While Cell was one of the greatest Dragonball villains of the original manga, he completely robbed fans of the sequel series–Dragon Ball Super– to see a villain who would arguably have been the deadliest enemy in the history of Dragonball: himself.
Cell made his first appearance in Dragonball chapter 361 by Akira Toriyama. In his early days, Cell is challenged by Piccolo who overhears the villain feasting on the life forces of innocents to make himself more powerful. The reason Cell is able to do this is that it is a specific type of Android that was created from the cells of organic life. These Cells were stolen from Goku and virtually everyone Goku came into contact with, which is why Cell was extremely powerful early on.
Dragon Ball Stole Super Fans From Its Biggest Villain
In Dragonball Chapter 365 by Akira Toriyama, Cell had just escaped from the Z Fighters after Earth’s heroes ganged up on him in an effort to end his evil before he had a chance to begin. Before leaving, however, Cell told Piccolo everything about himself, including his origin, where he came from, and what his goals were.
As he revealed to Piccolo, this version of Cell is from an alternate future who traveled back in time using Trunks’ time machine to absorb Androids 17 and 18 to unlock his perfect form. In his timeline, 17 and 18 have already been defeated by Trunks, so time travel was the only chance Cell had to reach his true potential. However, there was one other piece of information Cell gave the Z Fighters – one that completely eliminated the possibility of Cell’s return. Dragon Ball Super: that there was also a version of him in this timeline.
However, since DBZ‘s Cell bared its guts on its origins and the fact that this timeline also had its own cell – sparking the dragonball Heroes must take violent action – fans were totally stripped of what could have been Dragon Ball Superis the biggest villain.