WTF! Comics?
- Thread starter cgobyd
- Start date
Because you just now realized Batman is just as retarded as the Joker? Come on, give me a reason why the supervillains he has crossed don't just either gang up on the Bat or plain hire Lobo (whom Batman himself admitted he doesn't really know how to deal with aside from not dying until someone more in his weight class comes around, which isn't as easy as it sounds) to off him...
In short, it goes both ways. The Joker is retardedly immune to retaliation for the same reason Batman is. However you spin it, either you accept that they have plot armor, or you admit that BOTH should be dead a few hundred times over.
In short, it goes both ways. The Joker is retardedly immune to retaliation for the same reason Batman is. However you spin it, either you accept that they have plot armor, or you admit that BOTH should be dead a few hundred times over.
The supervillains have ganged up on Batman, or have we forgotten "Knightfall"? Bruce spent months in the hospital with a broken back after that one, and only survived due to great good fortune.
There's also that in order to ambush someone, you need 1) advance information on where he will definitely be at a definite future time 2) control of that particular patch of ground, so you can freely set up your traps on it without anyone contesting you or reporting your activities and 3) stealth skills sufficient to conceal yourself from the guy you're trying to ambush. No villain in Gotham City ever has all three of these things all at the same time, and that is because Bruce expends a goddamn lot of deliberate effort making sure of that. (Remember, Bruce is a master of magic ninja stealth to the point that Superman has trouble following his movements, with all of his senses... tracking Batman's schedule is nigh-impossible, and he makes sure to keep his patrol patterns random.) Seriously, about the only place a Gotham villain could hope to ambush Bruce in advance is the roof of the GCPD headquarters, shortly after the Bat-Signal goes up... and not only is it the roof of the police station, but if you think Bruce doesn't take a long careful look at every rooftop within sniper rifle range of that building before he steps out into the light to answer Gordon's page, then you severely underrate him.
Edit: There is one other place you can successfully ambush Bruce... the Batcave. (That being where Bane did it during 'Knightfall') If you know where it is. Very very few people do, and if one of those people suddenly started putting out the word throughout the DCU supervillain community at large where it is (which they'd have to, for the big supervillain team-up you postulate), Bruce would just move. Its not like he doesn't have backups! And its not like he doesn't stay very plugged-in to the underworld grapevine. Not to mention that you first have to successfully break into the Batcave without any of the alarms notifying Bruce while he's out on patrol, and while that is just barely possible, the list of people who can do it can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
As for Lobo, two things to remember: Lobo is accessible only if you have interstellar travel, as the dude doesn't hang out his shingle on Earth. He's a space villain, and you can hire him only if you have access to the galactic mercenary circuit. Which leaves out pretty much every villain on Batman's rogue's gallery, as they don't. And the second thing is, while Batman couldn't hope to remotely defeat Lobo, he could successfully hide and run away from him for a long while... "long while" being defined as "significantly in excess of Superman's best time from Metropolis to Gotham City". Its not like Bruce doesn't have the JLA on his speed-dial or anything. (Seriously, "not as easy as it sounds"? How? Bruce is one radio call away from getting help from virtually anywhere in the DCU superhero community, through Oracle, the Batcave's own communications gear, the direct line to the Watchtower, or just the fact he knows everybody's unlisted phone #.)
And before you point out 'Batman would never call for help!', no, Batman does not call for help against any villain he can possibly beat himself. Vs. guys that takes Superman to stop, however, he's entirely willing to do a Batman/Superman team-up.
There's also that in order to ambush someone, you need 1) advance information on where he will definitely be at a definite future time 2) control of that particular patch of ground, so you can freely set up your traps on it without anyone contesting you or reporting your activities and 3) stealth skills sufficient to conceal yourself from the guy you're trying to ambush. No villain in Gotham City ever has all three of these things all at the same time, and that is because Bruce expends a goddamn lot of deliberate effort making sure of that. (Remember, Bruce is a master of magic ninja stealth to the point that Superman has trouble following his movements, with all of his senses... tracking Batman's schedule is nigh-impossible, and he makes sure to keep his patrol patterns random.) Seriously, about the only place a Gotham villain could hope to ambush Bruce in advance is the roof of the GCPD headquarters, shortly after the Bat-Signal goes up... and not only is it the roof of the police station, but if you think Bruce doesn't take a long careful look at every rooftop within sniper rifle range of that building before he steps out into the light to answer Gordon's page, then you severely underrate him.
Edit: There is one other place you can successfully ambush Bruce... the Batcave. (That being where Bane did it during 'Knightfall') If you know where it is. Very very few people do, and if one of those people suddenly started putting out the word throughout the DCU supervillain community at large where it is (which they'd have to, for the big supervillain team-up you postulate), Bruce would just move. Its not like he doesn't have backups! And its not like he doesn't stay very plugged-in to the underworld grapevine. Not to mention that you first have to successfully break into the Batcave without any of the alarms notifying Bruce while he's out on patrol, and while that is just barely possible, the list of people who can do it can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
As for Lobo, two things to remember: Lobo is accessible only if you have interstellar travel, as the dude doesn't hang out his shingle on Earth. He's a space villain, and you can hire him only if you have access to the galactic mercenary circuit. Which leaves out pretty much every villain on Batman's rogue's gallery, as they don't. And the second thing is, while Batman couldn't hope to remotely defeat Lobo, he could successfully hide and run away from him for a long while... "long while" being defined as "significantly in excess of Superman's best time from Metropolis to Gotham City". Its not like Bruce doesn't have the JLA on his speed-dial or anything. (Seriously, "not as easy as it sounds"? How? Bruce is one radio call away from getting help from virtually anywhere in the DCU superhero community, through Oracle, the Batcave's own communications gear, the direct line to the Watchtower, or just the fact he knows everybody's unlisted phone #.)
