Superman VS Batman

He (and the rest of the JLA) were peripherally involved in both Last Son and New Krypton. It didn't go particularly well for them.

Huh. So they can deal with a rogue Superman but not evil Kryptonians? Or is it the no kill rule that strikes again? It's okay for the bad guys to kill the evil Kryptonians but the good guys are unable to neutralize them? Why does Batman get put in distress in some of the World's Finest stories(one time alien gamblers tricked hi into losing a bet and took him to their planet that was cumulatively toxic to humans. They wanted to get Superman to engage in gambling contests and eventually revealed that the fate of earth was also in danger.)?

Luthor, Bizarro, Metallo, and the Kryptonite man. They were not only *willing* to kill, but *really wanted to*. Makes a difference.

How have they not killed Superman? Plot Armor?

Really, that whole arc was weirdly handled.

Also, the evil Kryptonians had their powers for a few months at most, compared to Superman, who had his powers for his entire life and already had knowledge of Luthor and the others and how they worked. He's smarter than they were.

Fantastic Racism makes you stupid? Because evil Kryptonians often seem to be bigoted and think having superpowers makes them inherently better than Puny Earthlings. I wonder if getting bad guys to underestimate Batman(and other humans period) is a legit tactic?

It's not that they were actually stupid, they just had far less experience with their powers. It's why Superman was still able to kick their asses, even when they were as strong as him.

What makes the Superman Revenge Squad (and subsequently Lane's anti-Kryptonian task forces) so lethal to the Kryptonians is that the Kryptonians know nothing about them. They don't know that closing with Parasite is a death sentence. They don't know that the pretty green rock in Metallo's chest will kill them. They don't know that approaching Reactron will shut off their powers. And they don't realize that the scrawny bald guy in the labcoat is packing enough Kryptonite weaponry to kill them all. Consequently they make mistakes and end up dead.

Conversely, most of the JLA doesn't have a trump card like that. They don't have easy access to Kryptonite (Batman has one Kryptonite ring, but that doesn't exactly stack with Metallo or Luthor's resources) or any of the other weaknesses. Consequently, during the events of Last Son, they fare quite poorly against Zod's army. In New Krypton they, and Earth in general, are better prepared, and the Kryptonian invasion is repelled.

Why do people often say that Superman and Batman would kill each other? They wouldn't do that! They're friends, or a least allies. Killing an ally would go into Moral Event Horizon territory. Don't know if comic book physics would allow Clark to just grab Bruce at super-speed and carry him a mile up before Bats knows what happened.

Do the good Kryptonians see killing a human as a Moral Event Horizon? Because aside from the Golden Age version, Superman doesn't ever kill a human being unless he's making a Face–Heel Turn and Jumping Off the Slippery Slope in an elseworld. Are there any stories in the last 60 years where Clark(or another super) kills a human and stays a good guy?

Or just mentions how physically easy it would be to kill a human?

A lot of people enjoy thinking that Superman and Batman would be diametrically opposed to each other because they see the characters as polar opposites. Also, a lot of the folks who see Superman as too powerful, corny, old-fashioned, etc, see Batman as his antithesis, and thus like the idea of Batman and Superman hating each other (this occurs more with exclusive Batman fans; I've yet to hear this argument from the viewpoint of a Superman fan). Some writers like to play into it because it creates conflict. Personally, I think it's cheap and childish and it degrades the characters. The characters don't need to like each other (though I think it works better if they do) but there's really no reason for them to be at each other's throats. They do the same job and want the same things. They're natural allies.

There is John Byrne's controversial "Pocket Universe" story, in which Superman executed three Phantom Zone villains with Green K because the Zoners had literally killed everyone else in that universe, and Superman couldn't risk leaving them there for fear they might escape into his own universe. It was essentially a case of Byrne going out of his way to concoct a situation in which Superman HAD to kill someone (I really hate writer decreed morality traps like this...is there a trope for that?). But yeah, he stayed a good guy afterward. Still, that story, rightly or wrongly, left a bad taste in a lot of peoples mouths.

edited 17th Jan '15 11:06:03 AM by Robbery

The problem with that story is that it didn't even properly put Superman in a position where he had to kill somebody. It's not like he killed alternate!Zod in the heat of battle or something. Instead, he executes him after he's already been depowered, on the basis of little more than Zod vowing that someday he'll get his powers back.

I meant nonpowered Homo Sapiens. Like Bruce, Ollie, Lois, Jimmy, etc. The guys in that story were Kryptonians! He's killed those in different stories.

edited 17th Jan '15 12:47:26 PM by bookworm6390