Iron Man vs. the Hulk
Who would win a fight between Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk?
"Dude, you know Hulk would easily win," Achenbach writes in an e-mail from Australia. "Iron Man is more of a natural opponent of, say, Ant-Man, or Captain America, or Spider-Man."
Ant-Man? Please. Maybe ants are menacing in the Antipodes, but this is a serious question. Serious enough to set forth before the brilliant minds of the Achenblog Institute. Not just because it is a question of the pop culture moment -- the new Iron Man movie hasrocked the box office, and yet anotherrebootingof the Hulk franchise is opening next month -- but because it speaks to deeper issues. What is stronger: Hulk's blind anger, or Iron Man's ingenuity?
Clearly, this is more than just a clash of comic-book superheroes: It is brains versus brawn, reason versus rage, ego versus id. If the Hulk can easily win, what does that mean for humanity?
There's no question that in the comic-book universe, Hulk is the more popular character. He's had three animated series made about him and even a television show. But on closer examination, it gets more complicated. Hulk's Wikipedia entry is4,890 wordsto Iron Man's4,815. (Ant-Man's is a laughable553 words-- though that's still better than Achenbach'smeasly 295-word entry, and my ownnonexistent one. There is a margin of error on these counts, because Wiki entries are constantly changing.)
The Incredible Hulk is Bruce Banner, a physicist who, when caught in the blast of a gamma ray bomb he had created, develops the power to turn into an indestructible, green-skinned monster. Superhero experts rank his raw physical strength in the top tier. But the transformation from Banner to Hulk is triggered by his emotions. The madder he gets, the stronger he gets. And the stronger he gets, the more out of control he gets, to the point where he is as mighty as a hurricane and as blindly destructive.
When you think about Iron Man's abilities -- the power to fly and shoot missiles, among other things -- consider this: When Hulk gets mad, he can practically jump into orbit. And there's little doubt that, were he to get his meaty green fists around Iron Man, he'd crush him like a can of Red Bull.
But here's the rub: Iron Man's superpower is his mind. Tony Stark, the man behind the Iron Man suit, is a genius engineer. He likes his booze and his women;… Sure, he's impulsive, but he doesn't have the anger issues that plague Banner, and he is also smart enough to build his first suit out of scrap metal in a cave and then extract a cold, calculating revenge on his captors. He is a superhero not by accident, but because he chose to be one.
Iron Man's powers are governed by reason, and he can learn, while Hulk is ruled by the whims of his unstable personality. For all his problems, Tony Stark is a man with a developing moral sense -- a hero in the old-fashioned sense, one who helps mankind -- while the Hulk is a force of nature and can never be anything else.
So who would win?
If they ran into one another on the street, the Hulk. Given time to prepare for the battle, Iron Man.
I find this to be a comforting answer, and it appears to be backed by precedent. (Spoilers ahoy.) In the "World War Hulk" series of comics, Hulk wins a first straight fight. Continual combat leaves New York in ruins. But Iron Man turns things around by using satellite powers to get him to revert to his harmless Bruce Banner form. Ol' Hulk is then locked up three miles below the Mojave Desert to keep him from another rampage.
The two superheroes also battled one another in 1980, comic acolytes say. In that fight -- the reasons for which don't really matter -- Iron Man focuses all of his suit's power into a single punch, knocking the Hulk unconscious. But the effort of the blow fuses the electronics in Iron Man's armor, leaving him unable to breathe. Guess who comes to Iron Man's rescue, fixing the fallen superhero's circuitry?
Ant-Man. Game, set, Achenbach.
-- Nelson Hernandez
By Editor | May 20, 2008; 6:00 AM ET