Despite being one of the most reliable (not to mention, powerful) members of the Z-Fighters in current Dragon Ball canon, Vegeta has been responsible for some heinous acts of murderous violence in the past–and the most brutal kill (or, more accurately, kills) he ever carried out ended up being so much darker than fans knew at the time.
As most Dragon Ball fans know, Vegeta wasn’t always a hero. Upon his debut at the start of Dragon Ball Z, Vegeta was introduced as a hardened villain who only cared about his own ascension of power and very little for anything else–even his own kind. Vegeta constantly talks about his Saiyan Pride and being the Prince of the Saiyan race, but he doesn’t seem to care much about them at all. When he first met Goku, Vegeta wanted to just kill him to prove his own superiority. When Nappa failed to kill Goku, Vegeta killed Nappa–someone he’s known throughout his entire life. Even when Vegeta first got word of his entire race being eradicated by an ‘asteroid’ when he was a child, he didn’t seem to care in the slightest. Vegeta was a cold-hearted warrior who thankfully found redemption, though, ironically enough, it was after his supposed redemption that he committed arguably the darkest crime of his career–and Dragon Ball GT made it even darker.
A Dragon Ball GT Shadow Dragon was Born from Majin Vegeta’s Mass Murder
In Dragon Ball GT episode 52 (written by Atsushi Maekawa, directed by Osamu Kasai, produced by Toei Animation), Goku and Pan are tracking down the Dragon Balls after they scattered themselves around the world during a Shenron-summoning ceremony that went horribly wrong. This was after the Z-Fighters defeated Super 17, and they wanted to use the Dragon Balls to undo all the damage that was done. However, the Dragon Balls were different from before, as they had cracks in them that the Z-Fighters would soon learn meant they were overflowing with negative energy. As it turned out, every wish the Z-Fighters made in the past created a corresponding flux of negative energy, and that negative energy gave birth to seven Shadow Dragons, who were all released during this summoning ritual. In this episode, Pan and Goku are facing off against the Shadow Dragon who was born from the wish that wouldn’t have had to be made if it wasn’t for Vegeta.
During the later chapters of Dragon Ball Z, after Vegeta proved that he was a hero of Earth, complete with a family he loved and friends he valued, the Saiyan Prince momentarily reverted to his villainous ways, as his obsession to be better than Goku allowed the corruption of Babidi to take root in his mind. This gave birth to Majin Vegeta–a version of Vegeta who was just as evil as he was at the start of DBZ, and infinitely more powerful. When Majin Vegeta first challenged Goku during a World Martial Arts Tournament, he showed Kakarot how serious he was by shooting multiple blasts into the stands of regular humans, killing hundreds of them at a time–and he did it with a smile on his face.
Majin Vegeta’s attack on random, vulnerable civilians was perhaps his darkest kill, simply because he caught the world off guard. Sure, Vegeta has probably done worse things in the past, but this attack came after he established himself as a good guy, making the horrendous loss of life that came as a result of his betrayal that much darker. While it is a good thing that all these people were resurrected thanks to the Dragon Balls, GT confirmed that there was a catch there as well, since this wish is the one that gave life to a Shadow Dragon–proving that Vegeta’s most brutal Dragon Ball kill is darker than fans first realized.