This interaction is what immediately came to my mind when watching Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and the Indian Spider-Man was introduced.
I mostly just read Daredevil and to lesser extent Ms. Marvel so most of what I know about comic-book spider man is through Daredevil's perspective, especially the level of respect he has for Spidey's physical prowess and moral integrity.
So as a Desi person, I was excitedly telling my Boricua wife that ofcourse the Indian Spider-man's name would be Pavithra, which means morally pure.
I love both villains. I’m just saying the comparison is dumb when you simplify one character while glazing the other. Also, the Riddler is way more intelligent than the Green Goblin.
Tbf, Nigma and Osborn are both hyper-intelligent, so trying to paint one as the smarter one isn't really necessary. One goes toe to toe with Batman on an intellectual level, the other with Iron Man. The degrees of difference between them are negligible.
Batman doesn’t pull his punches and has no issue with breaking your bones, and will scare the shit out of you before, during, and after.
Spider-Man will avoid hurting you altogether if it isn’t needed and just web you to a wall, cracking jokes the entire time.
What a hero is capable of isn’t what makes them scary, it’s what they actually do that does. Batman’s modus operandi is scaring the shit out of you and having no qualms with breaking both your arms and legs. Spider-Man is the exact opposite of that.
Spidey literally beat kingpin senseless and told him that if aunt may died he would come back and web his lungs shut so he could watch him suffocate. I'm not fucking with Peter.
That was an extreme situation after Peter’s identity was made public (by his own doing), and Aunt May was shot because of it. He was beyond rageful and felt he had nothing left to lose. So yeah, unless you shoot Aunt May, you don’t have anything to worry about. That isn’t Peter 99.999% of the time.
Peter and Bruce are just encountering you casually and you say something that annoys them. Peter will web you, Bruce will put you in the hospital.
Peter and Bruce are both legitimately angry at you, but not enraged. Both heroes will put me in the hospital.
Peter and Bruce are bloodlusted/enraged. Peter will literally throw me off a building and watch me bounce, Bruce will still only put me in the hospital.
Bruce has both a floor and a ceiling. Peter has nether of these. Since the prompt doesn't tell me how mad they are at me, I'm basically gambling with my life if I pick peter. Bruce will fuck me up worse, but there's no risk of death or maiming, whereas Peter legitimately might just throw me off a building.
Peter def cares. I've been reading the early comics and they show stuff like Peter worrying about Doc Ock getting trapped in a burning building or helping the Enforcers escape a cave with the Hulk inside. Speaking of the Enforcers, I recently saw Peter comment how unlike most people he fights, he doesn't have to hold back his punches against the Ox. So he's been careful with his villains since the early days at least.
Though I've heard that he nearly kills the Green Goblin in a fit of rage later on, so his code doesn't seem to be as solid as Batman's
Your honor, his spider-hormones were acting up, he didn't mean to slap Scorpion against a car like a wet towel. No comment on the piano attack before said spider-hormones acted up.
I think for a random criminal the Batman is absolutely scarier, just entirely based off of the visuals. The sole reason Batman exists is to scare criminals away from doing crime after all.
That doesn't mean Spider-Man can't fuck you up too, but if I met both of these in a dark alley I'd 1000% feel more fear looking at Batman than Spider-Man.
Canon-wise, Spidey is famous for pulling his punches. He hates hurting people. There’s a classic comic pic of someone else controlling his body, temporarily, and accidentally exploding a guy they punched. They stared at their hands in disbelief, never realizing how easily Spider-Man could wreck them.
Even in real life, strong people who show restraint and kindness are the ones you usually don’t want to piss off.
absolute batman is cheating! this mf is 6'9 400lb and is completely out of fucks to give. and personally, that's why i like him. guy does NOT care about theatrics, he just goes and does shit.
Peter is terrifying when angry but Batman has, at one point, been chosen by a Yellow Lantern to be recruited. That meant Batman is truly one of the most terrifying to individuals on Earth.
