DUCHESS versus BLUE BEETLE

Battle Lines (DC)
Where: Suicide Squad #13 When: May 1988
Why: John Ostrander How: Luke McDonnell

The Story So Far...
A covert operation in the Soviet Union makes enemies of The Suicide Squad when they're discovered attempting to liberate a famous author imprisoned as a dissident.

The arrest of Thomas Tresser, aka; Nemesis, becomes a world headline when the Soviet government attempts to bait the Squad into a return mission by publicly accusing him of an unprovoked attempted kidnap.

Its bait field-leader Rick Flag is all too happy to take -- igniting internal conflict with Task Force X head Amanda Waller! Faced with the prospect of exposure and a further international incident, she has no choice but to advise the President to commission the Justice League International to stop the rogue invaders!

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Lashina 5 (Super-Human)
Intelligence: Blue Beetle 5 (Professor)
Speed: Lashina 3 (Athlete)
Stamina: Lashina 5 (Marathoner)
Agility: Blue Beetle 2 (Average)
Fighting: Lashina 6 (Warrior)
Energy: Blue Beetle 4 (Arsenal)
Total: Lashina 27 (Metahuman)

The inevitable faceoff between Justice League International and the Suicide Squad goes off not with a bang, but rather a series of precision key matchups.

Duchess gets the fight started when she recognizes JLI's Mister Miracle. She does this because she is in fact Lashina: former field leader of Darkseid's loyal Female Furies. She was betrayed by one of her teammates while on mission to capture Mister Miracle, leaving her stranded on Earth, and in the care of Task Force X.

As Duchess she doesn't have access to her trademark steel whips, instead relying on high-powered customized weaponry like the cannon used against Major Force in a later battle. She also possesses natural attributes of super-strength and durability as a New God raised on Apokolips under Granny Goodness.

These attributes put her in a class above Blue Beetle, but you can never entirely count the resourceful hero!

Ted Kord is the second Blue Beetle, carrying on the legacy of Dan Garrett by using a natural acumen for science and inventing. With the resources of his father's company, Kord Industries, he created The Bug airship, and an arsenal of non-lethal weaponry, including his trademark compressed air gun, and bug drones.

On the surface it looks like Blue Beetle is fighting way above of his weight class, but like Batman or Green Arrow, he's a non-powered hero capable of causing an upset. JLI are some of his sillier days, but will he do it? Let's find out...

The Tape: Duchess Ranking: Duchess (#194)

What Went Down...
Duchess points a finger of confused, accusing recognition at Mister Miracle when Blue Beetle approaches to pacify the situation with a stern warning: "You take on one member of the JLI and you take on them all."

The erstwhile Lashina is all too happy to accept the challenge, but finds Blue Beetle more capable than he first appears. While unsuccessfully petitioning Mister Miracle for help -- he handles the situation with with an improvised arm drag.

Booster Gold finds great amusement in his friends' 'great touch with the ladies' and earns the ire of the slighted New God in the process.

In a fury she rips a door from a nearby prison cell and launches it at the chuckling hero. His futuristic power suit takes care of it though, protecting him from the steel bars while reducing them to tiny pieces of broken and bent steel.

The attack proves to be the inciting blow.

Batman coldly orders his team to pick a foe and watch out for shrapnel. They all peel off with a fight partner, but Blue Beetle's opponent has already chosen him. 

Duchess charges furiously, but the Beetle nimbly vaults over her and insists he doesn't like hitting women. "... And I'm not sure hitting you would do any good!"

He resorts to his gun, holding it to Duchess' head as the melee erupts all around them.

The super-humanly strong Duchess manages to keep Beetle off his feet with a single extended arm, but the pistol packing hero regains his footing and squares off with his target.

He unleashes the full force of his patented non-lethal arsenal -- a high-powered burst of compressed air finds it mark with Duchess' imposing torso, but fails to have any effect on the powerful New God!

A quick switch in tactics unleashes Beetle's secondary dazzle light at point blank range!

The blistering white flash succeeds in temporarily blinding Duchess.

With his opponent staggered and fuming mad -- Blue Beetle closes in to strike with a "patented" karate chop to the neck.

Robbed of her sight -- the New God doesn't even realise her mortal opponent has struck!

Blue Beetle clutches his wrist with sounds of agony suggesting the blow did far more to hurt him than its intended victim!

