Powers & Abilities Marco is like (a time-limited) Majin Bu

[Patryipe]

I thought this was common knowledge, but the more I discuss Marco these days the more I see how half the people have no fucking clue how his power works.

Let's break it down.

1) His regeneration has a limit.

This was confirmed by Oda in a SBS.

D: Hello for the first time, Oda-sensei. I've read all the previous 57 volumes, and I was thinking, I don't quite understand how "Phoenix Marco"'s Zoan fruit of the "legendary beast" kind is different from Ace's "Meramera" fruit. P.N. CNY

O: Yeah, I know... I've omitted the explanation from this war arc, because I focused on the pacing and wanted to move the story forward. To explain Marco's ability just a little bit: he's Zoan, so he does have a body. But since he's got "the blue fire of revival" - the Phoenix's ability - wounds will regenerate, so attacks will not damage him (though there's a limit to the regeneration). In other words, the flames are for regeneration. These blue flames don't have the characteristics of actual fire - they don't spread and burn things, and they aren't hot. They're completely different from Ace's flames. I might touch on this in the main story at some point, so I'll leave it at this for now.

The limit can also be shown by the fact that after MF during WB's funeral Marco was wearing bandages, implying he had at least some injuries he could not heal with his powers because they had run out at that point.

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2) Forget limbs, as long as his regeneration is available he can survive mortal wounds.

Example #1 - Kizaru turns him into a swiss cheese, and blews off a part of his brain.

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Example #2 - A fodder puts a sword through his skull.

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Example #3 - Queen almost detaches his head from the rest of his body.

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The panel should be self explanatory. This is why Marco can basically stall anyone, including Admirals and Yonko. There isn't much more that you can do when mortally wounding a guy doesn't work. There's only two ways to deal with him:

- Remove his regeneration with seastone (like in MF) or with some hax powers (for example turning him into a toy with Sugar's power)
- Keep wounding him so he needs to regen until he reaches his limit and can finally be killed (pretty much the standard strategy)

It's not clear if you could simply knock him unconscious (like Luffy after Thunder Bagua) or if his regen would kick in and wake him up immediately [Remeber that Enel jump started his heart...] but considering that even Big Mom didn't wanna try and wanted to move on I'd go for a no.

3) Is it really impossible to kill him while he has his regen?

Okay, there might be a way. Basically the way to kill Majin Bu is to simply wipe him out completely. Wipe out every atom of his body so that there is nothing that can start the regeneration process. This might work, or maybe not because maybe Marco would regenerate even out of thin air, who knows. But the point is moot because there is no one who has shown the attack power to do anything close to that. Maybe a magma bath from Akainu could do that, but I doubt that it would be quick enough to kill Marco before his regen kicks in if Marco has freedom of movement.

So at the end of the day, as long as his regeneration is available the dude is basically immortal.

 

[SLC_Girl]

Not like Majin Buu.
Marco has shown many limits with his regen.
Yes he can survive mortal wounds while having his blue flame activated, but blue flame activation at latest during moment of impact, seems to be a must, when Kizaru lasered him in pure human form, Marco vomited blood, was seriously affected, had to concentrate and reactivate blue flame to heal, to the point Onigumo caught him.
There are wounds he can't recover from(or rather he just leaves them there to conserve his blue flame usage?), we aren't sure what type yet, but Marco has shown to have wounds on his face at random moments, like when Luffy arrived during MF, and in recent chapter, he is bleeding from his head. A feat that might be related to this is that after Marco getting punched by Garp in his Phoenix form, there was a bruise mark on his face after he turned back into human form. So unlike Majin Buu, he bleeds.
Also, Marco needs bandage, despite his DF healing ability, like after MF during WB funeral, and after the Roger vs WB 3 day fight.

