While famous figures from both sides of the aisle have often been quick to dismiss the ongoing rivalry between Marvel and DC, that hasn’t stopped the fans from continuing to find new topics to fight about, with a recent tweet from The Atlantic staff writer Jemele Hill inspiring fresh debate on the relative merits of two major villains.
The post that started it all was a mere five words long:
“Thanos or Bane? Let’s argue.”
Since the question was posed, the internet has offered a whole load of thoughts on the matter. On the one hand, you’ve got those on the side of Thanos who don’t see how this could even be up for debate:
“Thanos or Bane? Let’s-“
*snaps* https://t.co/Nv6frGjJV7— L. Warren (@iamlaurenp) March 5, 2019
Bane even died in a cartoonish way. Got hit by Catwoman crashing in on a moped. Thanos would never.
— Fire the Failcons into the Sun (@Lex_Naija) March 5, 2019
https://twitter.com/BIGMONEY_JAYYY/status/1102969099473379330
https://twitter.com/DanielGComedy/status/1102969184445784064
If we focus solely on the movie versions, it’s true that there’s no question who’d win in a fight. To put it simply, Thanos can kill half the universe with the mere snap of his fingers whereas Bane, well, can’t. But when it comes to which character is more compelling, many have argued that the Dark Knight Rises villain wins out:
https://twitter.com/RustyWesterholm/status/1102990586754281472
This isn't even a contest. Bane broke Batman without a bunch of all powerful infiniti stones. His motive is he just wants to burn everything down because society is too corrupt. That's more interesting than some arbitrary bullshit about getting rid of half of everyone. https://t.co/8sbwKkh72e
— Chett Manley (@ChettManley) March 5, 2019
https://twitter.com/PaolaAudrey/status/1102957619814297602
But regardless of which of these two villains is “better,” some have felt the need to point out that at the end of the day, they’re both pretty bad guys:
Thanos is a Malthusian galactic despot and Bane exploits anticapitalist sentiments but is really just an autocratic strongman. Can't with either of them… https://t.co/6rwzM0WQee
— aléxandros! (@bodega_gyro_ao) March 5, 2019
While Thanos has so far come up victorious in his one major big screen outing, Bane’s cinematic track record hasn’t been quite so favorable, having finished both The Dark Knight Rises and Batman and Robin in defeat. Still, seeing how the DCEU has yet to find its Bane, surely there’s every possibility that the character may some day make a comeback, be it in Matt Reeves’ The Batman or James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad.
In the meantime, 2019 is set to be another big year for Thanos, though we wouldn’t count on things going quite so well for him this time round when Avengers: Endgame hits theaters on April 26th, 2019.