of potential as a teammate and would have been the easily convincing option, it wasn’t enough. Freeza was the only one who was on Goku’s mind at the time, and the only one with actual evidence to back up his power that nearly drove Super Saiyan Blue to being useless at the time. With Cell, there isn’t really that same guarantee. Not only has Cell been dead for too long, there is no real evidence to suggest he has gotten stronger in Hell.
Overall, Cell is overlooked not because he couldn’t possibly be a better option, but because there are too many unknowns to see if he could become stronger in a short timeframe, and whether his ego would get the better of him. At least with Freeza, the emperor had been on everybody’s mind recently, and not only matured dangerously but grew stronger and overcame a stamina weakness. Even so, Cell as a member of team Universe 7, could have been a consistent, interesting choice to pick. Alas, Dragon Ball had different plans for the design of Cell, and it seems like we’ll be kept waiting for a while.
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