While Cell has gone down in history as being one of Dragon Ball’s strongest and most terrifying villains, there is one moment in particular during the Cell Saga that indicates Vegeta was actually a crueler villain during his time as a Dragon Ball antagonist–and it all has to do with two very similar interactions with Gohan.
When Vegeta was introduced, he was a hardened villain who only came to Planet Earth to wipe out all life on the planet and then sell the vacant world to the highest bidder. After battling the Z-Fighters, Vegeta was on the brink of death and was nearly killed by Krillin before Goku tells Krillin to let him go as Goku wanted to fight him again in the future. The next thing Vegeta does is go to Planet Namek where he hopes to find all the Dragon Balls and use their wish-granting magic to become immortal–at which point he can crush Goku, Frieza, and anyone who stands in his way of total universal control. What he didn’t count on, however, was that the Z-Fighters were also going to Namek for that exact same reason–to find the Dragon Balls. So, when the Z-Fighters came across Vegeta, it was no surprise that the Saiyan villain wasn’t too happy to see them. At one point, Vegeta found himself alone with Gohan, and he proceeded to violently assault the child all while having a malicious smile on his face, indicating that he was completely unrepentant and actually enjoyed inflicting this pain.
In Dragon Ball chapter 405 by Akira Toriyama, Gohan enters the fighting arena against Cell during the iconic Cell Games. At this point, Gohan is the strongest fighter on the planet as Goku realizes that he has the potential to reach Super Saiyan 2–a transformation that Vegeta, Trunks, and even Goku himself at that time couldn’t do. However, the only way for Gohan to reach that level of power was to get angry, and when he first stepped foot into the ring, he wasn’t in that rage-fueled mindset. This meant that, at the beginning of the fight, Cell was way stronger than Gohan, and almost immediately, Cell launched an attack against the Saiyan child that sent him flying through a mountain. After he did that, Cell commented to himself that maybe he went a little too hard and that it seemed unseemly for him to do that to a kid.
Cell Showed Some Remorse for Hurting Gohan, While Vegeta Just Laughed
Cell’s initial reaction to causing Gohan a great deal of pain is–at least on the surface–remorse. All Cell wants at this point is a fair tournament to satiate his boredom, so being that rough with Gohan didn’t seem like good sportsmanship. Obviously, this comment doesn’t make up for the fact that Cell is a vile villain, but at this moment in his villainous career, he really isn’t that different from Vegeta when the Saiyan was a bad guy. Both wanted to destroy the Earth, both were met with the challenge of the Z-Fighters, and both assaulted Gohan. The difference is, Cell recognized that he perhaps went a little too far, whereas Vegeta thought beating up the kid who was aligned with his sworn enemies was absolutely hilarious.
The only reason Vegeta isn’t regarded as being just as evil as Cell is because he lived long enough to find redemption whereas Cell died before he ever got that chance. In truth, they were both introduced as equally threatening forces of destruction as their respective plans involved killing all life on Planet Earth for their own twisted purposes. However, when Vegeta was a Dragon Ball villain, he was much more cruel than Cell–and their separate fights against Gohan proves it.