Batman (Nolanverse) vs John Diggle (Arrowverse)

@106me: Mediocre? Diggle is one of the main characters in the show.

@allstarsuperman: My God. Nolan Batman gets less impressive every day lol.

@allstarsuperman: In regards to the second GIF I am pretty sure that guy was suppose to get slammed by the guy batman was swinging around. I think thats just choreography.

One, Thats an assumption, tbh. We can actually see it happen. And 2, later on in TDKR a guy falls over for no reason yet again. Nolan or who ever did the movies fights was terrible.

@jashro44: Fans of the films always defend the slow and rather unimpressive fighting style that Batman uses as ugly, BUT effective. I think those gifs prove that idea wrong, not only is the style visually unappealing, but the limited moves employed by Batman creates scenarios where he literally can't keep up. Like in that gif, there was no way for Batman to counter that mercenary due to his not-advanced fighting style, so the only thing the filmmakers could do was have the guy subtlety fall over automatically. This proves that the style actually ISN'T effective, at least compared to other fiction, because realistically Batman should have been hit or grabbed. The fact of the matter is that there IS no way to film one man taking down a crowd of people using realistic fighting moves, the moves NEED to be fantastic and exaggerated, which is why Nolan's Batman needs guys to act stupid in order for him to keep up.

That said I'm not knocking on the action in the Nolan films. The first Batman vs Bane fight was more tense than any fight in Winter Soldier, Arrow, or Daredevil put together.

It was pretty good. I personally like the fight where daredevil fought those fodder guys in episode 2 while injured more. I also think I like the winter soldier fight where Steve and Bucky were fighting on the highway more....Tough call there IMO.

@nickzambuto:

Fair enough. Personally though I don't think the Bane vs batman fight really had that tension for me. I knew what was going to happen and I was waiting for Bane to break batman. With daredevil for me I was concerned about the kid. I was never concerned about the protagonists in captain america or batman because I knew they would survive but with daredevil that kid wasn't important and I don't think they have issues killing people no matter what the age, gender, etc. So to me Matt had to win that fight. And if I recall correctly those thugs were the ones who injured him in the first place so there was a chance he wouldn't win.

@nickzambuto: I can see that it was mecessary to use convenient terms, and I do agree that Diggle wins, but never has he fought ON PAR with China White, Sara Lance, Malcolm Merlyn, Ravager or Brick. He held his own for awhile on most of them, sure, but he did not fight on par with them.

Well that just depends on how you look at it. Let's break down the aforementioned fights and compare just how well Diggle actually did. I think you'll find that, if we play the fights in slow motion and really analyze what the characters were actually doing, there's a whole host of impressive and skillful moves the characters regularly pull that gives us an idea of just how good they really are.

Vs China White

Diggle's first ever fight in the whole series. China White and her elite two-man hit squad have broken into Laurel's house, and just as they are about to kill Oliver with no way for him to get out of it, Diggle of all people busts in from nowhere and starts pumping lead into fools before anyone can react. Since China White is the head of the Triad I gotta assume she wasn't hanging out with low level thugs, these two guys were probably decent assassins themselves, and while Diggle is distracted in finishing them off, White is able to come in from the side and completely ambush Diggle while wielding duel knives, disarming his gun with one knife and placing the other knife against his wrist. Now Diggle is using his bare hands against a blade expert, but being as skilled as he is, he's able to recover quickly and not only avoid White's move to stab his veins, but cleverly grab her by the same wrist in order to control her knife. With leverage on her arm Diggle goes for the hold, but White skillfully spins out of it, gaining some more leverage without putting pressure on her own joint and allowing her to hook her other blade around for a shot at Diggle, but Diggle ducks underneath and uses the opportunity to disarm one of White's blades.

The next bit of choreography is a bit weird, I think Diggle feints with his right arm but actually goes in with his left, but White dodges it and grabs Diggle's arm. However Diggle is able to break free and dodges several of her next attacks with admirable agility, but unfortunately the knife keeps him from counterattacking in that position and White gets her one hit in. While Diggle is on the floor she rolls over him and goes for the submission hold, then Oliver steps in.