Duchess quickly turns the tables, grabbing Beetle by the leg to lift him off his feet. He bumps his head on the ceiling before crashing down onto his keister -- still in the grip of a very angry Duchess!

It's only the diplomatic intervention of Martian Manhunter that saves the Beetle from being squashed! He lets out a relieved sigh at the news a truce has been brokered between team leaders, ending the conflict - for now.

The Hammer...

For all intents and purposes it looked as if Duchess was about to take control and finish the fight, but we'll never know for certain. Blue Beetle survives an inconclusive result, with a little help from his friend Booster Gold early on.

The conflict is part of a hotly anticipated confrontation between the Justice League and Suicide Squad: Two teams that were positioned as pillars of the post-Crisis DCU coming out of the reconstruction phase of Legends.

The internationally minded League and their black-ops counterparts were steeped in global political intrigue, but behind their differing approaches to diplomacy with Russia, and other world actors, lies a good old fashioned conflict over morality, superhero ethics, and a general disdain for each others methods.

By nature of The League's operations, Batman was drawn a little closer to the light, but his role as a tactician keeps him to a privileged periphery, exposing him to as few people as possible, while he gathers intelligence, and maintains the mystique of an urban myth bubbling up from Gotham City's shadowy underbelly.

It was from the shadows that the inter-team conflict was set-up when Batman went undercover in Bell Reve Prison to investigate the rumored existence of the villain-based squad. His infiltration ultimately laid bare Amanda Waller and Task Force X personnel, giving us a taste of things to come when The Squad was sent to stop him, and he duked it out with Rick Flag and others.

Batman was already eager to get closer to the situation involving his former ally Thomas Tresser when President Reagan approached the UN sanctioned league, but once it's clear the rogue "American villains" they're working to intercept are the Suicide Squad he's even more motivated to throw them to the dogs.

Face-to-face in a Soviet gulag, the two teams break off into pairs, giving us a rematch between Batman and Rick Flag, and the first fight to breakout from the ensuing skirmish - which is also our featured fight for today.

I would be remiss to overlook our featured players, but what you see is mostly what you get. If you know anything about the JLI era, it's probably Blue Beetle's role as cackling comedy relief. It's evident in his obvious mismatch against the raging Duchess, but I do appreciate that he and his arsenal are still shown to be fairly credible in a fight. There's levity, but this isn't wholesale mockery.

Even so, fans of contemporary DC Entertainment, or the upcoming Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League video game, might not find what they're looking for in this iconic battle between the brands. For one thing: this is a mostly bloodless affair, lacking the apparent contempt DC has developed for its own iconic properties. I can't help but think positioning the heroes as figures for contempt while the players control villains is horribly tone deaf on multiple levels, but I digress...

The original match-up contains the battle within a pleasingly straight-forward single issue, while Justice League International #13 offers an enhancement tie-in that sets up the specifics of the collision with optional relevance. That said, there's also a lot of intrigue accumulated from the details of previous issues of Suicide Squad and JLI, informing a nuanced conflict steeped in concepts and character motivations.

Four of the combatants don't even actually engage in violence! Martian Manhunter and Vixen revisit their recent history together and resolve their opposition with a meaningful embrace, while Captain Atom and Nightshade keep their romantic ties on the down low by faking a mock struggle somewhere off to the side. Tickling is quickly nixed by the squirming Nightshade, but that's all the analysis we have.

You might expect a fight-monger like myself to deride this kind of thing, but I'd take a good story with intuitive use of characters over a lazy fight any day of the week. I actually quite like these characters and don't want to see them murdered in the name of fleeting thrills, or some psychopath's idea of "realism".

This remains a fantastic period of DC Comics with surprisingly enduring relevance and better balance of the things that make superhero comics enjoyable than a lot of more recent examples, or adaptations that are built on this foundation.

I will almost certainly be returning for more individual match-ups, but if you'd like to get ahead of the reading you can find JLI #13 and Suicide Squad #13 both collected in Justice League International Book One: Born Again or Suicide Squad Vol. 2: The Nightshade Odyssey. Use Amazon purchase links provided below and you'll not only get yourself a good deal -- you'll help support the site at no cost!

You can find more related materials to these characters and stories by following links throughout this post, or by infiltrating the Secret Archive for a complete index of every featured fight in order of publisher, series, and issue number.

