Our Versus poll today comes from Facebook commenter James Wickenden, and pits the two most iconic comic book movie characters against each other. Both are multi-billionaire inventor/crusaders who employ clever technological goodies in their fight against crime. So which would win in a head-to-head battle?
It's clear that the Iron Man armor employs a superior battery of weapons and defensive capabilities. It's essentially a one-man army corps. Batman's tech in the movies is effective, but lacks the raw firepower Stark Enterprises brings to bear. So from the standpoint of raw power, I give the edge to Iron Man.
Whenever we have a poll involving Batman, the conversation inevitably turns to "Will he have time to prepare", with the assumption being that if the answer is "yes", the result is "Batman wins". But the movie Batman doesn't seem to have the same supernatural ability as the comic book version -- he gets outthought and outfought by Bane up until the bitter end, while movie Stark seems to always be the one who's one step ahead of the game.
The caveat to that is that in the "Avengers" movie, Tony had to rely on Hawkeye's tactical abilities to swing the tide of combat. I think movie Batman would be at least equal to movie Hawkeye, so in combat tactical ability, I'd go with Bats.
For me, the tiebreaker comes down to the fact that Batman's girlfriend get killed, while Iron Man manages to hang on to Pepper Pots through three movies now. That's pretty good. So I'd vote for movie Iron Man if it were me, but I'm curious as to which way you'd go, and why. So please comment and tell us your thinking!
Well, seeing as Batman usually wins any poll he’s involved in…I have a feeling I know who’s gonna be coming out on top of this one. 😀
Not voting at the moment, but I might help out the loser at some point, because that’s what I usually do.
While I have to agree that Iron Man has a definite edge in technology and overall firepower over Batman, if it came down to a hand to hand street fight between Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark, I have no doubt that Bruce would unceremoniously proceed to kick Tony’s a**, mostly because Tony would be too drunk or hung over to respond. Bruce has been trained by master senseis and Ra’s frickin’ Al Gul fer pete’s sake, and keeps his body in peak physical condition. Bruce has a ferocious work ethic, while Tony, when not saving the world with high-tech toys, likes to drink and party WAAAY too much.
Its a very hard call to make here. In which case i had to take into account the fact that Batman would be the faster of the two(not being in a huge suit of armor), but Tony had more fire power and defence. However then i realised the fact IronMan can fly and speed wouldnt be factor in the fight. Batman had the abilitie to confuse and distract Ironman and this would give him a momentary advantage. In the end I gave it to Batman. Despite his disadvantage when it came to firepower and defence, he still would only need that momentary advantage to take Stark down with a taser or somthing to short out his suit
You know, I don’t think Movie Batman is anywhere near as cool as Movie batman; yeah, he’s a billionaire, but he didn’t invent any of his gadgets – he raided wanyetech’s basement. And he doesn’t seem to have the training in either martial arts or detective work that Comic-book Batman has.
I think Stark has more natural Intelligence and seems more capable than Wayne, so I’m going Iron Man. I think he’d mop up the floor with Movie Batman regardless of prep time, becuase in the end if you gave them both the same amount of prep time, Tony would out think and out invent the Bat.
I’m with Gene. Movie!Batman is cool and all, but he’s not a literal genius like Movie!IronMan is.
Jeff… Not wanting to blame you, but you didn’t select a lame enough version of batman, nor a powerful enough ennemy, for the result to be anything other than “batman wins, because gadget/prep time/whatever”.
Not that he is lame (well, he is, just not in that way), but maybe if you had selected the Bruce Wayne from Batman Beyond and a cosmic menace like Galactus, the result would have been different. Scratch that. “Batman finds/pulls out the Ultimate Nullifier and wins”. Say, replace Galactus by Eternity or Death (marvel universe). Maybe this could go. Maybe.
Actually, right now, Iron Man is winning 55-45%. And why not?
Iron Man’s tech isn’t just more advanced than Batman’s. Movie Iron Man’s is incomprehensibly more advanced than Movie Batman’s. Batman would end up telling Lucius Fox, “I got myself into a fight with Iron Man, what have you got?” And Lucius Fox would reply, “Are you serious? I have nothing to beat that. That ARC reactor in Stark’s chest? I barely understand how that works. It’s going to take high explosives to breach that armor, but good luck hitting him with that. Your best bet would be to pretend to surrender, hope he raises his mask, and then punch him as hard as you can in the face.”
