MCU Avengers vs DCU Justice League

[The Romulan Republic]

Superman came back from being Spoiler

at ground zero of a nuclear blast in Batman v Superman.

I'd say he's a heck of a lot tougher than Ultron.

[Simon_Jester]

[reads that particular spoiler but thanks you for spoilering it]

Well, that doesn't do anything for Superman's resistance to Scarlet Witch's telepathy. It does cast into doubt Scarlet Witch's ability to inflict any injury on him.

I mean, various versions of Superman in the comics have survived that, or similarly massive, devastating forces, in the past in comics, and that doesn't stop other high-end supers from being able to hurt him by punching him or zapping him with a beam weapon- or using magic against him. Which is what the speculation Scarlet Witch might be able to harm him. We don't know if her powers count as magical in this setting, nor for that matter if Superman has his 'usual' magic-susceptibility. But there's at least some chance Scarlet Witch could affect him, which is more than can be said of, oh, Iron Man or Cap.

Out of sheer curiosity, was Superman supposed to be just 'standing nearby' when the device went off, or was he, say, physically wrapped around the bomb as though jumping on it like a giant thermonuclear hand grenade?

[The Romulan Republic]

Superman was Spoiler

grappling with Doomsday after dragging him into orbit. The nuke was targeting Doomsday. Not one hundred percent positive, but I think the nuke detonated on contact (presumably with Doomsday, though Superman was right next to him).

[Kojiro]

I think this honestly has too many variables to really pin down.

For a start, it would seem it matters whether or not this fight takes place in sunlight. Assuming it does, Superman's regenerative capabilities are probably far too overwhelming for anyone given his raw damage mitigation. If it's a dark and stormy night perhaps Thor has an advantage.

But there's so many variables. Does Batman shoot down the quinjet, killing all passengers? Does the quinjet down the batplane?

As I see it there are a few match ups.

Superman vs Hulk - this is actually debatable as to who wins but movie Hulk hasn't yet demonstrated quite the comic book level. Either way I doubt it'll be a fast battle, with both getting smashed through assorted buildings and causing all sorts of collateral damage (incidentally did anyone notice the Collateral damage estimates in the Civil War trailer?). I could easily see this fight moving away from the others just by virtue of how hard they're hitting each other. I think that Supes carries this one in the end though. Which leaves...

Thor vs Wonder Woman- these two are probably the most similar. We haven't had a good look at WW in the movies yet so it's hard to say. But I'd wager both their weapons are 'magical' and quite lethal to each other. I want to say Thor carries it but I am a Thor fan. Not sure how WW fares against lightning and she lacks the ranged capacity of throwing her weapon. She's also comparatively less armoured than Thor- a slash from her will have to contend with his armour almost anywhere it hits. Conversely if he brings Mjolnir down on her shoulder it's straight onto the flesh. Lastly disarming her could severely weaken her damage dealing capacity, a not entirely impossible scenario if forces to block an electrified Mjolnir. Disarming Thor on the other hand is a momentary situation at best. So yeah, even assuming they're physical equals I think Thor has the better gear.

If Thor can dispatch Dianna fast, he might be able to help Hulk actually defeat Superman through sheer weight of damage.

The other match up is Superman vs Thor. As much as I like Thor I just don't think movie Thor can carry this. He'll likely last a while, but he's just not fast enough. His regenerative capabilities will keep him going a good long while though. If Mjolnir can actually damage Superman though this will get interesting, assuming we attribute it the same damaging qualities as WW's sword against Doomsday.

WW vs Hulk I see going very much like Loki vs Hulk. Once he gets a hold of her he can just smash her like a rag doll. Of course like every other big hitter she has a healing factor (in the comics at least she does- we didn't see her get hurt that I noticed) so even if 'Loki'd' she may get up a few minutes later.

