Moon Girl is one of Marvel’s most popular new heroes. Since the character debuted in 2015, Lunella Lafayette has delighted audiences with her charming personality and wacky adventures. In the Marvel universe, Lunella is said to be the most intelligent person in the world, but how does her intellect compare to that of DC’s caped crusader?
How intelligent is Moon Girl?
Marvel frequently releases Power Grids showing off their heroes’ stats and these grids let us vaguely compare different heroes. Lunella’s grid was shown on the variant cover for Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #25 (2018). This grid ranked her intelligence as 6 out of a possible 7, which the official key describes as having a “Super-Genius” level intellect. For context, this means she has the same score as Reed Richards and Tony Stark.
This intelligence has been often seen in the comics, with Lunella pulling off amazing feats in the blink of an eye. In Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #47 (2015), Lunella challenges Reed Richards to a contest to see who is more intelligent. She utterly decimated the superhero, even outclassing him during a test performed using the Banner B.O.X., a device Bruce Banner specifically designed to test super-intellects.
In Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #7 (2016), Kid Kree scanned Moon Girl with an analyzer. This device informed him that Lunella’s intelligence was a massive threat to the future of the Kree. There are many more documented instances of her smartness like in 2017’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #13, she was tested by Rockefeller University, only for the staff to deem her the cleverest person in the world.
This has been further proved by Lunella’s actions. She has frequently built advanced technology out of junk, including a Kree Detector (Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #1, 2016), and she’s also shown an aptitude for computers, hacking several secure databases and making some very complex programs.
But can Moon Girl best the Dark Knight?
It is impossible to make a straight one-to-one comparison between Batman and Moon Girl. First, the characters are owned by different companies, meaning we have not seen them go head to head or interact in any way.
Also, Batman made his debut in 1939 and has been part of hundreds of stories spanning many eras. Because of this, his intelligence wildly fluctuates depending on the period and the specific storyline, making it hard to work out Bruce’s baseline intelligence.
Despite this, recent events have shown that Batman is still one of the most intelligent beings in the DC Universe. Most notably, in 2018’s Doomsday Clock #2, Ozymandias and Veidt try to find the world’s cleverest people to help them. After doing some research in the library, they deduce that Batman and Lex Luthor are the wisest people in the world, though they can’t agree on which of the two is better.
Plus, over the years, readers have seen Batman pull off many remarkable acts, including building a machine to clone himself and implanting the clone with his old memories (Batman #43 2015), as well as building a massive number of gadgets, gizmos, and suits that let him fight even the most powerful beings.
There are a few key differences between the two heroes and it is these differences that make this discussion so complex. Firstly, Lunella is young, passionate, and curious, meaning readers often see her experimenting and building things for fun. As the older and jaded Batman only does what he needs for his current situation, it means we rarely see Batman’s full potential, with it only being fully explored when the plot demands it.
However, this is inverted by both characters’ place in their respective universes. While Moon Girl is a big hit and a beloved character, she’s not been the face of a massive crossover event yet, limiting the scale of her actions and gambits. Due to Batman’s status as one of DC’s most famous icons, he has been at the center of many massive events, meaning that he got to concoct and execute some exceptionally elaborate plans and take down god-level beings.
But it should be noted that Lunella entered the Marvel universe during the aftermath of several massive galaxy-spanning events, many of which directly affected the public. Meaning Lunella has had the chance to use and reverse-engineer alien technology, helping her show off her intelligence. While Bruce has done that in the past, a good chunk of Batman’s most famous moments involves more grounded (for comic books) situations, with Bruce’s intelligence being shown through his detective work. While this work is impressive in its own right, it isn’t as instantly attention-grabbing as Moon Girl’s experiments with technology.
While we’ll never truly know one way or the other, Moon Girl is likely more intelligent than Batman. However, she hasn’t had the chance to prove herself yet. But, in the coming years, Lunella will make her mark on the Marvel universe and show what she is truly capable of. And with Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur series debuting on Disney Plus, already intact with the perfect Rotten Tomatoes score, on Feb. 10, she is all set to get all the mainstream exposure she needs to establish that she has what it takes to outsmart Gotham’s caped savior.