All of that came from an encounter that lasted less than 10 seconds. Diggle lost, but let's look at the facts. The scene started with Diggle outnumbered three-to-one, and White came in from the side and ambushed him completely by surprise. He was unarmed facing an opponent with duel knives, so considering he had so much more to deal with, like disarming one of White's knives instead of going on the offensive, he was at a gigantic disadvantage. I don't think his loss comes from a lack of skill. Not only that, but this is still Diggle's very first fight in the show. We know that he trains with Oliver and picks up a lot more skills, and even though his second encounter with China White ended with Ollie saving him again, he later revealed that he didn't need help and was actually just about to spring his move. This was stated seriously too, not John being a sore loser.

Vs The Canary

This one is more self-explanatory, more of a showcase of Sara than Diggle, but it's very noteworthy how Sara is taking on both Ollie and Diggle simultaneously, and she is clearly on another level when it comes to wielding a bo-staff compared to Oliver, but despite being the only one there NOT trained in using the weapon, Diggle is the only one able to actually land a hit on Sara. I'm inclined to believe that in hand-to-hand combat Diggle would definitely beat her considering he very briefly one-upped her with her own signature weapon, and if Diggle is unarmed while Canary gets her staff he would at least do as well as he did against White.

Vs Merlyn

Again, very simple, more of a showcase for Merlyn in that he fights Ollie and Diggle simultaneously. At that point in the series, Merlyn was on a level above Oliver and it was impossible for Oliver to take him in straight combat, but with Diggle fighting too, they were actually able to overwhelm Merlyn. This would require Diggle to be pretty close to Oliver, and skilled enough himself to lay a hand on Malcolm (which he does, before Oliver does I might add) Diggle also survives Malcolm throwing a knife into his heart.

Vs Ravager

Now I can't find the Diggle vs Ravager fight on YouTube, which makes me extremely upset because it is by far Diggle's best showing. He was once again ambushed, this time while completely off guard, by a superior armed opponent, however instead of two knives, Ravager had two big ass swords, although Diggle did have his little nightstick thing to aid him. Now not only was this opponent approximately 10x stronger and faster than Diggle, but she was actually an expert fighter in her own right and "nearly trained to death" by Slade Wilson. Yet despite her monstrous physical advantage and also the fact that she was far from unskilled herself, Diggle was able to survive against her for a few minute, parrying and countering attacks, until eventually it became clear that he couldn't hurt her. Damn if that's not still a good showing though all things considered. Diggle didn't just fight a superhuman, he fought a trained superhuman with better gear than him.

Vs Brick

Now ONCE AGAIN the fight begins with Diggle being ambushed completely by surprise, this time he was blindsided by a gun butt in the back of his head, once again by a superhuman strong enough to beat men to death in seconds and tank headshots. Now when Brick comes in heavy, Diggle very smartly counters him with a football tackle, bypassing his defenses and bringing him to the ground. Now I'll admit, the choreography from this point on isn't the most technical, although Diggle did parry a few hits, but the end result is the same. Brick was very impressed with Diggle and it was a hard fought battle.

So objectively speaking, I think Diggle DID fight on-par with White, Ravager, and Brick, and he could fight on par with Sara. The Malcolm fight just shows that Diggle isn't fodder to Merlyn, he is a threat to a degree, although not the "fight on par one-on-one" type of threat.

This is just a whole new level of lowballing Nolan Batman.

He moves faster than Diggle can even PERCEIVE? Claiming Batman is faster is one thing, but jeez, you're saying Diggle can't even see him?! I'm gonna have to seriously disagree with that, Batman has never even moved close to the speeds that you're describing in the films. At the very most we have a statement from Nolan stating that he envisions Batman like a blur, which is very different from moving faster than people can perceive, and an offhand statement from the director is very different from an actual feat, and finally dumb thugs are very different from an elite Spec Ops soldier like John Diggle. So all that considered, I really don't think Batman is too fast for Diggle to keep up with. I mean, in the comics there's a flashback where Diggle's platoon in Afghanistan is ambushed by a team of Taliban insurgents. Diggle claims that they were the most ruthless, most ferocious group of fighters he had ever seen, and they wiped out his entire platoon with mere melee weapons in just a matter of pages, then left Diggle himself with a hatchet in his back. However once Diggle got mad, he ripped the hatchet out of his own back and used it to slaughter every single one of them by himself. Now the impressive part? A scarf was thrown into the air before the battle began, and it ended before it reached the ground, so the whole thing happened in a span of a few seconds. That's actually very realistic to military engagements of that caliber, they start and end very quickly -- y'know, except for the part about the big black badass soloing everybody.

