Who is smarter: Batman or Ironman?

bats

It's hard to decide who has better Intrapersonal intelligence, when Tony is an alcoholic and Bruce is almost a hermit obsessed with his revenge.

Battle wits strategies and detective skills - Batman

Inventions science and engineering - Ironman

Very good thread! Most of them are very close to call and difficult to select. Only a few are obvious

Next time, you should probably create each poll / question thread individually.

nice thread

Voted. Thanks for this

@ganstaz003: I disagree. This is impressive and makes for a far more interesting thread

This thread helps prove that Bruce is a lot more intelligent than Tony as a whole. There is more to intelligence then just raw science

Nature Smart: Batman

Musical Smart: Tie, because as far as I know, neither are musicians. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Logical-Mathematical Smart: Iron Man

Exisential Intelligence: Batman

Emotional Intelligence: Batman

Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence: Batman

Linguistic Intelligence: Tie, as I don't think either of them excel in this category

Intra-Personal: Batman

Spatial: Iron Man

So polls that have opinion-based results should be seen as absolute proof?

Disagree with what?

@mrmonster: Bruce is extensively multilingual. There are languages that he can speak. That very few people on planet even know exist. Tony on the other hand. Does not know very many. Bruce also has a musical background.

@ganstaz003: If you made these into individual threads. It would not really get the point across. Here pretty much everything is laid out right there. We can see the full scope of their intelligence.

@SupremeGeneration: Well considering the fact that we have all of these areas laid out here and can vote on them. Yes it can be used to HELP prove it (I said help not outright prove. I guess you got triggered and ignored that). Tell me, do you disagree with these results. I certainly do not.

Batman wins

@mee09: I guess Batman then.

Bump

Iron Man only wins in the science category due to how advanced his tech is compared to Bruce's.

It seems as if Batman is getting ahead on the vote count. I was expecting this to be a bit more even. However, I would just like to say that a character been smarter than another does not mean he is better. Some of the best characters ever are great not only due to their abilities, but also because of their flaws.

Han Solo, per example, one of the best characters in Star Wars. Not the smarter, nor the strongest.

Or take Rorschach. He's not at all the more intelligent or strong of the Watchment characters. Still pretty damn cool.

I get the impression that here in Comic Vine we usually want our favorite characters to be better than all others; smarter, stronger, faster...

Anyway, just my thoughts on that.

Honestly, based on feats, Tony is a more intelligent person overall. He just operates on another level. Sure both of them are better than the other in certain categories but Tony's overall understanding of certain things as well as the ability to take care of difficult problems and find a solution to complex situations is just superior to Bruce's.

Does anybody else realize that you could literally make an exact copy of this thread and replace Tony Stark with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or Albert Einstein and you could make an argument that "derp batman smart here bot mozart smart dere so dat meen they almost even in smarts"? No? That's just me? Okay then.

Bulma

Reading through the sarcasm I can see your point. Except no way Batman and Mozart would be almost even in smarts.

@buckwheat: But with this measurement of intelligence you can have someone nowhere even remotely comparable brain power-wise either come out even or close to Batman. What if you compare Bruce to someone that's better at Naturalist intelligence, musical intelligence, linguistic intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, and spatial intelligence? Then you find out this person is just a genius composer or artist in real life? Welp, looks like this guy in real life is overall smarter than freaking Batman just because he has 5 intelligence advantages or Bruce's 4. See how problematic that is? I mean these measurements are based on psychology anyway. It's not like biologists, neurologists, or geneticists came up with this unit of intellect.

If we are talking raw intelligence overall, I would give it to Tony.

@noone1996:

Well the main problem with this poll is that you can rate the different intelligences, but you cannot give a figure as to how high each specific intelligence is.

Per example, if a intelligence score would go from 0 to 100, with the average been 20, if Mozart has 20 points on most of his 9 intelligences, with a couple of 18 points on the intelligences where he lacks most and about 75 points on Musical intelligence. We could have an aprox number of 20 points x 7 intelligences, plus 15 points x 2 of his less developed factors and 75 from his Musical genius, we would get a Grand Total of: 245 points, whereas the average person would get a Grand Total of 180.

And Bruce would probably get 90 points in Body-kinesthetic, 80 in Logical-Mathematical intelligence, etc. ect., so even if Mozart got higher score than him on Musical Intelligence, Batman´s Gran Total would be very much above, due to him been above average in so many different fields.

So, yeah… This poll won’t give an exact verdict. It’s just a way to further look into the individual geniality of both Tony and Bruce.

Actually I disagree. I would say that Bruce is more intelligent overall, and Tony excedes on some specific areas of intelligence.

This. ^^

Gotta love the vagueness here...

