Who Are the Smartest People in the DCU?


Dread

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1.) Lex

2.) Batman

3.) Mr. Terrific

4.) Ray Palmer

5.) Doc Magnus

6.) John Henry Irons

I'm not sure why Bruce isn't near the top of everyone's list. He's "the world's greatest detective," a brilliant tactician, one of the world's best forensic scientists, and the ultimate master-planner. He regularly outsmarts Lex Luthor. (though, to be fair, it's only because Lex is so arrogant that he lets himself be outmaneuvered.)

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I'm not sure why Bruce isn't near the top of everyone's list. He's "the world's greatest detective," a brilliant tactician, one of the world's best forensic scientists, and the ultimate master-planner. He regularly outsmarts Lex Luthor. (though, to be fair, it's only because Lex is so arrogant that he lets himself be outmaneuvered.)

It's hard to argue with that. Good points.

It's hard for me to think of a list because I don't know where to place guys like Palmer and Irons. Those guys are geniuses in their respective fields and incredible inventors, but where do they rank overall?

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I fully agree with the "respective field" theory but I have major problems saying that Bruce Wayne is smarter than someone like TO Morrow and Magnus (who have created artificial life) and in Morrow's case, defeated Black Adam when no one else could and build a machine that hellps him see into the future, proving he has no respective field other than science. To me, it's like putting Black Panther above Hank Pym.

Making the case for Luthor is his inventive nature, tactical mind and business sense. The guy essentially owns the world through hundreds of dummy corporations. He has defeated gods and heroes alike. Like Doom, his only downfall is his pride but we're not measuring that are we?

Look at it this way, it took a think tank of the world's most evil minds to put Bush Jr. in office and Luthor did it himself. With Black Lightning and Batman watching him the entire time.

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I fully agree with the "respective field" theory but I have major problems saying that Bruce Wayne is smarter than someone like TO Morrow and Magnus (who have created artificial life) and in Morrow's case, defeated Black Adam when no one else could and build a machine that hellps him see into the future, proving he has no respective field other than science. To me, it's like putting Black Panther above Hank Pym.

Making the case for Luthor is his inventive nature, tactical mind and business sense. The guy essentially owns the world through hundreds of dummy corporations. He has defeated gods and heroes alike. Like Doom, his only downfall is his pride but we're not measuring that are we?

The problem is that you can't just fill the list with scientists; that's not the same thing. Besides, the general idea is that "Batman outsmarts everyone, eventually." He's not as much of a scientist (he's probably too busy, y'know, saving Gotham), but that doesn't make him less brilliant.

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"Batman outsmarts everyone" is a story crutch.

Maxwell Lord had him fooled. He even went from a place of mistrust to a neutral area.

Luthor had him framed for murder.

Eventually it all happens for Batman with the clarity of hindsight which is a given for pretty much everyone.

I see Bruce as a tactical genius with a little bit of tech smarts (he didn't build his vehicles, remember), proficiency in most martial arts, and great deductive reasoning. There are people in the DCU like Terrific, Grayson, Drake and Luthor and even Barbara Gordon who have all that as well so it doesn't place him alone in a field. he's on a spectrum. He's not really the best at everything seeing as there've been stories where Bats points out both Dick and Tim are better detectives than him.

Bats doesn't make the top 5 for me. Top 10 sure.

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