DC Comics General

Hey now, Batgirl and Batwoman also stayed good. Clearly if Clark went with Batsuperman he would have stayed on the good side.

superboy stayed good. until he got thrown in the phantom zone with the rest of the titans

While we're on the subject of "League behaving badly" why didn't Diana blow the whistle on the League's brainwashing activities when she found out about them?

Because she's also a pragmatic character who saw no good coming from blowing the whistle?

Except that's the excuse Superman used and she didn't buy it.

On the League's brainwashing: I'm actually ok with the wiping the villains' knowledge of their secret identities part. The rewriting their personalities part is when they rewrite their personalities.

The answer to "why it's always Superman and never Batman" is more than likely "Batman fanboys". The most diehard Batgod fans always need to "prove" that he's more badass than the rest of the League combined despite his lack of powers, and what better way to establish that then to have the League turn evil and have Bruce still beat them?

I think it's because Batman turning evil wouldn't be a gigantic threat to the world, whereas Superman turning evil would.

Realistically speaking that is correct. However, since all of these comics have as their premise the notion that Batman, the only remaining hero, can take out the League by himself, then logically speaking, him going evil would be far more menacing, wouldn't it?

Essentially, since Batman has access to things like Kryptonite he's a danger to individual superhumans, but an entire planet of regular humans is something he can't beat.

It's sort of like Rock-Paper-Scissors.

And he also built a Giant Spy satellite.

Not every superhuman has a Kryptonite factor. Batman's ability to defeat the JLA has always been BS. If we're going to treat it as a fact, we might as well treat "he can conquer the world" as a fact.

I mean, has Batman ever in-canon ever outright beaten the JLA by himself? He's beaten individual members, yes, but that's different from soloing all of them. Even in Injustice his plan is to recruit not-evil JLA members to handle them, and his prime achievement is simply not getting caught until then.

The biggest example of "Batman could solo the rest of the JLA" is of course, when Batman's contingency plans on the JLA are discovered and used by a team of villains to beat them; most of those villains were superhuman themselves IIRC.

What situation where the JLA sans Batman turn evil and Batman takes the rest of them down are we complaining about? I honestly can't remember anything like that.

edited 16th Jan '18 8:26:27 AM by Sigilbreaker26

Maybe make him side with Lex? I always have though that a Batman-goes-evil story could become interesting and him siding with Lex is like, the first thing that I imagined. Lex certainly would like to help Bruce in his plans to counter Clark...

Also, seriously, there any story that have make Bruce a super genius at Lex level or close? Because lets be honest, he already is one, but because Batman is all about Muh Human determination of Badass Normal (and tons of money) they still treat him as a normal boy until his training to be Batman.

edited 16th Jan '18 9:31:32 AM by KazuyaProta

I think a “Batman goes evil and takes over the world” story would involve him using a lot of trickery and misdirection, at least when it came to the general populace. I think it would probably be more complicated than “Batman effortlessly kicks the shit out of anyone who could stop him”, at least ideally.

Hell, I might have less of an issue with this if Batman weren't the only badass normal this gets done with. You rarely, if ever, see something like this being done with Steel, Mr Terrific, Ted Kord or, God forbid, Lois Lane or Steve Trevor.

edited 16th Jan '18 11:10:32 AM by windleopard

I mean, when has it ever been done with Batman? Him taking down the entire JLA singlehandedly, I mean.

(I can think of one guy it was done with - Prometheus, IIRC).

edited 16th Jan '18 10:44:07 AM by Sigilbreaker26

Scott Snyder's run comes to mind. There is also JLA secret files.

In Endgame Joker Jokerized the League & set their sights in Bats who barely survived because of a suit he spent an untold amount of money & resource gathering building.

He won but again just barely with the suit totaled & bailed out by the League getting too sick to finish the job.

I've said that a story where Batman goes evil and starts plotting to take down the league would run into the problem that Bruce would probably have to do it very methodically, possibly with years of planning.

Hell, he'd have to spend years planning a way to not get instantly caught by J'onn (who'd probably either catch Bruce's murderous thoughts, or notice that Bruce is somehow blocking his thoughts). after that, it's just him constantly probing everything he knows to eliminate them one by one, with only one mistake ensuring his downfall.