And before you point out 'Batman would never call for help!', no, Batman does not call for help against any villain he can possibly beat himself. Vs. guys that takes Superman to stop, however, he's entirely willing to do a Batman/Superman team-up.
I don't mean his own rogue gallery. He's pissed off several of the JUSTICE LEAGUE's enemies, Darkseid included. Just how long do you think the Bat would last if Darkseid decided to send some of his followers after him, given how they give freaking SUPERMAN trouble?
People call the Joker not being executed bullshit, yet accept this at face value, despite Superman having TRACKED THE MOTHERFUCKING FLASH'S MOVEMENT.
Apparently, Batman's magic ninja skillz are faster than the Flash's speed.
Can we say this is a giant WTF moment on its own, and thus fits in this thread? Because it's retarded. Bruce ISN'T faster than the Flash. Superman can follow the Flash's movements with some difficulty. Superman isn't going to have any trouble keeping an eye on Batman moving around, because he's not nearly quick enough to not remain in sight of someone who can see the Flash.
For the record, Martian Manhunter is better at stealth than Batman. You'd think the two meters tall green bald alien would attract attention, but he manages to sneak around pretty damn well.
Sure, Batman would call for help. He'd still have to survive against a guy who KILLED HIS OWN PLANET just for what he called a science assignment. You seriously think if Lobo wants to kill him, he can hide from him? Lobo won't waste time playing cop and robber, he'll just get tired within the first five minutes and blow the entire fucking city up and be done with it. He's done it before too.
See Batman survive Gotham being reduced to a crater. That goes for ANYBODY who really wants to get his mitts on him and is actually worth of being called supercriminal. Seriously, had Bane not left his carcass back there and instead snapped his neck, the Bat's career would have ended right then and there. He's only alive because Bane didn't finish him off, and Bane would get smeared by half the JL. :sweat2:
People call the Joker not being executed bullshit, yet accept this at face value, despite Superman having TRACKED THE MOTHERFUCKING FLASH'S MOVEMENT.
Apparently, Batman's magic ninja skillz are faster than the Flash's speed.
Can we say this is a giant WTF moment on its own, and thus fits in this thread? Because it's retarded. Bruce ISN'T faster than the Flash. Superman can follow the Flash's movements with some difficulty. Superman isn't going to have any trouble keeping an eye on Batman moving around, because he's not nearly quick enough to not remain in sight of someone who can see the Flash.
For the record, Martian Manhunter is better at stealth than Batman. You'd think the two meters tall green bald alien would attract attention, but he manages to sneak around pretty damn well.
Sure, Batman would call for help. He'd still have to survive against a guy who KILLED HIS OWN PLANET just for what he called a science assignment. You seriously think if Lobo wants to kill him, he can hide from him? Lobo won't waste time playing cop and robber, he'll just get tired within the first five minutes and blow the entire fucking city up and be done with it. He's done it before too.
See Batman survive Gotham being reduced to a crater. That goes for ANYBODY who really wants to get his mitts on him and is actually worth of being called supercriminal. Seriously, had Bane not left his carcass back there and instead snapped his neck, the Bat's career would have ended right then and there. He's only alive because Bane didn't finish him off, and Bane would get smeared by half the JL. :sweat2:
You really don't want to give Batman credit for anything, do you?
Your argument assumes that the only way to sneak around Superman is to move faster than he can track. That argument has a hole in it I can fly the Death Star through. It is one of the most classic ninja shticks, even from before comics existed, to be able to stand still in plain sight and yet be completely overlooked by your target. That is a genre trope of the longest and most honored history, so arbitrarily declaring it "bullshit" is just not gonna work.
And Batman is, most definitely, a ninja.
PS -- re: J'onn, there's a lovely scene in "Midsummer's Nightmare" where he tries to find Bruce, along with Clark, and both of them are left going '... damn, stumped again'.
Granted, sometimes Bruce needs a little technological help, like a mind-shield gizmo that helps blank his mental presence vs. Martian telepathy ("JLA: Terra Incognita"), or an active noise cancellation device that keeps Superman from picking up his heartbeats ("JLA: New World Order"), but, hey, both of those are built into the costume for a reason.
As for Lobo, some points:
* Lobo killed his entire planet with carefully-executed and long-planned biological warfare, not just by blowing it up on the spot
* So, Lobo would nuke Gotham City within five minutes of not finding Batman? This is the same Lobo who has tirelessly tracked targets across half the galaxy, spending months on their case? All of a sudden, dude defaults immediately to killing millions of civilians on the world he knows is the JLA's place of residence, just because he can't wait five minutes? I love how Lobo suddenly goes massively OOC (as well as dead-brain stupid) just to make your scenario easier. Sure, Lobo has no regard for anyone's life but his own, but he does have the basic cunning that reminds him 'Try not to cause yourself a huge problem in the process of solving a small one.'
* Congrats, even if I spot you all of the above, you have still conceded that Bruce can evade Lobo for five minutes. That's about 4 minutes, 59.99999999 seconds longer than it takes Clark to go from anywhere on the planet to Gotham City. So again, no.
As for 'Darkseid sending his minions to Gotham': any of them that Bruce can't beat up, he can get away from long enough for the JLA to show up. There is a reason Bruce has put so much time into making his stealth skills the best on Earth-DCU... its a necessary survival measure. (Likewise, Bruce going to the trouble of keeping his JLA membership current despite his legendary misanthropy: he may not like team-ups, but sometimes they're just necessary.)
