Batman does not take criticism well

[thebigapricot]

Here's a two page story, "Lost Pages" from JLA Secret Files & Origins. Written by Mark Waid,it takes place following the events of "Tower of Babel" with the the cape community still miffed by Bats' keeping of secret files on them.

Batman ="I'm rubber and you're glue, whatever I fuck up bounces off me and sticks on you."

That face on Bats just cracks me up. And poor Supes.
But we know that Bats and Babs work well as a team. Here's they are making a startling discovery. Love Shortpacked.


Tags
creator:Mark Waid, char: batman/bruce wayne, char: batgirl/oracle/barbara gordon, char: superman/clark kent

Comments

[xammax]

Bruce should randomly say I'm Batman in the comics.

As for the Tower of Babel, at the core issues of Batman having those kinds of plans; I think he was right. Everyone else is prepared to save the world from teammates gone rouge, the thing that brought him to the dance was his ability to plan.

[q99]

The funny thing is, as we saw in Justice League: League of One, Wonder Woman doesn't really *need* plans.

She did essentially the same thing on the fly.

[cygna_hime]

Well, yes, having the plans is a good idea. Storing them anywhere other than in his personal brain under as many mental shields as a vanilla mortal could devise? NOT A GOOD IDEA. It's like your PIN; if you can't just remember it, you shouldn't have it in the first place. Except with a PIN someone can only hack your bank account, as opposed to the Justice League.

[halialkers]

Plans are a good idea. The problem is that discovering plans is ridiculously easy in today's world of the Internet and the busting of attempts to conceal something. In fact, in the DCU, there might be a possibility that such plans could be unveiled via something like Wikileaks.......

[icon_uk]

See, I LIKED Batman having the take-down options, his logic was sound, and borne out by past experience. Yes, his security measures were breached, but the cave HAD been hit by a ruddy earthquake, and it's not like the other JLA members haven't had unfortunate security lapses and trust issues,

This though, is trying too hard to show that Batman just IS a completely thoughtless, compassionless dick. I like the notion that it has ripples on the other Batclan, but Batman WOULD be upset by those implications. Since it was Mark Waid who wrote the "Tower of Babel" story in the first place, this just comes across as trying hard to justify it, and it just doesn't work for me.

[minyandu.livejournal.com]

......I haven't read this one but I suppose he was upsetting......Nothing show he was upsetting in other pages I haven't seen? O_o

[sistermagpie]

Seconded.

[halialkers]

Problem is that if a sufficiently Dangerously Genre Savvy supervillain reads the Evil Overlord list and figures these out, well.......Batman just gave him the key to take out six Meta heavyweights. So.......

*nods*

[angel_negra]

I'm with you here. I'll never get why people would see this as a problem. Batman has NO powers, how else would he be expected to stop a colleague who's been turned evil/cloned/gone mad/mishap of the week? They know that no civilians would have a chance of stopping superheroes, heck, this is the whole reason superheroes protect them from supervillains.

*shakes head* Honestly, more people should follow Batman's example here.

[jlbarnett]

the cave was breached by the NML's quake and that's how it happened? Then he should have deleted them and recreated them somewhere else.

[alienist]

I thought his silence was meant to indicate that he did regret the effect it was having - Barbara told him to speak up if it didn't.

I agree, though. The League is coming off worse here than Batman to me.

[cygna_hime]

As mentioned above, I'm fine with Batman *having* these plans. It's smart and paranoid, two things Batman is good at. But putting them somewhere anyone else could ever under any circumstances find them is neither. The same paranoia that drove him to have a plan for taking down Wonder Woman should've driven him to keep said plan buried in the back of his head, the only place it needed to be -- what, was he going to forget them?

[minyandu.livejournal.com]

Ah, I only red Matien Manhunter's story of this series before. This one looks good too.
I think Babs' reaction is really calm enough here. If my boss freaks somebody, I won't mind them throw things back at him. But just him. If they try to throw things at me, I won't care if they could find Madagascar on the map all by themselves.

[junipepper]

I think I've figured out the meaning of his expression in page 2, second panel: It's horrified disbelief at Barbara having what appears to be a Superman mug on her desk.

If she'd had a Batman mug, he'd have apologized.

[alienist]

Clearly she needs to show him her Batman plushie.

[halialkers]

Y'know, the problem with that kind of thing is a sufficiently Dangerously Genre Savvy villain could simply use them all and neutralize the rest of the JLA in a heartbeat. The secondary problem is that if his ideas fail even slightly he'dve started a DCU Civil War.

A good point, that said...

[angel_negra]

Yeah, but really, a lot of the smarter villains already do this, with their own files, or networking/leagues of their own.

Sure there's a risk that Batman's info could get into the wrong hands, just like there's a risk that Superman will be brainwashed into trying to kill his teammates, or someone mind-melding with J'onn and getting all his mental info on the team, or someone turning Hal evil again and using all his various knowledge. Heck, someone mentioned up-thread that Wonder Woman was able to take out the team on her own when needed.

[jaybee3]

I really can't read this scene the same in retrospect of Identity Crisis - especially since DC has been pushing the mind-wipes being behind a lot of Bruce's paranoia and contingency plans (even if he couldn't remember exactly what his "friends" did to him). Have we ever seen any of the Bat-Crew confront the JLAers over what they did to Batman? Oracle to Black Canary? Nightwing to Green Arrow or Green Lantern? Tim to The Atom? Alfred to Zatanna (even when she was staying at the Manor during the Dini run). The only people who have seemed seriously POed at the whole Bat mind-wiping thing was Wally West (not any of Bruce's "family") even though everybody and their brother knows, considering its Batman we're talking here, that a lot of his behavior could be explained because of it (indeed DC/Johns used the paranoia caused by the mind-wipes as the excuse for both the Batjerk phase and Brother Eye). Yet another problem caused by Identity Crisis which DC has ignored. I refuse to believe that Dick or Babs weren't seriously disturbed by what was done to Bruce by their unrepentant friends (the only people who have ever actually apologized for the incident were Zee and Ollie).

[arysteia]

I agree. While Batman can go overboard, he was provided with clear evidence, in the worst possible way, that a faction of the JLA was prepared to go rogue, and take the law into their own hands. And cover it up.

[kenn_el]

Zee didn't spend hours planning how to take Bats down. I don't condemn him for having contingency plans. And I only condemn Metzger for Zee's behavior, as it was retconned into her history.

[starwolf_oakley]

I understand there was supposed to be a scene in BIRDS OF PREY when Babs and Dinah would discuss Mindwipe Inc. Maybe with BIRDS OF PREY an active series again, it will be mentioned.

It certainly would be a more interesting conversation than the "Don't marry Oliver Queen" issue.

[glprime]

I, uh... already posted these pages.

In my Oracle mega-posts.

*cricket chirp*

Y'... you guys...catch those?

[kingrockwell]

I remember 'em, though I never had time to read through 'em till long after they were posted.
and there's nothing wrong with reposting pages after a few months

[kingrockwell]

Hey, any chance you could clue me in on the artist of the JLA story? Thanks.

[thebigapricot]

Of course. Pencils by Steve Scott, Ink by Mark Popst.

[sallymustard]

LOL that is such a constipated face.

[aaron_bourque]

Fuck off, Tower of Babel.