BvS Batman Vs. Superman... can this be a fair physical fight?

[Doc Samson]

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.

Exactly, I believe there was real ingenuity to the writing and at the time, it was innovative. Since then, thousands of stories between the two fighting have taken that same basic premise and bastardized it, and that's the real problem.

More than anything else, I always thought DKR fight exemplified the differences in philosophy between the two much better than all the other scenes and dialogue leading up to it. Superman, clearly, isn't trying to really hurt Bruce even after all his tricks and tactics. He'd much rather let Batman have his "victory" if it meant saving Wayne's life.

Something like that I'd like to see in the next movie, especially after what he had to do to Zod. Of course, the first meeting should leave them uneasy & skeptical of each other. But I also can't buy that Batman, no matter how old he's supposed to be in this, has done all that type of preparation for a being that just arrived, unless they're planning on a significant time lapse between the two movies. Kryptonite hasn't even been formally introduced yet...