"Oh...you think darkness is your ally...?"
I'll preface this with a few things:
1. I think Batman is a GREAT character. He's not the "hero", he's the anti-hero, and he's also just a regular guy who relies on his brains, his convictions, his enduring spirit, and prefers to outsmart his opponent.
2. The two men we're talking about here are flip sides of the same coin. Each suffered a tragic loss of their family, each disappeared from society to remake himself and become stronger than before, and each has his own set of values and honor.
This being said, it's not easy to pick a clear winner, and it's just as difficult once we start throwing in all of these "versions" of our favorite hero (or anti-hero). There seem to be as many incarnations and origin stories about one as the other, so which do we follow?
For the purposes of what I'm about to write, I'm using the Chris Nolan/Frank Miller version of Batman - the one who doesn't dodge laser beams and automatic fire, doesn't make constructs to take on Superman, and certainly isn't the "master of 127 forms of martial arts" (pause for laughter). I'm talking about the cool vigilante who swoops out of the darkness to rescue a hapless victim from a gang of thugs, or the man who uses gadgets and obfuscation to to wage his war on the criminal underworld and make himself an "icon" - more than a man. This is the batman I know and grew up with - a man who could bleed and feel pain, but would keep going despite, to get the job done.
Martial Prowess:
I keep reading about all of these fantastic "powers" batman has. He can lift/throw 1000 lbs easily, break steel walls with his fists, has an intellect far surpassing the world's finest scientists, knows every conceivable fighting style in the world...things like that. Let me say this about that: It's impossible for a human being - even one with superior physical strength or intellect - to pull off some of these things. I can stomach a Wolverine-style healing ability through some genetic mutation of the body, or even wall crawling through a similar mutation, hell...I'll even go way out on a limb and say that superheroes with "steel-hard" skin is..."acceptable"...but a human man MASTERING 127 forms of martial arts is IMPOSSIBLE!!! Let's say he even has a PERFECT eidetic memory - able to memorize moves by seeing them once or twice - and that it only takes him a year (pause for laughter) to MASTER a martial art...that puts him somewhere in the realm of 140 years old if he started as a teen. I don't take issue with super powers, but I do with reality. Unless he invented an immortality serum and a Delorean....I'm going to say that is not credible.
Snake Eyes (according to his file card and the comics) has mastered some 12 styles of fighting/martial arts - which is pretty damned impressive. I would say that it would be completely possible for Bruce Wayne to have done the same over the years, I suppose, but here's another annoying facet of the Batman character - when did he become a ninja? Oh that's right, in the early 80's when Frank Miller suddenly got a "hard on" for ninjas and slapped "ninja" on the bios of our favorite characters (see Wolverine, Batman, Daredevil and some others) It's annoying. Snake Eyes was the original "ninja" - fully ninja-trained at a legit ninja clan compound, and the whole works - but all of a sudden, everyone (including the milk man) is a ninja now.
Batman is a brawler. Period. He has a myriad of training from many areas, and combines them into his own "style" (if you'd call it that). He moves in quick, takes a group of punks out with some quick strikes to important spots, then returns to the shadows - that's totally his move. He's not interested in flashy kicks or fluid movements - he's about getting the job done and immobilizing guys quick. That's just who batman is. What he's not is a mysterious assassin, with a whole range of serious ninja killing techniques and weapons in his repertoire. Sure, he's borrowed and adapted the assassin's weapons and tricks - improving on many of them to suit his needs - but again, he has a "style" to adhere to. He uses subterfuge, the darkness, sleight of hand, cunning...all of that to defeat his enemy and strike fear into their hearts.
Snake Eyes is a different machine, and going up against him head to head...is just a bad idea for the caped crusader. He's more on par with say...Wolverine (though less hack and slash or brutal) - he's a graceful killer, with a hundred ways to paralyze or kill an opponent. I've read a few people comparing batman's sword skills to Snake Eyes'...which is laughable. Snake Eyes leans more towards the mystic and old secret techniques of the forgotten masters - like the death palm that shatters internal organs (watch GIJOE RESOLUTE on the "seven steps to the sun" moves he destroys SS with). He was taught by two venerable masters in a long tradition of martial arts, not a mercenary who stumbled into a temple in the mountains.
