Superman's a god. Batman ostensibly has no superhuman powers at all. Case closed.
Who would win in a contest is, in principle, another question.
Who would win in a contest is, in principle, another question.
Who is really the most powerful DC superhero?
- Thread starter Mr Silver
- Start date
What, like in Seinfeld? Well, this one I may hand to Batman.
Batman disguises himself and goes undercover in order to find ways to exploit his enemies and gain an advantage. That's pretty devious, regardless of why he is doing it. Superman doesn't use his "Clark Kent" disguise to gain an advantage over his enemies, it's more or less a way for him to have an element of human normality in his life.
Batman wouldn't give Superman any reason to suspect anything. He would be prepared before even going into a battle, perhaps planning for it months or years in advance in order to prepare for the possible scenario that he may have to fight Superman.
It's like the X-Protocols in X-Men which Professor Xavier has devised ways to defeat all of the X-Men (including himself) should the need arise.
But Batman would sacrifice himself in order to defeat Superman if it were necessary. Superman could, but in doing so it wouldn't be done to kill Batman. Even if Batman wasn't prepared to kill Superman, by sacrificing himself to defeat Superman he would not only be defeating him but stopping Superman from saving him.
Superman has to fight Batman as a human and can only use the same level of physical ability that Batman can, perhaps using Kryptonite in small doses to ensure that Superman's invulnerability is negated.
I accepted Boyscout versus Batgeezer in The Dark Knight Returns just fine. 
The guy has X-Ray vision and superhearing. Why would he need to go "undercover" to gain an advantage? He's a one man surveillance system. His Clark Kent ID was created so he could know about what was happening in Metropolis and the world at large. Thats why he's a reporter and not a farmer.
If Batman has a reason to attack Superman, I think Superman will know that reason and be expecting it.
You might want to read Morrison's JLA run.
I don't think Batman has a deathwish. He's not going to kill himself to achive his goals.
That's a joke, son. A knee slappeer.
I was thinking of Bats and Supes in a beauty pagent or a pie eating contest.
Superman fighting at human levels sorta defeats the idea of "Beating Superman".
^ I used to have a comic where supes fought Muhammad Ali (under a red sun) and got the living shit beat out of him... 
It's the thing I hate most about Batman and his presence in the shared DC universe.
Batman works best against human and near human level beings, anything else basically makes both Batman and the other character a sad pathetic joke.
There's always the just Nabu version of Doctor Fate, but I was thinking in terms of the power that characters have displayed, rather than the power that they're susceptible to. (The first thing that comes to mind for me when it comes to power in the DC universe was Doctor Fate permanently trapping the Anti-Life entity in Cosmic Odyssey, when Highfather, Metron, and Darkseid had all proven themselves well beneath the task.)
The only way for Batman to win should be if he uses kryptonite, he cannot out-think Superman, that's a ridiculous idea that annoys me every time it's used in the comics. Superman doesn't even need a plan to defeat Batman, all he has to do is use superspeed. There's no way Bruce could out-think a Superman that shows up out of nowhere and punches him in the face.
The same with prep-time, if Batman's prep-time doesn't include "find kryptonite rock and put it in my pocket" it shouldn't help him at all.
Those are just silly explanations because the writers want Batman to win without using kryptonite, probably because it's not batmanny enough to pull out a glowing rock and do a victory dance when Superman keels over in every fight.
Yeah frankly its utterly stupid.
They give to Bruce every outside tactical advantage. For example they plan that Batman is having the time, the setup and the equipment at hand to trick Clark.
Clark is vulnerable to three things, Kryptonite, red solar rays and magic. We know Bruce has a small amount of that mineral. Clark is also aware that he does, he doesn't normally keep it out in the open. That means Clark has to be taken by utter surprise, which lets face it with a man who's reaction time is about a million times faster then Bruce is going to be very difficult to realistically impossible. Does BAtman use Magic? Probably could duplicate the rays of a red star, but we know that just slowly causes his powers to fade, Batman needs something where his powers fade that nanosecond. Anything more then that nanosecond then Batman should lose.
Superman isn't more vulnerable as Clark Kent, he isn't more vulnerable away from the Fortress. Pretty much every single location on or near Earth Superman has all his abilities and strengths.
Now compare that to Batman. Batman is more vulnerable as Bruce, he is more vulnerable away from his gadgets, he is more vulnerable in the air, or in the sea.
clark has the ability to attack with precision from right in front of you and from the upper atmosphere.
Clark as the ability to disarm Bruce of every singel scrape of clothing, uniform and material on his person from a distance.
