Steel vs Iron, who would win in a matchup between two of DC and Marvel comics most iconic warriors?
Can brains and technology outfight one of the most powerful superheroes in the universe?
First up, what's each side bringing to the fight?
Ironman is a genius engineer, not the smartest man on earth but easily one of the smartest. This
is without a doubt his greatest advantage over Superman- Clark Kent is pretty clever himself,
but Tony Stark is a few leagues ahead of Kent. Ironman's genius helps him to develop some
of the most advanced technology humanity has ever seen, including his iconic powered suits.
What exactly Ironman's suit is made out of depends on the design- and whether you get your
Ironman canon from the movies or the comics. His original suit was made, obviously enough, of iron,
but iron proved to not be good enough to stand up against Marvel's bevy of evildoers and villains.
Since then, he has made suits out of titanium alloy, titanium and gold alloy, nanobots coated
in vibranium, and he's even incorporated vibranium directly into the more normal
forms of his armor. However, one of his most powerful armors ever created was made out of Uru.
Uru is a special Asgardian metal which is nearly indestructible, and used to create the Asgardian
destroyer and Thor's hammer both. When the earth was ravaged by the Asgardian god of
fear and his minions, Ironman called out to Odin for help defending Earth. In return, Odin allowed
Ironman to use Uru metal to fashion weapons for eight of Earth's heroes. For himself, Ironman
simply flew into the molten metal and covered himself completely in it, emerging in armor
completely coated in Uru. Odin then enchanted the armor directly, empowering it further.
Just how good was Ironman's Uru Armor? Sadly we'll never know,
because he was never actually shown fighting in it. However given that it was designed to
fight living gods, it's a good bet the Uru armor would have been a match for Superman.
In the offensive department Ironman features a number of weapons- though some of his most
iconic include micro-missiles, acid ice which can freeze and dissolve foes at the molecular
level simultaneously, a legion of automated combat bots with abilities matching some of the mid-tier
Ironman suits, and probably most famous of all- his repulsor blasts. These blasts are fired
from the palms of his hands and powered by the miniature arc reactor that is the heart and core
of each of his suits. These repulsors are powerful enough to blast through solid concrete, and were
sort of an accidental weapon- originally they were supposed to help Ironman keep stable in flight.
Ironman's Unibeam is amongst his most powerful attacks- and one that he can only use sparingly
as each blast saps a significant amount of his suit's power. To compensate,
Ironman has built energy generating devices into his suits that can tap into ambient power sources
and even use kinetic energy to partially recharge the suit. When backed into a corner,
Ironman's Unibeam however can be overwhelming for any opponent.
Other than the various gadgets, Ironman's armor grants him super strength and a
degree of super speed, plus it’s capable of absorbing tremendous amounts of punishment.
How does old Supes stack up to Ironman?
There's probably no hero who has undergone more evolutions than Superman.
Originally he was as fast as a speeding bullet and strong as a locomotive, and couldn't even
fly. He'd simply leap over buildings to get to his destination using his superstrength.
However, as Superman grew up on earth under the light of its yellow sun, the sun's radiation
helped fuel his powers, and today the man of steel is one of the most powerful beings alive.
It might be easier to list what Superman can't do. He's almost completely physically invulnerable,
with his invulnerability only increasing with age as he absorbs more and more of the sun's
radiation. In fact, the longer he lives on earth, the more powerful he becomes- meaning that the
only theoretical limit to Superman's strength is ultimately how long he keeps living on earth.
His superstrength is almost unmeasurable. He once held a black hole in his hands,
resisting the most powerful force known to physics. Another time he bench-pressed the
weight of the entire earth- about 6 sextillion metric tons- for five days straight. He's even
initiated fusion to create new suns by smashing entire moons together.
But superman's strength isn't just in his muscles. Though it's little understood, even by himself,
Superman has somehow developed the ability to project an energy field that affects whatever
he's holding, remarking that objects he lifts somehow feel lighter to him than they should.
All that superstrength means he's superfast as well, his reaction time is about 1 attasecond,
or one quintillionth of a second. He's able to go at least 52 million times faster than the speed of
light, having once made a trip of 25 light years in about 15 minutes. In races against The Flash,
Superman has tied 3 times- though once both characters decided to tie on purpose to foil
the plans of people placing bets on the race. The Flash still outraced Superman- though Wally West,
the fastest Flash, commented that he believed Superman could beat him if he really tried,
and all without tapping into the speed force.
Plus there's the issue of Superman only increasing in power with more exposure to the sun.
Clark Kent's maximum lifespan is believed to be limited only by his continuing exposure to
our yellow sun, which would give him a lifespan of about 5 billion years-
until he simply finds a new sun to settle by. Theoretically, he could live forever,
or at least until the death of our universe, only getting stronger with age.
So who would win in a matchup?
Listen, we love Marvel but we're not even going to lie,
all the odds are stacked against Ironman here. Superman outclasses him in every
single category except the one that gives him a fighting chance- intellect. As we've
seen repeatedly over the years, Superman has actually been bested by foes smarter than him,
and Ironman's strategic cunning and genius intellect may be what wins this fight for him.
Dr. Doom once defeated Superman by crushing up kryptonite and using it as a dust to coat
the man of steel, suffusing it into his suit and sapping Superman's strength.
Kryptonite is one of Superman's greatest weaknesses, and even just making Superman
believe that something is kryptonite can actually sap the man of steel's powers.
When Protex of the Hyperclan psychically manipulated Superman into believing he
was wielding kryptonite, Supes nearly bit the big one- until the illusion was broken.
In fact, other than kryptonite Superman is actually weak against psychic attacks. Darkseid
once brainwashed superman into acting as one of his soldiers. Sadly for Ironman, psychic power is
not something that can be invented, and thus not something he'll be able to bring to the fight.
