Batman is seen by a lot of comic book readers – especially those who are fans of his in particular – as a character who can beat absolutely anyone. That notion applies in particular when it comes to scenarios in which the Dark Knight gets time to prepare.

Seriously, in the eyes of some fans, Batman could defeat God himself if given the time to prepare for it – but that really isn’t close to being the case.

There are a number of characters in comics who could easily out-prep Gotham’s hero – and that’s without taking into account their own baseline power levels. Essentially, there are a countless characters who are just outright more intelligent than him and can prepare more potent plans than him – and this article will list five of them (of varying power levels) from Marvel Comics alone who could do so.

Reed Richards

Such is the level of the intelligence of Reed Richards AKA Mister Fantastic, his preparatory skills are considerably more important to the Fantastic Four – the team he leads – (and indeed the universe) than the physical powers of his team-mates the Invisible Woman, the  Human Torch and the Thing.

His own superpower – the ability to stretch his body and shrug off pretty much all blunt force attacks with ease – is often the source of jokes, and that in itself is far more useful than people seem to realise, but it is undoubtedly his mind that is his most powerful tool. In fact, such is Reed’s intelligence that Galactus considers him a peer and often asks him for help.

Some of his greatest feats of prep and intelligence include using his tech to find the Ultimate Nullifier (which was lost in an unknown location in the vast cosmos) in just a few hours, manipulating the date index of the Time Variance Authority within mere seconds (the Time Variance Authority is something that operates on an omniversal scale and can repair entire omniversal timelines across the entire omniverse) and turning Galactus into a human by siphoning his vast cosmic energies using a device he had made himself.

Most impressively, the being known as the Alien Entity (an omnipotent cosmic creature who believed he could find the very meaning of life) used information stored in Reed’s mind to recreate the entire Marvel universe (including every timeline) and its history – simply put, that places his mind on an entirely different plane to Batman’s.

Doctor Doom

Doctor Doom is a threat to any character in comic books on many levels – physical, mental, magical, technological, political, financial and many more. The fact that all of that stems from his brilliant mind is truly frightening and puts him leagues ahead of Batman in terms of preparation.

Doom is merely human, but at any given moment he is ready to fight the most powerful beings in comics – thanks to his powerful (and extremely versatile) armour and his ability to cast spells on a whim. Said armour is a prime example of what he is capable of creating with his mind, as it is durable enough to survive hits from much more powerful beings, has the offensive power to immobilise equally powerful beings and contains hundreds of esoteric gadgets (time devices, force field devices, energy blasters, freeze devices etc – heck, it even contains splinters of the true cross to prepare for a potential attack from Dracula!). He can also cast spells as powerful as the Crimson Bands of Cytorrak – which are capable of containing the likes of the Hulk.

However, it is the plans he comes up with that truly make him dangerous.

Doom can create devices that siphon the power from beings as powerful as Galactus and his Herald the Silver Surfer – granting himself that power in turn.

He has also devised schemes that have allowed him to get his hands on powerful and highly-coveted objects like the Infinity Gauntlet.

One of Doom’s most impressive ongoing feats of preparation are his Doombots – of which there are thousands. They are robotic copies of Doom that even the most powerful of beings can’t differentiate from the man himself. They are identical in both look and intelligence – and even scans of them render them identical physiologically.

Thanos

It goes without saying that Thanos possesses power of a level that means he could easily defeat Batman in a straight-up fight – but even without that power he is infinitely more intelligent and far more potent when it comes to preparation and planning.

To put into perspective just how cunning Thanos is, bear in mind how intelliegent the aforementioned Doctor Doom is and the surveillance tech he has available to him. Now bear in mind that the Mad Titan constantly monitors Doom and Doom doesn’t even realise it.

One of Thanos’ most impressive feats is his creation of a group of clones known as the Thanosi. Using sorcery, technology and his own DNA, he was able to create modified clones of Doctor Strange (Mystic), Iron Man (Armour), Warrior (Gladiator) and Omega (Galactus) – each possessing power on a par to the characters of whom they were clones and whom they were designed to test.

