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The many times the Caped Crusader knocked the Man of Steel!
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00:00Now, you'd think a brawl between Batman and Superman would be over relatively quickly,
00:03right? I mean, for all of the Dark Knight's gadgets and know-how, a guy who is actually
00:07bulletproof is still a guy who is actually bulletproof. Now, Bats and Supes are supposedly
00:13best friends, but there have been many times where the two have been forced to come to blows.
00:17And some of those times, Batman, through sheer ingenuity or will, came out on top against the
00:22mightiest superhero around. So let's take a look at them as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com,
00:26and these are 10 unbelievable times Batman beats Superman.
00:3010. Batman, Superman, and your number 1
00:32Now, here we are with a fight that sits at the bottom of the list,
00:35since neither party were fighting all that seriously, but it still counts. In this annual
00:40issue of Batman and Superman, the duo find themselves at the mercy of a gladiatorial arena where they are
00:45ordered to fight to the death. Now, obviously, the two aren't actually going to do this,
00:49but in order to buy some time until one of them can think of something, they at least try to
00:52make
00:53it convincing. Thus, we see that, in terms of raw fighting ability, all else being equal,
00:57Batman will come out on top. Granted, the conclusion is nothing decisive, ultimately keeping it from
01:02being further up on this list, but the way that the fight was going at the time showed Batman
01:06distinctly at an advantage, so I'm willing to call it for the caped crusader in this scenario.
01:11Also, keeping it from getting any higher is the simple fact that Superman wasn't fighting seriously,
01:16so it's hard to truly gauge how well this would have actually gone for Bruce otherwise.
01:199. Batman The Dark Knight 5 This may come as a shock, but the majority
01:24of the time, Batman and Superman don't want to fight each other. Like, not even a little bit.
01:29They are friends, and friends don't typically resolve any issues they have with each other
01:33by beating the living daylights out of one another. So in order to get them to fight one
01:37another, writers have come up with rather convoluted misunderstandings, or failing that,
01:41have the tried-and-true mind-control plotline. In Batman The Dark Knight 5, Batman gets hit with a new
01:47strain of Scarecrow's fear toxin, turning him into a raving lunatic with super-strength to boot.
01:52It comes down to Superman to get him to snap out of it, only for Bats to take advantage of
01:56the
01:56fact that Clark doesn't want to hurt him by beating him to a bloody pulp. Superman technically wins
02:01here, downing Batman with a solid right hook, which is what keeps this entry from getting any higher,
02:06but the caped crusader was very close to, for the first time, downing the Man of Steel with no
02:11tricks, gadgets, or edgelord robotic suits. 8. Superman Red Sun
02:16In this alternate universe where Superman's craft instead landed in Soviet Russia instead
02:20of Kansas, Batman is reimagined as a violent terrorist who hates Superman's guts to the
02:25point of gleefully bombing buildings full of people just to draw him out. Their final
02:29confrontation takes place in an underground mineshaft that The Dark Knight has filled with
02:33lamps that all have the rays of a red sun, thus weakening Superman immediately. If it wasn't for
02:38Wonder Woman making the save here, Superman would have actually, genuinely, been done for.
02:437. Batman Hush
02:45Batman Hush holds the distinction of being one of the most terrifying examples of a Batman-Superman
02:50fight, purely because Batman genuinely comes off as outmatched and way in over his head.
02:55For context, in this part of the story, Poison Ivy has used her powers to seize control of Superman's
03:00mind. When The Dark Knight and Catwoman get close to unraveling this scheme, Ivy sends her new boy toy
03:05to make a nice pair of grease stains out of the both of them. What results is less a fight
03:09and
03:09more a desperate struggle to avoid the out-of-control Kryptonian by any means necessary. It doesn't
03:14last long, of course, as Superman demonstrates that if he got serious, Batman wouldn't have
03:18even had time to react before he was murdered. Fortunately, though, Catwoman makes the save by
03:22appealing to Cal-El's primal need to protect others, and she does this by throwing Lois off the
03:26side of a building, thus snapping Supes out of the mind control when he instinctively goes after his love.
03:316. The Dark Knight Strikes Again The Dark Knight Strikes Again follows up the
03:36legendary fight of its predecessor by having Superman invade the Batcave at the behest of
03:40the government, only to find Batman there, waiting for him, with a pair of Kryptonite gauntlets.
03:45No armor this time, which you'd think would make this fight a bit more one-sided, but with Bruce
03:49having wrapped his arms completely in Kryptonite for this fight, Superman can't do much but get
03:53knocked around a lot. This fight is the highlight of this infamous series, but if that ain't faint praise,
03:58I don't know what is. 5. The Man of Steel No. 3
04:01When John Byrne was given the task of rebooting Superman for the first time in the company's
04:05history after Crisis on Infinite Earths, there were, of course, a lot of aspects of Superman's
04:10mythos that suddenly needed to be explained that the original 1930s comics just never bothered with,
04:15one of which being just how exactly Superman and Batman met. With Frank Miller having similarly
04:19rebooted Batman in the pages of Batman Year One as a dark, mysterious vigilante, naturally the two
04:25don't start off on the right foot. Batman claims to be trying to be a little better in his approach
04:29to superheroing, but considering that he starts off their relationship by forcing Superman to help
04:33him stop the villain Magpie or else he'll set off a bomb on an innocent civilian, the last son of
04:38Krypton isn't exactly convinced. It turns out to be a complete lie, of course. After Magpie is put
04:43away, Superman confronts Batman about the bomb, and Bats just puts it in Superman's hand. The only life
04:48in danger was the Dark Knight himself, a ruse he pulled to get Superman to help him stop Magpie.