Come on, that knee brace thing that Batman used to strengthen/reinforce his knee in The Dark Knight Rises looks like a Tinker Toy compared to the servos in the Iron Man armor. Sorry but Nolanverse Batman is too realistic, and Iron Man is too superhero for this to be fair.
In these movies, Tony Stark is quite a bit smarter than Bruce Wayne. Where in the comics, Batman has come up with his own gadgets and Iron Man has always relied on his own tech as well. Throughout the films, however, Bruce has gotten help from Lucius Fox. Meanwhile in two Iron Man films, as well as Avengers, Tony did all of his own work. Just for that, I gotta go with the movies version of Tony Stark/Iron Man.
I’ve gotta give it to Iron Man since the movie version of Batman tends to rely more on Lucius Fox for his tech while Tony basically relies on his own. Many would argue that Batman would find a way around the Iron Man suit, but only if he was prepared for it. If the two of them met for the first time, all the Batarangs in the world wouldn’t save Bats.
Also, Tony Stark has a retractable stripper pole in his private jet. So, imo, that one-ups Bruce in the billionaire playboy aspect.
For ME Batsie’s WAY over stayed his welcome, I know he is popular, but right now I would choose Jokey Smurf to win over Batman, JUST so Batman doesn’t win!
Oh, I’ve got your next VS Marvin, Windy and Wonder dog VS The Wonder twins (SANS rings) and gleek !
As a life long DC fan, I almost always wanna go with Batman. Comic book Batman is very difficult to beat, however since we are using the movies as the basis of this fight the game is changed somewhat. Movie IronMan has the suit, I grant you, and therefore the power level advantage. But the one thing Jeff didn’t seem to take into account, or maybe just didn’t think it was worth mentioning, is the reason movie Batman worked was because he was MORE than just Bruce Wayne in a suit with gadgets. The movie Batman was really a team more than an individual, Bruce was just the field man. Alfred, Lucius, Gordon, Rachel, Harvey…ALL of these people aided Batman throughout the movies. So while Tony has the tech, Bruce has the team. I have to vote for Batman in this poll not because “Batman always wins” but because the teamwork portrayed in the Nolan trilogy I think is Bruce’s biggest asset here. Strength in numbers, no??
Does Batman even have anything in his arsenal that could even inflict harm on Iron Man? The Iron Man armor is designed to withstand essentially everything. Iron Man was fighting Thor on a level playing field in the Avengers movie, taking literal hammer blows from Mjolnir as I recall and continuing to fight on. One of those blows would have been fatal to Batman.
Conversely, take the scene in the sewer with the Dark Knight Rises where Bane broke the Bat. Now, substitute Batman for Iron Man. Can you imagine a way in which Iron Man would have lost that confrontation? I can’t.
At the core it comes down to this, DC is resetting their Batman to do a Justice League film franchise in part because this Batman is too realistic to handle superpowered enemies; to exist in the same universe as a version of Superman or Green Lantern or Wonder Woman. Every major villain Iron Man has faced in the movies; Iron Monger, Whiplash in his battle suit and the drones, and Loki all fall into that category. Even Captain America and Black Widow, both of whom would make for I think an interesting match up with the movie Bat were relegated to ground control in the Avengers Movie, Iron Man was running with Thor and the Hulk.
I have to say movie Iron Man has movie Batman for breakfast.
Suited up it has to go to Iron Man. He has range. Now if we took Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne and threw them into a ring. Tony Stark is dead. The raw fighting skill of Bruce far out ways Tony
the worse problem i see with this is the vow of batman to avoid killing at all cost.
The Iron Man armor suit need atleast military grade equipement to damage and batman vowed to never use a gun or kill.
It not that Batman could not get is hand on something that could vanquish Iron Man. If that ever if he did, he wouldn’t probably use it since it is short of an experimental artillery or something.
You not gonna win again a Power Armored Laser totting guys while trying to be non-lethal you know.
Ok, I know this ain’t the thread for it, but where?
I just read Justice League Internationnal Annual #1, and saw this character, named The Olympian.
And WTF??? From head to toes, he looks like he was designed with HeroMachine! Have anyone else seen it?
Yikes. Thor’s hammer powered Iron Man’s suit. So–all Batman needs is an EMF generator, a coil, and something huge like a metal suspension bridge or a metal skyscraper under construction.
