Over the last eighty years, Batman has gone toe to toe with just about every comic book character you can think of. We're not even talking about DC Comics. He's thrown down with Captain America, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Shadow, Grendel, Spawn, and the Predator just to name a few.
And while those intercompany fights are all good and fun, the Dark Knight's toughest fights have all been in his own universe. The Caped Crusader has been left battered, bruised, and bloodied more than any other superhero in history, possibly because he constantly puts himself up against people far stronger than he is. Or maybe its because the writers know that the more Batman gets beat up, the better his eventual victory will be. Whatever the case, here are the 10 most brutal Batman fights, Ranked
10 Batman vs Guy Gardner
This one isn't brutal in the way you would normally think of the word, but it is one of Batman's most brutal takedowns of an opponent. In Justice League #5, Batman was just about out of patience when it came to the boisterous and super annoying Green Lantern, Guy Gardner. When Gardner stepped up to the plate and challenged Batman to a fight, the Dark Knight showed everyone why he isn't someone you want to mess with. A single hit straight to Guy Gardner's ugly mug took knocked the Green Lantern right out, and gave Blue Beetle the first classic joke in the very funny series, "One punch!"
9 Batman vs Luthor's Thugs
This is another case where the brutality isn't leveled on Batman as much as it is the Caped Crusader giving out the brutal hits. The warehouse fight in Zack Snyder's Batman v Superman is easily the best live-action representation of what Batman would be like in a fight. He's moving fast. He's flipping around. He's kicking and punching and just straight up crushing Lex Luthor's goons. That isn't to say that Batman doesn't take a few good shots in the fight, these guys definitely leave Bruce with some welts, but the real savagery in the scene comes from Batman himself.
8 Batman vs SWAT
Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's Batman: Year One is filled with some really rough moments for Batman as he starts his crime-fighting career. Before he even comes up with the costume, Bruce almost dies after being stabbed by a pimp. Then, on his first night out in costume, Batman takes on three burglars on a fire escape and nearly gets killed when one of them drops a TV on his head. This is one of those old tube TVs, not the nice light ones we have today.
But the most brutal battle for Batman in this story is when Gotham's SWAT team comes gunning for him. Trapped in a dilapidated building, Batman finds himself without any of his usual gadgets and a whole army of cops looking to take him down. When the police start dropping bombs, it gets really bad.
7 Batman vs KGBeast
Tom King's epic 85-issue run on Batman saw the character broken down to the point where readers believed that the Dark Knight had crossed the line and murdered someone. In the storyline "Beasts of Burden," which was told in Batman #55-57, Nightwing is shot in the head by KGBeast, and after all the things Batman had been through lately, this appeared to be the last straw.
Batman tracked KGBeast back to Russia where the two men let loose in the snow. Batman and KGBeast trade blows, and for a while it looks really bad for Batman, who is lying in the snow, covered in his own blood. That's when the Bat shoots KGBeast in the face with his grappling gun, breaking the assassin's neck. Batman walks away, leaving his foe paralyzed.
6 Batman vs The Mutant Leader
If we wanted to cheat, we could count this as two fights. In The Dark Knight Returns #2, Batman faces off against the leader of the Mutants, a gang that has run riot over Gotham. In their first fight, the Mutant Leader completely destroys Batman. Batman is able to rip the Mutant Leader's nose off, but that doesn't make up for the Mutant Leader beating him nearly to death with a crowbar. The only thing that saves the Dark Knight is the timely arrival of his new Robin, Carrie Kelley.
In the second fight, later in the same issue, Batman is prepared. He lures the Mutant Leader to a mud pit and the two titans go at it again. This time, every move is in the Bat's favor and, as he says to the Mutant Leader, "You don't get it, boy. This isn't a mudhole, it's an operating table. And I'm the surgeon.
5 Batman vs Ra's al Ghul
Batman and Ra's al Ghul have had plenty of classic fights over the years, but none have been as shockingly brutal as their battle in Dennis O'Neil and Norm Breyfogle's Batman: Birth of the Demon. While the story focuses on the origin of Ra's al Ghul and how he became the Demon's Head, the fight at the end of this one-shot is an all-timer that includes, among other things, Batman getting a shovel buried into his chest and still getting up to fight. If that isn't brutal, then nothing is.
4 Batman vs Talon
Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo kicked off their Batman run with the now-classic "Court of Owls" storyline, which introduced a secret criminal organization to the Batman mythos and changed the world of the Dark Knight moving forward. The two celebrated the halfway mark of their 12-issue story by having Batman getting impaled with a sword in the opening of Batman #6. That's how the fight between Batman and Talon kicks off.
From there, the two men, but really mostly Talon, beat on each other like there's no tomorrow. They throw each other through walls, gouge at one another's eyes, and just go at it as hard as they can. In the end, Batman wins the fight, but he'll be feeling the effects of it for quite a while.
3 Batman vs Superman
Half of this list could have been fights from The Dark Knight Reruns, but that wouldn't have been fair, so we've kept it to two. While the fight with the Mutant Leader almost saw Batman die, it is his final fight in the four-issue series that sees Batman actually die... sort of.
The US government has decided that Batman needs to be taken down, and they send Superman to put an end to his old friend's recent return. Batman, being Batman, is ready for the fight to come and has built a power suit that will help him take on Superman. It doesn't hurt that Superman just barely survived a nuclear explosion shortly before the fight, or that Green Arrow hits the Man of Steel with an explosive arrow filled with Kryptonite dust. Still, this is Superman, and Batman just isn't a match for him. In the end, Batman's heart gives out and he dies on the streets of Gotham. For a little while at least.
2 Batman vs Bane
In his first battle against Batman, Bane made history by doing what no other villain had ever pulled off, he broke the Bat, literally. In the classic storyline Knightfall, Bane releases all of Batman's rogues from Arkham and waits for them to tire out the Dark Knight before taking on Batman himself.
When they finally face off in the Batcave, Bane has all the advantages. Batman hasn't slept in days and has been roughed up by his other enemies, making him an easy mark. Bane lifts Batman over his head and brings the Caped Crusader down, snapping Batman's spine on his knee.
1 Batman vs Joker
A battle almost 80-years in the making, Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo gave fans the ultimate Batman vs Joker battle in their epic story, "Endgame." This is a story that sees Joker poison everyone in Gotham and Batman turns to the Court of Owls for help. In the end, as these things always have to be, it comes down to the Dark Knight and the Clown Prince of Crime as they fight in the caves below the Batcave. Batman gets a Joker card to the eye and Joker gets a stalactite to the back, snapping his spine. That's when the Joker's explosives go off, trapping Batman and Joker in the cave, both of them lying there, dying.