Harry Potter and the Caped Crusader

At ComicsAlliance, columnist Chris Sims has tackled the burning question of who would win in a fight, Batman or Harry Potter? That extremely stupid question produced quite a smart and funny analysis, albeit one that in its original form uses both italics and boldface.

Sims tells the reader who posed the question:

For starters, though, I have to say that you're way off-base in your assessment of Harry. The characterization of him as a "whiny brat" is one that I see cropping up all over the place, and it's a complete misreading of the character. Yes, he can be moody and petulant, but he's a teenager. And let's be real here: If you weren't moody and petulant when you were a teenager, then thanks for reading ComicsAlliance, Your Holiness the Dalai Lama.

And as for the fight itself:

Assuming the characters know the bare minimum of information about each other—Batman knows Harry's a wizard, Harry knows that despite appearances, Batman's not some sort of ninja Dementor so that he doesn't waste time trying to take him down with Expecto Patronum—then the only question is whether Harry Potter can say three syllables in Fake Latin and manage to hit a moving target used to dodging gunfire with a Stunning Spell before Batman disarms him from thirty feet away with a piece of metal shaped like his own logo.

Of course, the usual answer about which hero would win such a conflict depends on which character is the protagonist of the magazine, book, or movie in which the conflict appears. In genre fiction, the hero wins. That’s the point.

Because DC Comics is part of Time Warner, which also owns the studio that manages Harry Potter licensing, an official crossover between those franchises is actually conceivable. Until the corporation decides it wants that money, however, we’re left with Batman/Harry Potter fanfiction.