Properly thrown together, the capacitor drains Iron Man’s suit and sixteen city blocks. Then he gets a welding rig powered on gas only and takes SIX HOURS rescuing Tony from his own suit, which Tony probably turns off since he would just be pouring power through it. He spends the time figuring out what to say so he doesn’t get hospitalized–just captured.
Yeah–prep time could be enough. All Batman has to do is get him into a trap. An EMP pulse could have much the same result, of course, but my way would be a lot cheaper and easier and less destructive.
Assuming of course that Tony hasn’t built in any safeguards against an EMP in the same way the US military uses hardened electronics to protect modern military equipment from it which is extremely unlikely. It further assumes that movie Tony’s systems aren’t based on something like photonic integrated circuitry which would make both an EMP and EMF useless. Given how far ahead Stark technology is in advance of the modern world and that we have already started to develop those, I think that assumption is questionable at best.
Also, is there a power source sufficient in the Nolan Batverse to actually power a generator to create sufficient field strength as to overwhelm the electronics of the Iron Man suit, and, if there is, is there any feasible way to protect it from Tony once his suit informs him of the enormous amounts of EM interference coming from said bridge or unfinished tower? Keep in mind, the suit is already channeling most of the energy of an arc reactor and that being exposed to a magical artifact of endless lightning it served to bump up the power reserves a little bit.
well in DKR Batman had that gadget that turned lights off… no idea whether that would affect Iron Man’s armour though
Though I voted for Iron Man being victorious due to tech power and being able to hold a relationship… we all know Batman would take down the Marvel Universe much more efficiently than The Punisher, Deadpool, and Galactus put together. ‘Nuff dead? I think not.
I agree. I really like Batman, but he’s a little too human in the movies, whereas Iron Man’s firepower and technology makes him an army of one. Batman got beat up in a fist-fight with Bane (who had no technology), and got stabbed with a knife. I think Iron Man is out of his league.
i really don’t see why the willingness to kill is always listed as a disadvantage for Batman. DC tends to establish that their no-kill characters are better because they HAVE to be better to stop their opponents without killing them. It’s like implying Batman would think “I’d have to kill him? OK, I give up.” Batman still has a will to win. But killing is seen like cheating, you don’t have to cheat to win. i like Isaac Asimov’s quote from Foundation “Violence is the last resort of the incompetent.”
i still think movie Ironman has this one, just for different reasons. i usually see Marvel as the more realistic ‘verse and DC as the more idealistic. DC’s heroes are more likely to be overpowered paragons of truth and justice, while Marvel’s are more like real people. But in the movies, they’ve kind of reversed that. Anything that is at all super has been stripped out of The Dark Knight making it super realistic. Whereas the Avengers have super powered individuals that are at their best on a team.
I do like the point livewyre1014 makes about movie Batman’s team, but movie Ironman was created with the intention of being on a team. And, well, I’ll just let Tony say it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-t4z7EZtfw
And i do see it as fair to list the Avengers under Teamwork for Ironman, because Ironman launched the Marvel movie universe.
So to go over some of the points others have addressed: Movie Ironman out thinks, out invents, out plans, out moneys, out romances, and out teamworks Movie Batman. Bruce can beat the crud out of Tony, but this is a fight between them as heroes, not their secret identities. I think Jeff finally found a fight that beats the Bat effect.
More importantly though, both movies are AMAZING.
One gadget for Batman’s immediate win; EMP. One tap of his fingers together and Tony’s war suit turns into a titanium trash can with a bolted lid. Good luck getting out of that shell head. Thinking about it from a practical and logical point of view, my vote is for Batman. (Also, Batman drank his milk this morning, so he’s set.)
One gadget; EMP. Shuts his armour and all its upgrades down instantly.
In the comics now at least, one, not all of Tony’s suits are vulnerable to EMP, and two, at this point even the ones that are can reset themselves after just a few seconds and continue fighting.
