Superhero fights are typically pretty rare, since heroes are usually too busy dealing with their dozens of antagonists who want to destroy the world to have spare time to fight each other too. But disagreements arise every so often, and fans get to see their favorite heroes go at it to finally prove once and for all who is stronger ( and even though these fights quite often end in a draw). And while someone like Batman having issues with other heroes isn’t too surprising, you wouldn’t think many people would be foolish enough to challenge Wonder Woman.
15. BATMAN
Of course, we all know that Batman’s power doesn’t lie in any kind of super abilities. He’s a strategist, one who uses observation to figure out his opponent’s weakness and neutralize whatever gives them their strength. But in a straight up fight, he doesn’t stand much of a chance against any of his Justice League teammates, let alone someone like Wonder Woman.
In one of the more decisive beatings on this list, Batman comes into conflict with Wonder Woman during the storyline of Hiketeia, during which Diana is charged with protecting someone who turns out to be a murderer in Gotham City. So of course, Bruce Wayne considers the issue to be under his jurisdiction. Wonder Woman disagrees, and she’s stronger, so you can probably guess what happens. The cover of the story even has Batman’s head pinned beneath Wonder Woman’s foot, so there’re no surprises here. Batman gets beat down and having to straight up tell Diana she’s won to get her to yield.
14. CATWOMAN
One of the many hero on hero brawls from the Injustice comics (it’s almost like they are trying to get people to buy a fighting game or something) was between Wonder Woman and Catwoman. And really, this fight was a mismatch right from the start. When people talk about characters who could beat someone like Wonder Woman, they’re usually talking about people with the capability to destroy a planet or two. But a cat burglar? There’s a reason burglars sneak in at night—they typically aren’t the kind of people who are looking for a fight.
Catwoman is inexplicably confident going into the fight, even bragging about how she’s not impressed by superpowered people like Wonder Woman or Superman. She says she has more respect for people who succeed by ingenuity, like Batman. A lot of comic fans might agree with that outlook, but Wonder Woman showed why respect is irrelevant in a fight. Catwoman got clocked by Wonder Woman’s shield and was knocked out cold as a result, leaving Diana standing tall with barely a challenge.
13. GREEN LANTERN
This was one of the less decisive fights on our list, but it still left a big impression about Diana’s ability. When Wonder Woman’s on and off love interest, Steve Trevor, gets captured, she’s furious that her association with him endangered him. She’s desperate to rescue her beloved by herself, regardless of what her fellow Justice League members have to say. Hal Jordan also tries to stop Diana from leaving, but gets a little too forceful in his approach when he physically stops her by using his power ring.
Wonder Woman shows just how powerful she is when she’s not holding back by punching through the prison Jordan constructed to stop her, while also punching Green Lantern in the face. The man who is perhaps the most powerful being to ever wield the ring is knocked all the way down the street and into a car by the blow. He gets up to take the fight to Diana, but she shows she can just break anything he conjures with his power ring, and she even overpowers Superman when he tries to stop her from slashing Green Lantern with her sword.
The fight ultimately ends with Cyborg transporting the League somewhere private and the other members imploring Lantern and Wonder Woman to work together. They agree before the fight can get worse, leaving no true victor. But with the power Wonder Woman demonstrated, she leaves the impression with a lot of people that she could have taken Hal. (Especially since her first hit against him occurred on a crowded street and was being broadcast on TV, causing one bystander to shout, “Did you see that? Wonder Woman kicked Green Lantern’s ass!”)
12. POWER GIRL
You can chalk this one up to another fight due to a misunderstanding, but it still provided Wonder Woman with a tough opponent in Power Girl. In this case, the instigators for the confusion were the children of Ares, who were convincing the world that Wonder Woman had turned evil. And rather than actually trying to speak to Diana to find out what the problem was, Power Girl immediately resorted to throwing punches.
As brief as the confrontation was, it was actually a lot for Wonder Woman to handle. Power Girl even punches her into Canada at one point. Diana realizes Power Girl is at the very least her equal in strength, if not even stronger. But few beings in the DC Universe have Wonder Woman’s combat training, which allows her to utilize her strength better than most. She goes on the defense, dodging Power Girl’s strikes and proving that power doesn’t mean anything if you can’t hit anyone with it. Power Girl’s wild attacks lead to her getting caught and restrained with no choice but to listen to Diana and realize how she’s been tricked. Talking instead of fighting will usually do that. And afterwards the two quickly become friends again and grab some hot dogs while they discuss how to deal with Ares’ children. Don’t you just love a happy ending?
