Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Flash, among many others, can easily beat Batman if they wanted. But the writers often write him like a mastermind who has a contingency plan for everything and a secret weapon for everyone, so that's where the typical "Batman can beat anyone with prep time" nonsense comes from.

I admit I like the movie, but in BvS for example Batman has a lot of prep time to build weapons, traps, and his armor. But if he didn't have all that (especially the Kryptonite), Superman would have easily defeated him.

I feel like a lot of the discussion lately is people talking about is Batman as good as a hero as he seems and I'm getting kind of tired of this repetitiveness.

I've already defended Batman enough in these last few days that I'm ready to just say "yeah, screw him. Batman's a terrible hero. Long live the totally perfect Superman" or something like that. I'm not being rude, in fact I'm trying to throw some humorous in there, if you can read it deep enough.

Are we talking about Batfleck? Or Batman in any incarnation?

...and for the meme, Bats could totally go one-on-one with Superman. Not like it hasn't happened before.

If Superman was a sociopath, yes, Batman would be dead in less than a heartbeat.

But this annoying thing called morality keeps getting in the way when he fights him....

As a former Bat-God fan, I can say that "Batman is weak" posts like this, really only caused me to like comics that were called "Bat-Godly" even more.

These days I no longer think Batman could "beat aaaanyone with enough prep-time," nor do I really care. Still, I dislike the sentiment that he could never beat super-powered characters with enough prep-time and that any comics that even think about answering that questions should automatically be dismissed as ridiculous. If a man can travel through telephone wires, I'm willing to enjoy any crazy situation if the writer gives a good enough explanation.

Shared universes center around "what ifs," so I prefer to leave it as an open-ended question. Could Batman beat Superman? I don't know, why are they fighting? And leave it at that.

All that said, I don't think constantly planning against fellow super-heroes is a healthy characteristic, and I think Batman writers should move away from that direction, at least for awhile.

I've seen alot of people say the same thing "batman can beat anyone" or "batman could never beat that character he has powers and batman doesn't" but batman isn't a character built off strength or power dont get me wrong he's strong as hell but its his fighting styles and his smarts that makes him out Match most characters.

Yeah superman may be stronger then batman but bats fighting styles are something superman can't deal with.

See sups and many other super powerd heros just go in punching and what not but with bats its not that simple Yeah you might have super strength or shape shifting etc, but you can't hit something you don't know how to fight.

Its been said that bats is one of DC's greatest fighters because he knows so many different fighting styles from street fighting to martial arts etc, and most the other main heros such as superman wonderwomen manhunter etc, are all used to just going in with super strength and punching there combatant til he or she gets knocked unconscious but you can't do that with batman because if his many fighting styles and not only that he's one of DC's smartest as well and thats why I think batman usually wins these kinds of fights.

But like many people state its really just up to whomever the writer wants to win

@BANEkilla98

I'm not sure I agree with your points.

Has Batman ever officially been called the greatest martial artist? I would have thought that title would go to someone like Cassandra Cain or Lady Shiva.

I don't think its fair to say Superman and Martian Manhunter "just go in with super strength." Maybe when they were rookies, but I'm with their experience they've taken some advanced fighting lessons. MM probably took some in basic Manhunter training. Superman learned boxing in Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, for example.

Saying Wonder Woman doesn't have any martial art skills is quite incorrect. She was trained in hand to hand combat by the Amazons, some of the greatest warriors in the DCU. Even without super-strength, I think she'd beat Batman if it came to hand to hand. (And I think she did when they were sparring in Joe Kelly's JLA run.)

Batman might be a bit more skilled in PE, though I'd want to see a confirmation from an official source before I called him the "greatest martial artist."

Just my thoughts.

EDIT: I see you said he was "one of DC's greatest fighters" not "THE greatest fighter." I'm still curious if that's been officially concerned.

I do think manhunters Telepathy would be something that would be very hard for batman to over come tho he has defeated other Telepathys and let's be honest superman doesn't really have a fighting style he 9/10 just goes in with super strength and his other abilities and i do agree wonderwoman has some form of martial arts skills but no where near batman and alot of times especially now we really only see her go in with her strength and weapons and not really martial arts tho out of the 3 I do think she would be able to master or learn bats fighting styles in the middle of the battle.

Now im not saying batman could beat any hero but im also not saying any hero could beat batman in the end its all up to the writer I mean we've seen batman get bested by villains such as Ratna ratcacher or killer moth and other times we've seen him take out big bads like Superman and bane etc, nowadays in comics you can't really say who would win in a battle against each other thats really just up to the writer. I mean they could have Superman get beat by someone like crazy quilt or tazer same for batman and other times both could take out somebody like marvels galactus.

Sheer powers aren't everything. Batmans got smarts to be one of their most useful members. Ever seen the JL cartoons?