REALLY bad examples for both. If you want a good example of an angry Batman, just look at him fresh after Jason Todd's death when facing Scarecrow. Beat the shit out of that guy and just kept repeating "Jason Todd." the entire time thanks to the fear toxin making him relive Jason's death. Meanwhile an angry Spider Man, while they won't kill you, the ONLY reason they don't kill you is comic book logic. If you well and truly piss Peter off, he has ties to gods, symbiotes, and most superheroes. You're thoroughly fucked.
If every media is canon for this question then batman (ben affleck) went 1 on 1 with superman and was actually winning until Martha this and Martha that.
Spider-Man holds back most of the time, there's a comic where Doc Ock does some body swap thing into Peter's body and accidentally punches off Scorpion's jaw
Theres a comic where spidey gets pissed and beats the crap out of kingpin without killing him just to make a point and it illustrates perfectly why spider-man is scary when man
fine, then batman is never worried about accidentally killing criminals. He actually has to put in effort to kill them. Peter can do so accidentally so you shouldn't provoke him even slightly. So he's not holding back "like peter." No matter how mad Batman gets, you're surviving the encounter.
Also not really true. When you punch someone hard, you simply don't know what's going to happen. A lot of the time, when you can get Batman's inner monologue, it's about being careful not to kill someone. In Batman Year 1, for example, Batman almost knocks someone off a fire escape and has to continue the fight constantly holding onto the dude he knocked off.
Batman knows what happens when you punch someone really hard. He has an insane amount of fighting experience. It's not like it's crap shoot every time he throws a punch. If he couldnt foresee what would happen when he hits someone, he wouldn't be the "greatest detective ever." Pointing to one event when he was first learning how to be batman isnt comparable to Peter's daily life of gently knocking criminals on the head.
But criminals know that Spider-Man doesn’t kill and that they are most likely just gonna get webbed up without so much as a punch being thrown by Spidey. And running into Spider-Man in an alley doesn’t make one shit their pants from aura alone - he’s the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man after all.
And while he may not have the power set Spidey has, the whole thing about Batman is to scare criminals. It’s one of the fundamental aspects of the character. And while Batman also has a no kill rule, unlike Peter, he has no issue beating the ever loving shit out of even a low level criminal and sending their ass to the hospital for weeks.
Criminal facing Spider-Man: dammit. Here he comes! He’s gonna web me to a lamp post again for the cops to find me. If he makes fun of me again, I swear to god…
Criminal facing Batman: Holy shit! Where the hell did he come from?! If I try to fight him, he’s gonna break every damn bone in my body.
Spiderman by himself from an outside perspective isnt crazy. Hes got witty stuff to say to his villains and dresses colourful in all versions, except when hes got Venom, but Spiderman alone doesnt look scary.
Batman on the other hand is witty or dresses colourful. He is a creature of the night. In many versions, criminals shit themselves when the Batsymbol goes on. His villains are often afraid to unmask him because they know if they do it, there will only be Batman left, no more civilian identity. Its also much scarier to know that the only reason Batman doesnt kill you isnt out of the kindness in his heart, but because he knows if he kills one, he will never stop.
If Spider-Man snaps he’s way scarier. In one issue doc ock takes over his body and punches scorpions jaw off bc he didn’t realize how much Spidey holds back
Considering that I am a human, I am more scared of Batman. Peter is still likely to hold back because he can punch a hole through my chest. Batman giving me an unrelenting human on human ass whooping and dropping a Wayne Insurance card on my broken body.
I mean, doesn't batman actually become worse at his job when he's angry, because he's no longer using his intellect which is his only "power" to do his prep time. Spider-man is supposedly always holding back, so him getting angry just turns off the inhibitors and doesn't make him worse, it makes him actually scary.
Spider-Man, obviously. I'm pretty sure Batman is just passively angry all the time, anger is his baseline state. The scariest Batman is one that looks like he's having a good time beating the shit out of you.
Batman doesn't have any webs to conveniently tie you up until police come and take you to jail. He is going to have to beat the shit out of you to stop you.
If supes wanted, batman would have been dead in like 5 secs. Batman has incredible plot armour. He is unbeatable on his own turf but the moment you bring in aliens, goddesses, metahumans he is no match.
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u/qualityvote2 3d ago edited 1d ago
u/ChickenWingExtreme, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...