Let's also remember that even Bruce knows he'd die if all of the league went evil at once, and that he stands little chance.

In Tower of Babel (or was it Justice League: Doom), he stated that his own contingency plan for his potential corruption was the league itself, logically assuming that they would easily stop him before he could go too far, and he's not wrong. A lot of people forget that, for all the talk of Batman being able to take down anyone, even the league, he understands better than anybody that he'd stand no chance if they all came at him at once.

Evil Bruce -unlike the Dark knights who hop themselves up on some type of superpower boost- would basically be Maxwell Lord relying more on misdirection and keeping the others off directly confronting him maybe with someone like Green Arrow being paranoid enough to see Batman as the Judas 'cue Bruce shots Ollie in the head'

basically A good Evil Batman story needs you to not know that he's the villain till the second to last act because generally speaking Bruce can usually only rely on his plans cause he's fellow heroes aren't out to end him... a lot of the time he's plans don't even work

What most people forget about Tower of Babel is unlike the animated version where Bruce is more able to directly help and talks alot of the league members out of the deathtraps... the original Bruce is pretty much sidelined through the thing and the League members for the most part over come the more lethal versions of his plans by themselves. Meaning Bruce's failsafes failed

Also I really hope metal ends with each Knight losing definitely against their proper counterpoint cause You can't make fun of the batgod notion if you reinforce the idea that all Bruce needs is a set of powers to be better then the league...

_____

So The idea going around that Doomsday Clock will end when Sups 'embodiment of Hope' basically Talks no Jutsu Manhattan 'embodiment of Cynicism' into restoring the DC universe into whatever... some think he'll just do something that fixes a few things but for the most part the age down will stick and the New 52 continuity will be around to stay or some think we'll go back to Pre Flashpoint time

My question is this to the Pre Flashpoint people Why?

If you think Doomsday Clock is ultimately suppose to be the triumph of Optimism in the face of Cynicism

Why go back to what could basically be considered the apex of slow drown into a sea of pointless darkness

I mean if you look at post Blackest Night/ Brightest Day left the DC verse outside a few characters in terrible shape... destroyed relationships, Dead loved ones... The Legacy implosion was as bad as the Late Star Wars EU we only finally got sick of it when they Murdered Ryan so Ray could have something to angst over and DC was in no hurry to fix it.

Wally had been kicked out so they could make Barry THE FLASH, Jason had lost His girlfriend, His mentor -neither one he got to avenge cause **** you having a meaningful final confrontation with Deathstorm would get in the way of Brightest Day sucking-and he'd been demoted to secondary Firestorm. Guy and Ice broke up due to the mind control shenanigans 'Note one of the points of hope was Ice's return to life in Blackest Night rendered moot by Brightest Day... That victory lap for kicking Death in the balls is looking more like you broke your leg to limp home-

I mean... The Titans memorial hall being as long as the Tower is HIGH and that a large chunk of them came from the 2005-2012 should tell you something about the state of DC.

I find it hilarious that the Dc staff considered the late 80s and 90s the pointless darkening of DC verse!!! which is what Mandrakk is suppose to represent and slaying him and darksied was suppose to be hope and light ultimately winning... yet starting from Identity Crisis... DC basically flung itself head first into the abyss and never stopped

edited 16th Jan '18 12:44:09 PM by FrozenWolf2

Yeah, if anything the 90s was DC at its most optimistic.

Speaking of Max Lord, here's some alternate character interpretation regarding Bruce's anger at Diana killing him. Bruce and Max have some things in common. Both are millionaires who lost parents at an early age and are normal humans working with superheroes. Max's plan is basically a more extremist version of Bruce's contingencies against the League.

So what if the real reason Bruce was angry at Diana over killing Max was because he was afraid that if he ever crossed the line Diana would do the same to him?

edited 16th Jan '18 12:54:58 PM by windleopard

That is a good Alternative Character Interpretation

Considering Batgod, wouldn't it be more self-righteous anger due to agreeing with Lord?

Well I did say they had a few things in common, so that could work too.