This chapter has shown more limitations, for example, when King cut off Marco's wing, Marco seemingly lost the ability to fly for a bit, he didn't turn his left hand back into a wing, even to the end of the chapter; also Marco can control his "detached blue flame body parts", but through a median and a technique, the median seems to be the thing on his tail, and he uses his hand for direct it. So if his head gets cut off let's say, he might not be able to control his detached body parts through will.

 

[Patryipe]

Not like Majin Buu.
Marco has shown many limits with his regen.
Yes he can survive mortal wounds while having his blue flame activated, but blue flame activation at latest during moment of impact, seems to be a must, when Kizaru lasered him in pure human form, Marco vomited blood, was seriously affected, had to concentrate and reactivate blue flame to heal, to the point Onigumo caught him.
There are wounds he can't recover from(or rather he just leaves them there to conserve his blue flame usage?), we aren't sure what type yet, but Marco has shown to have wounds on his face at random moments, like when Luffy arrived during MF, and in recent chapter, he is bleeding from his head. A feat that might be related to this is that after Marco getting punched by Garp in his Phoenix form, there was a bruise mark on his face after he turned back into human form. So unlike Majin Buu, he bleeds.
Also, Marco needs bandage, despite his DF healing ability, like after MF during WB funeral, and after the Roger vs WB 3 day fight.

This chapter has shown more limitations, for example, when King cut off Marco's wing, Marco seemingly lost the ability to fly for a bit, he didn't turn his left hand back into a wing, even to the end of the chapter; also Marco can control his "detached blue flame body parts", but through a median and a technique, the median seems to be the thing on his tail, and he uses his hand for direct it. So if his head gets cut off let's say, he might not be able to control his detached body parts through will.

Okay, you have a good point about needing to activate the flames, I'll add that to the first post tomorrow.

For the rest, you are taking me to literally on the Majin Bu part. I never implied he could control the body parts that were cut off like Bu did, I just wanted to make the point he could survive and regenerate from mortal wounds.

As far as blood or minor bruises are concerned my idea is that is coming from minor injuries that he is ignoring to conserve his regeneration since it is a finite resource and I also think it is an art choice by Oda to show that the fight is still causing him problems.

I did address the funeral bandages at the start. That implies his regen run out during MF. There is no reason for him to need bandages when he can regenerate entire body parts from scratch.

I don't see why beheading him should be different from having a sword through his skull or having part of his brain blown off.

 

[SLC_Girl]

Okay, you have a good point about needing to activate the flames, I'll add that to the first post tomorrow.

For the rest, you are taking me to literally on the Majin Bu part. I never implied he could control the body parts that were cut off like Bu did, I just wanted to make the point he could survive and regenerate from mortal wounds.

As far as blood or minor bruises are concerned my idea is that is coming from minor injuries that he is ignoring to conserve his regeneration since it is a finite resource and I also think it is an art choice by Oda to show that the fight is still causing him problems.

I did address the funeral bandages at the start. That implies his regen run out during MF. There is no reason for him to need bandages when he can regenerate entire body parts from scratch.

I don't see why beheading him should be different from having a sword through his skull or having part of his brain blown off.

This is a pretty interesting topic.
My take on bandages, might not be that his regen completely ran out, I mean it comes back later on right? If he rests. I actually think there are wounds he can't regen from via blue flame, we aren't sure what type, but it's the same idea as timing of blue flame activation, as well as Garp punch.
Kizaru laser and Garp punch are 2 opposite cases, both affected him.
One is he's in human form, draws blood, partially transforms(or summon blue flame, same concept); the other was him in Phoenix form, but leaves a bruise mark.
Now that got me thinking:
1. if Marco was attacked without blue flame activated during moment of impact, aka his blue flame activation is "delayed", he actually receives concrete damage, harder for him to recover, just like his blue flame healing gets weaker when used on others, it might get less effective as it's delayed, he has to recover from some of these damage like a normal person, requires bandage.
2. if Marco was hit constantly by attacks like Garp punch, it doesn't matter if he has blue flames activated, he will receive real damage, since he received damage in Phoenix form in Garp's case, that should also require him to use bandage. Unless he purposely left the bruise mark on, though he was in Phoenix form while getting hit? Seems less possible.