Secret Wars on Infinite Earths has featured well over 650 battles and ranked in excess of 1,000 characters! If you'd like to help me continue creating more entries consider becoming a patron on Patreon. As a thank you you'll unlock extra updates, content, and options to sponsor your favourite topics in future articles.

Get more daily links to superhero smackdown inspired by the topics of the day by subscribing on Twitter and Facebook. Don't forget to like, fave, and share posts, and keep your eyes peeled for the week's top trending battles every Sunday!

Winner: Inconclusive
#162 (+32) Lashina
#480 (new) Blue Beetle (Ted Kord)
#650 (+237) Booster Gold [+1 assist]

JUSTICE LEAGUE versus DOOMSDAY

Countdown To Doomsday! (DC)
Where: Superman #74 When: December 1992 Why: Dan Jurgens How: Dan Jurgens & Brett Breeding

The Story So Far...
It came from out of the blue! A hulking monster clad in green garb and binding tubes! The severity of its hidden face -- completely alien in the surrounding countryside. It's reason for being -- obscured by mindless carnage!

The Justice League had no way of knowing what they were confronting when they intercepted a call for help from an inter-state highway! They couldn't have anticipated the sequence of events they would trigger -- events that will change their world forever!

With Blue Beetle barely clinging to life, Maxima is compelled to leave the fight to usher him to safety. In her place, Superman arrives to aid the league in their effort to stem the monster's destruction! The Man of Steel will not face any ordinary alien menace on this day. This is the coming of Doomsday!

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Doomsday 6 (Invincible)
Intelligence: Superman 4 (Tactician)
Speed: Superman 6 (Mach Speeds)
Stamina: Doomsday 7 (Unstoppable)
Agility: Martian Manhunter 7 (Unlimited)
Fighting: Doomsday 7 (Born Fighter)
Energy: Guy Gardner 7 (Cosmic Power)


Justice League America are: Booster Gold, Guy Gardner, Fire, Ice, Bloodwynd and Superman. Otherwise occupied are Maxima and Blue Beetle (Ted Kord): the latter of which was injured in a preceding skirmish with Doomsday.

Ah! Major comics properties in the 1990s... A decade that demands clarification in the Tale of the Tape, as much as analysis! As you've already seen: the Justice League were a far cry from the "Big Seven" roster you may be more familiar with. Even Superman is here as a tagalong drawn in by the fighting - and not part of the active line-up! For the uninitiated, there are a few other important differences in character to note.

Former Green Lantern Guy Gardner wields a Qwardian yellow power ring at this stage of his career -- better known in the future as the weapon of the Sinestro Corps! The mysterious figure known as Bloodwynd is in actual fact Martian Manhunter, who is impersonating a lost hero under the mind-altering influence of the Blood Gem. The true Bloodwynd is trapped inside with the demon Rott.

It's a bit of a mixed up time for the JLA, but they're by no means at their worst. In terms of firepower they're stocked with: Booster Gold's super-strong, super durable powersuit from the future, Guy Gardner's experience as a Green Lantern and the diverse properties of his energy ring, Bloodwynd's mystic powers via the Martian Manhunter's own blend of super strength, invulnerability, mental powers and more. Fire commands green flame and is capable of reaching states of intangibility. Ice is probably the weakest member offensively, but even she offers strategic advantages with the use of ice magic.

Each member has their own individual weaknesses, but what they lack as a whole is cohesion. In battle with Doomsday, Guy Gardner may be their pinch hitter, but his brash attitude and fearlessness means he can be isolated, or even redirected against his teammates. Martian Manhunter's vulnerability to fire could be exploited with Fire on the team, and Ice will need to be on her toes as well, especially surrounded by so much super-powered muscle!

It's impossible to separate this match-up from its inevitable end. This is part of The Death of Superman - a story that implies an end. Doomsday's primary threat at this stage of the game is physical. He's a sadistic, invulnerable brute with a penchant for punching, and throwing large objects. Ordinarily, that's a day at the office for Superman -- but Doomsday's Kryptonian history, and steeled origins through cruel evolution mean he's uniquely suited to withstand most physical threats.

Conventional wisdom says Bloodwynd/Martian Manhunter may be the best way to deal with Doomsday. The mystic Blood Gem can create illusions, teleport the possessor, and project fear through the "Sentence Stare" -- valuable tools in turning Doomsday against himself. Likewise, the Martian's natural telepathic potential could also be used to assault Doomsday's mind, although given his mindless bloodlust, it's impossible to know if he could be manipulated in any meaningful way. His rage may be too great! Let's see what happened...