So if we compare the feats, Diggle's advantages are:

Diggle+ more skilled opponents

Diggle+ doing it while injured

Diggle+ actually doing it as a feat and not just the opinion of the director

And Batman's advantage is:

Batman+ He might have been facing a few more enemies

So clearly Diggle's showing is better, unless you can bring something up about that Batman Begins scene that I'm missing, or perhaps a better speed feat from somewhere else in the series that I'm forgetting about, then Diggle should be the more dangerous fighter. And I'd like to point out that this isn't inconsistent either, people underestimate Diggle just because he doesn't have a very active role in the plot anymore, but he's always been portrayed as a peer to Oliver regardless. They regularly spar against each other and even in the beginning Diggle was capable of at least giving Oliver a workout, then later in season 1 Oliver complimented Diggle on really picking up his pace in recent times. In episode 1x10 at the 21:20 mark they had a serious fight; it was extremely brief, but proves my point. I'll describe it; Diggle opened up with a left hook which Oliver was able to parry, but when Oliver tried to counterattack with his right, Diggle grabbed the arm by the joint and smacked it back into Ollie's own face, then shoved him into a table in an arm bar. However, Ollie almost immediately reversed it and put Diggle himself in an arm bar, then they called it off.

Not only that, but Diggle has fought on par with virtually everyone of note in the Arrow universe. China White, Sara Lance, Malcolm Merlyn, and even superhumans like Ravager and Brick. He has very few wins under his belt that's true, but that's because he exists in a much more dangerous and unrealistic world than Nolan Batman, and the point is that he's consistently portrayed as only one level below the likes of Oliver. He's even subbed for Ollie as The Arrow on at least two occasions and nobody noticed the difference.

I don't think anyone can argue that Nolan Bats is even anywhere near the Arrow, so Diggle would act as the bridging gap between them. Arrow > Diggle > Batman, instead of just Arrow >> Batman.

Now about guns. Diggle is an ace marksman. He's no Frank Castle or Chris Redfield, but the guy deserves credit for several seriously legit accuracy feats. Nolan Batman is a good aim dodger when it is dark out, at best he's on par with a LoA ninja, and Diggle mowed them down in hordes when he and Ollie stormed Nanda Parbot (spelling?).

Well that just depends on how you look at it. Let's break down the aforementioned fights and compare just how well Diggle actually did. I think you'll find that, if we play the fights in slow motion and really analyze what the characters were actually doing, there's a whole host of impressive and skillful moves the characters regularly pull that gives us an idea of just how good they really are.

Vs China White

Diggle's first ever fight in the whole series. China White and her elite two-man hit squad have broken into Laurel's house, and just as they are about to kill Oliver with no way for him to get out of it, Diggle of all people busts in from nowhere and starts pumping lead into fools before anyone can react. Since China White is the head of the Triad I gotta assume she wasn't hanging out with low level thugs, these two guys were probably decent assassins themselves, and while Diggle is distracted in finishing them off, White is able to come in from the side and completely ambush Diggle while wielding duel knives, disarming his gun with one knife and placing the other knife against his wrist. Now Diggle is using his bare hands against a blade expert, but being as skilled as he is, he's able to recover quickly and not only avoid White's move to stab his veins, but cleverly grab her by the same wrist in order to control her knife. With leverage on her arm Diggle goes for the hold, but White skillfully spins out of it, gaining some more leverage without putting pressure on her own joint and allowing her to hook her other blade around for a shot at Diggle, but Diggle ducks underneath and uses the opportunity to disarm one of White's blades.

The next bit of choreography is a bit weird, I think Diggle feints with his right arm but actually goes in with his left, but White dodges it and grabs Diggle's arm. However Diggle is able to break free and dodges several of her next attacks with admirable agility, but unfortunately the knife keeps him from counterattacking in that position and White gets her one hit in. While Diggle is on the floor she rolls over him and goes for the submission hold, then Oliver steps in.

All of that came from an encounter that lasted less than 10 seconds. Diggle lost, but let's look at the facts. The scene started with Diggle outnumbered three-to-one, and White came in from the side and ambushed him completely by surprise. He was unarmed facing an opponent with duel knives, so considering he had so much more to deal with, like disarming one of White's knives instead of going on the offensive, he was at a gigantic disadvantage. I don't think his loss comes from a lack of skill. Not only that, but this is still Diggle's very first fight in the show. We know that he trains with Oliver and picks up a lot more skills, and even though his second encounter with China White ended with Ollie saving him again, he later revealed that he didn't need help and was actually just about to spring his move. This was stated seriously too, not John being a sore loser.