As for 'I will nuke Gotham to kill Batman!' -- most people capable of getting nukes are also intelligent enough to remember that Batman is not always in Gotham City, and that even if he is, much of the rest of the Bat-Family ain't. (Note: Wayne Manor and the Batcave aren't in Gotham City either -- they're well out in the 'burbs'.) The one exception on this list, the Joker, would never nuke Batman because if Batman is going to die, the Joker wants to be there personally, to watch. He'd also want it to be epically slow and painful.
In short, successfully killing Batman requires either that you are able to beat Batman at his own game, or else the sort of WMD effort that rapidly makes you a case for the entire Justice League, whether because Bruce invited them in or simply because the entire hemisphere noticed the size of the explosions. So its hardly 'stupid' that Batman isn't dead yet -- it's way, way, way the hell harder to kill him than it looks.
Edit: Oh, and the reason J'onn doesn't attract attention when he sneaks around despite being two meters tall and green is because he has invisibility powers. Not to mention, shapeshifting powers.
Your argument assumes that the only way to sneak around Superman is to move faster than he can track. That argument has a hole in it I can fly the Death Star through. It is one of the most classic ninja shticks, even from before comics existed, to be able to stand still in plain sight and yet be completely overlooked by your target. That is a genre trope of the longest and most honored history, so arbitrarily declaring it "bullshit" is just not gonna work.
And Batman is, most definitely, a ninja.
PS -- re: J'onn, there's a lovely scene in "Midsummer's Nightmare" where he tries to find Bruce, along with Clark, and both of them are left going '... damn, stumped again'.
Granted, sometimes Bruce needs a little technological help, like a mind-shield gizmo that helps blank his mental presence vs. Martian telepathy ("JLA: Terra Incognita"), or an active noise cancellation device that keeps Superman from picking up his heartbeats ("JLA: New World Order"), but, hey, both of those are built into the costume for a reason.
As for Lobo, some points:
* Lobo killed his entire planet with carefully-executed and long-planned biological warfare, not just by blowing it up on the spot
* So, Lobo would nuke Gotham City within five minutes of not finding Batman? This is the same Lobo who has tirelessly tracked targets across half the galaxy, spending months on their case? All of a sudden, dude defaults immediately to killing millions of civilians on the world he knows is the JLA's place of residence, just because he can't wait five minutes? I love how Lobo suddenly goes massively OOC (as well as dead-brain stupid) just to make your scenario easier. Sure, Lobo has no regard for anyone's life but his own, but he does have the basic cunning that reminds him 'Try not to cause yourself a huge problem in the process of solving a small one.'
* Congrats, even if I spot you all of the above, you have still conceded that Bruce can evade Lobo for five minutes. That's about 4 minutes, 59.99999999 seconds longer than it takes Clark to go from anywhere on the planet to Gotham City. So again, no.
As for 'Darkseid sending his minions to Gotham': any of them that Bruce can't beat up, he can get away from long enough for the JLA to show up. There is a reason Bruce has put so much time into making his stealth skills the best on Earth-DCU... its a necessary survival measure. (Likewise, Bruce going to the trouble of keeping his JLA membership current despite his legendary misanthropy: he may not like team-ups, but sometimes they're just necessary.)
As for 'I will nuke Gotham to kill Batman!' -- most people capable of getting nukes are also intelligent enough to remember that Batman is not always in Gotham City, and that even if he is, much of the rest of the Bat-Family ain't. (Note: Wayne Manor and the Batcave aren't in Gotham City either -- they're well out in the 'burbs'.) The one exception on this list, the Joker, would never nuke Batman because if Batman is going to die, the Joker wants to be there personally, to watch. He'd also want it to be epically slow and painful.
In short, successfully killing Batman requires either that you are able to beat Batman at his own game, or else the sort of WMD effort that rapidly makes you a case for the entire Justice League, whether because Bruce invited them in or simply because the entire hemisphere noticed the size of the explosions. So its hardly 'stupid' that Batman isn't dead yet -- it's way, way, way the hell harder to kill him than it looks.
Edit: Oh, and the reason J'onn doesn't attract attention when he sneaks around despite being two meters tall and green is because he has invisibility powers. Not to mention, shapeshifting powers.
It is also harder to kill Batman then it is to kill Joker, or another Batman villain because it is more unlikely that he will be in a certain place at a certain time (like a courtroom, or in prison) and because Batman has allies that he can call in for help/retaliation/vengeance.
Note: Not saying that he shouldn't have died from a retaliatory strike, or against one of the big bads, just saying that it isn't nearly as high of a probability.
Note: Not saying that he shouldn't have died from a retaliatory strike, or against one of the big bads, just saying that it isn't nearly as high of a probability.
I will quote again:
Now, ask yourself this. Which is harder to see, a guy who's literally moving faster than the eye can physically perceive, or a guy who has bullshit ninja skillz and yet has been SHOWN REPEATEDLY to be slower than a speeding bullet (that's the whole POINT of his costume being fucking armored)?
Given how the Flash shouldn't be perceivable at all by the naked eye, yet Superman can see him, Batman giving Supes any sort of trouble tracking him is wank of the highest caliber.
I'm willing to give Batman about as much credit as I give the Punisher... which means, for one, that against bigger fish I see him crash and burn horribly because however you look at it, he's just a really well trained human, and not even to-the-fullest peak-human like Cap America, whose Super Soldier serum literally makes him as good as humanly possible.
