If you're a geeky person, and you've ever hung out with similarly geeky people, you've likely got in a who-would-win discussion involving iconic characters from science fiction, fantasy, and comics. You know, could the U.S.S. Enterprise defeat an Imperial Star Destroyer? Could The Hulk defeat Smaug? The Borg vs. The Daleks? Buffy vs. Wolverine?
I went to the University of Waterloo, so I had plenty of opportunity to participate in these
arguments discussions. This was in the nineties, a sparse time for the geekosphere compared to now, so many of these discussions were
Deep Space Nine vs.
Babylon 5. Yes, that's Waterloo for you, where people argue in favour of obscure science fiction, rather than obscure bands.
I quickly realized that these hypothetical battles were meaningless, because each world in speculative fiction is built on different premises. The creators make
wild guesses educated speculation about what is possible, and that shapes the capabilities of there characters, rather than any measure of "goodness" of the characters. So these arguments are really just childish bragging.
Of course, this is inspired by the upcoming Batman Vs. Superman movie. I'm not really enthusiastic about it. Partly that's because I'm just not as emotionally invested in the characters as many are. And of course, there's the question of how and why two good guys would fight. Yes, I know they fought in
The Dark Knight Returns, but that had political subtext to it; this just sounds like a big-budget version of one of those late-night geek arguments. They've even decided to level the playing field by giving Batman a mechanized suit in the style of
Iron Man a generic wealthy crime-fighting genius. So will that let him win? I don't know, have the writers arbitrarily decided that a near-future exoskeleton is stronger than a genetically-advanced alien?
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