The Tape: Superman Ranking: Superman (#6)

What Went Down...

A domestic scene like any other. A broken family, tempers flare. A sense of normalcy rudely interrupted by the shattering of glass and the limp body of the heroine called Ice!

The rest of the Justice League are unconscious or indisposed. Ice stands alone against a monster who moments earlier matched the league with one arms tied behind its back! Thrown miles from the fight - the hero of the future Booster Gold bumped into Superman. He introduces The Man of Steel to the concept of the threat by giving it a name: Doomsday!

Arriving on the scene: Superman fearlessly confronts the monster - taking a body blow from its free arm chest-on! The monster recognizes a need to up the ante, leaning back to unleash a kick that winds The Man of Steel, and sends his limp body hurtling through the nearby housing project!

With Superman out of the way, the monster turns his attentions back to Booster Gold. He grabs the hero by the skull and introduces his face into a nearby tree! Booster's suit tech cushions the blow, but he's still left slumped on the stump.

As if drawn to suffering, Doomsday explodes into what remains of the demolished project home. He gravitates toward Ice - unconscious inside the house when it collapsed! He drives his fist down and laughs at the cracking.

Just as the beast set eyes on an innocent woman and her baby, Superman rallies to knock it back! Superman pledges to cover her escape as the available members of the Justice League rejoin the fight! With Booster Gold, Fire, Guy Gardner, and Bloodwynd at his back - Superman leads a frontal assault!

The assembled Leaguers focus their fullest powers on their rampaging foe! Superman's heat vision, Fire's flame, Booster Gold's energy gauntlets, Guy Gardner's yellow power ring, Bloodwynd's eye blasts! They give it their all!

The maelstrom of energies obscures Doomsday in a haze of pure power and smoke! It gives the injured occupants of the demolished home their opportunity to escape, but as Fire begins to flicker out, and Booster's power cells deplete, the horrifying truth begins to emerge. Gardner can't imagine anyone surviving their efforts. Survive Doomsday has! And with his restraints broken by the blast, he is unbound for the first time - and ready to attack!

Doomsday rushes the league -- too fast to be avoided! The alien behemoth's charge launches the heroes across the battlefield!

His spiny fists free to do their wicked work, the monster again targets a now vulnerable Booster Gold. Clutching his throat he throws a furious right hand, and lets out another "Ha!" with a rising left. Doomsday then drags Booster to the nearby wrecked family car and slams his head shut in it!

Blinded from the earlier battle - Guy Gardner can only hear Booster's bones as they break. He's too slow to aim his ring and hope for the best. Doomsday tosses Booster's broken body and eliminates the meagre threat.

Superman and Bloodwynd fly in for a two-front assault, but Doomsday is prepared to neutralize that threat, as well! A couple of well placed, unbound backward jabs stop both powerhouses in their tracks -- and send Bloodwynd's eye beams wildly off target!

The stray blast ignites a powerful fire. It isn't long before the flames reach the housing project gas line. The resulting explosion engulfs everyone present in a raging inferno! Ironically, Fire is knocked unconscious in the chaos.

Unaffected by the heat - Doomsday launches himself skyward. Superman sees his leap and takes pursuit, but with the Justice League and the endangered family home owners vulnerable he has no choice but to abandon the chase!

They will meet again soon enough...

The Hammer...

With Superman the only Justice League hero still conscious, yet tactically neutralized, I have no choice but to call Doomsday the winner! I don't think the brutalized JLA will be able to disagree!

It's an explosive victory for the villain's long awaited Secret Wars on Infinite Earths debut, and a big finish to a massive month of 10th Anniversary celebrations!

Back at the beginning: I promised to mark the occasion with a mix of modern classics and frequently requested favourites. Doomsday has consistently ranked among the most sought after characters - and it's The Death of Superman that is the reason why! Admittedly, it's the big final showdown that's usually the one people want to see, but I couldn't help but go for something a little less obvious.

Doomsday is on the verge of making the leap to the big screen in next year's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. In the movie, their version will confront the seeds of what is to become a film universe Justice League. Since people often forget the Justice League had a noteworthy role in the original introduction of Doomsday -- this seemed like a natural place to start Doomsday rolling!

