The Batman vs Spider-Man argument has been running since the 1960s, and it usually plays out the same way: someone invokes "prep time," someone else invokes "spider-sense," and nobody changes their mind. The debate is fun, but it's unfalsifiable — you're arguing about fictional physics.
There's a different version of this question that actually has an answer: not who would win in a fight, but who wins in the culture. Which character commands a bigger, more passionate, more distinctive fanbase? And what do those fanbases look like when you map them against each other?
We have data on this. dtbse tracks taste preferences across 378,000 users and millions of signals — which movies people love, which they skip, and how those choices cluster together. Batman and Spider-Man are two of the most connected nodes in the entire taste network. Here's what the data actually shows.
The Size of the Fanbases
Batman's film franchise, anchored by The Dark Knight, is one of the most-tracked properties in our dataset. Tens of thousands of users have expressed a strong positive signal for Batman films specifically. Spider-Man's franchise is more distributed — there's the Raimi trilogy, the Webb films, the MCU entries, and Into the Spider-Verse, each with its own pocket of devotion — but when you aggregate them, the total Spider-Man audience is comparable in size.
The key difference isn't volume. It's concentration. Batman fandom peaks sharply around one film: The Dark Knight. Christopher Nolan's 2008 masterpiece acts as a gravitational center, pulling in viewers who might not care about Batman at all but who fell in love with that specific movie. Spider-Man fandom, by contrast, is spread across multiple iterations. There's no single Spider-Man film that dominates the way The Dark Knight dominates Batman.
This matters because concentrated fanbases behave differently from distributed ones. A concentrated fanbase produces stronger taste signals — people who love The Dark Knight tend to love the same other films, making their preferences highly predictable. A distributed fanbase is noisier — Raimi fans and Spider-Verse fans don't necessarily overlap in their other tastes.
Where the Fanbases Overlap
Here's where it gets interesting: the overlap between Batman fans and Spider-Man fans is enormous. These aren't rival tribes — they're largely the same people. The vast majority of users who express strong affinity for The Dark Knight also express strong affinity for at least one Spider-Man film, and vice versa.
This shouldn't be surprising, but it contradicts the DC-vs-Marvel narrative that dominates online discourse. The data doesn't support the idea that people pick a side and stick with it. Most fans simply like good superhero films regardless of the studio banner. The tribal loyalty is louder on social media than it is in actual viewing behavior.
That said, there is a meaningful minority of exclusive fans on each side — users who love Batman films but show no positive signal for any Spider-Man property, or vice versa. These exclusive fans are the ones who create the perception of rivalry, and their tastes diverge in revealing ways.
What Batman-Exclusive Fans Love
Users who gravitate strongly toward Batman but not Spider-Man tend to skew toward darker, more grounded cinema. Their taste network connects heavily to:
Crime and thriller territory. The Departed, Se7en, No Country for Old Men, Heat. This makes sense — The Dark Knight is as much a crime thriller as it is a superhero film. If you love The Dark Knight for the Joker's interrogation scene rather than the Batpod chase, you're going to end up in David Fincher's filmography.
Cerebral science fiction. Inception (obviously — same director), Interstellar, The Prestige, Blade Runner 2049. These fans want films that challenge them intellectually while delivering spectacle. They'll sit through exposition if the payoff is worth it.
Prestige drama with an edge. Fight Club, American History X, Shutter Island. Films that are technically dramas but carry a visceral punch. There's a preference for moral ambiguity — protagonists who aren't straightforwardly heroic.
The pattern is clear: Batman-exclusive fans use Batman as a gateway into serious, dark, adult-oriented cinema. They don't want fun. They want weight.
You can explore the full taste network for The Dark Knight at dtbse.com/similar/the-dark-knight.
What Spider-Man-Exclusive Fans Love
Spider-Man-exclusive fans — those who love Spider-Man properties but don't connect with Batman — show a different taste fingerprint:
The wider MCU. Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor: Ragnarok, Iron Man. This is the clearest differentiator. Spider-Man-exclusive fans are Marvel ecosystem fans. They're invested in the interconnected universe in a way that Batman fans (who tend to prefer standalone films) are not.