@buckwheat: It's still faulty because there are some categories which are absolutely absurd from an intellectual standpoint that could even out the points. Mozart's musical intelligence would probably exceed the scale since he basically saw symphonic notes and composed complex songs in his head at around 13 years old. So we can agree that he'd stomp Batman in that category. However, let's say that, hypothetically, he ends up stomping Batman in like 2 or 3 other categories. Then it would either be even, comparable, or higher than Bruce's. It's a faulty method of measuring intelligence.

Hell, just thinking about that scale alone is absurd. What if there was a limit to that scale and you could only be 100. Even if you were the smartest guy in the universe when it came to mathematics-logical intelligence, the best you could do is 100. So if you compare someone like Reed or Doom who would have 100's in practically every category, but then you have Reed at 90 in musical, but Doom is 91 in musical, do we then say that Victor is actually smarter even though pretty much everyone on this website agrees that he isn't? I mean this can even be applied to Tony and Reed. What if Reed and Tony both score the exact same (since the scale can only go to 100), but Tony has actually shown slightly better musical intelligence? It's just dumb.

Meh, says enough. I'm feeling lazy atm.

:)-

Well the score of 1 to 100 was just an idea on how this poll could be a bit more precise. Of course to expect that an automatic poll on a comic site could provide an absolutely accurate way of measuring intelligence, would not be all that intelligent to begin with ;)

Other than that, I do think the 9-intelligence theory to be a quite remarkable. If you think of it, until very recently the standard way to measure someone’s intelligence was through the IQ Test.

Take Daniel Tammet. This guy is a real-life genius. He has learned to speak Icelandic in one week, along other incredible things, and of course, has a very high IQ. However he also had problems learning a 20-minute walk home from his school, or recognizing people he had previously met.

What I’m trying to say is that if we where only to look at Daniel’s IQ we’d realize he is a genius —which he is— but without taking into consideration other aspects of his intelligence, we wouldn’t be able to understand that he has Asperger’s Syndrome.

So that’s why to consider the 9 intelligences is, in my opinion, a great advancement on intelligence measurements.

However, I don’t claim that this poll will give the absolute solution to who is smarter; Wane or Stark. I just raise a series of queries that, I feel, can be interesting to consider.

Are you criticizing the evaluating process because you do not agree with the results of the poll?

I wasn’t sure at first of what the outcome would be, but looking at how it’s going I do see logic to Bruce been overall superior to Tony, considering the many different areas Wane exceeds on, even though I feel Stark could be superior to Bruce in “pure intelligence” (specifically related to his area of expertise)

In terms of tech- Tony , everything else Bruce is superior to him.

@buckwheat: Wait, so you are saying that when you initially mentioned the "1 to 100" scale you were talking about the poll? I was saying that if there was a measurement of the 9 intelligences and they used a scale of 1 to 100 (musical = 92/100 or linguistic = 12/100). I was saying it's problematic because a scale like that would be incalculable or it'd have a maximum range of 100 for fictional and unrealistic super geniuses like Stark, Bruce, Reed, or Doom since they would be so superhumanly smart that a real life intelligence scale/quiz would never take that level of intelligence into account.

My criticism lies with the fact that this type of test values and measures irrelevant areas of "intellect". Like being a good public speaker relates to intelligence somehow...? Or syncing your body with your mind...? These categories are basically freebies which can make the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger (bodybuilder and politician) come somewhat close to a certified super-genius if you simply compared the 9 categories. This type of "intelligence test" pretty much closes the gap between the guys who create scientific breakthroughs and accomplish tasks that 99.999% of the population cannot do (at a young age, often times) and between the other guys who succeed in politics or become boxing champions. To me, there is just no comparison.

Now that I think about it, these 9 intelligences were likely created as a form of social justice to even the gap between people with 80-90 IQ's and those with 100+ IQ's. Makes people feel better about themselves if they say, "u may be good at math, science, engineereeng, etc., but me good at music. u not smarter we just smartur in diffrint catigorees".

Actually the 9 intelligences is something true we all have and use. It's not some "creation".

There are people that write well but are terrible public speakers, there are people that struggle to learn a simple dance step but handle numbers with a lot of ease. There are people that are sensitive to what other persons feel and others that end up commiting suicide because they don't find their "place in the world". So yeah... There are different intelligences and they are all valuable.

Usually geniuses exceed so much on a speciffic area as for not been possible to compare your musical talent with what they do, unless you too are a musical genius.

And yeah... You can be good at all 9 intelligences, without been a genius, just like Hug ;)

3. Logical-Mathematical Intelligence (Number/Reasoning Smart)

Logical-mathematical intelligence is the ability to calculate, quantify, consider propositions and hypotheses, and carry out complete mathematical operations. It enables us to perceive relationships and connections and to use abstract, symbolic thought; sequential reasoning skills; and inductive and deductive thinking patterns. Logical intelligence is usually well developed in mathematicians, scientists, and detectives. Young adults with lots of logical intelligence are interested in patterns, categories, and relationships. They are drawn to arithmetic problems, strategy games and experiments.