Vs The Canary

This one is more self-explanatory, more of a showcase of Sara than Diggle, but it's very noteworthy how Sara is taking on both Ollie and Diggle simultaneously, and she is clearly on another level when it comes to wielding a bo-staff compared to Oliver, but despite being the only one there NOT trained in using the weapon, Diggle is the only one able to actually land a hit on Sara. I'm inclined to believe that in hand-to-hand combat Diggle would definitely beat her considering he very briefly one-upped her with her own signature weapon, and if Diggle is unarmed while Canary gets her staff he would at least do as well as he did against White.

Vs Merlyn

Again, very simple, more of a showcase for Merlyn in that he fights Ollie and Diggle simultaneously. At that point in the series, Merlyn was on a level above Oliver and it was impossible for Oliver to take him in straight combat, but with Diggle fighting too, they were actually able to overwhelm Merlyn. This would require Diggle to be pretty close to Oliver, and skilled enough himself to lay a hand on Malcolm (which he does, before Oliver does I might add) Diggle also survives Malcolm throwing a knife into his heart.

Vs Ravager

Now I can't find the Diggle vs Ravager fight on YouTube, which makes me extremely upset because it is by far Diggle's best showing. He was once again ambushed, this time while completely off guard, by a superior armed opponent, however instead of two knives, Ravager had two big ass swords, although Diggle did have his little nightstick thing to aid him. Now not only was this opponent approximately 10x stronger and faster than Diggle, but she was actually an expert fighter in her own right and "nearly trained to death" by Slade Wilson. Yet despite her monstrous physical advantage and also the fact that she was far from unskilled herself, Diggle was able to survive against her for a few minute, parrying and countering attacks, until eventually it became clear that he couldn't hurt her. Damn if that's not still a good showing though all things considered. Diggle didn't just fight a superhuman, he fought a trained superhuman with better gear than him.

Vs Brick

Now ONCE AGAIN the fight begins with Diggle being ambushed completely by surprise, this time he was blindsided by a gun butt in the back of his head, once again by a superhuman strong enough to beat men to death in seconds and tank headshots. Now when Brick comes in heavy, Diggle very smartly counters him with a football tackle, bypassing his defenses and bringing him to the ground. Now I'll admit, the choreography from this point on isn't the most technical, although Diggle did parry a few hits, but the end result is the same. Brick was very impressed with Diggle and it was a hard fought battle.

So objectively speaking, I think Diggle DID fight on-par with White, Ravager, and Brick, and he could fight on par with Sara. The Malcolm fight just shows that Diggle isn't fodder to Merlyn, he is a threat to a degree, although not the "fight on par one-on-one" type of threat.

Why argue over batman feats of fighting fodder when he has actual feats like the one at the start of BB and fighting Ra's and bane?

@nickzambuto: Gotham Knight and Nolan Batman aeen't seperate characters. Maybe that's how their feats looks like, but Nolan himself confirmed that Batman operates at blindingly fast speeds in the live action movies as well. That's how he managed to take out 21 guys in 12 seconds, because those people were unable to perceive him.

I think you have it reversed. Batman took out 12 guys in 21 seconds, not the other way around. And that is considerably less impressive. Like I said, with Gotham Knight feats Batman wins, without he loses. I think we can agree on that.

I think you have it reversed. Batman took out 12 guys in 21 seconds, not the other way around. And that is considerably less impressive. Like I said, with Gotham Knight feats Batman wins, without he loses. I think we can agree on that.

You're right, I forgot. Gotham Knight Batman and Nolan Batman are one and the same.

*EDIT* It was actually 17:

@nickzambuto: A couple of the Taliban soldiers look like they're killed by guys in Dig's unit on the third page you posted, plus Diggle shoots one. So it doesn't look like he takes on all of them. Still an impressive feat though.

Nolan Batman destroys.

@super_mod: It's just an opinion man.

And you're opinion is wrong, hence the debate.

You see Batman taking on 10-20 crooks at once and same goes with Arrow.

Arrow does this more frequently against better opponents with better gear -- arrows, trick arrows >>> small batarangs that can't K.O. or kill anyone they hit. Aside from all of that, Ollie is a much better H2H fighter.

@super_mod: It's just an opinion man. You see Batman taking on 10-20 crooks at once and same goes with Arrow.