Lobo going nuts and nuking stuff is NOT OOC. He has a tendency to get greatly annoyed very fast, and his definition of 'not causing a commotion' is 'don't wreck too many cities', not 'keep a low profile'. Lobo never cared one whit if someone got wind of his activities, and considers blowing up SPACE STATIONS to kill a target he has located perfectly acceptable, unless his client specifically mentions he wants casualties kept to a minimum.
He's not like Deathstroke, who has a precise code of conduct. Lobo's only code is to always get his prey. HOW he does it is irrelevant, and he's a psycho of the worst kind to boot. Doesn't help that he's never really lost to Superman - he usually quit the battle because it simply wasn't worth the hassle.
The only reason why Lobo isn't a bigger threat is because he's too busy drinking, finding women and swearing the paint off nearby walls to do much more, most of the time... and the rest of the time he's too busy taking on a job and killing some poor schmuck in a more or less barbaric way to do anything too genocidal.
Now, ask yourself this. Which is harder to see, a guy who's literally moving faster than the eye can physically perceive, or a guy who has bullshit ninja skillz and yet has been SHOWN REPEATEDLY to be slower than a speeding bullet (that's the whole POINT of his costume being fucking armored)?
Given how the Flash shouldn't be perceivable at all by the naked eye, yet Superman can see him, Batman giving Supes any sort of trouble tracking him is wank of the highest caliber.
I'm willing to give Batman about as much credit as I give the Punisher... which means, for one, that against bigger fish I see him crash and burn horribly because however you look at it, he's just a really well trained human, and not even to-the-fullest peak-human like Cap America, whose Super Soldier serum literally makes him as good as humanly possible.
Lobo going nuts and nuking stuff is NOT OOC. He has a tendency to get greatly annoyed very fast, and his definition of 'not causing a commotion' is 'don't wreck too many cities', not 'keep a low profile'. Lobo never cared one whit if someone got wind of his activities, and considers blowing up SPACE STATIONS to kill a target he has located perfectly acceptable, unless his client specifically mentions he wants casualties kept to a minimum.
He's not like Deathstroke, who has a precise code of conduct. Lobo's only code is to always get his prey. HOW he does it is irrelevant, and he's a psycho of the worst kind to boot. Doesn't help that he's never really lost to Superman - he usually quit the battle because it simply wasn't worth the hassle.
The only reason why Lobo isn't a bigger threat is because he's too busy drinking, finding women and swearing the paint off nearby walls to do much more, most of the time... and the rest of the time he's too busy taking on a job and killing some poor schmuck in a more or less barbaric way to do anything too genocidal.
Your whole 'Batman is slower than the Flash, therefore Superman should be able to see him clearly' is irrelevant. Superman is demonstrably unable to see Batman when he's standing perfectly still, therefore Batman's stealth is not speed-related, and discussing relative speed is pointless. So stop trying, its convincing no one.
Also, the out-of-context hair-splitting regarding my own words is distinctly unamusing. Since you apparently want it spelled out explicitly, here it is: re: Batman, "following his movements" was used to refer to the difficulty of following Batman around on patrol long enough to figure out a consistent pattern to his patrol schedule and thus find/deduce a likely ambush point somewhere on his rooftop run, not 'Batman can run so fast Superman cannot see him'. Standing still, walking, or moving around normally, Batman has proven able to stealth around Superman in ways entirely unrelated to the concept 'moving too fast to see'. I cannot make it plainer than this.
Further attempts to claim that I actually said something I didn't will be ignored.
As for your 'its not OOC!' for Lobo, my answer is oh, really? How many stories has Lobo appeared in? Of those stories, what percentage of them have Lobo getting impatient and nuking the entire city just to catch one target? I would be willing to bet it wasn't even 5%, let alone 10%. It is not Lobo's SOP to do what you're claiming he does. It never was.
AAMOF, I can remember the nuke thing happening only in one story -- the Lobo vs. Etrigan mini-series. And IIRC that wasn't because Lobo got impatient and couldn't find Etrigan (as they'd been fighting each other repeatedly for several issues), its because (edit: just looked up the issue) Etrigan, a demon, had convinced/tempted Lobo that if they teamed up, they could destroy the planet Earth with no come-backs. So Lobo tried to get a planet-buster bomb in action... and the response to that showed Lobo rapidly finding out he'd been played, and was teleported back into space.
Not to mention, of course, you conveniently ignored the fact that none of Batman's rogue's gallery has access to Lobo in the first place. And while the JLA's rogue's gallery does, the JLA's rogue's gallery also has to face the entire JLA, not just Batman by himself, because the JLA will quite obviously show up if any of their heavy-hitter enemies is reported as being on Earth!
So again, you are wrong. You've been consistently wrong this entire damn argument. You just say the same things over and over when they are not borne out by the actual comics. Read more, post less.
Also, the out-of-context hair-splitting regarding my own words is distinctly unamusing. Since you apparently want it spelled out explicitly, here it is: re: Batman, "following his movements" was used to refer to the difficulty of following Batman around on patrol long enough to figure out a consistent pattern to his patrol schedule and thus find/deduce a likely ambush point somewhere on his rooftop run, not 'Batman can run so fast Superman cannot see him'. Standing still, walking, or moving around normally, Batman has proven able to stealth around Superman in ways entirely unrelated to the concept 'moving too fast to see'. I cannot make it plainer than this.
Further attempts to claim that I actually said something I didn't will be ignored.