Now why beheading Marco is different than sword through skull or part of his head blown off.

1. Marco regrows the damaged part, in both of these cases, he prob can't regrow a body from his head, or regrow a head from his body.
2. In case of beheading, it's more like detachment of major body parts, which resembles King's cut in the new chapter, but more severe. Marco didn't regrow his arm/wing, he controlled it, then reattached it, making me think that he needs to do the same with the beheading situation, but that would be hard, his head is not attached to his other hand anymore, like this wing situation.
3. In OP verse, part of his head blown off is prob mortal, but not instantly even without regen, we've seen WB in the same situation, but didn't die right away. However if WB gets beheaded, he's prob dead right away.

 

[sanjikun]

Just think of him as a logia. It shouldn't have been like that since he's a Zooan but his DF is seeming closer and closer to Ace's. Just a blue version of it.

 

[Erkan12]

It's not time limit. It's damage limit.

If you put enough damage, you can win. So far not even Admirals managed to do that, only Garp and Yonko Blackbeard did it.

And we all know Yonko Blackbeard or Garp > Admirals as well. Same Garp said he can kill Akainu, and even Pre-Yonko Blackbeard fought against Sengoku + Garp.

 

[pg13]

Not like Majin Buu.
Marco has shown many limits with his regen.
Yes he can survive mortal wounds while having his blue flame activated, but blue flame activation at latest during moment of impact, seems to be a must, when Kizaru lasered him in pure human form, Marco vomited blood, was seriously affected, had to concentrate and reactivate blue flame to heal, to the point Onigumo caught him.
There are wounds he can't recover from(or rather he just leaves them there to conserve his blue flame usage?), we aren't sure what type yet, but Marco has shown to have wounds on his face at random moments, like when Luffy arrived during MF, and in recent chapter, he is bleeding from his head. A feat that might be related to this is that after Marco getting punched by Garp in his Phoenix form, there was a bruise mark on his face after he turned back into human form. So unlike Majin Buu, he bleeds.
Also, Marco needs bandage, despite his DF healing ability, like after MF during WB funeral, and after the Roger vs WB 3 day fight.

This chapter has shown more limitations, for example, when King cut off Marco's wing, Marco seemingly lost the ability to fly for a bit, he didn't turn his left hand back into a wing, even to the end of the chapter; also Marco can control his "detached blue flame body parts", but through a median and a technique, the median seems to be the thing on his tail, and he uses his hand for direct it. So if his head gets cut off let's say, he might not be able to control his detached body parts through will.

Majin Buu was something else, He was like if a Ancient Zoan, Mythical type, and Logia combined together. And had one of the most unorthodox fighting styles I've ever seen. One of the funnest characters to play with In Budakai Tenkaichi 2/3

 

[Patryipe]

This is a pretty interesting topic.
My take on bandages, might not be that his regen completely ran out, I mean it comes back later on right? If he rests. I actually think there are wounds he can't regen from via blue flame, we aren't sure what type, but it's the same idea as timing of blue flame activation, as well as Garp punch.
Kizaru laser and Garp punch are 2 opposite cases, both affected him.
One is he's in human form, draws blood, partially transforms(or summon blue flame, same concept); the other was him in Phoenix form, but leaves a bruise mark.
Now that got me thinking:
1. if Marco was attacked without blue flame activated during moment of impact, aka his blue flame activation is "delayed", he actually receives concrete damage, harder for him to recover, just like his blue flame healing gets weaker when used on others, it might get less effective as it's delayed, he has to recover from some of these damage like a normal person, requires bandage.
2. if Marco was hit constantly by attacks like Garp punch, it doesn't matter if he has blue flames activated, he will receive real damage, since he received damage in Phoenix form in Garp's case, that should also require him to use bandage. Unless he purposely left the bruise mark on, though he was in Phoenix form while getting hit? Seems less possible.

