A Head-to-Head Style Battle Between the Steeziest Superheroes

Superhero movies are more poppin' now more than ever. Marvel and The Avengers have basically strong-armed Hollywood, a takeover that allowed old properties like X-Men and Spider-Man to enjoy a resurgence, while on the other side of town DC plots a comeback spearheaded by the Man of Steel.

Summer 2014 has already been set off by first responder Captain America, Spidey is currently enjoying his time in the sun, and X-Men and newcomers Guardians of the Galaxy are both poised to round out the box office season. With a such a cluttered field filled with childhood comic favorites, there's always a debate raging about which film series is better.

We thought we'd jump into the fray on the style side of things and pit everyone against each other to see who's swagging the hardest since most superheroes are actually stunt lords above most other endeavors. The contestants: any and every character who's a part of a franchise that's currently in production. That means Christian Bale and co. are out, new Batman Ben Affleck is obviously still under wraps, Tobey Maguire's Spider-franchise is moot, etc. Read on to see which franchise wins each carefully curated category in the ultimate Superhero Style Face-Off.

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Contestants: Spider-Man, Iron Man

Winner: Spider-Man

One time for the heroes who took the swag into their own hands. (Question for a later date: who actually made those sleek X-Men fits? Did Prof X just cop leather jumpsuits from Ssense?) Both Peter Parker and Tony Stark's accomplishments are impressive. You'd think the advantage leans in the favor of the engineering genius who created a hi-tech suit of armor, but while that is undoubtedly awesome, let's keep in mind that dude is a billionaire with Dexter's Lab at his disposal. Was it really that hard?

Meanwhile Peter Parker is a poor Queens kid who literally just sat in his bedroom shielded away from a nagging ass aunt and knitted up some heat suitable for bungee-jumping between skyscrapers. Gotta give it to the kid.

Contestants: Loki, Magneto, Zod

Winner: Loki

Loki is just the most popular kid in the Marvel class right now and that extends to steez as well. The Asgardian flourish is very on point, and the gold horned helmet and staff are dope villain accessories that speak to his ego and insecurity on some "all of these little accents make me a king" type ish.

Magneto is a very close second, especially if we were judging normal looks and not costumes, because as the younger iteration Michael Fassbender absolutely kills it when he's in plain clothes. As it stands, the helmet and the purple suit just aren't really that poppin'. (Points for pulling off the cape, though.)

Meanwhile, Zod, like most of the Kryptonian designs in Zack Snyder's vision, is an eyesore. Of course Michael Shannon makes a great villain in Man of Steel, but judging the fits, it looks like Zod is wearing a Transformer or Missy Elliott gave her most classic look a high-tech upgrade.

Fly heroes need equally fly villains to spar with, and Loki clearly bodies.

Contestants: Pepper Potts, Gwen Stacy, Lois Lane

Winner: Gwen Stacy

Even if it deviates from the headline, we had to recognize these three cool independent women whose characters are helping to flip the notion that all superhero girlfriends are just damsels in distress. Anybody would kill to have either of these three on their arm, but in a tight race of smart, beautiful, and sassy go-getters, Emma Stone emerges as the baddest. She's funny, her banter game is proper, and she's smarter than Peter Parker. Perfect chick.

Contestants: Iron Man, Captain America, Professor X, Cyclops

Winner: Cyclops

The honest truth about most superheroes is that the majority of their costumes and assorted accessories are dorky as hell. Of course, that doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, especially when dudes can do cool shit like shoot beams out of their eyes. The helmet or otherwise cranium-associated piece is the leader in turning superhero swag down, but dudes always seem to think they need it to make the cypher complete.

All four of these guys look like clowns except tha gawd Tony Stark because everything about Iron Man is awesome. But we're going to go ahead and give this win to Cyclops though, because more people should be appreciative of Cyclops. Dude gets a raw deal for being a killjoy and didn't even get invited back for the newest movie. And on the low it's pretty cool that the visor's the only thing reining in a torrent of destructive energy that, once again, comes out of his eyes.

