Scans_Daily

That wasn't actually the case in this story though, was it? IIRC, this one ended with the JLA unmasking to each other to rebuild trust, and Batman was the first to reveal himself as Bruce Wayne.

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byc

I think it was the next arc, after Batman quit, and then he helped because it's the right thing to do.

And then he basically apologizes by unmasking himself first.

IIRC.

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tcampbell1000

Depends on when you think it ended. They voted Batman out of the League after dealing with Ra's, and that rift took some time to heal.

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q99

A heart attack isn't even fatal to WW! And eventually she's gonna realize it's an illusion...

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shadowpsykie

that's the point I think. all his plans were meant to disable them. not kill them. Ras might have altered it to kill I think . but bruce only wanted to disable them.

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He set J'onn's skin on fire

Edited Date: 2017-08-29 08:43 pm (UTC)

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"How to incapacitate J'Onn without hurting him. Idea one: Set him on fire. Idea two...
...
...
Huh."

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Yeah, it's hard to think of another Martian weakness, especially one that Batman could exploit on his lonesome. Stick them in the Phantom Zone? The Hyperclan broke out more than once, and if other Leaguers went bad as well, they could easily retrieve them.

Who has successfully bottled up a Martian for an extended period of time, other than other Martians?

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Sedate and flash freeze him. If he can't think then he can't shapeshift, phase, telepathically attack or physically break out.

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Can Martians be frozen? They hang out in deep space and the Arctic/Antarctic just fine. For that matter, J'onn's been to modern Mars, and its mean temperature is around -90 degrees Fahrenheit.

And even if you can freeze his body, would that actually stop J'onn's thought processes? Comic book telepaths have an irritating tendency to be partially independent from their physical brains; I wouldn't be surprised if he could get up to some astral shenanigans even in that state. After all, this is the guy who merged with the entire planet Mars in DC One Million.

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Bruce presumably has access to some heavy duty cold science, he just needs to reverse engineer Mr. Freeze and/or Captain Cold's guns. Captain Cold can affect Flash of all people and he's a walking kinetic energy bomb

And that's why I said sedate him first, make his mind groggy with drugs so that he can't focus his thoughts properly. Having secondary layers of security is just good sense. Between the drugs and the cold, he shouldn't have the presence of mind to use any of his abilities. Hell once he's down figure out a way to block him from using his telepathy (special metal helmet, other telepaths that are on Bruce's side, tesla coils that trap the psychic energy inside, etc.)

From:

bruinsfan

A Flash could also take him down by leaching off enough energy to slow him down effectively into stasis.

That, or objects that transmute elements and could drop him into an inert state that can be reversed. The Matter Master's Mentachem Wand, the Philosopher's Stone, maybe the Orb of Ra...

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q99

Set him on fire *in a way that couldn't be extinguished*.

Frankly, someone like J'onn who has a built in weakness shouldn't have a plan. If there's a plan on how to deploy the weakness just lying around, it can be found and countered, while there's a dozen ways to do it on the fly.

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burkeonthesly

And those super-fast seizures Flash is having. Can't long, untreated seizures cause lasting brain damage?

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icon_uk

Again, Ra's upped the lethality ante on Bruce's plans.

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So what was Bruce's plan for Wally that didn't involve nonstop seizures?
Or setting J'onn's skin on fire so that it couldn't be extinguished?

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You mentioned sedatives, and those work great on Flashes; you just have to feed them enough to keep up with their metabolism. Bats probably planned to give Wally a seizure for just long enough to put him under.

As for J'onn--I'd imagine that Bruce could deactivate the original version of the nanites at will? I mean, I hope he'd give them an off switch.

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I feel like pumping so many drugs into Wally to try to keep up with his metabolism is a good way to force him to OD.

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burkeonthesly

How can her own brain lie to her while she's got the lasso of truth on her hip?

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q99

Hm, depends on how the VR chip works really.... and I don't think she's necessarily touching the lasso while it's hanging there.