If Bruce goes after Clark he needs to be the luckiest being alive to manage a win, if Clark goes after Bruce well Bruce wouldn't even know it occurred.
They give to Bruce every outside tactical advantage. For example they plan that Batman is having the time, the setup and the equipment at hand to trick Clark.
Clark is vulnerable to three things, Kryptonite, red solar rays and magic. We know Bruce has a small amount of that mineral. Clark is also aware that he does, he doesn't normally keep it out in the open. That means Clark has to be taken by utter surprise, which lets face it with a man who's reaction time is about a million times faster then Bruce is going to be very difficult to realistically impossible. Does BAtman use Magic? Probably could duplicate the rays of a red star, but we know that just slowly causes his powers to fade, Batman needs something where his powers fade that nanosecond. Anything more then that nanosecond then Batman should lose.
Superman isn't more vulnerable as Clark Kent, he isn't more vulnerable away from the Fortress. Pretty much every single location on or near Earth Superman has all his abilities and strengths.
Now compare that to Batman. Batman is more vulnerable as Bruce, he is more vulnerable away from his gadgets, he is more vulnerable in the air, or in the sea.
clark has the ability to attack with precision from right in front of you and from the upper atmosphere.
Clark as the ability to disarm Bruce of every singel scrape of clothing, uniform and material on his person from a distance.
If Bruce goes after Clark he needs to be the luckiest being alive to manage a win, if Clark goes after Bruce well Bruce wouldn't even know it occurred.
I'm going to defer to Jamie Reyes on this one:
"Batman always has Kryptonite!"
Then Zee wins with pure magical awesome.
Without getting into the fringe, C-List heroes and just sticking with the core group, Superman is undoubtedly the most powerful. If you're talking about that, just raw power.
Ignoring some of the sillier stuff from a couple of comic-ages ago where Superman could blow out stars and move planets, Superman is still quite powerful and able to accomplish quite a bit. He can run as fast as (or faster than) light, he limitless strength and stamina (unless fighting another super-powered being) and his invulnerable to all means of harm other than some scraps of rock from his home planet.
Everyone likes to play the "If Batman had time to prepare... card." but even then Superman has a clear advantage of being able to move faster the Batman can see. Batman would press a button a laser device and before the laser even came on after the button being pressed Superman could have already ran around the Earth.
Seven times. Plenty of time for Superman to pants Batman, tie him up and hang him upside down from an orbiting satellite all before Batman even knows what just happened.
Okay, there's the Kryptonite card, but how are we going to portray this? Is batman keeping it in a lead box as Kryptonite is also dangerous to humans? If so then Superman still has quite a bit of time to do anything to Batman and using his X-Ray vision he'd see the dead spot in Batman's appearance and put two and two together. If Batman isn't hiding the Kryptonite, Superman can sense it and smell it coming a mile away and still would have time to act or do something before Batman had a chance to use it.
Superman is no slouch in the thinking or brains department and doesn't need time to prepare because all the time he needs is inside of microseconds. Any foe Superman faces has only taken him down by either being a super-being them self or lucky, but granted we could probably pull out weaknesses in how they're portrayed from both of their source materials to blow holes in their ability.
Superman's been caught with his pants down plenty of times and gotten trapped by Kryptonite when he logically should have seen it coming, and Batman's been caught plenty of times too with his pants down and had to go back and design a Plan-B to win in the second round.
But "most powerful" doesn't necessarily go with "unbeatable." As far as raw powerset goes, and ignoring all of the sillier stuff, Superman clearly is the most powerful of DC's "main stream" heroes.
Batman, in the same restrictions, wouldn't come in second because there's still people with more, raw, power than him. Batman's able to accomplish a lot out of being a mortal with a lot of gadgets, money, and time (apparently) but he has no powers. In terms of "most likely to win in a fight" Batman would be close to the top, for sure.
But I'd still Superman beats all others in any contest anytime anywhere. The only thing that can stop him is if his foe happens to have a rare piece of rock (rare, depending on which version of the character/DC universe we're talking about) and even then Superman has his ways of avoiding it. "Oh, that guy coming at me has Kryptonite on him! Well, I guess I'll just toss this manhole cover at him and knock him out or knock it out of hands before he has a chance to pull it out on me!"
And then, how much does it effect him? In "Returns" Superman was able to pretty much "push through" the pain of it until stabbed by Luthor and then later able to lift a huge chunk of it, again, by pushing through the pain of it.
In some versions it instantly drops him to being unable to stand.
In some versions he's able to sense it but act perfectly fine unless in either direct contact with it or right next to it and then he simply has no powers and is slightly weaker.