He has also used his cunning and planning skills to acquire great power on numerous occasions – such as the times he has acquired artefacts like the Infinity Gauntlet, the Heart of the Universe and the Cosmic Cube.

He has created devices that augment his own innate powers, time travel machines, dimension-traversing machines, teleportation devices that enable him to cross entire galaxies, devices capable of holding beings as powerful as Thor (when he was insane and wielding the Power Gem) and robotic drones that are indistinguishable from himself.

His preparation has allowed him to overpower beings like the Living Tribunal – a being only second in terms of power in Marvel to the character who is essentially the brand’s God; the One Above All.

The High Evolutionary

Undoubtedly the most obscure and least known character on this list, the High Evolutionary is also one of the most intelligent – way more so than Batman.

He started life as Herbert Edgar Wyndham but, such was the capacity of his mind, he evolved his own intelligence to the upper limit of human potential, which resulted in him becoming much more than human. He is, in fact, the only human in the entire Marvel universe whose intelligence and knowledge has been declared as being on the same level as certain cosmic entities.

He is the outright best geneticist in the Marvel universe, but is also vastly knowledgeable in other sciences, such as biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, human psychology, medicine, computer science and cybernetics.

His main aim is to evolve the world and the beings in it to become better than they already are. As such, he has used devices to instantly change the landscape and flora of entire planets and even created an “Evolution Bomb” to mutate the entire population of planet Earth into higher beings.

His armoured exoskeleton – which is a device of his own creation – has enabled him to go toe-to-toe with beings like Galactus, utilising powers (that he has developed himself) like cosmic awareness, regeneration, matter manipulation, matter creation, energy manipulation and projection, precognition, telepathy and telekinesis.

He has even created his own army of hyper-evolved animals, which he calls the New Men AKA the Knights of Wundagore. They are incredibly powerful beings unto themselves.

He is a prime example of what comic book humans can do when they are at the very top end of the intelligence scale – something Batman clearly isn’t.

Nick Fury

Nick Fury is known for his tactics and strategy in battle, but he’s also an expert at preparation – to the extent that he’s considerably better than Batman at it.

Batman may be specifically prepared for the event that any of his fellow Justice League members go rogue, but Nick Fury is ready for pretty much any specific apocalyptic event (take his appearance in the Age of Ultron comic book arc as an example, in which he specifically said as much, and in which he was ready for Ultron’s global takeover and enabled the heroes to travel through time to combat Ultron in the past).

As a high-up member of S.H.I.E.L.D., Fury takes advantage of the global satellite system linked-up to the organisation. He can, therefore, remain one step ahead of any opponent at any given time by keeping tabs on them while they prepare their schemes.

Moreover, Fury possesses better technology and gadgets than Batman – yeah, really. Anything S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever produced, Fury has a version of it in his possession (look back at S.H.I.E.L.D.’s history to understand just how potent this makes Fury). This includes a Helicarrier – as Fury stole one for himself in the Secret Warriors series.

Fury has years of experience in the military, S.H.I.E.L.D. and the C.I.A. to utilise – as well as experience going all the way back to World War II (Fury literally lived through the conflict and remains relatively youthful thanks to the anti-ageing properties of Professor Sternberg's Infinity Formula). As a result, he really can concoct plans beyond Batman's capabilities and with resources Batman only dreams of having access to.

Often, when Fury activates a contingency to stop a current threat, it’s one he’s had in place for fifty-plus years - that level of preparation is insane.

These are by no means the only characters in Marvel who could out-prep Batman – there are many more of varying levels of power who can do so – but this small list just proves a point.

What do you think? Could these guys out-prep Batman? Does Batman win “because Batman”? Which other Marvel characters could out-prep the Dark Knight? Have your say below.