Batman vs Captain America: Who Would Win?

In this article, we’re comparing two superheroes, but from different universes – Marvel’s Captain America and DC Comics’ Batman. So, Batman vs Captain America, The Dark Knight vs The First Avenger, who wins?

The only officially completed fight between Batman and Captain America ended in Batman winning. The outcome of the fight was voted by fans. Objectively speaking, Captain America and Batman are pretty evenly matched.

In the rest of the article, we will first take a look at The Dark Knight and his powers, and The First Avenger and his powers. After that, we will take a detailed look at the battle between Batman and Captain America in the comics.

Batman vs Captain America Fight in the Comics

This is a very important question when considering crossover comparisons since it is the best way to actually see how a fight between characters from two different universes would end. And while Marvel and DC Comics have had their fair share of crossovers, not all characters have had the opportunity to face off against each other.

Luckily for us, Batman and Captain America have.

In 1996, DC Comics and Marvel had a big crossover event called DC versus Marvel, where they pitted some of their heroes against each other. The winners were decided by voting and in epic #3, Batman fought Captain America in the sewers of Manhattan.

The fight was very brief, but the two superheroes exchanged several punches before deciding to use their weapons.

Just as they were about to throw their respective weapons at each other, the “battlefield” began flooding with water. Captain America threw his shield at Batman but missed, while the Dark Knight’s Batarang hit its target and Cap was sent plummeting into the water.

But, being the hero he is, Batman jumped after him and ultimately saved him, which lead to Captain America ultimately admitting defeat and the two of them became allies.

A similar thing happened in a later crossover, in the comic book JLA/Avengers #2 (2003), where Captain America fought Batman. The two of them exchanged some quick blows but soon decided to stop fighting and work together in solving the mystery of their complex crossover.

Batman vs Captain America: Who Would Win?

Now we’ve come to the part where we need to answer the question from the title of this article. But first – let’s analyze the powers and abilities of our two protagonists.

Batman and His Powers and Abilities

Batman is a regular human, but with exceptional physical abilities; as far as a regular human’s powers and abilities go, Batman’s are certainly at their peak.

He has some very enhanced attributes (strength, stamina, agility), he is extremely intelligent, but his enhancements are the result of diligent training, not any chemical enhancements or superpowers.

Batman is heavily reliant on technology and is a great engineer, inventing and designing a lot of different weapons and gadgets he uses in fights. This pretty much covers Batman’s basic powers and skills.

Captain America and His Powers and Abilities

As for Captain America, he is a Super Soldier and is just slightly above peak human abilities. Being given the Super-Soldier serum, Steve Rogers became stronger than even the strongest of humans and that significantly increased his powers and abilities, despite him never being a superhero.

He also relies heavily on hand-to-hand combat and quite often uses his famous shield for both offense and defense.

Now that we’ve covered their basic abilities, let us see how we can compare them in specific fields.

First, we’ll see how they can be compared when physical abilities are concerned.

Batman vs Captain America: Physical Abilites

When it comes to sheer strength and endurance, Captain America is the winner, but only slightly. Namely, Batman’s strength and endurance are, as we’ve said, at a peak human level, while Captain America’s are just slightly above that.

This is a consequence of Captain America gaining his powers in an artificial manner, and the main intention of that whole operation was to create soldiers that are stronger than regular humans.

Batman vs Captain America: Speed and Agility

On the other hand, when it comes to speed and agility, both of them are very, very similar, with Batman gaining the upper hand because he is a better acrobat and gymnast than Captain America. The latter is a soldier, a fighter, while the former had to learn how to be unseen, which also increased his stealth abilities.

Batman vs Captain America: Martial Arts

Both Batman and Captain America are great martial artists and there is no clear winner here, despite Batman knowing more arts than Captain America. Batman would surely find something in his hand-to-hand fighting arsenal to defeat Cap, but objectively – there is no real difference.

Batman vs Captain America: Gadgets and Weapons

As for their gadgets and weapons, Captain America had his shield while Batman has a variety of different fighting tools.

Captain America’s Shield is one of the strongest and most important objects in the Marvel Universe. Cap uses it both as a defensive tool – because it’s one of the best shields you can find – and as a weapon – throwing it at his enemies. And that’s about it.

Sure, the Shield is strong enough to endure most things the Avengers are dealing with, but Batman is more diverse and we’re certain that he could find a way to counter the shield. Batman’s utility belt contains a lot of different stuff and in this case, the heterogeneous nature of his gadgets is certainly a good thing.

Batman vs Captain America: Intelligence

When intelligence is concerned, Batman is a clear winner, with Rogers not even coming close.

The Bottom Line

So what can we deduce from this? First of all, we can see that when it comes to power – Captain America prevails, but in all other aspects, they’re either tied or Batman wins. It might be hard for some to believe it, but Batman would certainly find a way to beat a human, despite his strength and enhancements.

All in all, we’re prone to declaring this one a tie – and objectively it is, but due to there being a storyline (albeit an alternative) where Captain America fights Batman and ultimately admits defeat, we also have to stress out that detail and say that Batman could defeat Captain American with relative ease.