As for your 'its not OOC!' for Lobo, my answer is oh, really? How many stories has Lobo appeared in? Of those stories, what percentage of them have Lobo getting impatient and nuking the entire city just to catch one target? I would be willing to bet it wasn't even 5%, let alone 10%. It is not Lobo's SOP to do what you're claiming he does. It never was.
AAMOF, I can remember the nuke thing happening only in one story -- the Lobo vs. Etrigan mini-series. And IIRC that wasn't because Lobo got impatient and couldn't find Etrigan (as they'd been fighting each other repeatedly for several issues), its because (edit: just looked up the issue) Etrigan, a demon, had convinced/tempted Lobo that if they teamed up, they could destroy the planet Earth with no come-backs. So Lobo tried to get a planet-buster bomb in action... and the response to that showed Lobo rapidly finding out he'd been played, and was teleported back into space.
Not to mention, of course, you conveniently ignored the fact that none of Batman's rogue's gallery has access to Lobo in the first place. And while the JLA's rogue's gallery does, the JLA's rogue's gallery also has to face the entire JLA, not just Batman by himself, because the JLA will quite obviously show up if any of their heavy-hitter enemies is reported as being on Earth!
So again, you are wrong. You've been consistently wrong this entire damn argument. You just say the same things over and over when they are not borne out by the actual comics. Read more, post less.
Now you are the one who's splitting hair. It's not a matter of the Flash being faster, so much as a matter of the Flash being so fast that even alien eyes CAN'T SEE HIM AT ALL under normal circumstances. Batman being perfectly still could only possibly work if it's freaking pitch black and he's wearing kryptonite to shut down Superman's infravision by making him an average joe without powers (yes, he can see in the dark by perceiving things in the infrared spectrum, have the Bat deal with THAT without it being bullshit wank or convenient plotdevices). That whole thing about him having noticeable body heat kind of hoses him there.
Of course, every author in DC wanks Batman to the highest level, so that's no surprise there...
Then don't say 'following his movements', say 'following his patrol routes'. The former can, and usually is, applied to actual BODY MOVEMENT, and thus is prone to misunderstandings of this sort. Your phrasing up there made it sound like you were talking about them as two distinct things.
But never mind, case closed, let's move on.
Which is retarded when you consider that not only does Superman have the ability to distinguish a person by their heartbeat through a solid concrete wall and several hundred meters away, but he can also see in the goddamn dark. And Batman having a gadget to cloak his body heat (which is never stated anyway, but I suppose people consider him that paranoid) doesn't fly when you consider that the whole bottom half of his face is naked, and thus gives off body heat in the air by being exposed. If it was a full body suit like the one Deathstroke has I'd understand, but there's no excuse for overlooking this.
Early Lobo, in his first apparitions in comics, was responsible for trashing entire PLANETS out of frustration for the most minor annoyances. He's grown less sanguine over the years, but makes up for it by being even more destructive than back then when he does lose it.
That's overlooking how he's able to track people down even when they are downright OUT of his universe, so giving Batman five minutes against a guy who can track you across dimensional barriers might even be a little too generous. Lobo was never meant to be balanced, he's completely broken, and is basically never used BECAUSE he's more or less on pre-crisis Superman levels of retarded h4x. The fact he's a genius in his own right despite being rude and barbaric and almost never bothering to think if he can avoid it doesn't help, he's like an unholy love spawn of Superman, Batman, Deathstroke and Big Barda.
That's about the only objection I can agree with... to an extent. While he's not a REGULAR of Batman's rogue gallery, Lex Luthor DID butt heads with the Bat in a couple of crossovers (Superman-less, even - the Bat had to deal with him alone), and Luthor DID hire Lobo once in the past, so he obviously has access to him.
And here I am, being a nerd with far too much time and far too many comics in his hands... oh well. Anyway, whatever. If you want to be right at all costs, be my guest. Just don't expect me to agree with you. I personally see Batman as making even less sense than the Joker, all things said.
Of course, every author in DC wanks Batman to the highest level, so that's no surprise there...
Then don't say 'following his movements', say 'following his patrol routes'. The former can, and usually is, applied to actual BODY MOVEMENT, and thus is prone to misunderstandings of this sort. Your phrasing up there made it sound like you were talking about them as two distinct things.
But never mind, case closed, let's move on.
Which is retarded when you consider that not only does Superman have the ability to distinguish a person by their heartbeat through a solid concrete wall and several hundred meters away, but he can also see in the goddamn dark. And Batman having a gadget to cloak his body heat (which is never stated anyway, but I suppose people consider him that paranoid) doesn't fly when you consider that the whole bottom half of his face is naked, and thus gives off body heat in the air by being exposed. If it was a full body suit like the one Deathstroke has I'd understand, but there's no excuse for overlooking this.
Early Lobo, in his first apparitions in comics, was responsible for trashing entire PLANETS out of frustration for the most minor annoyances. He's grown less sanguine over the years, but makes up for it by being even more destructive than back then when he does lose it.
That's overlooking how he's able to track people down even when they are downright OUT of his universe, so giving Batman five minutes against a guy who can track you across dimensional barriers might even be a little too generous. Lobo was never meant to be balanced, he's completely broken, and is basically never used BECAUSE he's more or less on pre-crisis Superman levels of retarded h4x. The fact he's a genius in his own right despite being rude and barbaric and almost never bothering to think if he can avoid it doesn't help, he's like an unholy love spawn of Superman, Batman, Deathstroke and Big Barda.