04:53Now, Batman doesn't defeat Superman in the classical sense here, but he does start off
04:57their relationship by establishing a key difference between them, and that is, I am smarter than you.
05:034. World's Finest No. 240
05:05The Silver Age of Comics was the Wild West for DC, and I don't just mean that there were entirely
05:10too
05:10many cowboy comics during that time. Literally anything could and probably did happen. For example,
05:15one of the first instances of Batman becoming a rebel against a tyrannical Superman was actually from
05:20this time, and in true Silver Age fashion, it was very weird. In this story, Cal-El is pressured
05:26into assuming the leadership role of the shrunken city of Kandor, and in a twist that I'm sure will
05:30never be copied by cynical edgelord decades later, almost immediately becomes an emotionally erratic
05:35tyrant over the poor Kandorians. Sensing that they perhaps made a bit of a mistake, the Kandorians
05:40call in Batman to deal with the problem. Bruce agrees, and soon discovers the true route of the
05:45Man of Steel's turn to evil. The monstrous creature responsible for corrupting Superman into a vicious
05:50fascist tyrant is... a cat from outer space. If you caught that reference, congratulations, you've
05:55officially watched way too many Disney movies. So anyway, through a hilariously convoluted series of
06:00misdirections, Batman manages to get the cat off of Supes and get him back to his senses. Basically the same
06:05conclusion as the previous entry, really, but nicer.
06:083. Superman Batman The Trust
06:10This beautifully rendered mini-story by Chip Kidd and Alex Ross is one of the best encapsulations
06:16of Superman and Batman's friendship and how deep it runs. Brainiac has now seized control of the
06:21son of Krypton and is using him to wreak havoc. Now, Superman and Batman aren't idiots, and have
06:27discussed what measures need to be taken should something like this happen. So, Batman pulls out
06:32a gun and gets to bloody work. As you can probably guess, the gun is loaded with kryptonite. So, as
06:37Batman
06:37grapples onto Superman's legs and takes aim, it appears the story is headed for tragedy. But
06:41Clark is Bruce's best friend, so of course Bats would never break his one oath when it came to the
06:46Big Blue Boy Scout. Instead of a bullet, the gun is loaded with a kryptonite dart that accomplishes
06:51the same thing without killing Superman, allowing Bats to finally remove Brainiac's control device.
06:56A glorious win for the Caped Crusader, and a touching reaffirmation of their friendship as well.
07:012. Batman Endgame The biggest problem with Batman Endgame
07:06as a story, besides it being one of the worst offenders of Scott Snyder's need to insert a
07:10chapter's worth of text into a single bloody panel, is that it played its trump card way too
07:15early. The storyline starts on Batman having a knock-down, drag-out fight with the entire Justice
07:20League, and it's so glorious that anything after this can only lead to disappointment. Case in point,
07:25the star attraction of the first half of the story, a Joker-fied Superman going toe-to-toe with an
07:30already-run ragged Batman. The world's greatest detective has used a Fenrir armor and all the
07:35countermeasures it has to neutralize half of the Justice League, but not without taking some licks
07:39himself. And while the suit is tough, this is still bloody Superman that we're talking about here.
07:44At the end of it all, Batman just barely manages to eke out a win by spitting kryptonite gum in
07:49Superman's eyes, sending them both to the bottom of Gotham Bay. Thus demonstrating Batman's ultimate
07:54point during these first two issues. Who wins between Batman and Superman? Well, I will take neither.
07:591. The Dark Knight Returns Despite our dig at Frank Miller in the opening
08:04of this list, it could only be this fight at the top of things. This fight is the biggest reason
08:09why anyone remembers The Dark Knight Returns. Batman and Superman had fought in the comics before,
08:13but Miller sat down and asked, okay, no holds barred, both sides giving it their all, who would
08:18actually win and how? Superman, now a stooge of the openly fascist American government, rolls up on a
08:24blacked-out Gotham to bring the Caped Crusader in. Batman, knowing that this was always how it was going
08:29to end when he took up the cowl, has prepared for the fight with the now iconic armored suit.
08:33The resulting fight is one of the best in comic book history, a genuine back and forth with both
08:38sides employing a mix of strategy and brute force to try and get the other to stay down.
08:43But Batman has something that Superman doesn't, Green Arrow, who hits him with a kryptonite arrow
08:49the second that he isn't looking. The kryptonite doesn't kill Clark, and Bruce seemingly dies
08:53immediately after due to a heart attack, but killing Clark wasn't the point. The point was to show the
08:58world that the US government's superweapon wasn't invincible, that they can be defied,
09:03and even defeated, and that real change can come. And boy howdy, does that sound pretty good these
09:09days.
09:09And there we go my friends, those were 10 unbelievable times that Batman beat Superman. I hope that you
09:14enjoyed that, and please let me know what you thought about it down in the comments section
09:17below. As always, I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter at RetroJ, but the O is
09:21a
09:21zero, or you can swing by Instagram where it's the same handle, RetroJ, but the O is a zero.
09:27As always, I've been Jules, you have been awesome, never forget that, and I'll speak to you soon. Bye.
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