Oh, I think Batman could win against Superman. But not in the way it's often depicted. I still think the Red Son fight was the most plausible and well executed scenario for Batman beating, well, getting close to beating Superman. He got him underground and away from the sun, he negated his powers with red sun radiation, and then commenced to beat the **** out of him.
Batman should never fight a Superman, who still has access to all his powers, face to face. Even a completely weakened Superman still had the strength to peel Batman out of his armor, but for whatever idiotic reason didn't. But you saw how quickly that helmet was gone in TDKR, when Superman finally felt like he had enough.
I don't mind weaker characters winning against more powerful ones, as long as you come up with a well written and plausible scenario. The TDKR fight, imo, was none of those. One character got gimped, the other character had everything written in his favor.
Totally agree with you on the Red Son scenario.
Disagree with you on TDKR, but respect your opinion.
I see it like this. Up until the kryptonite arrives, it's not really a fight. All Batman is doing is distracting Superman (who, we must remember has just recovered from being hit by a 20 megaton nuclear weapon). Plus, the whole fight we know Superman's heart isn't in it, for the whole fight, even after being hit with the K, Supes is trying to talk to Bats. That's why Bats has to hit with with the K, before Supes gets pissed, because he knows that if Supes actually wants to take him down, then it's all over.
To be honest, I'm a Superman fan, and I thought Miller wrote it well (well, much, much better than that Poison Ivy crap from Hush ).
When I first read it, back in '87, I was like "NO WAY !" but then I thought about it and came to the conclusion that Superman wasn't trying to win.
The truth is that Superman's biggest weakness in that fight is his reluctance to actually hurt Batman -which is really clear. You know when you read it, he's not really trying. The few blows he does land do Batman tremendous injury. We all know that rather than tear of Bats helmet, he could easily tear off Batman's head !
In fact Batman gets a bunch of cheap shots in while Superman's trying to talk Bats down. Plus, the preparation, that Batman's been preparing for that fight not just for a few weeks but for years "It took years and cost a fortune, luckily I had both."
So in summary, a very weakened Superman who's not even really trying, loses to a Batman, who's been preparing for years and throws an entire arsenal at him, plus the one weapon that can actually harm him.
That I can live with. However, I think that fight would only work in the
context of Miller's story. It would be very different for a Batman and Superman who just met. Also, I agree with everyone who's said that the fan bases have to be kept happy.
And I still don't buy into the Batgod theory. Taking down a weakened Superman, who's not really fighting back, when you've had years to prepare, and have an ace in the hole (because you've studied your opponent and know all his strengths and weaknesses both psychological and physicial) that has a kind of logic to it.
However, fighting Bane, after being physically and mentally exhausted fighting a horde of other bad guys, when you've done no prep, know nothing about your opponent (strenghts or weaknesses) and that opponent is trying to do you serious harm, that's a different proposition IMO. I'm speaking of Knightfall here....the fight against Bane in TDKR was Batman with either a deathwish or being supremely stupid.
As for Red Son though, yeah that was very well done. Overall, one of the best Superman stories, because they manage to change the context but keep true to the character.
cheers.
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