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Throughout Dragon Ball Super, we’ve seen both Goku and Vegeta progressing toward God status, but will Goku become an Angel and Vegeta a God of Destruction?
Given the recent Dragon Ball Super chapters, the series seems to be setting this exact scenario up for the end of the series. Given how intertwined their journeys are, it’s also impossible to discuss Goku becoming an Angel without addressing Vegeta becoming a God of Destruction. There’s a lot of evidence to go through for both, so let’s get started.
Dragon Ball: Could Goku ever become an Angel and join Whis' ranks?
Shared growth
While Goku and Vegeta have recently chosen different paths to the top, their first steps were exactly the same. Both had to first achieve Super Saiyan God status via the ritual seen in the Dragon Ball Battle of Gods movie or Dragon Ball Super’s TV adaptation. While Vegeta does this ritual offscreen, it has been officially confirmed that he did the ritual.
After both achieve SSG status, we see them learning to channel God Ki into themselves in order to become perfect SSGs. This form is commonly known as Super Saiyan Blue, or Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan (SSGSS). After successfully achieving these forms during Dragon Ball Resurrection F or the Dragon Ball Super adaptation, the two begin to take different routes.
Goku’s path
After achieving and perfecting Super Saiyan Blue, Goku set out to do something fans had never seen before. During the Universe 6 Saga of Dragon Ball Super, we see Goku successfully mix Kaioken and Super Saiyan Blue.
Goku had previously stated that Kaioken was too much to combine with normal Super Saiyan. However, the training needed to achieve SSGSS allowed his body to handle the stress of combining techniques, at least temporarily.
From this point on, Goku’s growth is fairly stagnant until he learns of Ultra Instinct and meets Jiren. Ultra Instinct is a true power of the Gods, where one’s body will dodge and attack instinctively without any direction from the brain. Whis uses this effortlessly as he trains with Goku and Vegeta, being able to dodge their attacks with his eyes closed.
Goku first unlocks Ultra Instinct during the Tournament of Power while facing Jiren after Goku absorbs his own Spirit Bomb. This absorption pushed his body to its limits, creating new limits and allowing Goku to tap into Ultra Instinct.
Later on in the Tournament, Goku finally achieves full control of Ultra Instinct, referred to as Mastered Ultra Instinct. In this form, a blueish-white aura surrounds Goku while his hair pupils turn platinum white. All Gods present are impressed, and stand out of respect for Goku’s achievement.
Goku still has a long way to go before full mastery of Ultra Instinct. However, we see here that he’s at least capable of, and respected for, breaking into the realm of the Gods. This one moment truly defines the argument that Goku can become an Angel.
Vegeta’s path
Vegeta has a somewhat more delayed path than Goku. After perfecting SSGSS, Vegeta goes quite a long time in Dragon Ball Super before training for or revealing a new form. We see Vegeta try and activate Ultra Instinct during the Tournament of Power, but he eventually decides that’s not his style.
After that decision, Vegeta debuts the Super Saiyan Blue Evolved form during his fight with Jiren. This form is a result of Vegeta breaking his shell and increasing Blue’s power as well as his choice to forgo Ultra Instinct and evolve SSGSS his own way. After ending his fight with Jiren, Vegeta faces God of Destruction form Toppo and defeats him.
This is a great way to show Vegeta isn’t necessarily slipping behind, but rather taking his own path to God/Angel status. Jiren takes this a step further by comparing its power to Goku’s imperfect Ultra instinct form. This further highlights that Vegeta isn’t so much falling behind as making his own route.
Vegeta has a slight touchup to the Evolved form, but his next big upgrade in Dragon Ball Super comes in his Ultra Ego form. Achievable only to those trained in the ways and with the power of a God of Destruction, Vegeta achieves this form after training with Beerus. In fact, Beerus introduces this power to Vegeta as an alternate route to the Domain of the Gods.
During his fight with Granolah, Vegeta described the form as the polar opposite of Ultra Instinct. Presumably, this is to say that Ultra Ego requires full-on focus from the user in order to stay in the mindset of a God of Destruction. This mindset is necessary to use the power, so it makes sense to be described as the opposite of Ultra Instinct.
The future
With both having accessed forms of God-like power, Goku and Vegeta have a clear shot at Angel and Destruction God status respectively. All that’s left for both is to train their bodies to the point where these states can come about naturally, without forced transformations.
While that may seem easy, fans should remember the Cell Saga when Goku and Gohan needed nearly a year to maintain Super Saiyan form constantly. Given the much higher status of Ultra Ego and Ultra Instinct, it’s safe to say Goku and Vegeta have a long way to go before they get there.
Final thoughts
Regardless of temporal concerns, it’s clear that Goku will become an Angel and Vegeta a God of Destruction.
The subtle hints in their journey so far are too plentiful to be ignored. When combined with the parallels and differences, it’s a pretty obvious foreshadowing for our heroes’ futures.