That's about the only objection I can agree with... to an extent. While he's not a REGULAR of Batman's rogue gallery, Lex Luthor DID butt heads with the Bat in a couple of crossovers (Superman-less, even - the Bat had to deal with him alone), and Luthor DID hire Lobo once in the past, so he obviously has access to him.
And here I am, being a nerd with far too much time and far too many comics in his hands... oh well. Anyway, whatever. If you want to be right at all costs, be my guest. Just don't expect me to agree with you. I personally see Batman as making even less sense than the Joker, all things said.
Edit: I had a whole lecture in here re: the ninja trope of 'standing in plain sight but not being seen', and its history in fiction, but then I realized I'd already said that, so, why repeat myself?
Instead, I will address another valid point: notably, that the DC Universe has a long and established history of having pure martial arts skill do the otherwise impossible. Seriously. 'I know kung fu' is, by itself, a superpower, if you take it to a high enough level. Some other characters who have, on pure martial arts skill, without any metagene or high-tech boosts or anything else whatsoever, done things like...
* Turned physically intangible. (Judomaster. Can't recall if it was the first or second one.)
* Kicked a man-sized hole in a six-inch-thick steel-reinforced concrete wall, punched through three-inch-thick bulletproof quartz, dodged multiple bullets in Matrix time after they'd already left the gun barrel (as opposed to the more normal comic-book shtick of dodging gunfire by jinking around faster than the gunman can aim), outrun her own thrown shuriken (as in, she threw it, then changed her mind and ran over and punched the target before what she'd thrown had even reached it). (Cassandra "Batgirl III" Cain)
* Run as fast as Ultra Boy in superspeed mode, successfully executed a judo throw on a target charging at FTL velocity, successfully judo thrown someone into another solar system, punched hard enough to KTFO a Daxamite, destroyed a starship by punching through its engine core, stopped an earthquake by stamping his foot, and this isn't even remotely a complete list (Val "Karate Kid" Armorr of the Legion of Super-Heroes, the patron deity of ridiculous martial arts superpowers)
So, really, by DCU physics what Batman does is entirely plausible, because he's not even remotely the most remarkable thing that knowing enough freaky kung fu has allowed people to do.
As for Lex Luthor hiring Lobo to nuke Gotham -- Lex is sane enough that, written in-character, he knows that doing this would only create more problems than it solves. Including the problem of Wonder Woman maybe snapping his neck, Green Arrow maybe putting an arrow through his face, or Superman maybe going all Phantom Zone Criminals on him, to name just three JLA members who have canonically gone 'Fuck it, I'm killin' the dude' when they pushed the limits re: mass devastation or threat of.
Instead, I will address another valid point: notably, that the DC Universe has a long and established history of having pure martial arts skill do the otherwise impossible. Seriously. 'I know kung fu' is, by itself, a superpower, if you take it to a high enough level. Some other characters who have, on pure martial arts skill, without any metagene or high-tech boosts or anything else whatsoever, done things like...
* Turned physically intangible. (Judomaster. Can't recall if it was the first or second one.)
* Kicked a man-sized hole in a six-inch-thick steel-reinforced concrete wall, punched through three-inch-thick bulletproof quartz, dodged multiple bullets in Matrix time after they'd already left the gun barrel (as opposed to the more normal comic-book shtick of dodging gunfire by jinking around faster than the gunman can aim), outrun her own thrown shuriken (as in, she threw it, then changed her mind and ran over and punched the target before what she'd thrown had even reached it). (Cassandra "Batgirl III" Cain)
* Run as fast as Ultra Boy in superspeed mode, successfully executed a judo throw on a target charging at FTL velocity, successfully judo thrown someone into another solar system, punched hard enough to KTFO a Daxamite, destroyed a starship by punching through its engine core, stopped an earthquake by stamping his foot, and this isn't even remotely a complete list (Val "Karate Kid" Armorr of the Legion of Super-Heroes, the patron deity of ridiculous martial arts superpowers)
So, really, by DCU physics what Batman does is entirely plausible, because he's not even remotely the most remarkable thing that knowing enough freaky kung fu has allowed people to do.
As for Lex Luthor hiring Lobo to nuke Gotham -- Lex is sane enough that, written in-character, he knows that doing this would only create more problems than it solves. Including the problem of Wonder Woman maybe snapping his neck, Green Arrow maybe putting an arrow through his face, or Superman maybe going all Phantom Zone Criminals on him, to name just three JLA members who have canonically gone 'Fuck it, I'm killin' the dude' when they pushed the limits re: mass devastation or threat of.
Because Lex Luthor hasn't killed entirely too many people with his actions, be it intentionally or not.
...
Actually, wait, he has. Going so far as to HIRE THE GODDAMN JOKER himself to do his dirty deeds, which makes Lex decidedly worse than the Joker because where Joker is just crazy, Lex is completely sane, and just plain ruthless - he allied with BRAINIAC, for god's sake.
But I see no one just deciding to cap his goddamn ass. Even though he's given more trouble to the whole JL than most other villains not named Superboy Prime, Sinestro or Darkseid all by himself. There's a mountain of proof that Lex is behind several rather messy incidents, but Clark is too much of a treehugger to simply kill him... and everyone else follows suit for whatever unfathomable reason they may have.
...
Actually, wait, he has. Going so far as to HIRE THE GODDAMN JOKER himself to do his dirty deeds, which makes Lex decidedly worse than the Joker because where Joker is just crazy, Lex is completely sane, and just plain ruthless - he allied with BRAINIAC, for god's sake.
