Under what merits has The Dark Knight been topped or hasn't yet by the MCU?

I want an honest discussion about this. That means you're not invited DC-Fan if you're going to retort to your usual bullshit "Comparing the MCU (any MCU film) to TDK is like comparing Johnny Dangerously to The Godfather.". scabab and Hauntedknight87 you two can monitor this discussion before it turns into a shitstorm, so keep DC-Fan out of it, delete any posts he does if he retorts to his usual antics, because I would really like an honest discussion on here with others who aren't trolls.

Just to clarify, I think The Dark Knight is one of the greatest films and one of the greatest superhero films ever. Christian Bale is my favorite Batman and Bruce Wayne and while I could listen to Jeremy Irons read a phone book all day, Michael Caine is the definite Alfred for me. And of course, Heath Ledger gave a great performance as the Joker. It's a great film, competently made and filmed as there's very little CGI besides maybe like the hospital explosion to enhance it.

But let's look at what I think really matters for a superhero film and what makes a superhero film that adapts a source so great. I don't care about the Oscars, I don't care about rewards each film has made or hasn't. I don't care about the money that was made or lost. I don't care what the critics have said. I don't care what the audience has said. I don't care what RottenTomatoes says. Seriously, they're saying Black Panther and Wonder Woman are the 2 greatest superhero film ever, which we all know that's wrong. It's ALL irrelevant.

I think, what matters the most is how faithful and how serious they are to the source material no matter how fantastical it may be and how much they follow suit and embrace the material and the plot points. Obviously, story matters as well. The DCEU has definitely begun embracing all their fantastical elements, BUT, the stories they're telling haven't been good.

So here's my take on this. In terms of the source material being adapted, I think the MCU has done a better job as they have embraced all of it pretty much. I'm not saying that every MCU film automatically topped The Dark Knight because of that, but personally, I think there are four exceptions; The Avengers (2012), Winter Soldier, Civil War and Infinity War. I do believe they topped The Dark Knight in almost every way.

Let's look at The Dark Knight. It's a superhero film, yes, but how much of a true superhero film is it? There can be an argument to made that it's simply a good thriller film about a guy dressed as a Bat. Or its a good mobster/gangster film. I've seen these arguments before and I think they're valid.

The characters in the The Dark Knight are truly the only source properly adapted, except for Rachel (Katie Holmes/Maggie Gyllenhaal). And they all give great performances. Their story arcs are great. Other than that, every fantastical element of Batman's character has been watered down to be grounded and feel more realistic. And that's fine. The Dark Knight is one of the few exceptions of "grounding superheroes" where it's done well without it being pretentious. And that was Nolan's intentions. Great, so does that mean it makes it the greatest superhero film ever?
This is one of the reasons why I actually even prefer Batman Begins over The Dark Knight. Yes, Batman Begins watered down the fantastical elements down to be grounded and somewhat realistic, those elements still felt properly fantastical like it was from the comics (the flower, Scarecrow, fear toxin, dispersing the gas, League of Shadows etc ...). Some of those elements may seem far-fetched, but by the same token, Nolan made it work and seem believable in the real world. The Dark Knight lacks that. Even though it has a great story (I have some issues/nitpicks, but I won't cover those), in a nutshell, it's simply a heist/revenge film with a man dressed as a Bat, a guy with a burnt face and guy dressed as a clown with bad makeup. It's a great thriller film. It's a great mob/gangster film. See what I'm getting at?

If you made a list of the greatest films of the last 10-15 years, I'd put The Dark Knight on it, possibly even number one because it's an amazing film, no question about it.
If you made a list of the greatest superhero films of the last 10-15 years, I'd put The Dark Knight on it, but probably just the top 10 because I don't think it has all the elements of a superhero film.

So when someone asks has the MCU topped The Dark Knight, I say yes, they have, with The Avengers, Winter Soldier, Civil War and Infinity War.
-The Avengers is self-explanatory. It's the fuckin' Avengers, the first time a movie studio properly brought together a bunch of superheroes from their own films into one. And the story was great, the performances were great and it had all the elements of a comic book.

-Winter Soldier essentially pulled a page from Nolan. It was a bit more grounded, but into a genre-direction (espionage/70's spy thriller), but still had great comic elements to it and delivered a great story

-Civil War. A perfect example of how to properly adapt a source material. An adaption is never a page-to-page, beat-to-beat, panel-to-panel. The Dark Knight adapted story elements from Long Halloween and a couple Joker stories, but it wasn't page-to-page. (Watchman made this mistake). Civil War takes on the theme of accountability while using the Civil War story as a backdrop, and succeeds as it had some of the strongest performances from RDJ and Chris Evans. Again, it is more grounded than the Avengers, but its an example of how to do it the right way like The Dark Knight did.

-Infinity War. Another great example of adapting the source material, but without being panel-to-panel, retaining all the comic elements to it, delivering great a great story with equally great performances (Dr Stange and Thanos were the standouts for me).

But hey, what do I know. It's all subjective. But please, if you're going to contribute to this thread, don't be a moron.