Another of Superman's weaknesses is magic, and he's proven repeatedly that magicians
and sorcerers can get the best of him. Combine magic with kryptonite and, well,
there's a reason why the Justice League has more than one member.
Magic again though is not something that can simply be invented,
leaving Ironman with only two real weapons against Superman: kryptonite and red sun radiation.
Kryptonians gained no special power from the red sun that they lived under,
with their superpowers enhanced by technology. Only when Superman came
under the effect of our yellow sun was this biological reaction discovered- but should
Superman be cast in the glow of a red sun again, his powers immediately begin to be nullified.
While it takes time to completely drain Superman, the negative effect is immediate,
and more than enough to drop Superman's powers down several notches in the span of a few seconds.
Ironman could stand a chance against Superman by simply tapping into red sun radiation,
and that's something that's extremely easy to do with technology-
in fact Batman has done it several times and Tony Stark is definitely smarter than Batman.
As Ironman has shown, his unibeam can actually be used as a spotlight,
and with some modifications, that spotlight can be colored with red sun radiation.
Next, Ironman can tap into Superman's other weakness that he can actually wield effectively-
kryptonite. Psionics and magic may be out of his reach, but as a former arms dealer, getting his
hands on kryptonite would be relatively easy. His suit's gloves could be outfitted with kryptonite
gauntlets, allowing Ironman's punches to bypass much of Superman's natural toughness. Missiles
with kryptonite warheads would deal serious damage to the man of steel, though the real threat would
come from them turning kryptonite into microscopic airborne particles around Superman. One inhalation
and the kryptonite would now be inside Superman's lungs, quickly sapping any remaining strength.
There's just one problem here- Superman is fast. Like, insanely fast. Remember his reaction time
of one attasecond? Well that's actually fast enough to see photons moving, and the Flash
has proven that Superman has the biological capability to process information fast enough
to track him even when moving at his top speed. This is far in excess of human thinking speed,
which is somewhere around the speed of sound.
Superman's superbrain can basically see Ironman's red sun radiation unibeam and react to it fast
enough that the photos won't even get a chance to strike him before he's out of its way.
Chemical explosions are nowhere near light speed, so even if Ironman surprised Superman
with kryptonite-laced missiles, he'd easily outrun not just them, but their explosions as well.
Ofcourse, there is the chance that Superman won't even recognize the danger- after all,
he's had all kinds of missiles and bombs lobbed at him before.
In that case, there's a chance kryptonite-laced explosives might actually catch him off guard.
For all his powers, Superman is actually not capable of detecting the presence of kryptonite
until it actually affects him, and by that time his power level is greatly diminished.
But Superman is no dummy, and going up against a genius scientist who engineered his own
power armor, he's going to be prepared for the possibility that said genius scientist not only
knows about kryptonite and red sun radiation, but has weaponized it already. In that case,
Stark could take a cue out of Batman's book and simply create a constellation of satellites around
the sun that turn our sun red- though the science behind that one is... iffy at best. Plus it would
take decades of planning to pull that off, so we're going to disqualify that plan immediately.
Stark's best bet is probably to just infuse his suit with kryptonite,
and then force Superman into a boxing match rather than trying to blow him up with missiles or blast
him with red sun radiation beams. We don't know what the circumstances of this fight are,
and realistically the two would probably never fight, but in this scenario it's a deathmatch,
so fighting must happen. Superman has no choice but to take Ironman out,
and that means getting up close and personal with a kryptonite-laced power suit.
Except realistically, Superman really wouldn't have to do that at all. Not even the strongest of
Ironman's suits are completely impenetrable- with the possible exception of his temporary Uru armor.
With his incredible strength, Superman could simply hurl a rock at Ironman and throw it
with enough strength that the rock is traveling at a significant portion of the speed of light.
The rock will disintegrate on collision with atmospheric particles, which would all be
broken down into their most elementary particles. These would be traveling so fast though that they
would zip right through Ironman's suit and his normal, human body underneath.
We know from real history what happens when human flesh gets in the way of elementary
particles moving at extreme speeds. In 1978 Anatoli Petrovich Bugorski accidentally stuck
his head in a particle accelerator for a brief moment. The protons passed straight
through his head and destroyed the nerves where they passed, leaving the left half of his face
paralyzed. Incredibly, he survived the ordeal, but not without significant effect on his health.
Ironman will have a mass the size of a rock, or boulder, broken down into elementary particles,
and hurled through his body. In effect, his body will be torn apart at the atomic level,
likely causing a multitude of microscopic black holes both inside and outside of his body
as particles collide with each other at near-light speed. Nothing in the world
could save Ironman at that point, and death would be basically instantaneous.
We're giving Superman the easy win here. Ironman may be a genius, but even armed with kryptonite
weapons and red sun radiation, Superman is simply too fast and too strong to be realistically
survived. In fact, Superman's canon powers are so strong that even DC's best attempts to challenge
superman are wildly unrealistic. You simply can't defeat a superhero who can move 52 million times
faster than the speed of light. At that point physics is your plaything, and merely hurling
a rock at the speed of light will kill anything, and we mean anything, instantaneously- as well as
destroy a significant portion of the surrounding countryside from the incredible release of energy.
All of DC's attempts to beat Superman have relied on limiting Superman's powers,
or forcing him to be beaten because the story plot demands it. Completely unleashed,
there's probably no force in the universe that can actually defeat the man of steel-
no plan is clever enough to entrap a man who can react so fast he can literally see photons moving.
Now go check out What If Superman Was A Serial Killer,
to find out how quick the man of steel could end all human life,
or click this other video instead! I really wish they'd stop making terrible Venom movies.