Snake Eyes takes it in up close hand to hand.
GADGETS/WEAPONRY
As far as Batman's arsenal of smoke bombs, batarangs, and other devices meant to confuse or stun a foe - Snake Eyes would be well-acclimated to them all. There would be no swinging down out of the darkness to surprise him or any snare that he wouldn't be well-aware of. Most of his gadgets were inspired by his ninja origins - Snake wouldn't be surprised by any of it. I laugh each time I see some reference to Batman's "preparation" time and setting up "snares".
I suppose he could run him over with the "car", but where's the sport in that? And who says Snake wouldn't have already wired it to blow sky high before he knew what hit him? Snake Eyes (as I've seen some others post here) has access to the latest military hardware and has been trained in the use of all NATO and WARSAW PACT firearms since the days of Nam. In fact, while Bruce was crying over his expensive Armani sweater away at college, Snake was running with his Spec Forces LRRP group in the jungles of southeast Asia (just as an aside) BEFORE he found his way to the Arishikage clan. He was already a badass, and then returned to fight in spec forces groups a full-fledged ninja, gets his entire face burned off in a copter crash, and finishes the mission anyway, carrying Scarlett from the wreckage. Oh wait, I know Batman had some gas poured on him a couple times...but his face is still there and he didn't get right back up - he called for Alfred to help him (Snake Eyes doesn't have an Alfred of a Robin to save his ass all the time).
Also, there's the small matter of the guns. Snake carries them. he has no compunctions or misguided morality about shooting someone in the face. Up close or from 1000 yards away. While I've seen Batman knock the guns out of the hands of some nickel and dime punks and even some "soldier" types, this is Snake Eyes. I don't give a damn what kind of "kevlar" he's wearing (which everyone thinks is some kind of armor on par with Iron Man lol), Snake would shoot him in his exposed mouth (great design by the way, Bruce), or maybe just thrust a katana in his eye socket.
Snake Takes it on weaponry and gadgets too. Bruce really has nothing in his belt to confuse, stun, blind, or incapacitate Snake, and Snake is usually packing some heavy hardware and a few grenades.
INTELLECT
Okay, here's where Bruce Wayne redeems himself - as he always does. When the chips are down and his spine has been busted, or he's gotten beaten to a pulp by a gorilla man, Batman picks himself back up and broods at his computer for hours, thinking of a way to overcome his foe. It's what he does! If we were to see a real match-up with Snake and Batman, I think round one would go to Snake and he hands Bats a royal Arashikage-style asskicking - complete with death touch turning his organs to soup, broken ribs, and possibly a demolished batmobile (from the c4 he planted there). He crawls back to his cave, Alfred brings him some soup, he does some meditative healing from his League of Shadows days (or knows a guy who knows a guy who teaches him the Snake Eyes technique), and then he brings up every file on Snake Eyes that he can. he studies him for days, maybe contacts a guy who knows a guy who knows Storm Shadow, or digs up some ancient lost "technique" that even Snake doesn't know....and then he goes back with a plan.
Snake Eyes is no dummy. He's very clever, streetwise, very zen, and a step above most guys in a fight or strategy, but he's not Bruce Wayne. I see him going back after him with a solid edge or a "win quick" plan that's a one-shot, hail-mary play, and it pays off as it always does for the Batman. Maybe he lures him onto common ground, unarmed, and he applies the funky chicken death touch counteracting move up close...or maybe he finds a noxious poison that even Snake Eyes' training and body control skill can't flush from his system and overpowers him.
A win for Bruce in this category, and probably how the story would play out. Quite possibly, each man would earn the other's respect in the end as they part ways, and nobody gets killed (most likely), and we have a 1-1 draw in the fight between the two. In the end, it's a popularity contest, and Batman can't "lose" - as we all know.
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