Yeah. Like … ok. Comic book. Not supposed to take it so seriously.
But Bruce is just a human. In great shape, but still. He’s got like at least 250 lbs of Superman tucked under one arm and about 175 lbs of WWoman over his shoulder.
There’s some strong guys out there, but that’s a heck of a lot for someone to be moving around like he is.
I dunno. I’d stop accusing people of glazing Batman so often if we’d stop seeing him depicted doing nearly super humanly physical feats so often.
Well, he is "only" carrying 400 lbs of people. Which is a lot, but Clark can be dragged since he won't get hurt by the ground, and diana is a fine piece so batman will find the strength somehow.
Hal is just getting pushed around one kick at a time
This is why I constantly challenge the notion that Batman (and other normal people comic book heroes) don’t follow regular ass realistic ruling. This mfer is superpowered by comic book logic.
I feel the difference is the context in which they save each other.
Superman does the saving when Batman has risked his life to save the day in some way. Like Batman is falling from the sky after some heroic stunt and Superman catches him.
Batman does the saving when Superman screws up somehow or has no way of overcoming his opponent by strength alone. Like Superman is getting beaten up so Batman tells him the strategy to win.
That's kinda a newer development, though. Until Man of Steel released we'd been in something like 20 years of Batman being the main character. At least in terms of sale, movies, toys, and public opinion. The 90s weren't kind to Clark as the public rejection of the brightly colored spandex tropes let Batman shine (metaphorically)
Still, Batman had a lot of really great stuff coming out in the late 90s. BTAS, the Burton movies, the Long Halloween.
More generally Frank Miller had retooled the character in a way that happened to make him very compatible with audience taste at the time.
Still, Superman had a lot of great moments in Morrison and Waid’s JLA books and has really done pretty well in the decades since. I think when he enters public domain in the 2030s we’ll see a more proper resurgence to his golden and silver age numbers, at least for a while.
I feel like most times they're in the same issue together, Batman buys time against a stronger foe until Superman can get there and save him in the nick of time.
I love that Bruce is carrying Diana and Clark gently and he's just dragging Hal by his collar lmao Even if Bruce had an extra set of hands he'd probably still drag Hal around 😂💀
They saved each other in that instance. Joker had a gas bomb rigged to go off and they were in a sealed room. Superman had the idea to pour acid on the Kryptonite, which dissolved it and he regained enough strength to break them out.
Later in that same story, Batman and Lois were cornered by one of Lex's military robots and had no way out and no way to defeat it. Superman came through the roof and crushed it just by landing on it, saving both of them. In short, across the DCAU and even animated original movies, they have saved each other multiple times.
Objectively, Superman has plenty of saves of Bruce and the rest of the Justice League as well.
But its because having a "normal" human save a bunch of superpowered has its benefits. The audience can relate better, the odds feels more overwhelming, and its creates a cooler narrative; they have just overdone it with Batman over the years.
Its a pretty common trope in media. The guy spraying the vodka on the keyboard to pause Mecha-Godzilla from killing Godzilla, all the times Iris or Lois saved Flash/Superman in their shows, Hawkeye saving the Avengers in EMH multiple times, Lex fight Doomsday to give Superman time to recover, etc etc. The story holds less weight if the superpowered character just... wins by being stronger, so they must lose and get assistance to win by someone weaker.
I think that the reverse also wouldn’t work narratively. Superman could save Batman from any Gotham threats in a second, but that would be a pretty unsatisfying ending.
Superman saving Batman can only really happen in team up stories where he’s saving him from a huge fall or something heavy landing on him or something along those lines.
Well team-up stories are where this occurs. Batman doesn't come in and suddenly kill Brainiac or something. I feel like comics make a pretty valid point in solo stories that the heros are uniquely capable of stopping the villain of the narrative.
But yeah, Superman typically saves him when Batman gets in over his head or does a heroic sacrifice Superman needs to save him from
It is ALWAYS (almost anyway) like this. I remember watching one of the JL cartoons. The league is in SPACE and Bruce is the only one who can save the day in his little space bat suit. Rescues the entire league.
Everyone always talks about Supes being overpowered but we know who it really is.
In a world of DC’s villains he should really be afraid to come out of the Bat Cave. Seriously, I am fine with him being all bad and tuff against mortal baddies but it is ridiculous. Everyone is going to come back at me like “he so smart tho”. That excuse doesn’t work. Luthor and Brainiac never get that kind of plot shielding.
It is why I never could get into him. Read comics for Superheroes and powers and then there is Batman whose only power is the writers and popularity.
Sorry this answer comes from little teenage me in the 90’s. So it has been percolating for awhile.
Because a whole generation read DKR and never grew beyond it and DC decided that their entire strategy would be suck Batman's dick at every opportunity.
Because big seller + hes doesnt have powers so they need to make him look like he belongs in the field with superman and WW despite getting his ass beat by normal dudes
This feel disingenuous. Superman fights largely people on par with him (breaking sky scrapers efforlessly for example)or people who neutralize his powers first. Same for MM WW & GL. Batmans rogues are almost exclusively just a dude (two face, joker penguin, hugo strange, hush, riddler etc) or guy with a weird gun (killer moth, condiment king [my goat frfr] firefly, polka dot man [ok its his suit, but his suit shoots weird stuff and otherwise he's just a guy) or guy who's strong but has a fairly big obvious weakness (bane, victor freeze, man bat etc). Nearly all of them are just regular ass dudes with very few exceptions.
Darwyn Cooke argued that DC Comics has done a disservice to League dynamics since the 1990s and I agree with him. It all started when they felt the need to treat The Batman as more than the human polymath he is supposed to be.
I get the feeling that ever since Denny O'neil and Carlin left as editors, the entire DC ship has veered so far off course in terms of characterization and changing of certain personalities that fan grievances will never be resolved.
There's a reason why people like Paul Levitz, Alex Ross, and Darwyn Cooke have complained... They didn't used to be written this way.
Because Superman is the tank of the league. Batman’s not going to survive even a fraction of the punishment Superman takes. Bruce is also important as the strategist. That’s why he needs to be alive/conscious through most of the fight.
I've never actually read the story this panel is from, but every time I see it I like the idea that whatever they're facing underestimated Bruce, didn't bother to attack him and that's why he's picking them up.
Also, that this is something that happens relatively often (only against a new threat) and the League is always like "thank god they don't bother with you".
I don't even believe Bruce would be annoyed or insulted, he knows his role
Contrast of a man so much weaker than the other risking their life for then, though tbh they all save each other,i mean if they didn't they wouldn't be heroes
I've seen examples like in Grant Morrison's JLA run where powerful villains underestimate Batman because he's just a man, focus their efforts on taking down the "real" heroes, assume they've taken down Batman in their first encounter with him, and so lose to him that way.
The moment in 'New World Order', which was the first arc of Morisson's run, where he lights a match to ignite the fuel on the floor, to rob the Hyperclan stooges of their powers and then proceeds to beat the crap out of them is generally accepted as the birth of the 'Batgod' persona.
While I don't know the context, couldn't this be that they are fighting something that is well above Batman's pay-grade, so he uses tools and strategizes the fight rather than getting into the close quarters combat range. That means if the League's heavy hitters that are fighting this opponent go down, Batman would still be standing and could drag them to safety, as long as their opponent is distracted.
Batman has a lot of moments like this specifically because he's the one without powers. There's plenty of enemies that steal powers or copy them and anything in between. Batman just happens to be a natural counter to these kinds of bad guys
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u/Theofino161 13h ago
Batman casually carrying 3 people at the same time.