But I see no one just deciding to cap his goddamn ass. Even though he's given more trouble to the whole JL than most other villains not named Superboy Prime, Sinestro or Darkseid all by himself. There's a mountain of proof that Lex is behind several rather messy incidents, but Clark is too much of a treehugger to simply kill him... and everyone else follows suit for whatever unfathomable reason they may have.
... or is he? :unsure: I mean, he did just hire the Joker (come on) ...
As for killing Luthor - he's not just the corrupt guy that we see. All the off-panel stuff about him being important in business and politics, and maybe some philanthropy? I mean, he may even have a hand in running the adoption center where the family adopted that puppy that was killed by Booster Gold in the OP.
BTW, don't forget about the whole "Let's bring them back from the dead" shtick. Lazarus Pits, I bet Luthor owns a few.
As for killing Luthor - he's not just the corrupt guy that we see. All the off-panel stuff about him being important in business and politics, and maybe some philanthropy? I mean, he may even have a hand in running the adoption center where the family adopted that puppy that was killed by Booster Gold in the OP.
BTW, don't forget about the whole "Let's bring them back from the dead" shtick. Lazarus Pits, I bet Luthor owns a few.
Left Shoe said:
... or is he? :unsure: I mean, he did just hire the Joker (come on) ...
As for killing Luthor - he's not just the corrupt guy that we see. All the off-panel stuff about him being important in business and politics, and maybe some philanthropy? I mean, he may even have a hand in running the adoption center where the family adopted that puppy that was killed by Booster Gold in the OP.
BTW, don't forget about the whole "Let's bring them back from the dead" shtick. Lazarus Pits, I bet Luthor owns a few.
As for killing Luthor - he's not just the corrupt guy that we see. All the off-panel stuff about him being important in business and politics, and maybe some philanthropy? I mean, he may even have a hand in running the adoption center where the family adopted that puppy that was killed by Booster Gold in the OP.
BTW, don't forget about the whole "Let's bring them back from the dead" shtick. Lazarus Pits, I bet Luthor owns a few.
Luthor doesn't have any Lazarus Pits (Ra's is the only one who understands those things, given that they're as much mystic alchemy as science, and Lex doesn't do magic).
He did use a brain or mind transplant into the body of a clone once, but that was when his original body was dying of cancer, and he had it done in a lab; I don't think he has Arnim Zola's type of setup, which beams the mind out of a body at the instant of death and seamlessly respawns it into another body in a tank somewhere else.
He did use a brain or mind transplant into the body of a clone once, but that was when his original body was dying of cancer, and he had it done in a lab; I don't think he has Arnim Zola's type of setup, which beams the mind out of a body at the instant of death and seamlessly respawns it into another body in a tank somewhere else.
I actually did it. I read Amazons Attack (hardcovers). I pretty much stopped reading comics years ago and so don't know all of the details, but I heard about this and thought 'there's no way that they could mess up so badly, I'm sure the criticism is hyped up'. Even better I got all the volumes for $5 each. The fact that this was the only way they could sell it from the discard bin did warn me, but whatever.
How? How can you mess up that badly? This isn't bad as in Endless Eight from the Haruhi anime. This is bad as in...I'm sorry I can't think of anything as bad as this.
Then there's the clear anti-Bush sentiment in nearly every single page. I'm about as far left on social matters as you can go (so far left that I don't reveal it for fear of ridicule by the entire political science community) and I find it insulting.
So I ask again; how? How could you think this would sell? How could you think that people would like it? How can a decent editor let this pass their desk? And how the hell can you make Wonder Woman a minor character in her own comic?
How? How can you mess up that badly? This isn't bad as in Endless Eight from the Haruhi anime. This is bad as in...I'm sorry I can't think of anything as bad as this.
Then there's the clear anti-Bush sentiment in nearly every single page. I'm about as far left on social matters as you can go (so far left that I don't reveal it for fear of ridicule by the entire political science community) and I find it insulting.
So I ask again; how? How could you think this would sell? How could you think that people would like it? How can a decent editor let this pass their desk? And how the hell can you make Wonder Woman a minor character in her own comic?
Oh, Amazons Attack! Yeah, the dumb in that drips off of every page.
My particular favorite, even if its not the most iconic moment of what was wrong with that comic, simply because it shows such utter writer carelessness: the scene in the Teen Titans tie-in story with Wonder Girl and Supergirl derailing the train full of women being taken to concentration camps(!) as 'Amazon sympathizers'(!). Yes. We had the US military rounding up women en masse and taking them to concentration camps. Apparently the writer thought this was legal somehow. You Fail Law School Forever, indeed.
In any event, the girls showed up to do this, the rest of the Titans showed up to stop them (Robin was apparently taking a 'the law is the law, however cracksmokingly retarded' approach), the Amazons showed up to complicate the situation even further, and Superman eventually showed up to just try and get everybody to stop busting each other's skulls.
So, by this point the train has been derailed, the US military has been shown as willing to try to shoot at and arrest even the supers who were trying to help them, and were also shown as thinking that ordinary M-16s would do a damn thing to Supergirl other than annoy her... and I haven't yet hit the stupidest thing in the scene.
That being the part where the women who were being rounded up all decided that since the train was wrecked anyway, and everybody was busy, that they would just walk home. So of course the military guards try to shoot them all down as they leave, in the back!
You did remember that I said Superman was on-scene, right?
This is the writer not even trying, OK? What possible reason would there be for anybody we're supposed to mistake for a sentient life form to try massacreing an unarmed crowd when Big Blue is standing right there looking at them? Even the Joker wouldn't bother trying. I mean, sure, there's no fear that Supes will kill you, but having your gun melted in your hand via heat vision kinda stings.