The others vs Batman? Honestly I think Ironman's armour is probably superior, if in no other capacity than sheer offensive weapons. That Bat Armour would really struggle to even come to grips with IM armour, let alone stand up to it. And that's before you even consider Hawkeye putting an arrow through your stupidly unprotected mouth. That said, once Bat's is dispatched I'm not sure the others can really do much to help. Maybe Hawkeye has a blinding arrow that can mess with WW or Superman but I don't really see them mattering. They'll be like Batman watching WW and Supes take on Doomsday but without the usefulness of a Kryptonite weapon. Either way Bats vs Ironman, Cap, Hawkeye and Widow is not going to go well for Bats. He can handle himself against criminals and thugs well enough but these are elite agents, some with superhuman abilities. I'd see no reason for Stark to not just repulsor Batman mercilessly until his armour breaks or the impacts have rattled him senseless. Or use his tank buster missiles, shoulder missiles, super cutting laser... you get the idea. And none of this requires landing or getting too close to Bats.

At the end of the day on raw numbers I think Superman is just too nasty (especially in sunlight), unless Mjolnir can hurt him or Hulk goes next level. But in a cinematic setting I'd feel like Marvel would carry the day (that is to say if I play it out in my head). But that's probably my inner fanboy.

[Enigma]

If this was Routh's Superman, I bet the fight would end quicker in his favor. The amount of super strength shown lifting that huge island filled with Kryptonite and tossing it towards the sun, should put him higher than Cavill's Superman.

[SCRawl]

Batman wouldn't likely bother with the armour. As pointed out earlier, the helmet is too vulnerable to a precise attacker (like Hawkeye, Widow, or Iron Man), it's not strong enough to fight with the Avengers' top three, and it limits his mobility. He's better off without it.

Having said that, he's still a pincushion if Hawkeye gets a clear shot, or Iron Man can use his multi-target anti-personnel missiles.

To the point of the OP, if this is a straight-up fight, i.e. both sides are fighting to maximum effectiveness, it's not close. Superman can burn everyone but Hulk and Thor to a cinder with his heat vision about .05 seconds after the bell rings, and then he can boost Hulk into orbit while Wonder Woman and Thor duke it out. If any of Iron Man survives the opening salvo, what's left won't be pretty, and Batman can deliver the coup de grace and then spend the rest of his time brooding. Upon his return from low Earth orbit Superman would end Thor's valiant but pointless effort.

If the fight scenes with the other Kryptonians are anything to go by, Superman is way too strong, fast, durable, and by the way fast, to not be able to carry the day. The only thing that can defeat him in this company would be his own scruples or a plot device.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm not even sure Superman couldn't take Hulk in a straight punch-out.

I mean, Iron Man knocked him out in Age of Ultron, and I'm sure Superman can hit just as hard.

[Enigma]

Superspeed, grab, spin really really fast and then toss Hulk into orbit. Rinse and repeat for the rest of the Avengers if we give Supes a reason to kill.

[NeoGoomba]

That was something I did appreciate with Batman v Superman, actually.
Spoiler

Superman punched it out with Doomsday a bit before realizing he was outclassed, then decided to launch the bastard into orbit. If the US hadn't nuked them both, it actually would have worked.

[The Romulan Republic]

I think it shows that Superman has Spoiler

learned from his mistakes in fighting Zod in Metropolis (which started Batman's vendetta against him). Rather than slugging it out in a city full of civilians, he tried to simply take Doomsday as far away as he could.

[NeoGoomba]

Yeah, that is what I was thinking myself. It was a nice subtle little thing.

[Crown]

There are two 'criticisms' of MoS which make me want to either bash my own head in frustration with a baseball bat (ala Lucille style in the comics not that shitty fucking cliffhanger TWD dropped on us this past weekend) or someone else's;

1. Superman doesn't save anyone
2. Too much destruction in Metropolis in the final battle

When I see these myths about MoS being brandied about I grind my teeth in frustration.

The fact that this movie went out of its way to address the later complaint really pulled me out of the BvS immersion.

[Crazedwraith]

Okay, cool. But why? Why do you disagree? Why is Superman demolishing a city a good part of the movie?

I actually liked that Batman's motivation was that he'd seen the collateral damage up from MoS. Though the repeated mentioning that the part of the City getting a beating in the finale was empty of people did break my immersion a bit more.

[The Romulan Republic]

I actually rather like that touch.

