I read the same article. I think Morrison’s on crack.
Though I believe that the idea about Batman kicking anyone’s ass with time to prepare comes from The Dark Knight Returns, where Batman beats the hell out of Superman.
I’m not sure where I heard it so I might be wrong…
but I heard that most of the Batman/Superman conflicts have been done out of continuum in the marvel world and were just little side stories until quite recently.
In the Batman Hush series which I understand is in continuum, Batman goes to metropolis for something or other and ends up beating up SDuperman again… or somethuing to that effect because Superman was drugged by Poison Ivy.
Any definitive answers all you comic buffs?
Kitty
However, during this fight, he admits that he’s only able to hurt Superman because Superman is resisting the mind control and holding back. He comments that if he wanted to, Superman could squish him into the ground in a second even while he had the kryptonite ring.
I remember reading that Morrison interview, too. I still have the old Wizard JLA Special that came out when the latest series started, and it gives detailed analysis on how Batman would take out each of the JLA members. Half of them make absolutely no sense, but there you have it.
Oh, they were waaaaay out of the Marvel world.
The recent “Tower of Babel” JLA trade is exactly this story: Batman’s protocols are stolen by Ras-Al-Ghul and Talia, and used against the entire JLA, save Batman. Batman’s method for taking out Superman was particularly nasty: altered kryptonite that causes excrutiating pain.
His strategy for taking out Wonder Woman was exceedingly lame though.
Ok, i’ll bite. 
And that strategy would be…?
…which I didn’t buy either. Batman only won in DKR because of Deus ex Author: to wit, Frank Miller, who’s apparenly on record as hating Superman.* The Kryptonite gauntlets only work if the author writes Superman as retarded and unable/unwilling to use about half his powers. (Given that, it was still a great story.)
Fenris
*The rumor I’ve heard as to why the second Dark Knight series sucked so badly and the last issue was so late was that Miller had allegely done something dreadful (made him a child molester or something) to Superman and when DC got the pages, they went ballistic and made him redo them.
Well, the idea of “Prep Time” is definately older than Morrisson’s interview. As an alumni of the now defunct wizardworld.com message boards, I can say that prep time was oft debated online there before the JLA book was released.
And for the record, Bats is just that good.
To be fair, Superman had just recovered from practically being reduced to a skeleton. That’s what makes the fight believable for me, anyway.
I’m curious about the Wonder Woman plan too and why did Batman have these plans in the first place? In case Superman went insane?
He takes Wonder Woman out to dinner and claims he has trouble committing to a relationship. She spends the next five years (and the best part of her youth) trying to “change” him.
Sad. Just sad.
Well, you shoudl read the book (and I shouldn’t have spoilered the supes strat) but…
He shoots a nanobot into her ear which puts her in a virtual reality dreamworld in which she must fight non-stop, and her waking body experiences the assertion. As the nearby blind GL realizes, WW will now fight until her heart litterally beats itself to death. I said it was lame. Anyway, Batman isn’t the one to actually execute the plan, so it doesn’t work anyway.
Basically for any situation in which members of the JLA became controlled, brainwashed, insane, whatever.
(Emphasis mine)
I wish, I just WISH that I had the courage to post that matchup as a “versus” thread.
Ranchoth
(I think Gaiman might have done it already, tho’…)
Actually, I’m pretty sure that all of the Batman/Superman conflicts are out of the continuum of the Marvel world. In fact, I suspect most of anything Bats or Supes does is out of that continuum.
Now the DC continuum on the other hand… 