I have to admit, it took all of ten years to get here because it's a bit of a double-edged sword. The very thing that makes the character notable is also the thing that makes him somewhat uninteresting. The headline is ultimately what's most important: The Death of Superman. By introducing a never before seen brute to fit the task, DC Comics created a character who seemed utterly perfunctory.

In 1992, the stunt was unique enough to receive global press. On the one hand, it seemed inconceivable that there wouldn't be any more Superman comics published by DC. On the other hand; the explosion of the Image style, X-Men, and other flavours of the fast moving early nineties had unflinchingly challenged Superman's playground relevance. In an era of sound and fury signifying flashy change, DC had promised a death. Barry Allen was still dead. Superman's movie cred was in the toilet. Believing them was a strong option.

The Death of Superman is still one of the highest selling comics of all time. It opened the Pandora's box of public execution, and "dramatic change" as sales pitch on a scale unlike any other.

Supes didn't stay dead for long. A few years later, newspapers were covering another stunt -- Superman goes electric. With that, the box arguably slammed shut. Nobody believed Electric Superman would last. If DC weren't going to kill their mascot off, they sure as heck weren't going to keep something that stupid going for long. They'd managed to snap Batman's back and turn Green Lantern into one of their biggest villains along the way, but it all started to seem as pointless and desperate as it was. Readers got wise. Sales plunged.

Attitudes toward crossover events of the nineties seem to have changed over the course of the last ten years. There's always been an audience, but when "big two" comics doubled down into the 2000s on more sophisticated storytelling and characterization, the sins of the chromium age were ready to be cast out.

The aggressive rejection of crossovers and stunts threw the dead super-baby out with the bath water. It hadn't all been bad! By the middle of the decade, an inevitable rethink was coming. Green Lantern: Rebirth paved the way by undoing the one nineties stunt that stuck - Hal Jordan as super-villain. The 20th anniversary of Crisis on Infinite Earths kicked the 'event' doors wide open soon after with Infinite Crisis. 2009's Blackest Night and Final Crisis escalated line-wide events almost as far as they could go. In 2011, they finally killed the DC Universe. Doomsday returned in varied forms. The early nineties struck back with a vengeance.

Given the perfunctory nature of the original Doomsday, it's easy to see why the idea would be repurposed. In his acclaimed All-Star Superman, concept wizard Grant Morrison transcribed the language of Doomsday as supreme threat into a more insidious, soul destroying genetic weapon. In isolation, it was an exciting, thoughtful way of repurposing the power of an attack through the lens of wacky, Silver Age pop and modern man's fear of the Superman. If it didn't invent the concept of a genetic Doomsday, it certainly popularized and validated it with a finesse lacking in subsequent versions. Just another wacky transformation for Jimmy Olsen. Another sci-fi contingency weapon run amok.

If trailers and scuttlebutt are to be believed, the movie Doomsday will use a similar premise to adapt the corpse of Man of Steel villain: General Zod. If it can be done to Zod, it can probably be done to fellow Kryptonian Superman. This has been the case in New 52 comics, where Doomsday became a Jekyll & Hyde proposition - a virus infecting Superman's genes. A validation of the resentment toward the ultimate superhero. The hero as monster. An on-going assassination of character. The death of the myth, if not the Superman.

I never really viewed The Death of Superman with quite the disdain of my peers, but I can understand the pessimism. I certainly had my share of doubts as it was all unfolding, and I came to view characters like Doomsday as avatars for shallow, if forgivable times. I avoided a lot of the worst of the 90s with budget conscious reading, and in that respect, I always felt I was ahead of the curve. Now that stunts like The Death of Superman seem to inform so much of the modern approach to DC comics and movies, I'm starting to wonder if it was the intolerant naysayers who really saw the writing on the wall.

The legacy of the story has become undeniable as the reading of sales statistics seems to overwhelm long term thinking, and the strengthening of home brands. The short dollar is king. Invest in reader anxiety. Hollywood high rolling on a monthly schedule.

I'm pleased to have finally opened the book on this landmark, much requested story! I'm sure we'll explore more facets of its unique importance sometime in the future. In the mean time, I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Thanks for joining me for a big month of anniversary superhero smackdown! If you'd like to see more in 2016, be sure to leave a comment and keep diving into the infinite archives!