Contestants: Black Widow, Mystique, Gamora

Winner: Mystique

Obviously. Gamora just looks like the extraterrestrial answer to "goth chic," and while Scarlett Johansonn deserves an Academy Award for letting us ogle her curves in skin-tight catsuits (on IMAX, no less), she's the only thing elevating Black Widow's look from Basic Secret Agent. The costume design for Mystique, however, has always been out of this world even back in 2000, i.e. the VFX stone ages. First Rebecca Romijn, now Jennifer Lawrence? Scales have never looked better.

Contestants: Star Lord, Superman, Thor

Winner: Superman

Even if you don't know much about Guardians of the Galaxy yet, it's clear from the trailer that the homie Star Lord is pretty insecure about his rep or lackthereof in the cosmos. By extension everything about his get-up just screams "please take me seriously," and though he deserves it, there's just no competing with the self-assured space swag of Kal-El and Thor.

Those two are similar in a lot of ways, including costumes that incorporate billowy red capes and sleek body suits (Thor of course, isn't beholden to the country's colors). Upgrading Superman's outfit is one of the few things Man of Steel got undeniably right. It's very different for sure, but in a great way that highlights dude's alien heritage and Kryptonian-given stunting abilities.

Contestants: Rocket Raccoon, Beast, Sabretooth

Winner: Rocket Raccoon

All three of these guys are cool and all, but Guardians of the Galaxy's foul-mouthed, gun-toting raccoon though? How could we not?

(If the animated series were up for consideration though, it would be Sabretooth all day, and tomorrow.)

Contestants: The Winter Soldier, Malekith, Green Goblin

Winner: Winter Soldier

If the alternative to a dude in a goblin mask is your boy Dane DeHaan looking like he got electrocuted while zooted off that molly water, then fuck realism, rubber mask all the way. Yea, he's supposed to be the Spidey universe's answer to The Joker, but this is on the wrong side of cartoonish.

We could barely even make a quip about this dude (had to Wiki his name) from Thor 2 both because, like everyone else, we did our best to block that depressingly bland Marvel entry from the mind as soon as we left the theater. Even with the help of the Internet, he registered about as successfully as a college student who drew last in the housing lottery.

Winter Soldier, née Bucky Larson, is the clear winner. The all-black look, down to the bandana, is a layup, but that awesome metal arm takes it to the next level. Any points lost for what is undeniably eye shadow are made up for by the fact that this dude's most famous role prior was a UES fuccboi on Gossip Girl, yet here we are, taking him seriously as a villain.

Contestants: The Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the X-Men

Winner: The Avengers

Love to the Guardians rookies but they just don't cohere stylistically the same way they do as a ragtag band of unlikely heroes. As for Xavier's squad, they look cool and sleek (and adapting the costumes from the comics probably would've looked unforgivably goofy on the silver screen) but a dozen people rocking the same leather suit isn't anything worth writing home about. (Though you'll notice the Days of Future Past outfits feature some appropriately futuristic updates.)

Out of all the superhero cliques on the big screen, the Avengers run shit, hands down. They all have their individual style (which is more than you can say for the solo movies sometimes) but somehow they don't clash in a group shot, and that includes the guy who's struggling to keep on slacks from Big & Tall.

Contestants: Peter Parker, Clark Kent, Tony Stark

Winner: Nobody

No wonder these guys are addicted to their skintight spandex and metric ton suits. It seems like most superheroes these days barely give a fuck about secret identities anymore. But when these guys take off the mask, no one cares who they are, probably because they dress pretttty fucking horribly.

The symbol of American justice spends most of his flick bumming around the country; Tony Stark, colorful personality though he may be, hews close to reality as that filthy rich dude who thinks he can buy swag; Peter Parker comes the closest to respectable but he's such a nondescript basic New York quasi-hipster—there's no identity or flavor beyond whatever's on the Gap billboards.