Champions Battle Poll (Week 7: Round2)

Lady Shiva vs Al Ghul -- even Batman's copped to Shiva being the best fighter on the planet. Al Ghul would probably hold his own for a short while but ultimately, Shiva would beat him down.

Dr. Strange vs Spawn -- Strange eats demons from hell for breakfast, and right now he's very hungry.

Iron Man vs Colossus -- while Colossus is a heavy hitter, he's all brute force. Stark's infinitely more intelligent, is a better strategist and while Colossus has a high degree of durability, Stark packs munitions which could level a city. Big Pete's all heart and would put up a hell of a fight, but Iron Man's too much for him to handle.

Lady Shiva vs Ra's Al Ghul

Hard call both have lost and won against Batman in a fight.I'm going with Shiva she actually beat Bats in hand to hand combat where as Ra's only won because they were using swords. While Bats is proficient in both armed and unarmed combat he wasn't trying to kill Ra's thought the same can not be said about Ra's. Actually it would probably be more like this in unarmed combat Shiva but with Swords Al Ghul.


Dr.Strange vs Spawn

Spawn at first I was leaning Strange but then I remembered Spawn beat both the Devil and God of his universe. There's no way around it Spawn's packing some serious power.

Ironman vs Colossus

Ironman for the win though at close range Colossus might stand a better chance.

Al Ghul
Dr Strange
Iron MAn

*"while I would place BATMAN at either 2 or 3"*

richard dragon??

@relentless
I would have placed Deathstroke at #1...he bested Batman in combat so seeing as Cassandra and Bronze Tiger are more or less equal to Batman I would think Slade would defeat them as well.

I overlooked Richard Dragon, not too familiar with him. What are some of his feats?

@SpideyQuad
Howling Commandos were from Marvel...Penguin? You mean the Batman villain? I really don't think so.

@relentless
Did he ever actually defeat Batman in martial arts? Or was it just verbal claim?

Because feats outweigh verbal claims, like it was said that Shiva is stated to be better than Bats. But Batman beats her more often than not. Or that Namor claims Daredevil is the greatest human combatant but when fought Captain America he lost. Just a few examples of verbal claims contradicting actual feats...and IMO feats should be considered better than claims.

So, did Richard Dragon actually beat Batman? Or did someone say that he would? That's the defining difference IMO.

i always remember him being touted as being better than batman and bronze tiger though

I never understood why someone like the Batman would be considered the best martial artists in the world, when there are hundreds of Buddhists, etc. that devoted their lives to nothing but the practice and instruction. How could you justify saying that man was better than his teachers or someone who's life revolved around those arts.

After all it's not like Batman doesn't have other skills he needs to keep honed. Stands to reason you can't be the best in everything. (Detective, computers, martial arts, etc. without the benefit of some type of enhancement, superpower, Or like the movies using a battle suit)

I take it DC is going to maintain the ridiculous standards for the character he needs a serious recon justify the abilities. even going against just street hoods the law of average dictates he would s he would screw up eventually resulting in a serious injury at the l. That's not even taking into account how much more dangerous a slip or the slightest miscalculation would be when he was encountering a supernormal.

Would a recon upset the serious fans? I mean beyond the usual Batman argument, you have to admit the character is kind of ridiculous as is.

FOOM, thanks for replying. This is something I am genuinely interested in. There are so many Batman fans (not all are inflexible) so I was interested in how they felt without inciting a fight. Unfortunately you can't start threads here. Hope a few more chime in with sincere thoughts!

Understandable, the biggest part of his appeal, to you and I'm assuming a lot of others, is that he IS human. "The Ultimate Underdog" You make a good point, in that if they did "enhance" him he wouldn't be the same.

Batman *isn't* generally considered the best martial artist out there. In fact, I've rarely seen him touted as above number four or so, and when compiling all the "pure" warriors in the DCU, he's probably lucky if he finishes in the top ten just on pure martial arts skills.

Batman beats these people because he's generally smarter, better informed, and/or better equipped, not necessarily because he's more skilled. In one of my favorite examples, Batman was grappled and taken down pretty quickly by one of the Amazons in the second to last Supergirl introduction, but beat her because he'd anticipated losing and already had a stun dart prepped.