I believe Batman in his earliest incarnation would prevail in this particular confrontation. Although he doesn’t have anywhere near the gadgetry that modern Batman has, he more than makes up for it with his willingness to use firearms and lethal force. Armed with his capsules of choking gas, silken rope, baterang (the original spelling), autogyro, and a gun or two, Batman 1939 would simply kill Batman 2003 and be done with it. He might shoot him, he might strangle him with the rope, he might heave him into a tank of acid, but he would kill him.
For the sake of discussion, we will assume that they are equals in knowledge about kicking people in the nuts and that neither will be encumbered with a Robin. One presumes that they would both automatically be prepared…
I don’t know. Today’s Dark Knight is pretty much a bad-ass maladjusted mo-fo too.
Now you take that pansy Batman in the 50’s pushing US Savings Bonds and telling us to eat our vegetables … the friggin’ Power Puff Girls could kick his ass.
1939 Bats long predates the notion of “Batman always wins if he’s prepared.” He was a thug in a goofy suit and the Bats of today would kick his ass old-school, then make him eat that gun he’s carrying.
Like the Batman of today has never faced guys with guns, or guys or equal or close to equal skill who want him dead. At any rate, 1939 Bats is 2003 Bats’ inferior in every way.
I remember reading someone claiming that B-1939 never actually used his guns against a living human opponent (just vampires and the like) he was only potentially more lethal than his latter-day incarnation.
B-2003 has the “God of winning” mojo on him now, better equipment, more diverse skills, a small army of sidekicks and associates, plus he’s just scarier.
Batman 1939 has to be the comic book version. For one thing, only in the original few issues of the comic did The Batman (always The in those days) do any of the things that Scumpup mentions, and for another thing, the first serial wasn’t until 1943.
But c’mon, are you saying that Batman 2003 hasn’t had to come up against guys with guns and other nefarious devices a million times over and survived? Technology 2003 will beat technology 1939.
Hey, looks like someone else just picked up the Batman Archives. I don’t believe he ever shot anyone other than The Monk - the early DC histories I’ve read all say that his use of a pistol in that story resulted in an editorial rule against his carrying firearms - but even after that, he frequently allowed criminals to die, throwing them on their own swords and so forth. Hell, at one point Robin threw a guy off the top of a building, and nobody commented on it.
FTR, he did, indirectly, once kill some people with a 1930’s-style “Death Ray”, though he only caused it to explode.
I’ve got to give this one to the 1930’s Bat-Man over the modern one. Modern Batman might have more skill, and even occasionally fights opponents who aren’t silly ethnic stereotypes, but he will go out of his way to not kill people (usually), even resorting to tactics that place him in greater danger to do so. 1930’s Bat-Man would not, and furthermore he didn’t care about the lives of his opponents. That’s enough of an edge for our purposes.
I just watched some of this last weekend for the first time, and, I gotta admit, one place the 1943 Batman has it over the present incarnation is humor. Damn! Against my expectations, this cheap serial was well written:
Batman has Alfred in disguide acting as a ruch guy to trap some crooks. Unwisely, Alfred has a gun. In the modst of the melee that inevitably develops, Batman and Robin are beating up the Bad Guys, while a tragically inept Alfred fires off six shots from his gun, menacing all equally. Fortunately, he doesn’t hit anything. The dialog follows:
Alfred: How many did I hit?
Batman: Seven of them
Alfred: But there were onlyu four of them in the room!
Batman: (without missing a beat) You shot three of them twice.
I think another major deciding moment was when Batman machine-gunned a gigantic mutated human that had climbed a skyscraper, in a fairly obvious King Kong ripoff.
Even Superman got into the lethal vengeance in the early days. He came across a torturer working over some prisoners, picked the guy up, and threw him, javelin-like, hundreds of yards to certain death.
Captain America, even, was pretty indifferent to death, though he didn’t play an active role in causing it (except in his first story when he hits a murderer so hard, the man stumbles into electrical equipment and is incinerated, and even then, culpability is shaky). More likely, it was him dodging attacks and letting the lunging villian fall to his death or onto his own weapon. In one early story, the first to feature his archenemy, the Red Skull, Bucky jumps RS and struggles with him while Cap stands by and simply watches. RS ends up accidentally injecting himself with the poison he had been using on his victims and Cap seems just fine with letting it happen. Why he let Bucky stick his neck out remains a mystery. Naturally enough, it was later revealed that the dead man wasn’t the real Red Skull, alowing the character to return.
It was when comic-book characters like Bats and Supes and Cap became popular, and clearly not a mere fad, that the writers began to distance them from the violent pulp fiction that had inspired them.
Actually He machine gunned a truck containing the monsters he ended up killing the drivers while the monster got away. The creature was then hung by the silken rope tied around his neck and the Bat Gyro. (EGAD) Batman’s response to his action “He’s probably better off dead” (DOUBLE EGAD!)
The last was toppled off the top a la king kong I don’t think he was shoty as Hugo strange had equiped teh beasts with bullet proof clothes. I believe it merely lost it’s grip trying to swat at him.
I also was pretty jarred by the image of Batman using a gun against The Monk, sure it was silver bullet used to destroy the vampire (?!?!) but atman shouldn’t have a gun.
There is even an image from one front page splash to a story I can not remember in whish is Batman holding two smoking automatics. :eek:
Say What about 1970’s Batman could he defeat 2003 Batman?