Winner: Doomsday

FANTASY FIGHTS: DC/MARVEL ROUND 4!
By popular demand, the Infinite Wars are about to go where they've never been before! After two years of comprehensive canonical fight fact coverage, we're delving into the fictional world of fantasy fights, because you demanded it!

In the spirit of the immensly popular '96 DC/Marvel crossover event, we're pitting fifteen of each company's most relevant characters to 2007 against one and other! Stay tuned as we take a look at the imagine struggles of the superhero stars that have propelled the Infinite Wars across two full years of fisticuffs!

BOOSTER GOLD versus CAPTAIN MARVEL
Strength: Mar-Vell 6 (Invincible)
Intelligence: Mar-Vell 3 (Straight A)
Speed: Mar-Vell 4 (Olympian)
Stamina: Mar-Vell 6 (Generator)
Agility: Mar-Vell 3 (Acrobat)
Fighting Ability: Draw 3 (Street Wise)
Energy Powers: Draw 5 (Lasers)


The Hook...
Aquaman/Sub-Mariner was the obligatory combo of fish-men; Tigra/Catwoman played wittingly to the cat-lovers; Captain Marvel Jr/Hercules maybe made you stop to think a little bit about what's going on. If you instantly identified today's thematic hook, then consider yourself amongst the super-groovy elite of Infinite Wars readers!

DC's wave of Infinite Crisis/52 related storylines reinvigorated many-a character, and the JLI allumnist from the future was right up there among them. Under the pen of mastermind, Geoff Johns; Booster Gold is now enjoying his time in the sun, spilling across time in a brand new solo series.

Coming out of the pages of Marvel's Civil War; seventies superheroing icon, Captain Mar-Vell, made his shock return to the Marvel Universe as a time-displaced warden for SHIELD's Negative Zone prison.
The Kree hero, who famously died of cancer, is plucked from a time before his illness took by Reed Richards and Tony Stark, and after fleeing his post, Mar-Vell seeks anonymity and seclusion amongst humanity, until perils force him into the light in the pages of a new solo series written by Brian Reed.

So, you see? It's a battle of the time-displaced!

The Math: Mar-Vell (Super Class) Ranking: Mar-Vell (#225)

The Battle...
Travelling back through time to investigate a disturbance, Booster Gold finds himself rocked by cosmic powers, torn out of the warp, to crash land in our present. The time travelling hero stumbles through the dust, which clears to reveal the glowing visage of our world's Captain Marvel!

Mar-Vell's cosmic awareness registers that Gold is an unfamiliar quantity in the universe, but before he can interrogate the strange visitor, Gold leaps at him with a devestating sucker-punch!

Operating on the assumption that Mar-Vell was responsible for yanking him into the timestream, Gold wastes no time attempting to blindsight the cosmically powered Kree. The physical onslaught provokes response in kind.

Mar-Vell delivers a defensive uppercut that sends the attacking Booster Gold into the air! He follows swiftly, leaving a trail of twinkling golden light that maps the path of his torpedo-like attack, ending at a collision point with Gold.

Dazed but still airborne, Booster retaliates on instinct with a full powered energy blast that sends Mar-Vell hurtling earthbound. His landing leaves a massive crater in the dirt, and this time Booster tracks his opponent through the dust with the use of his futuristic goggles. Alas, whilst being strategically sound, it only means he sees what hit him -- the devestating power of the cosmic nega-bands -- power even Booster Gold can't stand up to.

The Hammer...
To lift the curtain a little further back: I write each of these entries, like most others, without much in the way of editorial process. Regular readers are going to already know this because of the many grammatical and spelling errors that find their way into these streams of hand-eye co-ordi-nsciousness.
While I've paired thirty characters together in advance; by writing them as they come, the below tally is preserved. So levelling out at two-all, coincidental fun!

I would have to admit that neither character is really my favourite, and being that I'm a little bit behind, I might've played it a tad generic. If you're a diehard Mar-Vell or Booster Gold fan, confirm or deny the results of this confrontation that crosses time and space! Take me to school!

In the mean time -- ooohhhh! It's all evens!
With the only stern mandate being that there can be no draws, this next one will put either DC (blue) or Marvel (red) in the lead! Much like the original crossover series, I've ordered the showdowns much like any fight card worth it's salt, leaving the major battles to the end of the year. That said, there are plenty of significant characters from 2007 to come, and this next one is a must-have!
WINNER: Captain Marvel

2 versus 2