Also, is there a power source sufficient in the Nolan Batverse to actually power a generator to create sufficient field strength as to overwhelm the electronics of the Iron Man suit, and, if there is, is there any feasible way to protect it from Tony once his suit informs him of the enormous amounts of EM interference coming from said bridge or unfinished tower? Keep in mind, the suit is already channeling most of the energy of an arc reactor
Perhaps I wasn’t clear? The EMF idea is that with something less than a car battery, vast amounts of power can be drawn out of anything, even if it is successfully insulated. I forget whether it’s the right-hand or left-hand rule from physics, but the upper limit is on whether the metal structure can ground the power without melting. This has been examined as a threat by Homeland Security–whether an entire city’s power could be diverted into a body of water or a large metal structure or, my favorite, a mountain of sufficient mineral deposits. The answer is, yes it can. Batman would likely permanently warp the metal structure along magnetic lines of force. The power would simply be taken away, if done properly. (And ten thousand pounds of magnetic objects would move ten feet to the left.) The good news is that if Homeland Security has access to a satelite, all they need to see is a building warped at the right time and they probably know within a hundred feet of where to send a missile (or a strike team with electronics skills.) If our government gets involved, whoever made some bigwig mad last loses.
@Calvary Red “I really don’t see why the willingness to kill is always listed as a disadvantage for Batman…”
I would agree in normal circumstance. It is true that most of the time it isn’t a disadvantage.
The problem here is Ironman Armor.
For exemple, a powerfull blow capable destroying ironman armor or wounding/knocking the guys inside without killing him. How can you mesure the force needed in a particular moment to deal such a precise blow ? Sure it is possible but it has so many way of back-firing and killing the guys that Batman wouldn’t do it.
Same with an EMP pulse. Even if Ironman isn’t shielded again it, emp pulse is so devastating to its surrounding that the Bat wouldn’t do it. He doesn’t want hospital/transportation/public safety device to go hiwire. You add the fact that EMP pulse can cause explosion and fire in various device make it a big no.
I’d like to see a source on this EMF thing. Absolutely everything I have read on the topic indicates it would interfere with electronics through generating an enormously powerful (and thus enormously power consuming) electromagnetic field which will create flat voltage potential in all conductive surfaces, meaning that power is unable to flow, an effect that can be countered by dense surrounding materials of any variety of Faraday cage. To my knowledge, no technology exists or is theorized to be possible that would act as an enormous power sucker that could remotely drain a power source in a manner you describe.
Downey Iron Man vs Bale Batman?
Iron Man wins, hands the hell down.
I think someone summed up Nolan’s Batman best in a comment for a Shortpacked! strip:
“Everyone else in Nolan’s trilogy is better at being Batman than Batman is. The Joker always had an escape plan. Bane plans everything far in advance and is always a step ahead. Catwoman can get out of any trap. Random detective guy can figure out who all of the masked people are with some solid research and planning. Fox can develop new toys in his spare time without any immediate need for them. Even Gordon showed the ability to escape from a life-threatening situation.
Nolan’s Batman, on the other hand, failed at almost all of these. By DKR he’s just relying on beating people up because he’s better than them. He’s arrogant and overconfident and constantly screws up because he doesn’t have a plan B if punching someone doesn’t work.”
You seen Batman Begins right? Doesn’t have the martial arts training? And in the last movie he was the one who figured out the auto pilot in “The Bat”…just saying.
Batman hands down, why? Because he’s pretty much unstoppable and unpredictable..more so than Iron Man. Love Iron Man too but he’d lose in this fight.
@ Abraxas: Homeland Security may still answer direct inquiries by e-mail regarding “Whether you have a plan for — just concerned.” My favorite site on this is closed or renamed: it demo’ed making a nail gun in coil gun fashion from a disposable flashbulb as a power source. Instant grounding any electrician could tell you will make magnetic fields very brief. Heat and rapid magnetic flux would still be a problem. As for insulating effect, my last physics class used a capital “H” to denote the multiplier to “r” or radius maximum from the device with field strength “F sub n.” The interesting thing for this situation is that if “r” is zero (touching,) “F sub n” is not zero but extremely small (classic equation fault.) This effect, which would require a classic close-quarters trap, could be carried off with remarkably little power–but we all know that it is easier to destroy than create. As for a Faraday cage, that would possibly serve better in this circumstance to disrupt communications between suit and Jarvis to prevent last-minute discovery, but might serve as a successful buffer between discharge and any ingenious system developed to put some of the power back into the city’s power grid. (I can’t help but think most of it would still be lost to grounding or heat or rapid flux, but it should be safe to use the EMP or EMF methods on such a small scale remarkably close to other things.)