This category is a tricky one because I can totally see Batman in everything underlined.

Ugh I hate that chart. Makes intelligence seems so...basic, and organized.

Yeah... Try instead a chart that uses one single test focused on IQ, and see how that makes intelligence seem.

Truth is, different circuits within the brain are used for different thought processes, meaning that at least several separate tests of short-term memory, reasoning and verbal skills are needed to measure someone's overall intelligence.

When you come to the most complex known object, the human brain, the idea that there is only one measure of intelligence has to be wrong. If the description of the OP oversimplifies, is due to the nature of the poll. In the end this is a comic site, not a science vine

@noone1996:

My criticism lies with the fact that this type of test values and measures irrelevant areas of "intellect". Like being a good public speaker relates to intelligence somehow...?

In order to understand linguistic intelligence, it is important to understand the mechanisms that control speech and language. These mechanisms can be broken down into four major groups: speech generation (talking), speech comprehension (hearing), writing generation (writing), and writing comprehension (reading).

Spoken language

"Inferior frontal gyrus; a major part of the inferior frontal cortex"

Speech production is process by which a thought in the brain is converted into an understandable auditory form. This is a multistage mechanism that involves many different areas of the brain. The first stage is planning, where the brain constructs words and sentences that turn the thought into an understandable form. This occurs primarily in the inferior frontal cortex, specifically in an area known as Broca's area.Next, the brain must plan how to physically create the sounds necessary for speech by linking the planned speech with known sounds, or phonemes. While the location of these associations is not known, it is known that the supplementary motor area plays a key role in this step.Finally, the brain must signal for the words to actually be spoken. This is carried out by the premotor cortex and the motor cortex.

In most cases, speech production is controlled by the left hemisphere. In a series of studies, Wilder Penfield, among others, probed the brains of both right-handed (generally left-hemisphere dominant) and left-handed (generally right-hemisphere dominant) patients. They discovered that, regardless of handedness, the left hemisphere was almost always the speech controlling side. However, it has been discovered that in cases of neural stress (hemorrhage, stroke, etc.) the right hemisphere has the ability to take control of speech functions.

Comprehension

Main article: Hearing

Verbal Comprehension is a fairly complex process, and it is not fully understood. From various studies and experiments, it has been found that the superior temporal sulcus activates when hearing human speech, and that speech processing seems to occur within Wernicke's area.

Auditory feedback and feedforward

Hearing plays an important part in both speech generation and comprehension. When speaking, the person can hear their speech, and the brain uses what it hears as a feedback mechanism to fix speech errors. If a single feedback correction occurs multiple times, the brain will begin to incorporate the correction to all future speech, making it a feed forward mechanism.This is apparent in some deaf people. Deafness, as well as other, smaller deficiencies in hearing, can greatly affect one's ability to comprehend spoken language, as well as to speak it. However, if the person loses hearing ability later in life, most can still maintain a normal level of verbal intelligence. This is thought to be because of the brain's feed forward mechanism still helping to fix speech errors, even in the absence of auditory feedback.

Written language

Generation

Main article: Writing

Generation of written language is thought to be closely related to speech generation, relying on Broca's area for early processing and on the inferior frontal gyrus for semantic processing. However, writing differs in two major ways. First, instead of relating the thought to sounds, the brain must relate the thought to symbols or letters, and second, the motor cortex activates a different set of muscles to write, than when speaking.

Comprehension

Main article: Reading

Written comprehension, similar to spoken comprehension, seems to occur primarily in Wernicke's area.However, instead of using the auditory system to gain language input, written comprehension relies on the visual system.

Genetic links

While the capabilities of the physical structures used are large factors in determining linguistic intelligence, there have been several genes that have been linked to individual linguistic ability.The NRXN1 gene has been linked to general language ability, and mutations of this gene has been shown to cause major issues to overall linguistic intelligence. The CNTNAP2 gene is believed to affect language development and performance, and mutations in this gene is thought to be involved in autism spectrum disorders. PCDH11 has been linked to language capacity, and it is believed to be one of the factors that accounts for the variation in linguistic intelligence.

Measurement and testing:

Measuring Linguistic Intelligence is simple:

IF YOU READ THIS ENTIRE POST WITHOUT SKIPPING A WORD, YOU ARE LINGUISTICALLY INTELIGENT.

why do i feel like i inspired this thread

With a name like Elijah C. Whashington I can see hoy you would be an inspirational person

Bump

Going by this chart,I think a solid case can be made for Bruce being the overall smartest human period; not only in DC, but factoring Marvel humans as well. I can’t think of another (human) character as smart in as many of the different intelligence categories as he is, at least not in mainstream comic book canon.

Iron Man curbs in every category.

Batman overall.