Yea BP is smarter. Steel probably wins a straight up fight. I'm not sure who the better inventor would be. But TChalla claims he can build Iron Man type armor if he wants to.
I'd think Black Panther would be smarter then Steel seeing Black Panther is closer to Reed/Doom's field of intelligence then Steel is. I do remember Steel being able to Luthor beat(through T'challa beaten Doom before in a prep war),so the gap probably isn't very wide. T'challa used to flat out be considered on Reed's level since his first apperance.
Steel is at least Tony Stark level inventions, but T'challa reduplicate Doom's technology and sometimes Reed's tech. T'challa can also combine his magic/science
In a fight Steel should win, but see how T'challa could outsmart Tony in a few ways, I wouldn't be surprised same thing could happen to Steel. Especially since Hardware outsmarted Steel to back in their crossover IIRC.
T'challa doesn't too many silly comic book science cheese feats like Doom/Reed does, but we know that T'challa can match magic/science gimmick that Doom has with his own. Which is pretty impressive very few geniuses have a answer to Doom's magic. http://static.comicvine.com/uploads..._s_training.jpg
We also know that Black Panther also was able to outsmart Mephisto(which is impressed given how difficult was for Doom).Also that Reed was geniuely impressed by Wakanda tech.We know that T'challa outsmarted Tony Stark quite a few times. There is also how at some point Mcduffie's F4 Black Panther was consider a peer to Richards(might have to recheck this), he had plans to apparently stop Galactus, Stole Doom's cosmic power stealing tech without Doom noticing, heck during Hudlin's run Black Panther once EMP Lavertia (through he lost to Doom himself)
I believe that Doom/Reed are still smarter then T'challa is on average, but feel like T'challa noways is treated African Part-Batman and PartDoom in intelligences.
Steel was fighting Eradicator in his first armor.. He should be able to take Panther straight up.
Panther wins with prep, considering the amazing to borderline stupid stuff Priest has had Panther do. (Inhibiting Mephisto's power with a series of force fields to the point where he could knock him down with a punch would be stupid, even if it was pretty awesome. )
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