Wolverine vs. Lobo Fight Analysis

Here we go, finally, the fights YOU, the FANS, voted on! And boy, is it entirely based on which characters are most popular, not on any kind of story logic. At this point in comics fandom, I can't believe DC allowed its characters to be put through this as I think Marvel was well ahead of the game, but I could be wrong. Really depends on which characters are involved, but this first fight between popular anti-heroes (it was 1996, why isn't it JUST anti-heroes?) gave me an early sinking feeling...

For Marvel: Wolverine
At his best? I would argue Wolverine hit the height of his popularity well before this, but he's maintained it. But this is also the period where he has bone claws, nowhere near as strong or sharp as his adamantium ones.
His advantage: Even if killed, his soul fights its way out of hell so it can reinhabit his healing body. Evergreen popularity that can cut through the noise. And speaking of noise...

For DC: Lobo
At his best? He's lost his ability to clone himself from every drop of blood, but he's in the middle of his long-running solo book. Ironically, the Main Man was less of a hardcore bastich when he WENT to series, since he was suddenly not in Mature Readers mini-series that let him cut loose on the gore.
His advantage: He's Superman-level in terms of strength. The Afterlife doesn't want him (too troublesome), so he can't die. Has fewer morals than Wolverine. While Logan goes blind with berserker rage, he keeps his cool and just has fun.

Why this match? Lobo is essentially a parody of violent anti-heroes like Wolverine, and as the two companies' most popular characters of this type, they were thrown together DESPITE the absurd power gap.
Were they Amalgamated? No! Wolverine was combined with Batman as Cash Cow--I mean, the Dark Claw, and Lobo's space parody was a better match to Howard the Duck (Lobo the Duck).
What if they fought their Amalgam Buddy? Wolverine vs. Batman - now THAT would have been a real toss-up that neither company (especially DC) couldn't have risked losing. We have to give it to Batman, but Wolverine could easily have gotten a lucky shot. Lobo vs. Howard the Duck takes up all of one panel, though.
Better match-ups: This was a terrible match-up and led to a very questionable result, so I'm sure we can do better. Lobo is really the one who doesn't deserve to be in a Top 5 fight, and the other "dark hero" with as much appeal as Wolvie IS Batman. If you want to leave it to Logan, you send Azrael in, maybe wearing his old AzBats suit - his long-running series had recently begun. This era's Hawkman would also have fit the bill. And if we care more about theme than popularity, maybe the Bronze Tiger, or with time travel involved, his precursor Timber Wolf. And if we DO keep Lobo around, he needs a cosmic-level threat like Drax to keep him occupied - he was just off Infinity Watch at this point.
If DC vs. Marvel had been fought today: Lobo isn't figuring into it, and Deadpool is giving Wolverine a run for his money in the anti-hero slot. There would be pressure to put Deadpool against the character he was copied from, Deathstroke, and leave Batman to fight someone more iconic later in the bracket. But then, don't you want Wolverine in play? Yeah, you do, and he would be best against Batman.

Play by Play: The fight takes place in a bar "far, far away", or a cantina, if you like, a real den of inequity. It's Lobo's hang-out, but as with Catwoman losing in her own stomping grounds, it's not really going to figure as a battle advantage, even if Lobo seems to think so. He does get first blood.

This is one of those fights where, if they showed it, it would fill dozens of pages. Instead, we're going to let the guys tumble behind a bar and not show much of anything.

Result: Wolverine wins. How? We're not told. It's a punchline. Possibly, Dan Jurgens drew everything but the bottom three panels, and whoever won the vote would stand up and puff on some alien patron's abandoned stogy. I can tell you that, at the time, this is where I threw the comic across the room (at least, in my mind). A very real cheat. Wolvie could at least have had the decency to look like he's regenerating from massive injuries. But if Lobo is holding your clawed arm away from him, there's no way Wolverine can ever connect. Even if he did, could bone claws pierce a Superman-level being's skin? It's the most outrageous nerfing of a DC character... except for the next one.

Next time: The publishers' top heroines go at it.