But no, that is exactly what they try to do, leading to the usual end result of trying to shoot someone when Superman is standing directly in your face.
To call this 'sloppy writing' would redefine the term 'sloppy'. I mean seriously.
My particular favorite, even if its not the most iconic moment of what was wrong with that comic, simply because it shows such utter writer carelessness: the scene in the Teen Titans tie-in story with Wonder Girl and Supergirl derailing the train full of women being taken to concentration camps(!) as 'Amazon sympathizers'(!). Yes. We had the US military rounding up women en masse and taking them to concentration camps. Apparently the writer thought this was legal somehow. You Fail Law School Forever, indeed.
In any event, the girls showed up to do this, the rest of the Titans showed up to stop them (Robin was apparently taking a 'the law is the law, however cracksmokingly retarded' approach), the Amazons showed up to complicate the situation even further, and Superman eventually showed up to just try and get everybody to stop busting each other's skulls.
So, by this point the train has been derailed, the US military has been shown as willing to try to shoot at and arrest even the supers who were trying to help them, and were also shown as thinking that ordinary M-16s would do a damn thing to Supergirl other than annoy her... and I haven't yet hit the stupidest thing in the scene.
That being the part where the women who were being rounded up all decided that since the train was wrecked anyway, and everybody was busy, that they would just walk home. So of course the military guards try to shoot them all down as they leave, in the back!
You did remember that I said Superman was on-scene, right?
This is the writer not even trying, OK? What possible reason would there be for anybody we're supposed to mistake for a sentient life form to try massacreing an unarmed crowd when Big Blue is standing right there looking at them? Even the Joker wouldn't bother trying. I mean, sure, there's no fear that Supes will kill you, but having your gun melted in your hand via heat vision kinda stings.
But no, that is exactly what they try to do, leading to the usual end result of trying to shoot someone when Superman is standing directly in your face.
To call this 'sloppy writing' would redefine the term 'sloppy'. I mean seriously.
On the law itself, supposedly it was created in 1950 to deal with a fear of Communist sympathizers*. Why exactly the president would invoke a law born out of fears of espionage and subversion to deal with a conventional military threat that has absolutely NO fears or subversion is just of many things that convinces me that either the writer cannot write or they are incapable of understanding the U.S military or government. This isn't even something that you need to go to college and get a bachelor's to realize. I already knew more about the government than this guy did by junior high! Hell, Civil War's politics (which I also read under the theory that they couldn't mess up that badly) were more realistic.
*Apparently the author is unaware that Hoover actually suggested such a tactic (I think it was either the Eisenhower or Johnson administrations). It was never implemented.
Edit.
A judge overturns a jury's 'not guilty' decision? They actually wrote that? This sort of thing is why I stopped reading comic books in the first place, the writers seem to have no understanding of the world they actually live in. Or is it me? Seriously, do I have unfair standards of what you could expect the average person to know about law?
*Apparently the author is unaware that Hoover actually suggested such a tactic (I think it was either the Eisenhower or Johnson administrations). It was never implemented.
Edit.
A judge overturns a jury's 'not guilty' decision? They actually wrote that? This sort of thing is why I stopped reading comic books in the first place, the writers seem to have no understanding of the world they actually live in. Or is it me? Seriously, do I have unfair standards of what you could expect the average person to know about law?
Ah, right, right. The law that was never actually created in the real-world (hell, I don't think it was ever actually even voted upon -- ISTR that the proposal was considered bugshit crazy even at the time, which is saying something considering it was the 50s) and even if it had been, entirely wouldn't apply to the situation at hand, yes.
And hey, as long as we're on the topic of legal insanity, what about Daredevil 502 and Green Arrow 32? In both of those issues, a judge overturns a jury's Not Guilty verdict and rules the defendant Guilty.
For those not familiar with the American legal system -- this is flat-out impossible. This is 'impeachment on sight' territory. Guilty verdicts can be overturned, and made into not-guilty ones, if the judge has legal cause to. But the reverse is completely impossible. It violates both double jeopardy and the right to jury trials (or more properly the fact that the authority to convict in major criminal cases is vested solely in juries unless the defendant chooses to waive such right), each of which has its own constitutional amendment devoted to making sure it exists. I could claim that Canada was ruled by an Emperor and his cabinet of evil telepathic polar bears, and still be more legally accurate than these two comics were.
The most a judge can do is declare a mistrial, and all that means is that they have to try the dude again (if they don't just drop the charges). Saying 'The jury says you're not guilty, but I sentence you anyway because I just don't agree'? Not in any remotely Western legal system that I am aware of.
And hey, as long as we're on the topic of legal insanity, what about Daredevil 502 and Green Arrow 32? In both of those issues, a judge overturns a jury's Not Guilty verdict and rules the defendant Guilty.
For those not familiar with the American legal system -- this is flat-out impossible. This is 'impeachment on sight' territory. Guilty verdicts can be overturned, and made into not-guilty ones, if the judge has legal cause to. But the reverse is completely impossible. It violates both double jeopardy and the right to jury trials (or more properly the fact that the authority to convict in major criminal cases is vested solely in juries unless the defendant chooses to waive such right), each of which has its own constitutional amendment devoted to making sure it exists. I could claim that Canada was ruled by an Emperor and his cabinet of evil telepathic polar bears, and still be more legally accurate than these two comics were.
The most a judge can do is declare a mistrial, and all that means is that they have to try the dude again (if they don't just drop the charges). Saying 'The jury says you're not guilty, but I sentence you anyway because I just don't agree'? Not in any remotely Western legal system that I am aware of.