Now why beheading Marco is different than sword through skull or part of his head blown off.

1. Marco regrows the damaged part, in both of these cases, he prob can't regrow a body from his head, or regrow a head from his body.
2. In case of beheading, it's more like detachment of major body parts, which resembles King's cut in the new chapter, but more severe. Marco didn't regrow his arm/wing, he controlled it, then reattached it, making me think that he needs to do the same with the beheading situation, but that would be hard, his head is not attached to his other hand anymore, like this wing situation.
3. In OP verse, part of his head blown off is prob mortal, but not instantly even without regen, we've seen WB in the same situation, but didn't die right away. However if WB gets beheaded, he's prob dead right away.

Well, if what you are saying is correct though then we're looking at a logia power.

Blue flames actives = Logia intangiblity activated --> Kizaru's first laser barrage (no haki probably) --> No damage basically
Blue fames inactives = No Logia intagibility --> Kizaru's lasers from the back --> Damage to the "real" body. The only difference is that a Logia would keep two holes in his body and have only his "natural" healing ability while Marco could help himself with the blue flames as well.
Blue fames actvies + Haki attack = Same as logia + haki attack --> Garp's punch with haki probably --> Haki pushes the attack beyond the blue flames (and logia intangibility) and damages the "real" body, basically the same effect of Kizaru's second attack.

If that is the case then he's worse than I expected. I assumed he could simply shrug off everything including haki attack until his regen was available and active (that includes beheading, which Logias can survive [Crocodile in MF]), but if you are correct then if King used haki last chapter he would have lost an arm.

 

[Jo_Ndule]

There's a reason why Marco wasn't shown tanking punches like those kizaru lasers:
We could see Akainu brusinh Maroc despite him blocking while Kizaru didnt leave a bruise on Marco ,
He regenerated from his attacks pre seasoned cuff.
Garp had him bandage his head post war

You can drain his regen by spamming continously attacks which has nothing but the choice to tank and regenerate each time

Punches/Kicks are more effective on Marco .
These lasers/beams/slashes take time to outlast his regen.

 

[SLC_Girl]

Well, if what you are saying is correct though then we're looking at a logia power.

Blue flames actives = Logia intangiblity activated --> Kizaru's first laser barrage (no haki probably) --> No damage basically
Blue fames inactives = No Logia intagibility --> Kizaru's lasers from the back --> Damage to the "real" body. The only difference is that a Logia would keep two holes in his body and have only his "natural" healing ability while Marco could help himself with the blue flames as well.
Blue fames actvies + Haki attack = Same as logia + haki attack --> Garp's punch with haki probably --> Haki pushes the attack beyond the blue flames (and logia intangibility) and damages the "real" body, basically the same effect of Kizaru's second attack.

If that is the case then he's worse than I expected. I assumed he could simply shrug off everything including haki attack until his regen was available and active (that includes beheading, which Logias can survive [Crocodile in MF]), but if you are correct then if King used haki last chapter he would have lost an arm.

Still not the same as a Logia, though looks like it. Oda has mentioned in SBS that Marco's Phoenix has a main body.
Blue flame active = instant regen, results in No Damage for most cases.

In fact, the best case to differentiate, is King cutting off Marco's wing. Marco did lose an arm briefly, but he reattached it later on.
What would a Logia do in the same situation? Turn into element and reform, like Kizaru from Apoo's attack, or Croc in MF. But Marco can't reform his wing on the spot like a Logia, he landed on a ledge, likely cuz he can't fly anymore due to a Wing loss. He touched one of his fell-off feathers with his finger, used it as a median to control the shape of his lost wing, so that one side connects to himself, one side is where King is, he jumped into this blue flame aka lost wing, resulting 2 things.
1. pushing King back;
2. reattaching his lost arm.

