Duel at the Cliffs of Insanity - Batman vs. Nightcrawler

[Patchmadripoor]

Tonight the role of the Man in Black will be played by Bruce Wayne - The Dark Knight.

His sparring partner, a man of faith. The role of Inigo Montoya will be played by Herr Kurt Wagner, Nightcrawler.

Match #1 - No gadgets, not powers. Gentlemen's honor. Shall history repeat itself?

March #2 - Standard gear for Batman, powers are allowed for Nightcrawler.

Standard knowledge of each other, but let's keep it civil. First man to yield.

[StupidMoniker]

I would think Kurt has a ton more feats in the area of fencing, which should give him match 1. Match 2 should go to Kurt by teleport blitz.

[Daenarys Stormborn]

Batman can fence against people like Ra. Generally speaking I think Batman is just well rounded in combat enough one should consider his sword fighting as good as his hand 2 hand fighting. However, I don't have a clue what Nightcrawler has done.

In scenario 2, I'd purport that Batman could possibly win if he had enough time to let off some kind of gas or something.

[The Drunkard Kid]

In scenario 2, without ambush, there's really no reason why Kurt can't just teleport and instantly appear with his sword going through Bruce's skull. There's scenes of him disappearing and appearing simultaneously from inside Xavier's Mansion to the the outskirts of the compound, on a live video feed. Bruce can't dodge his entire body away faster than Kurt can see.

[Shai-Hulud]

Match #1:

Nightcrawler's reflexes are superhuman to the point where he's been able to keep up, agility-wise, with people like Spiderman. Also, he has myriad fencing feats, such as routinely fencing with a blade in each hand (and a third in his prehensile tail) and against multiple opponents, while doing various acrobatic feats and keeping all this coordinated. The sword is continually depicted as his favored weapon, sort of like Batman's batarang is his.

And—oh yeah—Kurt's spine is superhumanly flexible in a way human spines are not, allowing him to twist, flip and dodge in ways that are unnatural and unpredictable.

This against Batman's peak human reflexes and—so far as I'm aware—occasional fencing feats.

So I'd say Kurt wins this, although we can perhaps expect a good match from Bruce before he loses.

Match #2:

Age of Apocalypse Nightcrawler has been known to teleport people's heads off. Yes, really. So without CIS, 616 Nightcrawler does the same, and Bats loses his head over this. But since you're saying the fight is to be a gentleman's duel to the yield, Nightcrawler won't be able to utilize this kind of kill shot.

Still, there's the tactic of grabbing Batman (he can actually use his prehensile feet for this) and rapidly teleporting with him in tow multiple times, a feat that generally knocks out most people who are unused to it. Unless there's some reason to believe Batman won't be rendered unconscious, winded or otherwise forced to drop to his knees and start puking his guts out, Nightcrawler takes it via this tactic.

Or he could simply teleport with his blade conveniently located at Batman's throat, which ought to induce the condition of the gentlemanly yield.

[Matt the Manly]

Nightcrawler is as fast as Spiderman?

[Postmania]

Nightcrawler is as fast as Spiderman?

Not really, no.

[Shai-Hulud]

Nightcrawler is as fast as Spiderman?

Claiming he's just as fast or exactly equal seems too strong a statement, but I'm almost certain that he did fight Spiderman and hold his own in the reflexes and agility department back when they first met.

"Comparable" seems a fair word, as it connotes less of a mathematical exactitude, while still allowing for closeness or approximation.

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Alas, I no longer have the issue—it was a long time ago. If memory fails on this account, I apologize, but I seem to recall the encounter has them with similar agility and reflexes. Spidey has the combat precog, but Crawler has the teleportation, so they were rather evenly matched.

Crawler also isn't a bullet-timer, so there's that too.

If anyone has scans for that issue, I'd love to see them posted. Will recant if wrong, but I'm pretty sure them came out relatively evenly matched in that one.

[big_adventure]

Nightcrawler is as fast as Spiderman?

He's quick as hell, and generally quicker and significantly more agile than CBPH types (which is what Batman is), but calling him Spider-Man quick is exaggerating. Combined with his teleportation, he blitzes the shit out of Bruce.

A good way to get to a gentlemanly yield would be to simply flash-teleport next to Bruce, teleport away with the sword, and teleport behind him with the blades at Bruce's throat.

Take away Kurt's teleportation, and it's a tougher fight - Kurt has the quickness and agility edge (though isn't likely all that close to blitz-quick without teleportation), and is likely a better fencer, but Bruce is a better fighter, as well as much larger and much stronger. Probably makes for a close match, there, with Kurt getting wins on quickness and finesse, and Bruce getting wins on reach, endurance and tossing in kicks and such.

