Superhero Smackdown Rd. 1 - Stan Lee Region

STAN LEE REGION
Round 1

1 Professor X vs. 2 Daredevil - Matt Murdock is smart, resourceful, and an expert combatant. Professor Xavier is the most powerful mutant on the planet. He would get inside of Matt Murdock’s head and spin for him a nice fantasy. In minutes, Professor X would have DD believing that he was a successful civil liberties lawyer with a wife named Elektra, two beautiful babies, a dog named Bullseye, and perfect 20/20 vision. WINNER - PROFESSOR X

8 Spider-Man vs. 9 Cyclops - This is the one that’s going to seriously piss people off and you know what, maybe I’m playing favorites here? The beauty of this sort of thing is that we can all debate it later and you can all call me a crazy Summers-loving hack if you want to. But I’m giving the edge in this one to Cyclops. Scott Summers never gives up. When you stop and consider all the things he’s faced in his relatively short life as leader of the X-Men, that’s saying a hell of a lot. When the world faces rogue gods or alien invasion, Cyclops is always on the frontline while Peter Parker is usually swinging through the background, cracking jokes and feeling slightly ineffectual. Perhaps the Cyclops of old, who was fond of constantly second guessing himself, would slip up against the webslinger. But Morrison and Whedon fixed that Cyclops and made him into the man I always knew he was, not just the man we always thought he could be. The new version finds a way to beat Spider-Man. WINNER - CYCLOPS

5 Norman Osborn vs. 12 Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze) - So we found out recently that Johnny Blaze (and all the Spirits of Vengeance for that matter) is a badass instrument of god in the war against evil here on Earth. In the most recent Ghost Rider issues by Jason Aaron we’ve seen a more powerful Blaze than we ever thought possible, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. So if it’s Ghost Rider’s job to seek out and haul in the baddest of the bad, and if he can feed off the evil they do to make himself that much stronger, what chance does the Marvel Universe’s most putrid evil-doer have against him? That’s right Johnny, drag that grinning bastard down to Hell. WINNER - GHOST RIDER

4 Captain America (Steve Rogers) vs. 13 Ant-Man - Hank Pym is a brilliant scientist capable of serious feats of strength and ingenuity. Captain America is Captain America. Do the math, Mr. Pym. It’s what you’re good at. WINNER - CAPTAIN AMERICA

6 Jean Grey vs. 11 Venom (Eddie Brock) - Jean Grey thinks past the symbiote and shuts down the human that it’s bonded to. Then when it latches onto her in an attempt to find a new host, it finds itself in a psychic battle for dominance with the greatest force in the cosmos; The Phoenix. The phoenix purges the evil from Jean’s soul. WINNER - JEAN GREY

3 Fantastic Four vs. 14 Beast - Arguably the two most brilliant scientific minds in the Marvel Universe square off against one another in this battle. They were going to fight, but McCoy and Richards got into a debate about the benefits of Negative Zone science that lasted for days. Eventually, Johnny Storm gets bored and goes to look for a date, Ben Grimm passes out in the corner, and Sue Storm storms off to bed in a huff, angry that Reed has been ignoring her once again. Once alone, the Beast uses his superior strength and agility to overpower Reed Richards and turn his own science against the unsuspecting remaining three members of the Fantastic Four. WINNER - BEAST

7 Iron Man vs. 10 Kitty Pryde - If John Constantine is the guy the DCU always underestimates, then Kitty Pryde is that person in the Marvel Universe. A few years back this probably wouldn’t have been any kind of match at all. But something happened to young Ms. Pryde while none of us were paying attention; she grew up. Where once there was a reckless and self-conscious young X-Man, now there is a powerful and confident female warrior. Over the past few years, Kitty successfully rescued Colossus from the bottom of the world, dismantled the X-Men single-handedly (okay, she was being psychically influenced, but come on!), and then when all hope seemed lost and none of Earth’s greatest heroes could save the world from imminent destruction, Shadowcat did it for them. Tony’s a helluva warrior, an original Avenger, and an all-around bad mother flipper, but he’s still too reliant on that suit. Kitty takes him out of it. WINNER - KITTY PRYDE

2 The Hulk vs. 15 The Punisher - The Hulk is invulnerable and the Punisher shoots things. WINNER - THE HULK