Batman? Squishy human who once suffered a severe spinal injury.
All IMHO, of course.
Ignoring some of the sillier stuff from a couple of comic-ages ago where Superman could blow out stars and move planets, Superman is still quite powerful and able to accomplish quite a bit. He can run as fast as (or faster than) light, he limitless strength and stamina (unless fighting another super-powered being) and his invulnerable to all means of harm other than some scraps of rock from his home planet.
Everyone likes to play the "If Batman had time to prepare... card." but even then Superman has a clear advantage of being able to move faster the Batman can see. Batman would press a button a laser device and before the laser even came on after the button being pressed Superman could have already ran around the Earth.
Seven times. Plenty of time for Superman to pants Batman, tie him up and hang him upside down from an orbiting satellite all before Batman even knows what just happened.
Okay, there's the Kryptonite card, but how are we going to portray this? Is batman keeping it in a lead box as Kryptonite is also dangerous to humans? If so then Superman still has quite a bit of time to do anything to Batman and using his X-Ray vision he'd see the dead spot in Batman's appearance and put two and two together. If Batman isn't hiding the Kryptonite, Superman can sense it and smell it coming a mile away and still would have time to act or do something before Batman had a chance to use it.
Superman is no slouch in the thinking or brains department and doesn't need time to prepare because all the time he needs is inside of microseconds. Any foe Superman faces has only taken him down by either being a super-being them self or lucky, but granted we could probably pull out weaknesses in how they're portrayed from both of their source materials to blow holes in their ability.
Superman's been caught with his pants down plenty of times and gotten trapped by Kryptonite when he logically should have seen it coming, and Batman's been caught plenty of times too with his pants down and had to go back and design a Plan-B to win in the second round.
But "most powerful" doesn't necessarily go with "unbeatable." As far as raw powerset goes, and ignoring all of the sillier stuff, Superman clearly is the most powerful of DC's "main stream" heroes.
Batman, in the same restrictions, wouldn't come in second because there's still people with more, raw, power than him. Batman's able to accomplish a lot out of being a mortal with a lot of gadgets, money, and time (apparently) but he has no powers. In terms of "most likely to win in a fight" Batman would be close to the top, for sure.
But I'd still Superman beats all others in any contest anytime anywhere. The only thing that can stop him is if his foe happens to have a rare piece of rock (rare, depending on which version of the character/DC universe we're talking about) and even then Superman has his ways of avoiding it. "Oh, that guy coming at me has Kryptonite on him! Well, I guess I'll just toss this manhole cover at him and knock him out or knock it out of hands before he has a chance to pull it out on me!"
And then, how much does it effect him? In "Returns" Superman was able to pretty much "push through" the pain of it until stabbed by Luthor and then later able to lift a huge chunk of it, again, by pushing through the pain of it.
In some versions it instantly drops him to being unable to stand.
In some versions he's able to sense it but act perfectly fine unless in either direct contact with it or right next to it and then he simply has no powers and is slightly weaker.
Batman? Squishy human who once suffered a severe spinal injury.
All IMHO, of course.
I'm sorry, if Superman REALLY wanted to defeat Batman, he would use heat vision. He doesn't even have to get CLOSE to Batman--thus ruining any sort of kryptonite "advantage". Slice off the legs. Done.
As far as the most powerful, I would have to go with someone who is a New God.
As far as the most powerful, I would have to go with someone who is a New God.
Well, I was going with the "Superman doesn't kill or maim" angle. He wouldn't heat-vision off Batman's legs from a great distance because that would greatly harm Batman. But, yeah, Batman could be a great distance away and Superman could do any number of things to slow, stop or otherwise incapacitate Batman. With super-hearing and telescopic vision Superman would know Batman is coming before Batman does.
That's the thing, in order for Batman to always win in these fights, Superman has to have more rules against harm than Batman.
And you know what: Batman would get CREAMED in a fight with The Flash.
Basically, in order for Batman to win in ANY fight against an actual powered super being, the super being has to be written as a moron, or "unprepared."
I dunno, I've never been much convinced The Flash is good for anything.
But considering The Flash's movements still flirt with C and beyond I suppose he'd still be able to handle Batman before Batman had a clue what was happening and The Flash, unlike Superman, has no weakness I know of Batman could have on him to make The Flash's power inert.
But considering The Flash's movements still flirt with C and beyond I suppose he'd still be able to handle Batman before Batman had a clue what was happening and The Flash, unlike Superman, has no weakness I know of Batman could have on him to make The Flash's power inert.
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