Battle of the Titans

From time to time, to the delight of fans, and to boost sales a little, comic publishers would contrive a cross-over - a story in which two powerful comic characters who normally would not ever meet, clash in an epic 4 part story.

Think Superman vs Hulk. Teen Titans vs X-Men. Batman vs Judge Dredd. Tarzan vs Predator.
You get the idea.

As part of my early education, my parents fed me a pretty steady diet of wildlife documentaries, mental food that I positively devoured. Sometimes, these would be films we'd go to a cinema to view, and there'd often be a short cartoon before it to make us kids happy. Later, there would be excellent documentaries shown in color on the national TV network - usually on hot and lazy Sunday afternoons. (I'm remembering in particular Carl Sagan's Cosmos and the David Attenborough BBC multi part documentaries)

I remember with particular fascination scenes of leopards chasing down the young deer, raising massive clouds of dust at breakneck speed. A vicious showdown between a cobra and a mongoose. Crocs in a muddy river dragging down the struggling elderly wilderbeast.

There were the fights I wish some documentary maker could have captured on film. A giant ape fighting a 30ft anaconda. A fight to the death between a giant squid and a sperm whale. That would have been so cool.

Now, real life has provided a fascinating match-up - and this was reported recently on the BBC in an article titled in a way that I simply could not resist:

Snake bursts after gobbling gator

What a great story! The two giants - a 13 foot burmese python, and a 6 foot croc fighting and killing each other in the Florida Everglades. Here's the link to the article.

Now if only there could have been a wildlife cameraman there to capture the action on film.