[Sharpandpointies]

The issue shown above piqued my nostalgia (I also owned it, as well as the Nightcrawler/Spiderman/Punisher crossover that came next). So, a couple of things to consider. ^_^

1. The issue depended HEAVILY on PIS for the Nightcrawler/Spiderman fight, with Nightcrawler actually hitting Peter despite being slower and having to deal with the Spider Sense (granted, this was some time ago before they had a lot of Peter blitzing the crap out of people with speed) and hurting Peter with his less-than peak human strength (and a piece of concrete webbed to his tail, seriously), and Peter hitting Crawler and having Kurt 'roll with his hits' (I have some vague memory of Peter also saying he was pulling his punches because he was used to trying not to kill normal thugs)...basically Kurt was being billed as 'slightly less physically capable than Peter' rather than 'is grossly outmatched in stregth, speed, durability...';

2. Comic books aside, unless Bruce has been showing the capacity to interpose kicks and the like while crossing blades with a skilled swordsman (he probably does, comics...), it's a bad idea, sticking one's limb into an edged weapon party. And Bruce doesn't have reach, here; reach, with edged weaponry, is mostly defined as the length of the sword rather than the few extra inches from any arm-length, because the arm itself is a perfectly valid target for a blade.

[Shai-Hulud]

1. The issue depended HEAVILY on PIS for the Nightcrawler/Spiderman fight, with Nightcrawler actually hitting Peter despite being slower and having to deal with the Spider Sense (granted, this was some time ago before they had a lot of Peter blitzing the crap out of people with speed) and hurting Peter with his less-than peak human strength (and a piece of concrete webbed to his tail, seriously), and Peter hitting Crawler and having Kurt 'roll with his hits' (I have some vague memory of Peter also saying he was pulling his punches because he was used to trying not to kill normal thugs)...basically Kurt was being billed as 'slightly less physically capable than Peter' rather than 'is grossly outmatched in stregth, speed, durability...';

If I'm not recalling the fight correctly, I recant.

At the time I read that issue I must have been, wow, probably didn't even have pubic hair. I didn't think in terms of PIS or CIS, but pretty much took what was on panel at face value.

I remember Nightcrawler giving Spidey a very good showing, that's all.

Long time ago.

Still think Kurt is too much fencer for Bruce in Match #1, though. Kurt can do thinks like fight with two blades while leaping around and stuff. I honestly can't see Bats beating him in a fencing duel.

[The Drunkard Kid]

OTOH, Spidey blitz-stomped Nightcrawler in passing in Secret Wars, but that scene also had him blitzing Classic Rogue and Storm being unable to user precision effects, IIRC, so take that as you will.

[Sharpandpointies]

If I'm not recalling the fight correctly, I recant.

At the time I read that issue I must have been, wow, probably didn't even have pubic hair. I didn't think in terms of PIS or CIS, but pretty much took what was on panel at face value.

I remember Nightcrawler giving Spidey a very good showing, that's all.

You recall correctly. No question of that, and it's not a shot at you. I'm just talking about how well that fight actually holds up when one scrutinizes how it went, in accored with PIS and other factors.

[Captain Morgan]

The issue shown above piqued my nostalgia (I also owned it, as well as the Nightcrawler/Spiderman/Punisher crossover that came next). So, a couple of things to consider. ^_^

1. The issue depended HEAVILY on PIS for the Nightcrawler/Spiderman fight, with Nightcrawler actually hitting Peter despite being slower and having to deal with the Spider Sense (granted, this was some time ago before they had a lot of Peter blitzing the crap out of people with speed) and hurting Peter with his less-than peak human strength (and a piece of concrete webbed to his tail, seriously), and Peter hitting Crawler and having Kurt 'roll with his hits' (I have some vague memory of Peter also saying he was pulling his punches because he was used to trying not to kill normal thugs)...basically Kurt was being billed as 'slightly less physically capable than Peter' rather than 'is grossly outmatched in stregth, speed, durability...';

2. Comic books aside, unless Bruce has been showing the capacity to interpose kicks and the like while crossing blades with a skilled swordsman (he probably does, comics...), it's a bad idea, sticking one's limb into an edged weapon party. And Bruce doesn't have reach, here; reach, with edged weaponry, is mostly defined as the length of the sword rather than the few extra inches from any arm-length, because the arm itself is a perfectly valid target for a blade.

Bruce actually has feats for snapping swords in half with kicks, so...

[Shai-Hulud]

Bruce actually has feats for snapping swords in half with kicks, so...

Against a swordsman of Kurt's caliber, with his agility, quickness and flexibility?