To my recollection, the only one who mentions that the area is deserted is Batman, when Spoiler

explaining why he chose it for the battle ground to Wonder Woman. Given his experience of the events in Man of Steel, and Batman's customary role as the strategist for the Justice League, it makes perfect sense that he would steer the fight toward a deserted area.

Of course, that's where the spear was, but it still works, because the only reason the spear was their is because he chose that as his ground to fight Superman.

Edit: Elaborated a bit.

[Crazedwraith]

Partially:
Spoiler

Batman presumably picked an abandoned area of town for the throw down.

But also later when Doomsday falls from orbit he lands in an abandoned area of the town entirely by coincidence. The Defence Sectary guy and the News reporter both mention it I think

[The Romulan Republic]

He landed on an island, as I recall.

[Crown]

Okay, cool. But why? Why do you disagree? Why is Superman demolishing a city a good part of the movie?

1. Superman isn't demolishing a city, the fact that anyone would characterise what was happening in MoS during the final act of the movie that way is mind boggling
2. Most of the destruction that Metropolis suffered was due to the Black Zero linking with the world engine, which he had no say in where Zod chose to land, and any destruction suffered to Metropolis due to actions taken to send the Black Zero and all its Kryptonian crew back to the Phantom Zone are more than justified (i.e. the deliberate crashing of the Kryptonian scout ship to allow Col. Hardy's C-17 bombing run to succeed) in light of the alternative
3. The fight between him and Zod was an accurate portrayal of what would happen when two gods are beating the shit out of each other and one of them (Zod) explicitly states; "I'm going to make them suffer Kal, these humans you've adopted. I'm going to take them from you one by one."
4. As a rule most of that fight scene that follows is Zod punching Superman into buildings, and the only instance of Superman doing something along those lines is after Zod has mastered flight when he scrapes Zod's head across the face of a skyscraper (but he doesn't demolish it)
5. Superman even flings Zod into orbit but Zod throws a satellite at him (and thus Metropolis) which Superman tries to push back out into space but Zod flies into him and they plummet back to Metropolis
6. There was literally nothing he could do to move the fight elsewhere, any instance otherwise relies on a completely wrong characterisation of MoS Zod
7. Finally as Snyder himself pointed out; in SW:TFA, Starkiller Base blew up six fucking planets, where was the 'too much destruction' outrage over that?

EDIT :: Typos

[Crown]

He landed on an island, as I recall.

There were three explicit mentions;

1. Anderson Cooper on CNN "Luckily it's out of office hours so the down town district is relatively deserted"
2. In the situation room "He landed on Stryker's Island - that's uninhabited"
3. And the aforementioned Batman response to Wonder Woman

[NeoGoomba]

The collateral destruction in MoS does make sense considering how much of a rookie Superman was when it came to, well, being a super hero. He had no clue the amount of damage his Smallville fight would cause. And, as mentioned, he didn't get to pick the battlefield for the Zod fight. Zod basically goes berserk in Metropolis, and Superman was barely able to keep up with him. And after all, as Zod notes, Superman learned to fight on a farm.

Now, people with set notions of who Superman is will take umbridge with the fact that he doesn't hurl Zod out of the city away from people, or go out of his way during the fight to save people as Reeve's Superman does (or Iron Man does during the Hulkbuster fight). But that Superman they are looking for was the experienced "savior" Superman of the comics. Not the "thrown into the supervillain whirlwind" young Superman we got. And we actually get that more experienced "hero" Superman in Batman V Superman. To a point. I don't want to touch the conflicted, brooding hero crap.

[Crown]

I actually liked that Batman's motivation was that he'd seen the collateral damage up from MoS. Though the repeated mentioning that the part of the City getting a beating in the finale was empty of people did break my immersion a bit more.

I apologise for not addressing this part of your post but just to be clear; I have no problem believing that people in universe like Batfleck blame Superman for that. It's the viewing public that use it as a stick to beat MoS over the head with that grinds my gears for all the reasons I outlined and as NeoGoomba posted above.

[Crazedwraith]

Okay, cool. But why? Why do you disagree? Why is Superman demolishing a city a good part of the movie?

