Which Marvel superhero is your uni?

Over the last few years two great series have dominated popular culture: Marvel’s ambitious cinematic universe, and The Tab’s equally overreaching “Which … is your uni?”

Now, like Iron Man fighting Captain America, we bring you the super team-up literally no-one asked for – heroes and villains of the Marvel canon, meet the universities of the UK…

Cambridge – Iron Man

Wealthy, talented (and arrogant with that talent), life seems as effortless for Tony Stark as it does for most Cambridge undergrads. That is until you realise underneath the glittering front there’s a massive personality disorder and desperate, insatiable desire to be loved.

Exeter – Whiplash

We’ve seen you all geared up for the Safer Sex Ball – topless, whips in hands, cheeky up-to-no-good grin. Whether you’re a feisty long-haired Russian exchange or the son of a billionaire industrialist, one thing’s for sure: you’re doing something shocking tonight.

Durham – Aldrich Killian

You went to uni as a gap-toothed spotty nerd, yet some physical therapy (rowing) and a few years of going to Klute have turned you into a grade floppy-haired blazer-wearing hottie.

You’re still jealous of Cambridge though – and you’ll do anything you can to watch them burn.

Warwick – The Mandarin

Like Warwick, the Mandarin started out promising and then ended up being a massive joke. Whether it’s a crap campus with no nightlife or the toilet-humour fumbling of Iron Man’s greatest villain, you’ll be leaving disappointed either way.

Anglia Ruskin – Rhodey

Going to uni in Cambridge doesn’t count as going to Cambridge, in the same way that War Machine is palpably not Iron Man.

Lincoln – Terrence Howard’s Rhodey

You’re barely in the Marvel universe; you’re barely at university.

Newcastle – JARVIS

Despite your Northern non-existence, you have a cut-glass posh accent and an encyclopedic knowledge to match your robotic Received Pronunciation. Fact is, you’re always second fiddle to smarter universities – if only you could think for yourself.

Northumbria – The Vision

Like Newcastle, but with a better body.

UCL – All of Tony Stark’s suits

They all end up being fucking suits in the city don’t they?

King’s – Ultron

Like UCL but slightly more verbose,  with a nihilistic philosophical outlook and a threatening love for violent protest.

LSE – Nick Fury

Powerful and well-connected, people are slow to realise that LSE is basically running everything from behind-the-scenes.

Royal Holloway – Black Widow

Being the Russell Group uni with the most girls is a lot like being the only woman in the Avengers.

Imperial – Red Skull

You’re both red-faced and waxy, with a preoccupation with empires of days-gone-by. Both of you will try to rule the world, and both of you will ultimately prove forgettable.

The NUS – Arnim Zola

Absolutely fucking sinister, both the NUS and Arnim Zola will stop at nothing to infiltrate the decision-making process and achieve world domination.

Whatever you try and do to stop them, they’ll resurface in fresher, more absurd forms.

Oxford – Captain America

Americans love Oxford: its old-fashioned imperial ideas, its classical packaging, it’s slightly naive shamelessness. But like Captain America, the people there are boring and worthy.

Also, the potential for conflict with Cambridge is constant.

Brookes – Steve Rogers pre-serum

Like Oxford, but without all the good bits.

York – Falcon

You wish you were Oxford, but you’ll have to make do with being second best. At least all the way up there you don’t have to live in anyone else’s shadow – even if you are resigned to the fact that you’re literally no-one’s favourite.

York St John – The Winter Soldier

More at home in cold northern climates, you share similarities with York – although when it comes to a fight, no-one’s getting in the way of your steely swing.

Edinburgh – Scarlet Witch

Slightly creepy, dodgy fashion choices and a strong belief that you can read other people’s minds – if you could you’d see they think you’re really weird.

Napier – Quicksilver

The shite close relation of Edinburgh, if you were a part in a film we’d kill you off halfway through as well.

SOAS – Black Panther

The only uni in the country where you can actually study Wakandan.

Nottingham – Bruce Banner

Mild-mannered, intelligent and perhaps a little angsty, Notts students are unthreatening and not particularly rowdy.

Trent – Hulk

Trent are from Nottingham but in contrast to Uni of, they’re raging, massive, beastly maniacs who will rampage across Ocean to buy more Jägerbombs – and end up looking a bit green.

Aberystwyth – The Abomination

If Aberystwyth could walk, it would look like this.

Lancaster – Hank Pym

The forgotten hero, all Lancaster can do is stew in silence and lament the fact that no-one ever accepts he’s a top 10 uni. Hey, at least the insects are your friends.

UCLan – Ant-Man

A smaller, stupider version of Lancaster.

Cardiff – Hawkeye

If the Russell Group is the Avengers, then Cardiff are definitely the Hawkeye of the bunch.

