Dragon Ball Still Has More to Explore With Raditz & The Saiyan Needs a Chance

Redemption is a hallmark of the Dragon Ball franchise, and so many capitalized on their second chances with Raditz being no different. The brother of Goku and the son of Bardock came to Earth with destruction in mind alongside fellow Saiyans, Vegeta and Nappa. His introduction in Dragon Ball Z gave everyone a small glimpse into the ruthless, bloodthirsty Saiyan, but outside of that and a brief cameo in Dragon Ball Super: Broly, there hasn’t been much else canon-wise.

Raditz did get his second appearance in the franchise in Super Dragon Ball Heroes. This Raditz is a multiverse version that never obviously never experienced the events of Z or he’d be non existent. Goku’s brother clearly stepped up his game in this appearance as he turned into a Super Saiyan 3 in his battle with Turles. He’s ultimately defeated, and his particular timeline is eliminated for failing to advance in the Super Space-Time Tournament. It’s a quick but fun cameo for Raditz, but it doesn’t have to be the end either.

Dragon Ball Should Embrace Extra Raditz Storylines

The interesting Raditz arc starts with the aforementioned multiverse. An evil Saiyan turned good is the route that a few original villains/anti-heroes get in the Dragon Ball world like Vegeta, Broly, Bardock, and more. Bardock and Broly gave fans a mostly evil first impression in non-canon material before being brought in as good, canon characters in the recent Dragon Ball Super: Broly film. Raditz is the opposite of those two, however, as he started off evil in the official timeline. But he could take a similar route in another “what if” Dragon Ball world, just like his father did in the Xenoverse.

The multiverse already unveiled one iteration of him in Super Dragon Ball Heroes. There are surely other forms out there, and like Future Trunks, he could be brought into the canon or stay a fun non-canon entity that exists alongside the Evil Saiyan Cumber and the original version of Broly. He showed almost no compassion in his official form. Maybe the newest one can learn from his past mistakes? In fact, the only moment of any true caring that we get from the original Raditz was seeing his surprise when Goku was willing to sacrifice himself in order to defeat him.

Maybe this new Raditz either finds a way to survive the blast or is wished back somehow and changes his ways? He then might leave the Frieza Force and take Goku’s route. It’s clear that other versions were able to obtain some immense power, so he could turn into quite the formidable ally for the Z Fighters if given the chance.

Dragon Ball Continues To Open All Possibilities

This run of recent content for Dragon Ball has a lot of fan service, but it’s also what a lot people are asking for. For a long time, Dragon Ball was extremely selective in what it decided to focus on. The video games allowed fans to dream up all sorts of scenarios, but few came to fruition or were uncanonized. Akira Toriyama created a fantastic series, and he leaned into some of those non-canon stories in Dragon Ball Daima.

Furthermore, Dragon Ball Super and Super Dragon Ball Heroes were products of listening to the fans. They didn’t need to make everything official either. With the latter, they didn’t need a fully thought-out plot to bring back lots of past Saiyans and variants of others. They just opened the door to more ideas. Raditz might get the next run or Cumber, but the point is that there’s more to explore in the coming years with the franchise. Would you like to see the return of Goku’s brother in a new form? Let us know in the comments.

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