1. Superman isn't demolishing a city, the fact that anyone would characterise what was happening in MoS during the final act of the movie that way is mind boggling
2. Most of the destruction that Metropolis suffered was due to the Black Zero linking with the world engine, which he had no say in where Zod chose to land, and any destruction suffered to Metropolis due to actions taken to send the Black Zero and all its Kryptonian crew back to the Phantom Zone are more than justified (i.e. the deliberate crashing of the Kryptonian scout ship to allow Col. Hardy's C-17 bombing run to succeed) in light of the alternative
3. The fight between him and Zod was an accurate portrayal of what would happen when two gods are beating the shit out of each other and one of them (Zod) explicitly states; "I'm going to make them suffer Kal, these humans you've adopted. I'm going to take them from you one by one."
4. As a rule most of that fight scene that follows is Zod punching Superman into buildings, and the only instance of Superman doing something along those lines is after Zod has mastered flight when he scrapes Zod's head across the face of a skyscraper (but he doesn't demolish it)
5. Superman even flings Zod into orbit but Zod throws a satellite at him (and thus Metropolis) which Superman tries to push back out into space but Zod flies into him and they plummet back to Metropolis
6. There was literally nothing he could do to move the fight elsewhere, any instance otherwise relies on a completely wrong characterisation of MoS Zod
7. Finally as Snyder himself pointed out; in SW:TFA, Starkiller Base blew up six fucking planets, where was the 'too much destruction' outrage over that?

EDIT :: Typos

Thanks for explaining. I only saw MoS once when it was in cinema and never since. So I don't feel qualified to dispute most of these points. Though for point 5. There's not exactly a limit to the number of times Superman can punt someone into orbit or into the middle of kanas grain fields or whatever, though a lot harder once Zod worked out flying of course.

Point 7 rather baffles me. The two scenes do not seem connected at all. One is portrayed as the clearly villianous bad act of the bad guys. Whereas as the other, well I'm probably overstating, but it came across to me as just the consequence of two superhumans having a grudge match in a city, 'Realistic', yes but not something I found admirable or entertaining.

[Simon_Jester]

WW vs Hulk I see going very much like Loki vs Hulk. Once he gets a hold of her he can just smash her like a rag doll. Of course like every other big hitter she has a healing factor (in the comics at least she does- we didn't see her get hurt that I noticed) so even if 'Loki'd' she may get up a few minutes later.

I'm a bit unsure of this. For one, Wonder Woman is probably a lot tougher than Loki, at least with respect to blunt force trauma. It's like, if you smack Loki into a concrete wall, I feel sorry for Loki; if you smack Wonder Woman into a concrete wall, I feel sorry for the wall.

For another, Doomsday is too much 'like' Hulk for me to be comfortable saying someone who can fight the one can't fight the other. If Wonder Woman could hold her own against Doomsday, she could hold her own against the Hulk. Then again, I haven't actually seen the fight, so for all I know Wonder Woman turned out to be a total glass jaw once Doomsday actually managed to land a hit on her.

[NeoGoomba]

For another, Doomsday is too much 'like' Hulk for me to be comfortable saying someone who can fight the one can't fight the other. If Wonder Woman could hold her own against Doomsday, she could hold her own against the Hulk. Then again, I haven't actually seen the fight, so for all I know Wonder Woman turned out to be a total glass jaw once Doomsday actually managed to land a hit on her.

She got knocked around quite a bit, actually. And one of the first times she got leveled with a legit hit (one that would have sent even Superman reeling), she got up with a ridiculous grin on her face. She loves combat so much, she would probably get a thrill out of fighting Hulk.

[Crown]

Thanks for explaining. I only saw MoS once when it was in cinema and never since. So I don't feel qualified to dispute most of these points. Though for point 5. There's not exactly a limit to the number of times Superman can punt someone into orbit or into the middle of kanas grain fields or whatever, though a lot harder once Zod worked out flying of course.

Well after point 5 Superman finally uses the only advantage he has over Zod, is raw power, to grab him around the neck and beg him to stop. To which Zod replies 'never' and then the infamous 'Superman kills' scene happens (which pisses people off too, but I'm like what was he meant to do at that point?).