As in, they’re shit and nobody wants them there.

Leeds – Thor

Thor embodies a coming together of Leeds’ most prevalent stereotypes – the blonde top-knot sporting Hyde Park hipster, and the muscle-bound rugby bloke who spends his Wednesday evenings getting his hammer out in Warehouse.

You may be able to handle yourself in a scrum by day, but at night you’ll be shouting at the heavens and riding on the rainbow road to Canal Mills.

Beckett – Frost Giants

Larger and more imposing than your Leeds Uni brethren, you’re also somewhat colder – you’ve been at war for years but your frozen heart’s just not in it anymore.

After all, what’s the fun in winning varsity when they get to look down on you from their shiny golden towers anyway?

Leeds Trinity – That big rock monster

About as good at stringing together a sentence as a Trinity student.

Sheffield – Loki

You’re often overlooked, but you’re a clever one. You’ve been coveting Leeds’ throne for years, and will exert every last bit of your superior scheming intelligence until you take your rightful place on the throne of Yorkshire.

Until then, Corp is your prison – it could be worse.

UEA – Heimdall

Way out on the other side of the country from everyone else, if you’re at UEA you see and hear all the fun shit that happens at other unis from your mates, but you’re doomed to watch from a distance.

Bath – Sif

Fit, but never first choice.

Birmingham/Aston/BCU – The Warriors Three

No-one can differentiate between them, no-one really cares what they’re up to, and no-one would notice if you swapped them out for another piece of faceless comic relief.

Glasgow – The Destroyer

Like the Destroyer, most Glasgow students spend their Friday nights stumbling around, tearing up high streets and spewing hot orange jets out of their mouths.

All mature students – Odin

Chriiiiiiiiiiiiiist you’re old.

QUB – Pointless Chris O’Dowd cameo

Wait, what are you doing here? Go back to Ireland.

Bristol – Doctor Strange

One minute you’re rocking up to Bristol to study medicine or something, the next minute you’re in a corner of Lakota surrounded by empty NOS canisters, with greying temples and trembling hands, telling anybody who will listen about the other dimension you just visited.

UWE – Baron Mordo

Not so different from Bristol, but (and whisper this) just a little bit more hardcore.

Liverpool – Spider-Man

You’re a wisecracking character with a high-pitched voice and incredibly tight-clothing – and you’re probably going to end your evening covered in sticky white stuff.

JMU – Wilson Fisk

When it all boils down to it, JMU is essentially an enormous man-baby who throws tantrums and smashes up the surroundings with his huge fists when things don’t go his way.

London Met – Daredevil

Street-wise, city-born and not averse to getting mugged, Daredevil is the ultimate London Met student-without-fear.

Plus only a blind man would have selected that on his UCAS form.

Central St Martins – Elektra

Oooo Elektra, I love your red headscarf – where did you get it? Paris? Milan?

Leicester – Jessica Jones

A hard-drinking, mean-tempered individual who can’t escape her broken past – whether that be the fact she chose to give up three years to do American Studies, or the creepy DMU guy she slept with in freshers’ who now won’t leave her alone.

DMU – Kilgrave

You are obsessed with Leicester. Obsessed. Let it go man, it’s unhealthy.

Plymouth – The Punisher

Plymouth is so full of squaddies, the natural progression is a rampaging Frank Castle figure to keeps the post-Oceana brawlers at bay.

All international students – The Chitauri

A faceless army of Europeans who descend on British cities and wreak havok.

All study abroad students – Ultron’s drones

A faceless army of Brits who descend on European cities and wreak havok.

Loughborough – Ronan the Accuser

The only university in the country where you can go out wearing Smurf facepaint and toss a hammer around, Ronan-style.

St Andrews – Thanos

You’re way “up there” in another intergalactic plane or Scotland or wherever and it makes you mysterious and powerful.

Manchester – Star Lord

You could rock up to a banging Fallowfield house party with a Walkman full of old-school tunes, a big leather coat and a gym-honed physique and nobody would bat an eyelid: you fit in.

Sussex – Gamora

You’re attractive in an alternative, dye your hair/skin green sort of way. Whether it’s a septum piercing or cybernetic implants, you’re a little bit freaky and we dig it.

Brighton – Nebula

Like Sussex, but just a little bit too freaky for our liking. Did you have to shave your head?

Stirling – Yondu

You speak weird, you probably whistle a lot and you’ve definitely tried a mohawk out at some point. After all, there isn’t much else to do up there but get drunk and be strange.

Aberdeen – Drax the Destroyer

Fearsome and quite, quite stupid, the bulked-out, jacked-up nutjobs up in Aberdeen are actually alright – as long as they’re on your side.

Royal Veterinary College – Rocket

We want to make a joke about animals but we’re confident you’ve already worked it out.

Hull – Groot

I am Hull.