The Psychopath with biblical morality vs the Psychologist with an appetite.
Who would win?
This is certainly a more even match than Hannibal Lecter vs. John Doe, the former bass player for the band X. Although maybe if Doe had a bass that he could smack Lecter over the head with, that could be interesting.
Lecter by a mile.
Lecter is almost the next evolutionary step up from human: his mind is beyond brilliant (photographic memory, ability to learn languages almost instantaneously, artistically gifted, and the ability to synthesize all info), he has an animal’s sense of smell, he’s physically impressive (small but very strong and limber- also has two index fingers on his right hand and maroon eyes, but that’s probably incidental) and rich. He successfully escaped from a maximum security cell surrounded bya SWAT team then dodged Interpol, the FBI and other agencies for years even while living openly and in a high profile curatorship position.
John Doe is just a generally bright but barking mad loon. He couldn’t even dodge the police in his own city. He’d never get within six miles of Lecter.
Now Hannibal Lecter v. Harry Potter- that’s a contest (brilliant mortal v. novice wizard), even assuming it was in a place where Harry could legally use his wand.
Batman, if he’s prep… sorry, force of habit.
Real answer: Lecter and John Doe are both cartoonish characters, not worth taking seriously. Lecter is a LITTLE less annoying, in the movies anyway, simply because Jonathan Demme and Ridley Scott had some small appreciation of the basic silliness of the premise (we’re actually supposed to be scared of a short, pudgy, 60-something year old Welshman?), while David Fincher has no sense of humor whatever.
Hannibal Lecter provides a few campy laughs, so he’s preferable to John Doe, whom we’re apparently supposed to take seriously.