Animated storytelling. Into the Spider-Verse opened a door. Users who love that film connect strongly to other visually adventurous animation — Studio Ghibli films, Pixar's best work, even anime like Your Name and Attack on Titan. The Spider-Verse effect is real: it brought animation-curious viewers into the Spider-Man orbit.
Coming-of-age narratives. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Breakfast Club, Superbad. Spider-Man's core appeal has always been that he's a teenager dealing with teenage problems while also being a superhero. Fans who connect with that aspect tend to love stories about young people figuring themselves out.
Lighter action-adventure. The Princess Bride, Back to the Future, Pirates of the Caribbean. Spider-Man fans, on average, prefer their adventure with a sense of humor and a lighter touch than Batman fans do.
See Spider-Man's full taste network at dtbse.com/similar/spider-man.
The DC vs Marvel Question — Zoomed Out
Batman and Spider-Man are the flagships, but they represent broader patterns. When you zoom out to DC vs Marvel at the audience level, a few trends emerge from the data:
Marvel fans are more numerous but less distinctive. The MCU is so widely watched that being a "Marvel fan" doesn't predict your other tastes very strongly. It's like saying you enjoy pizza — true of most people, not very informative. DC fandom, being smaller, is a stronger signal. If someone loves DC films, you can make more confident predictions about what else they'll enjoy.
DC fans skew older and more male. This isn't a huge effect, but it's consistent. The Dark Knight, Watchmen, and Joker attract a demographic that's slightly different from the Guardians of the Galaxy and Spider-Man: Homecoming audience. DC's brand of darkness appeals to viewers who've moved past the pure-fun phase of their movie-watching lives.
The crossover rate is over 70%. This is the headline number. More than seven in ten users who show strong affinity for any DC film also show strong affinity for at least one Marvel film. The rivalry is real in marketing departments and subreddit arguments. In actual taste data, most people like both.
The truly distinctive fans are the ones who hate the other side. The small group of DC purists who actively dislike Marvel, or Marvel loyalists who dismiss DC, have the most distinctive and predictable taste profiles. Negative preferences — things you specifically don't like — are often more informative than positive ones.
What Both Fanbases Share
Strip away the exclusive fans on each side, and the overlapping core — the majority — reveals what superhero cinema really is at the taste level. These shared favorites show up consistently:
- Inception — the film that bridges everything
- The Matrix — the original "what if reality isn't what you think" blockbuster
- Interstellar — spectacle with emotional stakes
- Pulp Fiction — stylish, quotable, structurally inventive
- The Lord of the Rings — epic world-building and earned emotional payoffs
- Breaking Bad — when the taste network extends beyond film, this is the shared favorite
These aren't superhero films (with one exception). They're films that share DNA with the best superhero movies: scale, ambition, memorable characters, and the feeling that you're watching something that matters.
Compare Them Yourself
The taste data keeps evolving as more users share their preferences. You can run your own comparison of any two properties — not just Batman and Spider-Man — using dtbse's matchup tool.
Compare any two movies at dtbse.com/matchup
Or dive into the full taste networks:
The Real Answer
So who wins? In raw fanbase size, it's close enough to call a draw, with Spider-Man holding a slight edge thanks to the MCU's sheer reach. In fanbase intensity and distinctiveness, Batman wins — The Dark Knight created a tighter, more predictable cluster of taste than any single Spider-Man film.
But the most honest answer is that the question is wrong. Batman and Spider-Man aren't competitors. They're two sides of the same coin — one dark, one light, one brooding, one quipping — and the data shows that most people want both. The 378,000 users in our dataset aren't choosing between DC and Marvel. They're choosing what mood they're in tonight.
That's the thing about taste data at scale. It doesn't confirm the narratives we argue about online. It reveals the ones we actually live.