11. BEAST BOY
While the people Wonder Woman faces for this topic all have to be heroes, that doesn’t mean Wonder Woman herself always has to be playing the role of the hero. Take the recent animated movie Justice League vs Teen Titans for instance. Obviously, the characters of both teams are going to fight, but in these kinds of battles, there’s usually not a decisive winner, since the heroes eventually realize their differences are just a misunderstanding. But in this case, the members of the Justice League weren’t technically heroes.
10. MARTIAN MANHUNTER
While we usually have specific details on the battles between two characters, in this case, it’s the aftermath that tells the story. In the Wonder Woman story Odyssey, we follow a younger, more inexperienced Diana, one who doesn’t have access to her full powers, who’s still trying to figure out how to be a hero, and who enjoys the practicality of wearing pants in combat. She’s a Wonder Woman who is still being shaped and could either become the heroine we have long known, or stray down a darker path.
The primary villains of the story are the Morrigan, an evil triumvirate of goddesses who are looking to recruit Wonder Woman to be their missing third member. During the story, we get a glimpse of what the world would be like if Wonder Woman became part of the Morrigan, showing her at the head of a dark army that has crushed many of DC’s heroes. It’s unclear if this evil Diana defeats them all in one gigantic battle, or takes them down one by one. But Martian Manhunter is one of the victims of this alternate reality who succumbs to Diana’s tyranny. All in all, the whole scene is a reminder to be grateful that someone as powerful as Wonder Woman has chosen the path of a hero.
9. SUPERGIRL
Superman’s cousin shares many of his powers, but she’s younger and less experienced than he is in terms of dealing with apocalyptic threats. Nonetheless, Supergirl doesn’t lack Superman’s bravery, so she still goes up against any danger that he would meet, and even ones he might hesitate to face, like one of his own teammates.
That’s exactly the situation Supergirl wound up in when she believed she had found a way to revive her home planet of Krypton. It was Wonder Woman who met Supergirl to tell her she was being deceived, and that nothing could bring Krypton back. But Supergirl couldn’t let go of the chance to get her home back, so she chose to try to go through Wonder Woman to get her way. But as we said, Supergirl lacks experience, so even though Diana got knocked around at first, she soon saw how reckless her opponent was. Wonder Woman countered Supergirl’s raw power with her years of battle knowledge, letting the Kryptonian exhaust herself. And when the time was right, Diana drove Supergirl through the air and into the ground below.
8. HUNTRESS
As much as we enjoy seeing the characters of the DC universe interact with each other, there’s just no denying the enormous power imbalance between many of the characters. The Bat Family in particular make for interesting people to read about because their battles can’t be won with super strength or by being bulletproof. Batman and his allies face real danger even against petty crooks. So when they’re forced to go up against characters at the top of DC’s food chain, they need something special to keep up.
Maybe Huntress thought she had something special since Batwoman was there with her to fight Wonder Woman. But even in a two on one encounter, Diana still vastly overpowers the other two women. In fact, Wonder Woman is so strong that she might not always know her own strength. This fight came to a screeching halt when Diana caught Huntress around the neck with her lasso and pulled back perhaps just in an attempt to subdue her opponent. Instead, the lasso cinched tight with incredible strength and snapped Huntress’ neck, leaving the hero dead and Wonder Woman appalled at what she had done.
The Injustice comics definitely had its share of shocking moments, and this straight-up murder was definitely among the craziest.
7. SUPERMAN
One more brawl from the Injustice comics pits Wonder Woman against her biggest adversary of the bunch in Superman. As two of DC’s most powerful heroes, they’ve fought numerous times. There is always a lot of debate about which one is stronger, and who would win in which era. But the fact is that during this fight, Wonder Woman prevailed in very decisive and brutal fashion.
They look evenly matched at the beginning of the encounter, which is to be expected, but Superman soon starts to overpower Diana and is pretty much begging her to surrender. And maybe that compassion for her is what winds up losing Superman this fight. Diana is a warrior, infamous for her competitive nature. Her desire to win is so strong that she stoops to levels we don’t normally see from a Justice Leaguer, gouging his eyes and attacking him while he’s blinded. If Superman was holding back, it proved to be a mistake. His arm winds up broken, he gets punched into the ground, and Wonder Woman winds up on top in eyebrow-raising fashion.
6. THE FLASH, BLACK CANARY, AND PLASTIC MAN
In a friendly little test for Wonder Woman after an incident where she winds up blinding herself to be able to fight Medusa (maybe just tape your eye lids shut instead of maiming yourself?), the Justice League want to see how well she can still perform for the team without her vision. So logically, they all decide to attack a blind person. But don’t feel bad for Diana, because she actually proves she doesn’t have to rely on her vision, even when being attacked by some of the strongest heroes alive.