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deh_tommy

I think the Lasso's passive abilities have long since been quietly retconned at this point and said lasso only properly takes effect when one is bound, otherwise she wouldn't be brainwashed or possessed like she has been in the past (like Final Crisis, or Justice League vs. Suicide Squad, and she didn't start fighting Trigon's influence until Superman tied her up with the lasso in Justice League vs. Teen Titans).

That, and I think she's in a coma (or at least some sort of fugue state) at this moment.

Edited Date: 2017-08-30 06:48 pm (UTC)

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deh_tommy

To be fair, they were slightly altered to be lethal, and were only intended to stun or incapacitate. I think they were only supposed to be temporary setbacks to the intended victim until Batman safely dispatched of them, before Ra's al Ghul coopted the plans.

Batman tried the same trick again against Wonder Woman in Scott Snyder's Endgame, except instead of being forced to fight an endless horde of enemies until her heart gave out, she was tricked into thinking that she had killed him.

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lbd_nytetrayn

This is what I was thinking, designed to incapacitate so that they could be brought in and hopefully cured or otherwise brought around.

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shadowpsykie

I never saw a problem with Bruce doing this. He stood with gods who could easily become monsters by a sufficiently skilled villain. he'd be a fool not to have a plan. I know people use this as an example of batdickery, but to me, it's plain smart.

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lego_joker

I've never thought about this before, but I think part of the reason people were so pissed was because Bruce usually isn't *half* this proactive or cruel with his usual villains, who *are already monsters*.

If he's gonna go to the trouble of rigging up a whole VR simulation on the off-chance Wonder Woman might go bad, surely it wouldn't be too much to ask that he keep Scarecrow constantly flooded with holographs or birds (a childhood fear of Crane's, according to several writers), or stick Ivy on the moon where there's not a plant in sight?

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deepspaceartist

Thing is, he does keep this sort of stuff around for his villains. Heating devices for Freeze, antidotes for previously encountered formulas of fear toxin and joker venom, etc. And he usually is shown to be providing the police and Arkham with the means to safely contain them. It's just that most of the big fancy tricks like the one used on the League here are only good for one or two uses, and then the villains figure out ways around them. So while the League gets his first big ideas for taking them down, the villains have been through so many that hitting them with new ones is just not cost or time effective compared to good old fashioned bat-themed violence.

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deh_tommy

"I know people use this as an example of batdickery, but to me, it's plain smart."

Why can't that be both?

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riddler13

That's when Batman went full on Batjerk during the Waid JLA run.

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zachbeacon

Wasn't he playing head games with the Robins long before that?

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riddler13

Ah yes, but I meant in the Waid JLA stories.

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The worst part was in JLA #50.

"I'm smart enough to know how each member of the JLA thinks. So I know you were the one who cast the deciding vote to kick me out, Clark!"

Edited (autocorrect is strange) Date: 2017-08-30 01:57 am (UTC)

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q99

Oh, historical note: This is when Red Kryptonite is introduced to post-crisis continuity, it didn't show up before now.

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trooper924

Though, several years beforehand, Mxyztplk did give Lex Luthor a chunk of red kryptonite that took away Superman's powers, but the DC wiki classifies that as a separate variety of kryptonite, "Krimson Kryptonite", I guess because it was artificially created through magic.

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Ah, yes. Mxyztplk told Luthor "It will stop working if you tell Superman how you got it." Luthor told Clark Kent. It stopped working. Luthor thought Mxyztplk had tricked him. Luthor is an idiot.

That also ended with Clark proposing to Lois and Lois accepting... And Lois didn't know The Big Secret yet.

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trooper924

Yep. I should ask for scans of that story the next time we do requests.

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bradygirl_12

Intellectually, sure, makes sense for Batman to have plans to stop the JLA. Also sensible to keep them secret.

Emotionally? Still feels like a betrayal (emotions are not logical, as Spock would tell you). And if Batman was in his phase of treating his colleagues with little respect (i.e., like dirt), the other heroes might not be as inclined to forgive him quickly. Act like a d-bag, don't expect hosannas when you do something like this.

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