The recent love for artist George Perez has included a number of his iconic moments floating around comics Twitter and the conversations of nerds in general. George (along with Kurt Busiek, Tom Smith, Richard Starkings, and a literal army of editors from both DC and Marvel) gave us the iconic moment where Batman and Captain America prepare to fight, test each other’s defenses, find no openings, and realize that the battle would not only be prolonged, but pointless. It’s a moment that’s not only satisfying, it feels accurate for both men (especially Batman’s admission that, yes, Cap might best him in combat, but it’d take forever and leave him useless) and, best of all, offers wonderful character insight in the place of the ol’ “Who’d win?” It is, in my opinion, perfect comics, leading us to our wishing-George-all-the-best query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) reminds Faithful Spoilerites that, when no context is provided, you get to provide your own justification and context for your vote, asking: Captain America or Batman?
4 Comments
From the comic point of view, I prefer Batman. He a more interesting character than Captain America. I have never been able to maintain any interest in Captain America.
From a movie point of view, it would be Captain America. In the MCU Captain America is relatable and human. The writing, acting and costumes knock it out of the park.
Captain America. When meeting a new threat, Batman’s MO is too often (1) Get beat up (2) Retreat to the Batcave to figure out what went wrong (3) Prep so that it won’t go wrong that way again (4) Track the perp down and beat them up. Cap is more a “figure it out on the spot” kind of guy.
Being a DC fan , and not American, I would go with Batman. But have to agree that the MCU version of Cap is a very interesting character.
As for George….. I am sad to hear the news, and will miss him, and regret never getting some kind of original art from him to add to my collection, although I do have a signed copy of the History of The DC Universe hardcover so that kinda helps.
I’ve always maintained that the Superman movies we should’ve gotten this whole time have just been Captain America movies, and that’s fine. It was all worth it just so he could do that one thing, and say that one thing, and then have the ending his MCU character had.
That said, i agree with the “comics = batman, movies = cap” sentiments. The way Marvel were able to translate what (imo) was sort of a boring character whose core theme has been retconned on paper a few times (from being purely jingoistic WW2/postwar mascot to something more nuanced and an allegory for what the american dream was for different folks from the 70s to current day) was truly amazing and made this character truly human and easily empathizable (is that a word? Eh, no rules baby)
As cool and iconic as Batman has become on paper, I’ve always felt that Batman himself has always been the least interesting thing in his own movies, even the Nolan series. You rarely get to delve into the detective analytical strategic side of his mind in the films, and you certainly don’t get nearly as much sense of how broken and traumatized he is as you do in the comics, where he can literally have a conversation with the spirit of bat-vengeance in a nightmare. Alfred, Gordon, the rogues, et al have always been much more interesting. Bruce himself is often a cipher (which to Christian Bale’s credit, he played that cold, aloof, empty on the inside Bruce very well), and the peripheral characters are really what make the movie Gotham so fleshed out and lived-in.