So technically Marco is never really "intangible", it just looks like he is due to super fast regen with blue flames for some cases.

 

[Patryipe]

Still not the same as a Logia, though looks like it. Oda has mentioned in SBS that Marco's Phoenix has a main body.
Blue flame active = instant regen, results in No Damage for most cases.

In fact, the best case to differentiate, is King cutting off Marco's wing. Marco did lose an arm briefly, but he reattached it later on.
What would a Logia do in the same situation? Turn into element and reform, like Kizaru from Apoo's attack, or Croc in MF. But Marco can't reform his wing on the spot like a Logia, he landed on a ledge, likely cuz he can't fly anymore due to a Wing loss. He touched one of his fell-off feathers with his finger, used it as a median to control the shape of his lost wing, so that one side connects to himself, one side is where King is, he jumped into this blue flame aka lost wing, resulting 2 things.
1. pushing King back;
2. reattaching his lost arm.

So technically Marco is never really "intangible", it just looks like he is due to super fast regen with blue flames for some cases.

Why wouldn't his phoenix wing come back though? He was in phoenix mode --> Lost the wing/arm --> Went human --> Did the process you described --> Went back into phoenix wings and talons for Queen's kick and his left arm was human. Is it because the flames that formed the wing were consumed by attacking King? If so, why isn't he generating a new wing with new flames? A stamina issue?

 

[SLC_Girl]

Why wouldn't his phoenix wing come back though? He was in phoenix mode --> Lost the wing/arm --> Went human --> Did the process you described --> Went back into phoenix wings and talons for Queen's kick and his left arm was human. Is it because the flames that formed the wing were consumed in King's attack? If so, why isn't he generating a new wing with new flames? A stamina issue?

Either regrowing a massive wing is a high cost process(it's almost half of the size of the Phoenix Bird), or it can be looked at as the wings are the source for most of Marco's blue flames(based off how the wing looking like a mass of blue flames), once that's detached from his body, big percentage of the source is cut off, he needs to get that wing back. Or both.

Looks like Marco's left arm might have suffered some repercussions, it's possible that he temporarily lost his ability to fly, until that arm can go back to wing form. But this is just speculation, not confirmed, maybe next chapter it just turns back.

 

[Patryipe]

Either regrowing a massive wing is a high cost process(it's almost half of the size of the Phoenix Bird), or it can be looked at as the wings are the source for most of Marco's blue flames(based off how the wing looking like a mass of blue flames), once that's detached from his body, big percentage of the source is cut off, he needs to get that wing back. Or both.

Looks like Marco's left arm might have suffered some repercussions, it's possible that he temporarily lost his ability to fly, until that arm can go back to wing form. But this is just speculation, not confirmed, maybe next chapter it just turns back.

How do you think Marco would react to that attack if King used haki?

I wish the fight continues without interruptions so we can see more.

 

[Sword God Ryuma]

There's a reason why Marco wasn't shown tanking punches like those kizaru lasers:
We could see Akainu brusinh Maroc despite him blocking while Kizaru didnt leave a bruise on Marco ,
He regenerated from his attacks pre seasoned cuff.
Garp had him bandage his head post war

You can drain his regen by spamming continously attacks which has nothing but the choice to tank and regenerate each time

Punches/Kicks are more effective on Marco .
These lasers/beams/slashes take time to outlast his regen.

Ofcourse cause he not a Logia. A punch would send him flying if your strong enough.

 

[SLC_Girl]

How do you think Marco would react to that attack if King used haki?

I wish the fight continues without interruptions so we can see more.

Likely the same situation, since you don't need to by pass Marco's intangibility, you are hitting him with or without Haki.
However, if we use that Garp punch case, to see if this will hit through his regen, and leave a mark/draw blood. I think it's prob related to the level of Haki used, King using Haki might not make a difference(don't think his Haki level is up there), but if this was Mihawk doing the slash with Haki, hmmm... Might be bad for Marco.