Author: Tiffany Jablonowski

March 3, 2025

Fantasy Fight Club: Batman vs. Daredevil

Welcome back to Fictional Fight Club, where we take two characters and have them FIGHT TO THE DEATH!!! With the first fight coming to a close, it’s time for the main event between two sides of the same coin. One is raising hell in New York while the other prowls around Gotham. Please give it up for Marvel’s Daredevil and DC’s Batman! We will fight three rounds, consisting of abilities, villains, and personality. Whoever wins gets to be the official “just a guy” hero! Let’s rumble, people!

Let’s start with the abilities. Like I said earlier, they are both just dudes with weapons. What Daredevil has that Batman doesn’t are heightened senses. Since Daredevil is blind, all of his other senses are more prominent. Batman may not have super senses, but he is a master at martial arts and weaponry, since he can use basically anything to help him in a fight. Both of them are also skilled in critical thinking and detective skills, both using their wits along with their fists.

If they were to go hand-to-hand, I feel like Daredevil has a bit of an up on Batman because of his senses. With the ability to hear, smell, and touch, Daredevil can sneak up on Batman and get some heavy hits in. So, the first round goes to …

… Daredevil.

But what’s a good hero without villains, right? Batman’s rogues gallery doesn’t need an introduction. They are probably the most famous villains of all time! But with every Joker, we have a Condiment King. Not every bad guy Batman goes up against is a winner. Daredevil has a few notable villains, such as Kingpin and Bullseye. But other than those two, it’s hard to name any other bloodthirsty villains. While Kingpin knows Daredevil’s identity, no major villain knows Batman’s. Even when Bullseye killed some of Daredevil’s closest friends, it’s nothing compared to the torture, death, and pain Batman goes through on a weekly basis. For the villains, I’m giving it to Batman and his messed up bad guys.

The third and final round goes to the personalities of each hero. Bruce Wayne is a billionaire who had to suffer through the traumatic death of his parents, while Matt Murdock lived in poverty and was blinded by a car accident as a child. Both have sad backstories involving losing a parent and gaining an elderly father figure (Alfred for Bruce, and Stick for Matt). Both of them have a lot of similarities, especially in their fight for justice. But the biggest difference is how they do it. Batman wants to punish villains for their crimes; Daredevil focuses on the victims. They are both extremely complex heroes in their own right. It was an extremely close battle but … I’m going to have to go with Batman. He seems to manage to fight for justice while also feeling human (when written correctly).

Now, just because Batman wins doesn’t mean Daredevil is horrible. In fact, while researching, I became enthralled with his character. It was close, and it could have gone either way. I’m going to start watching his show Daredevil: Born Again, which comes out on March 4th. Maybe in a few months, I’ll look back at this and change the winner to Daredevil. Either way, both characters are awesome, and you should check them out!

March 3, 2025

The Lake Bodom Murders

The most unsettling true-crime cases … 

Trigger warning: Child murder, statutory sexual assault

Many true crime cases go unsolved for decades, and not all of them occur in the United States. The case we’re covering this week checks both of those boxes. Known as the Lake Bodom Murders, this case is intriguing for many reasons that will become evident later on. It involved four Finnish teenagers and took place at Lake Bodom in Espoo, Uusimaa, Finland, on Saturday, June 5, 1960. The teens, Maila Irmeli Björklund and Anja Tuulikki Mäki (both 15), Seppo Boisman (18), and Nils Gustafsson (18), set out for a romantic camping trip to Lake Bodom. They arrived at the lake around 5 p.m. on June 4 and settled down on a small peninsula that jutted out onto the lake. The teens then spent the rest of that day drinking, fishing, swimming, and relaxing before retreating into their single tent around 11 p.m.

As the sun rose up over the lake the next morning, two teenage boys, unrelated to the campers, were walking along the shore of Lake Bodom. At around 6 a.m., they heard a faint voice calling out and soon discovered a collapsed tent. Upon closer inspection, they noticed very large slash marks in multiple areas of the tent and two bodies lying outside the structure while two more were lying inside.

Read more … 

They’d all appeared to be stabbed and bludgeoned to death. Just then, a body laying outside tent appeared to move its legs ever so slightly. The boys saw this but quickly had their attention redirected to a man running away from the tent and into the tree line. They couldn’t see his face but felt it was time to leave at that point, so they did. The boys later recounted that the man appeared to be an adult wearing a light blue-colored shirt with slicked-back blonde hair. As the day wore on and the lake became crowded, more people observed the tent. It wasn’t until a passing carpenter noticed it, realized something was very wrong, and rushed to a nearby construction site to notify law enforcement that the police would get involved.

Once they arrived at the scene, the police began what was an unsecured investigation. It led to multiple citizens and campers walking through the crime scene, effectively disturbing and destroying crucial evidence. To make things even more complicated, Nils Gustafsson had sustained horrific injuries, including a fractured skull, yet he was the only survivor. This forced police to consider him as the primary suspect for a time and press charges against him. However, they later re-examined the case while Nils was in custody and ruled out the idea that he could be the main suspect due to the severity of the injuries he’d sustained. Nils’ trial would ultimately end in an acquittal and “not guilty” verdict. To this day, many suspects have been considered … one of whom, a man by the name of Hans Assmann (see image), had a striking resemblance to a composite sketch created of the man seen running away from the tent. Yet nobody, other than Nils Gustafson has been formally identified or charged.

To learn more about this unsolved case, check out the Casefile True Crime podcast titled “Case 194: Lake Bodom,” available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.

March 3, 2025