Upon his Dragon Ball debut, Cell immediately proves to be the scariest villain that has appeared in the franchise up until that point even if he wasn’t initially the most powerful–yet Goku managed to make the villain even more terrifying after Goku died trying to stop him.
Cell is a bio-android created by the former Red Ribbon Army scientist Dr. Gero. During his artificial gestation period, Cell was given samples of DNA by a tiny robot (also created by Gero) that had collected those samples from Goku along with nearly everyone Goku ever came into contact with throughout his life, including Vegeta, Piccolo, and even Frieza. When Cell was finally ‘born’, he already wielded the power of some of the strongest warriors in the cosmos–though he was nowhere near his peak. Dr. Gero also created two other Androids, 17 and 18, and their purpose was to act as additional power supplies to Cell. Once Cell absorbed 17 and 18, he became Perfect Cell and was nearly unstoppable–and even then, Cell wasn’t done evolving.
In Dragon Ball chapter 414 by Akira Toriyama, the Z-Fighters are reeling after Goku sacrificed his life to stop Cell from detonating and taking the entire Planet Earth with him. When Cell concentrated all his power within his body and set himself to blow, Goku used Instant Transmission to teleport himself and Cell to King Kai’s world, where Cell exploded and killed Goku, King Kai, and Bubbles as a result. Unfortunately, Cell himself survived the explosion as a piece of his brain wasn’t fully destroyed, allowing him to regenerate and reclaim his perfect form–with the addition of Goku’s insanely powerful ability: Instant Transmission.
Goku Gave Cell the Power of Instant Transmission
Instant Transmission is a power that Goku learned on the planet Yardrat. Essentially, the power allows Goku to travel any distance across the cosmos in an instant as long as he can pinpoint someone’s power level at his desired location. For instance, in Dragon Ball Super, Goku is able to teleport to Lord Beerus’ world in the blink of an eye while it takes Whis, a literal angel, thirty-five minutes to travel that distance. With Goku’s death in this Dragon Ball chapter, Cell is able to absorb that ability–an ability that, as previously stated, surpasses the power of Dragon Ball‘s divine entities.
Thankfully, Cell is killed by Gohan almost immediately after attaining Instant Transmission, but that doesn’t stop him from using it to cause some last-minute mayhem. After he exploded and then regenerated, Cell would have been stuck in the realm of King Kai’s former world with really no way to get back to Earth. However, with Instant Transmission, Cell is able to return in an instant, and when he does so, he murders Trunks before once again nearly destroying the planet. So, while it is short-lived, Goku’s death made Cell–who is easily at least one of Dragon Ball’s scariest villains–even more powerful.
