It was the General, in his first appearance. Batman was able to attempt the hypnosis because the General has human level intelligence, which the Shaggy Man never did before. As you say, Superman messed up the attempt, but he was not able to subdue the General, yeah he has kryptonian level strength, the General is just as strong. Batman directs the strong members, Supes and WW, to hit the General through a particular wall, which does not even make him woozy, but does place him on a cargo teleporter, they use to beam him to an asteroid. This just pisses him off, but he can’t get back from there on his own.
So the Batman comes up with one plan to stop the villain, which his teammate messes up by accident (And the Batman never yelled at Superman about it, he just said one sentence trying to stop him. And he wasn’t upset because Supes was “unsubtle”, just frustrated that the situation had almost been under control.) so Bats immediately comes up with another plan, and his teammates do what he tells them, without knowing the reason. (It was literally “Hit him at that angle, through that wall over there”, during battle.) And this plan works perfectly. That is why they have him hand out with the JLA.
And every instance of Batman beating Superman comes from incredible writer contrivance i.e. Batman having every advantage and preparation, Superman holding back, Superman not using his powers like anyone with a brain would and easily beating a human, etc
No. Superman’s no dummy. Written intelligently, and without need for narrative drama, he’d disarm and take out Batman in a split second. But that doesn’t make for a good comic I guess.
I mean, in one comic Superman can move Batman hundreds of yards in a split second (a horde of rampaging mutant rats is coming to them. Batman says something and in mid-sentence Superman moves him far away and goes back to fight, Batman finishes his sentence before he even realizes he’d been moved and then utters “I hate it when he does that”) but when they’re fighting Superman loses that ability.
Whatever it is, it’d probably be something utterly stupid .
I mean christ, for Green Lantern, the plan was to sneak up on him while he was asleep without his ring in his apartment and whisper hypnotic suggestions at him so that when he puts on his ring he goes blind.
Why even bother doing all that crap? Why not just shoot him or kick his ass while he’s sleeping.
And apparently if Green Lantern were to go all rogue supervillain, he’d still be sleeping in his apartment without his ring and without any defenses.
It only really works because every high powered superhero in DC universe has a convienient built in Achillie’s heel for batman to exploit (Superman’s Kryptonite, Green Lantern’s Yellow*, Martian Manhunter’s fire etc), but even still, it seems ridiculous. There are enough near godlike people wandering around that no amount of preparation would help. How is it supposed to help against someone like the Flash?
Flash “I have gone evil. Say your prayers Batman”
Batman “Good job I have a…”
…and he’s dead. And that is Flash taking it slow.
*may not be vulnerable to yellow (at the moment)
You’re not quite seeing just how Mary-Sueish Batman is in his preparations. Not only does he have a plan for when The Flash goes rogue, he’s probably drawn up every possible reason why he would, most of the possibles how he would, and what would be the warning signs days before it actually happened. So the showdown would, memetically at least, boil down to:
Flash “I have gone evil. Say your-”
Batman “I know. That’s why I injected some slowdown drugs in your Coke last week. Eat batarang, punk”.
Haven’t read the infamous JLA story, but wouldn’t the good part of post-hypnotic suggestions be that they can be implanted in advance while the subject is your friend ?
I wouldn’t bat (ha!) an eye at, for example “oh yes, Bats has been breaking and entering in the Fortress of Solitude every night for the past 6 months and whispered sweet nothings at Superman in his sleep so that when the day comes and they have to throw down, all he has to do is utter some obscure command-phrase and Superman thinks he’s a chicken”. After all, Bats has even implanted himself with a code phrase to keep himself in check in case the Bruce Wayne persona was psychically wiped from his brain, so… (or something like that - the Zur-En-Arrh plotline was pretty weird and Grant Morrison-like )
Flash : “Oh no, my powers have deserted me, just when I needed them most”
Batman : “Yeah, you were looking a bit grumpy last week, so I thought I’d better spike your coke. My bad”
I got to agree that the recent overdrive of Batman’s abilities are putting a damper on things. Given prep time and ideal circumstances, I could see him taking out pretty much any other member of the universe, but reality hardly ever happens like that. As soon as something goes wrong, Bats is lunchmeat.
As an aside, i don’t know about the more recent incarnations of Killer Croc, but originally Waylon Jones had no real meta abilities. He had unusually toughened skin from his medical condition that also gave him a hideous appearance, was an extremely large and powerful man, but otherwise is no different from any other human off the street. He was basically a rather ugly, seven foot, power-lifter that wrestled in sideshows and prizefights for money. THAT Jones managed to kick Batman’s ass a few times until Bats got wise to his tricks and used a better plan than going toe to toe with him. He has been retconned so much now that he is basically the equivalent of The Lizard, which is a shame, as he was a good character before.
In the TOWER OF BABEL story, what’s key is shooting the Flash in the back. We’d previously seen the Flash get shot in the back – same writer, even – and it wasn’t a big deal: a bullet passes right through him, as his super reflexes let him start vibrating the split-second he feels it hit.
He starts vibrating this time, likewise – but it’s Bruce Wayne’s crazily vibrating projectile to the back, so spine ahoy.
)