Batman General Discussion

Does not help that Z'Darsky fell into terrible Batman habits along with all this, including massive Joker wanking.

Like Joker here is a far cry from how he wrote Kingpin as a compelling and flawed individual. Meanwhile he goes all in on the worst extremes of God-Joker as basically an unstoppable invincible mastermind who just does everything without problem or difficulty.

Edited by slimcoder on Mar 30th 2024 at 4:12:23 AM

Why? I thought Chip was better than this.

Granted, even Scott Snyder, a Writer I generally like, also falls into the God Joker trap.

Why do they keep making the Joker into an Invincible Villain ? It's boring. It's more fun for a villian to merely think they are invincible and then get served some humble pie.

Because he's the most famous villain.

Jokegod is the logical extreme of Batgod. Batman was for years increasingly written as a God-Mode Sue who could do basically anything through Prep Time and being That Good, and Joker is his archenemy - a title which implies him to be among Batman's most dangerous foes - so Joker was increasingly written the same way to justify why he was still a threat to a Batman who had become so hypercompetent and powerful that he should've stopped Joker permanently decades ago. Now the Batgod phenomena is being fought against by a lot of writers, but Jokegod isn't, with the result that Joker now seems like some kind of invincible demigod.

When even was the last time we unironically had a Batgod?

It's been a mercifully long while since the last unironic Batgod incident. Though one could potentially argue Failsafe was an expression of it, given that it was basically "Batman can build a robot that solos the entire Justice League with zero issue".

Yeah but given the context, it's more "ZUR EN ARRH IS SO SMART AND BETTER THAN REGULAR BATMAN"

Since it was Zur who made the robot, not Bruce.

Idk

Batman's I saw through your scheme in City of Bane sounds close

One of these days, I'd have a J Ler get sick of that and just crush the contingency and smack Batman in the face, for a change.

The worst thing about Jokergod to me is when he goes up against other heroes, especially Superman, and beats them cause it's 'easier.' (As a kid the World's Finest DCAU animated crossover really annoyed me because of how Lois preferred Batman over Clark and how Joker easily outsmarted Lex and Superman.)

Hilariously enough, that's pretty much what happened in Tower of Babel, the beginning of "Batman always has a contingency". The League all overcome the contingencies through willpower, smarts, or just being too strong for them - meaning Batman's "prep time" doesn't even work that well - and the arc ends with the League kicking Batman out because they've gotten sick of his bullshit. Bear in mind, also, that Tower of Babel deconstructed Batman's contingency making and no-kill rule by having most of his contingencies basically boil down to horrifically torturing his friends because it was the only way to disable them without just killing them. Highlighting how absurd applications of Batman's no-killing can get when it's taken too far and paired with his more brutal and anti-heroic depictions.

Yeah, that shit's the worst extremes of it. It's bad enough that Joker is basically unstoppable in Gotham, having him go up against people who should by all rights instantly obliterate him and come out on top through power of being lulz randum is just embarrassingly stupid.

Edited by immortaleditor on Mar 30th 2024 at 9:06:43 AM

Compare that to Justice League: Doom where he had to talk everyone through how to defeat the traps.

I'd also imagine a scenario where Batman's Prep Time utterly fails, even though he used it to his full potential. But that's because I'm feeling a bit vindictive. Remember, I like Bruce.

To be fair, the plans were made for if one Leaguer went rogue, and were only meant to incapacitate said rogue leaguer long enough for the rest to stop the rogue, and built on the assumption the others would be there helping him. They broke out of the plans in Tower of Babel because they were able to help each other, something that would have happened if they were used in the context they were made for.

Also, in Doom, Cyborg was a Wild Card / Spanner in the Works that Bruce himself admitted wasn't planned for, allowing him to provide some outside assistance in disabling them.

I feel very few Batman contingencies rely on him directly engaging the stronger enemy in combat. They're mostly plotting out scenarios in which his enemies defeat themselves.

That too.

It's also why Failsafe as a character doesn't make sense, as it doesn't line up with the contingencies created for the other Leaguer's.

There the contingency is like traps and plans to immobilize and take them down like giving Aquaman hydrophobia or causing Wonder Woman to hallucinate. Meanwhile Batman's contingency is to create a God robot for him that also has kryptonite blades to take down Superman for some reason.

It sounds like Zur got Bruce's buried narcissism or something.

I might forgive Failsafe a little for not being like the other contingencies. Zur built it and it seemed to be going off the handle.

Batgod kinda feels like it is the merger of an extreme of "Only an underdog can be a real hero"-mindset and self-insert syndrome.

Yeah, I found that weird about Failsafe too. Like, you'd think a contingency for Batman would be built to deal with Batman specifically, not specialized to take down everyone BUT Batman.

That's probably a big part of it.

Failsafe is especially flawed cause it's as per Zdarsky's own words, his attempt to give Batman a "Doomsday".

Which ignoring that Bats already has a Doomsday equivalent, Bane whose story was far less obnoxious, Failsafe manages to come across as even more bullshit overpowered than Doomsday was.

At least Doomy can be defeated and his powers were straightforward strength and durability. Meanwhile Failsafe basically insta-kills everyone with the most bullshit logic like Kryptonite daggers and Kryptonian pressure points.

Plus Doomsday exited after the first part of the Death and Return of Superman story. Meanwhile it looks like Failsafe is indeed the main villain of Zdarsky's entire Batman Saga.

Edited by slimcoder on Mar 30th 2024 at 1:44:37 AM

My thoughts precisely. As I noted, Failsafe was a great concept, but the instant he started pulling shit like kryptonite daggers, it was ruined.

I can kinda understand Failsafe being so overpowered, it was meant to take down Bruce if he ever crossed the line, but Zur knew Bruce had friends who would protect him if he was being tracked by a killer robot, so he needed it to be able to take out the friends to get to bruce.

Not to derail discussion but I’ve launched Batman (2011) and Batman (2016). Mainly it’s a bunch of crosswicking, so anyone who knows more about those eras feel free to add, remove, or change whatever. I’ve only really started reading the current Zur-En-Arrh era, which I’m enjoying.