Neil deGrasse Tyson has pretty strong feelings on Marvel being the more scientifically accurate comics universe than its counterpart in DC Comics. He’s also got pretty strong feelings on who’d win a fight between Iron Man and Batman. Earlier in the week, we discussed his role in Cosmos: Possible Worlds, the highly anticipated science documentary that’s set to air on NatGeo in a matter of days. As it would be, we eventually ventured in chatter about comics and that’s when the astrophysicist dropped a bombshell — not only does he think Iron Man would handily beat Batman, he suggests Tony Stark would “wipe his ass” with Bruce Wayne and all he stands for.
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“They’re both human, but they have access to extraordinary tools,” Tyson says. “Well, you and I know that Iron Man would wipe his ass with Batman because Iron Man came up with all his own stuff; Batman…he got handed his tools from other people. If you put him in a match, Iron Man wins every time. I’m sorry. You just put that out there. I’m all in on that one.”
The director of New York’s Hayden Planetarium then took to the stars and offered his take on the most scientifically accurate franchise between Star Wars and Star Trek. According to Tyson, Trekkies will win every time.
“And let’s shift over to space,” the physicist adds. “Star Trek wins over Star Wars every day, of course, in terms of care, about whether what they do has any correspondence to actual science at all. There’s at least a premise that they’re living in the same world we are, with regard to the methods and tools and discoveries of science.”
“Oh yeah. No question. Oh, there’s no question,” Tyson told us earlier in the conversation. “Oh, it’s obvious. Marvel wins that contest hands down over DC Comics if for no other reason that almost, minus Thor and maybe one or two others that I’ve lost track of, almost everyone with powers in Marvel Comics, those powers are derived from something scientific that happened to them.”
The Batman hits theaters June 25, 2021. Iron Man can be seen in Avengers: Endgame, now streaming on Disney+.
Tyson can be seen in the latest season of Cosmos this Monday, beginning at 8/7 p.m. Central on National Geographic.
