@black_arrow: I find that a very lazy answer. His villains are unpredictable? Most use one gimmick and run with it, the JL members with solo books evolve and adapt to new situations occasionally getting new skills or knowledge. (before it is forgotten or ignored)

The Joker literally breaks out of arkham, goes on a rampage, lures Batman in and then gets thrown back into arkham. Same song and dance just different locations and different acts of getting Batman's attention. Maybe Batman should invest in a tracker chip in Joker? I am sure the courts would allow it if Gordan pushed it under the ground of safety for the general public.

Luthor is smarter than Batman, but his judgement is often clouded by emotions and his own douchebaginess.

I'm pretty sure that the tracker chip would end up on Killer Croc dressed as Dick Grayson who would be inside a slaughterhouse parody of the Batcave... Or something.

Actually, this is pretty good. Imagine that Killer Croc is drugged by Joker to actually think that he's Dick, and Joker has given him some information about his own whereabouts, meaning that Batman would have to work with freakin' Killer Croc in a Nightwing costume.

@jack_donaghy

Superman has the phantom zone

Wonder Woman has her island

GL has a planet prison

:

Shazam has the rock of eternity for people like Mr. Mind

Arrow in his show uses an island prison

Belle reve seems pretty good at keeping inmates in for more than a weekend.

Batman is smarter. He spent several years learning martial arts, how to pick locks, criminology and crime scene investigation. So naturally that makes him smarter than any human anywhere who ever existed in all of time.

And yet their villains are still around causing trouble, hows that working out for them? Besides I said has any genius superhero ever built a jail that can't be escaped from. Superman is the only one of those characters who is a genius. I don't know if Tony Stark, Black Panther, Reed Richards, etc have designed jails that can't be escaped from. I might be wrong on that but I don't think any of them have ever built an inescapable jail. But why would you expect Batman to have one? Tell me what he'd be doing every issue while his villains are locked up? I'd love to hear the solution to this from the people who always ask why he doesn't have a prison people can't escape from. A better question would be why comic book geniuses don't cure diseases. Reed Richards should have been cured cancer the fact that he hasn't is more offensive than Batman not having a prison his villains can't escape from.

Superman generally only uses the phantom zone against aliens of godlike power which no jail on earth could hope to hold. Kryptonians, Mongoul and Zod all fall into that area. Against things such as parasite, Lex and Ruin he allows the humans to lock them up in Strikers prison because that is there jurisdiction. Strikers however unlike Arkham is not a crumbly ruin but a state of the art prison capable of holding meta humans and more. Can they break out? Yes but its not every weekend, they are often planned escapes done with outside help, often during a crisis where heroes attention is elsewhere.

Batman as either himself or Bruce Wayne could help build a better prison, with better security. He could then begin a phase where he systematically locks up his criminals each in a cell designed for their needs. aka Mr. Freeze would need to be a subzero cell which can house him without his armor ect. however if you want a story element do that, have the city get cleaned up, Batman is riding crime one nutjob at a time. He does have foes outside of Gotham such as Ra's who would see a gathering of criminals as a perfect opportunity to mess with Batman when all he needs do is seize the prison and set everyone lose.

How about a prisoner goes missing, one night Poison ivy is there, the next she is gone, all security shows nothing changed but she has vanished, a mystery something perfect for the dark knight to figure out, how did she escape his perfect prison? The act could cause people to turn on Wayne. He failed to build the perfect prison, its not so much as who has vanished but how and how soon is it before the rest "escape" too. Some higher criminal such as Lex or Vandel Savage arranged for her escape due to wanting something from her, maybe a pheromone. Batman leaves the comfort of Gotham to find her and save her.

Options, options everywhere.

Well the Joker owned the whole Justice League and he creates new crazy plans from the scratch, you are underrating Batmn's villians many of them are extremely intelligent (like Bane, The Joker, Scarecrow and The Riddler) that come up new ways on how to use the gimmicky, with that and being extremely resourceful, they escape. Also every Super hero has villians that escape jail constantly, it's just how comic books work at some point (in the more mainstream comics).

@deathpoolthet1000: '' Seriously, without Batman, Bruce Wayne and all that, he is in a bigger problem that Lex, Lex can keep himself at plain sight and walk away with being who he is, a feat Batman hasnt shown.'' - you do realize why batman keeps his identity a secret right??

lex gets away with it because of his wealth, intelligence and cunning. he can get himself out of any court because of how cunning and intelligent he is.

lex and batman are both neck and neck intellectually. sometimes batman outsmarts lex. and sometimes lex outsmarts batman.

@titanbreaker: Arkham isn't a prison though, really. It's an asylum. Everything you've stated is the writers fault, not the character

Superman seems to say that:

@black_arrow: Clark says Lex is the smartest when Bruce isn't around, I think that pretty clearly shows he thinks Batman's smarter.

Yep.

Luthor is one of those characters that with time gets dumber and dumber.

Silver Age Luthor god stomps any version of Batman since he made a time machine out of prison trash, cure cancer just to fuck with Superman, stole Mxyzptlk powers with a device and build a suit that makes him equally as strong as the goddamn SA Superman.

His intellect got massively downgraded in Post Crisis where he is still the smartest person on earth, but in a more "realistic" way and he did outsmart Braniac a couple times, became president of the United States even with the entire Justice League against him, he outsmarted Batman countless times nearly taking over Gotham, assasinated Batman's lover Vesper and made Batman a fugitive, on top of also discovering Bats secret identity, he also nearly killed both Batman and Superman in public enemies. However he didn't knew that radiation from a space rock could give him cancer and he didn't even made his suit.

Post Flashpoint Lex Luthor is a fucking moron, that has been easily out smarted by Joker even with legion of Super Villains. Sure he has his moments but never successfully follows through because everyone he has fought eventually out smarts him because of "arrogance".

So

SA Luthor>>>>>>>>God of knowledge Batman>>>>Every Batman

Post Crisis Luthor>Batman

Post Flash Point Luthor<<<<Batman

Batman is smarter

It seems to me like generally Lex is smarter but his arrogance is what makes him inferior to Batman.

Canonically Lex is smarter. That isnt because Lex is more intelligent, both bruce and lex have peak human intelligence(meaning they are equal), the difference comes in the fact that bruce spent half his life training himself physically so couldn't devote all his time to purely intellectual pursuits which is why lex has more knowledge. Also, Lex is arrogant while bruce is wise so he isn't gonna make mistakes out of arrogance like lex.

@deactivated-5edd330f57b65 said:

By a margin. [1]

Superman already said, Bruce Wayne is smarter.

He is the best at everything. The only area I can think of he is overwhelmed by a Human is Green Arrow with his accuracy.

Depends. Lex is better in some areas, while bruce is better in others.

Batman by a hair

They are pretty close in overall RAW intelegence...i think Luthor is overall a bit smarter...but Bruce is better in strategy and a superior detective.

Let's see

holy moly, there is so many ways to look at this tbh. I personally think that Luthor is more entrepreneurial than Bruce Wayne. Luthor is constantly trying out new things and whereas Batman is constantly trying to stop people like him. Also, there are multiple times Luthor outsmarted everyone else https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T80LjXNshYE