Versus # 2 - Iron Man vs. Lex Luthor

The Battle of the Armored Tycoons



Versus seems to be a hit, and I think it resides in the fact that we all love to pit our favorites against each other in pointless battle. The vs. theme is a long standing crowd pleaser that goes way back with such classics like Atom Man vs. Superman (1950), King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), well, with Godzilla the list is endless… hell, God vs. Satan, the originator of the vs. theme. So it makes sense that we now bring Versus! to you, and get down to what’s really important. The question on everybody’s mind, Who Would Win?

For our first battle we chose a couple of the more diminutive heroes, The Atom vs. Ant-Man, with Atom taking it 3-0. Toni Smith joined Kron and me for the last match up, and this time Mr. Adam Wit is going to weigh in with us. It’s time for the next battle, so lets meet our contenders:


Iron Man (Tony Stark) vs. Lex Luthor (uh…Lex Luthor)

SupaScoot

Tony Stark wears a highly sophisticated suit of armor that gives him superhuman strength and durability, flight, repulsor blasts, numerous militaristic weapons as well as specialized armors to handle any challenge. Without the armor he is an ordinary human at peak fitness levels, trained in hand-to-hand combat by Captain America. Stark is an inventive genius, and considered one of the most brilliant minds in the Marvel U. with expertise in the fields of mathematics, physics, chemistry, computers, and engineering.

Lex Luthor is a brilliant super criminal genius, who has no special powers, and probably isn’t at peak human condition. He wears a highly sophisticated suit of armor made with Apokoliptian technology. He has mastered seemingly every known form of science, including space travel, extra-dimensional travel, biochemistry, robotics, computers, synthetic polymers, communications, mutations, transportation, holography, energy generation, spectral analysis and more (including time travel in many Pre-Crisis stories).

Iron Man to me is the better character. Luthor has some great storylines, and his presence as one of the greatest villains in the DC Universe is undisputable. But Tony Stark has had more than his share of memorable storylines, with tons of great problems and character relationships to relate to. However, the biggest reason that Iron Man is the better character is quite simple. Dude has armor for everything. No matter what happens in Stark’s life, you can count on him coming through it with a new armor, ready to astonish you each and every time he trades up. Hulkbuster armor, space exploration, stealth, deep sea, ass kickery in a red and yellow can. He used to be able to tap into global satellites. With his brain. That’s pretty intense.

This was hard to determine who would win in a fight, because as Toni pointed out to us, these two probably wouldn’t fight. They would settle things as businessmen, run the world together with their brilliance. But there just isn’t enough room for two crazy geniuses with ball busting armor. So its time for a hostile takeover. These two could never share the same planet; they are almost two sides of the same coin. Luthor’s armor can stand up to Superman, so it could handle Iron Man, for a while at least. In the long run, IM’s suit would outlast Luthor’s, but Luthor wouldn’t let it come to that. He would find a way to crack that armor, hack it, beat it, and Tony wouldn’t quite figure out Lex’s in time, as maybe he wouldn’t fully understand the New God tech. In the end I think Luthor would pull some sneaky underhanded move, disable Tony’s armor, take off his boot, and start beating Stark across the face with it. In an honorable fight to the finish, IM might take it, but Luthor would end this quick, steal the Iron Man suit, pork Pepper Potts, and buy out Tony’s company.

SupaScoot’s Winner: Lex Luthor                                                                                    

Dr. Kronner

Lex Luthor is Superman’s oldest rival. Iron Man is Hollywood’s newest superstar. In recent years Luthor has become more dynamic, and DC has added depth to a character that for a very long time was quite 2-Dimesioinal. They did so by making him president. Here is one of the most famous villains in the DCU and the people ellect him President. WTF Bro? Iron Man on the other hand is one of Marvel’s mightiest Heroes, yet his well documented bouts with alcholism have made him a target of ridicule. Just another example of how truely different the 2 universes are. I would have to say though, especially since Marvel’s Civil War story, Iron Man is the better character of the 2. Maybe it’s because we see Stark lick his wounds, while Luthor always escapes until he is powerful enough to battle Superman again.

Now, while I feel Tony Stark is the stronger of the 2 characters, much like how I felt about Ant-Man in the last matchup up, I think he’d lose to Luthor. Marvel does a great job of creating characters that are flawed, and therefore more relatable, but again this is an occasoin where I see the DC character winning out and taking advatage of those flaws. That being said I think this fight would be much closer than the Ass-Whooping delivered upon Pym by the Atom, but in the end I see Luthor winning out. Part of this may also be the fact that while Stark isn’t afraid to fight dirty, it’s a last resort. Lex however would start off dirty, and likely go for a kill shot right off the bat. Luthor is also more disciplined. So in my opinion, this fight ends in the Death of Tony Stark despite what may be superior armor.

Dr. Kronner’s Winner: Lex Luthor                                                                             

Adam Wit

Lex Luthor versus Iron Man. Reviewing this battle, I could easily side with the good guy and be done with that, but I think that would be the loser way out. Plus Doc Kronner would probably bitch me out for being lazy. Both of the men are super-geniuses and have amazing suits that are used for some sort of random mayhem.

Lex’s suit was not simply of his own construction but involves Human, Apokoliptian and Kryptonian technology.  It also is designed with a focus for one caped crusader, given that it shoots out all the kryptonite radiation. He did temporarily kick the shit out of Batman and Superman, but the two eventually took Lex out.

Tony designed his suit himself which gives it that great big ‘Made in America’ stamp on the back. Plus it seems that the suit has a broader skill base to take out a variety of enemies.  Head to head it would be impressive to watch them crunch metal given that I think they would fight a chess match with giant weapons of destruction.

In this battle though, I think that Luthor would eventually do something stupid and just get beaten down like he always does.  Given this, I will have to tip the scales in favor of Iron Man if I am including the person in the suit.  If I’m just looking at the suits, regardless of who is in there, I think again that Iron Man would win because of the array of capabilities.  Until this match up can happen, I going to paint some cardboard boxes up to look like the suits and me and Doc Kronner are going to fight in the garage. Of course then Sanchez would just show up in his Optimus Prime Cardboard-Armor and whoop both our asses.

Grizzly Bomb's Kron & Sanchez

Results on that to follow.

Adam Wit’s Winner: Iron Man, Tony Stark                                                             



WINNER : Lex Luthor by a score of 2-1.

Kronner’s Closing Statement:
So DC moves ahead 2-0 in the overall standings and Luthor’s space-tech beats out Stark’s Armor. Perhaps next time MARVEL will fair better…

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