It’s not just one person, but the Flash, Black Canary, Plastic Man, and Martian Manhunter attacking her all at the same time at first. We know she can handle Manhunter, and nothing against Canary or Plastic Man, but no one is expecting them to outmatch Wonder Woman. The truly impressive part is her ability to handle the Flash while blind, using the movements of air from his running to detect where he is and stop his attack. It’s an impressive display, and one that adds three new people to her list of defeats, and all while she can’t see a thing.
5. CAPTAIN ATOM
Yet another brawl from the Injustice comic books pits Wonder Woman against Captain Atom. In this storyline, Superman has veered from his usual values a bit after Lois Lane is killed. And even though he winds up with Wonder Woman, he’s still not totally over his anger at the world. So he winds up fighting a lot of different heroes. And since Wonder Woman stands by her new relationship, she too winds up in a lot of fights.
Like with her conflict with Huntress, Diana once again winds up inadvertently killing her opponent here. Captain Atom is in the process of trying to finish off Superman when Wonder Woman attacks Atom with her sword. Unfortunately, her slash cuts through Atom’s containment suit, meaning there’s nothing preventing him from exploding with the force of an atom bomb. Realizing Wonder Woman has given him just minutes to live, he grabs Superman and flies into space to spare the world the devastation while simultaneously trying to take out Clark. But in the end, no one is killed but Captain Atom.
4. STARFIRE
Another skirmish from the recent Justice League vs Teen Titans movie involved Starfire taking on Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman was still under the control of Trigon, but had no trouble utilizing any of her powers. Initially, Starfire looked like she might be capable of holding her own here. She certainly lasted longer than Beast Boy did, if nothing else. Starfire started off attacking Wonder Woman with energy blasts, then flying into her at full speed and driving her through a nearby building. But Starfire’s upper hand didn’t last long.
A short time later, Starfire came tumbling out of the building and fell to the ground. Clearly, Starfire didn’t have the best follow-up plan after crashing into the structure with Wonder Woman. The mind-controlled Diana didn’t even allow her opponent to get up, swooping down on Starfire and driving her back into the ground. The fight ended with Wonder Woman slipping her lasso around Starfire’s throat and threatening to snap her neck if Raven didn’t cooperate with Trigon. Left with no choice, Raven did as she was told to save her friend from certain death.
3. DEATHSTROKE
Deathstroke is more of an antihero than an actual good guy, but his mercenary ways can occasionally lead to him fighting on the side of justice. During this particular incident, Slade happened to be trying to do the right thing when he was hired by Hephaestus, the weapon forger for the gods, to kill the mad titan Lapetus. Slade even got his very own super-powered sword to get the job done, a weapon called the Godkiller. But rather than find Lapetus, Slade only found a statue that he decided to smash.
2. WONDER WOMAN
No, Wonder Woman didn’t punch herself in the face (or at least if she ever did, we’re not counting it as a victory). Wonder Woman actually managed a simultaneous victory and a loss, thanks to a meeting with an alternate reality version of herself. Yes, everyone else from the storyline of Injustice had a turn fighting Wonder Woman, so finally she was left with no one else to fight besides herself. But this fight actually occurred in the video game rather than the comics.
1. THE JUSTICE LEAGUE
A lot of people remember the time Batman inadvertently took out the entire Justice League in the Tower of Babel storyline thanks to his paranoia and forward thinking. It was impressive how well his plans worked, but at the same time, he wasn’t actually the one executing the attacks. Wonder Woman, on the other hand, did the exact same thing years later, except she took out the entire League with her own two hands.
Like the Dark Knight, Diana’s reasoning was that she was doing it for the League’s protection. In this case, it was a big dragon in the story A League of One, a beast that supposedly could only be defeated by the League (but it would kill them in the process). So Diana figures if she’s the only active member of the League, she can use a loophole in the prophecy to kill the dragon and save her friends by being the only one who is killed.
So all those weaknesses we learned about in Tower of Babel? Diana exploits them again. She traps Martian Manhunter in a volcano due to his vulnerability to heat, she steals Green Lantern’s power ring, feeds Aquaman to a sea monster, and just flat out knocks out the Flash and Batman. And as for Superman? She plays on his devotion to helping others to send him off on a mission in space while she goes to face the dragon on her own.
Who do you think Wonder Woman’s most impressive victory was against? Share your thoughts in the comments, and let us know what other heroes you think Diana could defeat!
The Wonder Woman movie will be in theaters June 2, 2017, Justice League comes out November 17, 2017, and The Flash is set for March 16, 2018.