And this brings me to another point; Superman was outmatched in terms of fighting prowess both during the Smallville fight and the Metropolis fight. He won by exposing a weakness in the first fight, damaging their helmets which makes their senses go into overload mode and they had to retreat. And by sheer brute strength in the Metropolis fight. Which was fucking awesome to see; the guy grew up on a farm and wasn't allowed to play with other kids. Of course he'd be getting his ass handed to him in an actual fight where the power levels are relatively matched. But this also makes it even more understandable how he couldn't 'control' the consequences of either fights.

Point 7 rather baffles me. The two scenes do not seem connected at all. One is portrayed as the clearly villianous bad act of the bad guys. Whereas as the other, well I'm probably overstating, but it came across to me as just the consequence of two superhumans having a grudge match in a city, 'Realistic', yes but not something I found admirable or entertaining.

Point 7 is an indicator of the hypocrisy of the criticism. A lot of reviewers were accusing Snyder of 'cashing in' on 9/11 imagery and emotions, but funnily enough no one did that when some one blows up 6 fucking planets. Add to the points I've added above demonstrates that Snyder was just being true to the elements he had in play in this movie; 2 Gods, one devoted to killing humanity and a better fighter and the other wanting to save humanity but an inferior warrior. Superman was getting the shit beaten out of him for most of that fight and this was entirely consistent with what we've been shown in the movie (as NeoGoomba pointed out so succinctly above). What were people expecting to happen?

[Kojiro]

I'm a bit unsure of this. For one, Wonder Woman is probably a lot tougher than Loki, at least with respect to blunt force trauma. It's like, if you smack Loki into a concrete wall, I feel sorry for Loki; if you smack Wonder Woman into a concrete wall, I feel sorry for the wall.

Alas we don't see a whole lot of WW. We do see her get slammed into a wall, and take it pretty well. We also see Loki smashed into a solid wall when Hulk catches up to him in Stark tower (just before he ragdolls him). Loki takes a charging Hulk fist to the chest, impacts and cracks the stone wall and drops to the ground. He gets up with no delay or expression of pain, he's not even winded. Granted that's not proof he's as tough as her but I don't think we have the data to definitively say. Both of them take a hit and impact from a Big Guy™ pretty damn well. She probably is tougher overall though, but we're yet to see it.

For another, Doomsday is too much 'like' Hulk for me to be comfortable saying someone who can fight the one can't fight the other. If Wonder Woman could hold her own against Doomsday, she could hold her own against the Hulk. Then again, I haven't actually seen the fight, so for all I know Wonder Woman turned out to be a total glass jaw once Doomsday actually managed to land a hit on her.

I don't think she's a glass cannon, but her fighting style is clearly a 'dodge and strike' one (at least against Doomsday and presumaby the similary sized Hulk). She can take a hit but obviously prefers not to. The question is if the gets grabbed like Loki and ragdolled, will she get up? Frankly we just don't know yet as the sole 'durability test' we have is her hitting that wall (at least as far as I remember, I've only seen it once). The other issue is that her fighting style of small cuts is probably the less useful tactic against Hulk- constantly inflicting small, annoying injuries on him (assuming she even can hurt him) is likely just enrage Hulk more. To the best of my knowledge making Hulk angrier has never been considered a good strategy.

One of the differences here to the BvS fight though is the numbers dynamic. In BvS she's one of three people drawing Doomsday's attention. Granted Batman doesn't do a whole lot but there can't be any doubt that Superman is a god damn problem that requires attention. In this scenario, at least as I propose it, Diana is going solo. If she gets knocked back into a wall there's no one to fly in and pick up the fight. Hulk will immediately be right on her. If anything she'll have to worry about Cap, Ironman or Hawkeye distracting her while fending off the Hulk. She probably can't be hurt by them but Stark's repulsors are strong enough to knock her around and that's exactly the kind of thing you don't need when Hulk is trying to smash your face in.

In any event, losing a melee fight to the Hulk is hardly a mark of shame.