Intro
I thought about this WAAAAAAAY more than I should have. But let me take a shot at it. I'll try to be as unbiased as possible and stick to only facts. If I'm wrong about anything then please call me out (don't just say, no your wrong because my mom said so. Lets have a debate, not a pissing match)
First of, Deadpool is fucking awesome. He's the coolest. No one is going to debate it. He's lethal. But I have to give the fight to Nightwing. Its a close one, but the longer I think about it, the less I can see Nightwing losing.
Lets get the biggest issue out of the way. Morals. I've seen a few people bring up the whole 'Nightwing doesn't kill' business and think its somehow valid. Its really irrelevant in this fight. Deadpool is immortal. He can't die through traditional means. If you were facing someone like this, would you hold back? Both of these guys are gonna go at it with everything they have.
The only way Nightwing is gonna win is by being resourceful, versatile and incapacitating him. The only way Deadpool is gonna win is by catching Nightwing offguard or overwhelming him. I don't see any fairer way to pair these two or how the fight would go.
Powers and Weapons:
Deadpool has an unstable healing ability but regardless of damage, he always seems to come back.
He is a decent swordsman and brings a mega amount of firepower with him.
Lastly, he can teleport. This is most definitely his biggest pro against Nightwing. Fun fact though, this isn't a 'power'. Deadpool teleports through technology :) Go read the Deadpool/Cable comics. They're brilliant.
Fighting style:
Deadpool is a spray and pray, hack and slash type. Part of the reason he is one of the best assassins in Marvel is his crazy brutal style. He swings his swords pretty much everywhere and his guns/grenades usually leave a mess.
Armor:
This is kind of irrelevant. He wears Spandex and usually relies on his healing factor.
Nightwing:
http://batman.wikia.com/wiki/Nightwing_(Young_Justice)#Powers_and_Abilities
I saw an earlier post complaining that these sounded overpowered and unrealistic. I would have to disagree. What makes this more realistic is that he was taken in at a very early age and trained by the Batman. The best martial artist in the world. Beforehand, he was a child prodigy acrobat and is regarded as the most agile human in the DC universe. At one pre new 52, Nightwing took on the role of Batman as it appeared Batman had been killed (and while he will never be a Bruce Wayne, he did a decent job). It was agreed among most the heroes in DC that Dick was the only one who could replace him. That should speak volumes about his actual skill.
Fighting style: These are important. Nightwing focuses in two martial arts more so than the ones he was taught by Batman. These are Escrima and Aikido.
Escrima
is a filipino martial art. Having studied this for a few years I can talk about it from personal experience. In the Philippines, knives are way more popular than guns. During the Spanish colonization of the Philippines, the Spaniards had a very rough time with the Tribesmen who had mastered a weapons based martial art. Even though the Spanish were armed with basic firearms, they had a very difficult time taking the beaches and subduing the residents.
Due to the high population of knife crime, this martial art has a philosophy that differs from others. In arts such as Judo or Muay Thai, there is an exchange of blows and blocks until one fighters fells another. In Escrima (especially when blades are involved), the fighters have the mentality that they cannot afford to get hit. EVEN ONCE. These days, the art has been adopted to less lethal methods such as using sticks or small blades. Hell I've even seen an office worker use a combination of his shoe and a ballpoint pen to beat some thugs. Its all about disarming, staying away from your opponents weapons and making sure you control the pace of the fight.
More info here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskrima
Aikido
This art is less familiar to me so I had a friend who practised it give me the run down. It is a martial art which focuses on moving your opponent in such a way that he applies the force, and your misdirect it. The idea is to take your opponent down while spending as little energy as possible. This is part of the reason Dick has less of a ground and pound style which Batman is used to.
Armor:
Nightwing definitely has the fight here. His suit is designed to be stab proof (maybe not from a Katana), bullet resistant, provide reasonable shield from heat, explosions fire and is totally insulated against electricity. Its designed to provide maximum protection and flexibility to compliment his fighting style. In a recent new 52 Nightwing comic, he took 2 bullets in the back from a helicopter mounted mini-gun and lived. It winded him but it was not enough to put him down. Safe to say, in order for deadpool to drop him, grazes or side shots would not suffice. He would need a straight shot.
The Fight:
So here's where it gets interesting and also very opinionated. We cannot predict every single scenario that would occur and guess which way it would go. Some people say stupid shit like 'deadpool teleports into Nightwings bedroom and slits his throat'. Or, "Nightwing would just invent a solvent spray and melt Deadpool". These are the sperm that won people.
Anyway, what I'll do is try to set the situation up in a way that makes sense and we'll go from there. I will try to describe how characters would act according to their persona's and see what happens.
Firstly, their is the psychological element. As with most comics and hero fights, there is a lot of smack talk. Thing is, both of these characters are regarded as some of the most witty in their universe. It is very unlikely that either one would be able to get into eachothers head. Nightwing has dealt with the craziest (you know who I'm talking about) and Deadpool has dealt with the stubbornest.
At a range deadpool wins. It all comes down to a simple question. Could Nightwing hold out long enough for deadpool to run out of ammo, or get close enough to disarm. Most likely nightwing would use a smoke bomb to remove the threat of gunfire but for this scenario, lets say he doesn't have one.
Deadpool has been known to be goofy but when he's serious he's quite a focused individual. However I notice a pattern with his gunfire. Whenever he is shooting in the comics, accuracy is not on his list. He is either fighting waves of enemies or guys strong enough to take more than a few bullets.
Nightwing however has made a career out of avoiding gunfire. Look up any old dc animated feature and you will usually see Batman, Robin or Nightwing dodging bullets from multiple assailants. It is very unlikely that deadpool would be able to hit him under these conditions. Now it moves into CQC.
The first thing people say is that the swords would beat the Escrima sticks. I'm not even going to entertain this one. Nightwings sticks have taken much worse damage. Wolverines claws would surely slice the sticks to pieces. But not Deadpool's Katanas. For all intents and purposes, this is a dual weapons fight where both enemies are usually equally durable weapons.
It comes down to which one of them is really the better fighter.
Who is better at using their environment to their advantage?
Who is the better martial artist?
Who is more likely to out think the other?
Who has the better equipment?
Who has better training?
Who has better tools?
Who has the edge on beating the odds?
In almost all of these cases. The answer is almost certainly Nightwing. The immportality is definitely an issue, but if Nightwing can beat the likes of clayface (regenerative) and lady shiva (master assassin) and deadshot (master marksman) then Deadpool has his work cut out.
One honourable mention is deadpool's teleportation abilty. This is kind of the trump card in deadpools arsenal. I don't know if Nightwing has ever dealt with that kind of enemy before and it does seem to give deadpool an edge. However, I am not confident that given everything else mentioned, deadpool would be able to best Nightwing.
Hope you all had a good read and learned a thing or two in the process. PEACE.
PS. I'm aware that escrima is spelt with a K in the wiki article. But my instructor has told me to spell it with a C so who am I to argue.
Log in to comment