METAL: I'm tired of Scott Snyder dumbing down the rest of the Justice League

[daBronzeBomma]

It's stuff like this that makes me really appreciate how much Justice League Action doesn't have Batman involved to the expense of the rest of the League.

No, actually it's usually the other way around where they have their #1 hero constantly being embarrassed and devalued by other heroes or Spider-People .

Spider-Man is probably a bad example: he became Marvel's #1 guy from his Day One because of how he was designed from the start: he is supposed to lose way more often than the typical superhero. He can't get a win without suffering some kind of loss elsewhere. That is what the original appeal of Peter was. He bats .500 in life.

Spider-Man is uniquely positioned to take a constant beating and still hold on to his popularity.

The better example for Marvel is probably Wolverine. How many times has the Hulk jobbed to him to make Logan look more badass than he is?

[Frontier]

Spider-Man is probably a bad example: he became Marvel's #1 guy from his Day One because of how he was designed from the start: he is supposed to lose way more often than the typical superhero. He can't get a win without suffering some kind of loss elsewhere. That is what the original appeal of Peter was. He bats .500 in life.

Spider-Man is uniquely positioned to take a constant beating and still hold on to his popularity.

The better example for Marvel is probably Wolverine. How many times has the Hulk jobbed to him to make Logan look more badass than he is?

Well, I think there's a difference between struggling more then your average hero and being made to look bad or incompetent whenever a team-up with another hero happens or a new Spider-Character is introduced.

Also, Wolverine has jobbed plenty to other people in his day .

[Pinsir]

This is the reason why I find Batman intolerable outside his own comics; in order for Batman to have any purpose in the Justice League everyone else has to be dumbed down. He normally just gives orders at people.

I read Crisis on Infinite Earths a few months ago and I was surprised how little Batman there was, which there should be given the nature of the story.

[Outside_85]

I read Crisis on Infinite Earths a few months ago and I was surprised how little Batman there was, which there should be given the nature of the story.

Mind you, this was the time when Superman could actually outsell Batman and everyone short of NTT was at the mercy of the X-Men Juggernaut.

But I find it kind of strange you say COIE leans it self to a 'natural' Batman story when it's about a cosmic odyssey of such epic proportions a million universes collapses during it?

[Frontier]

This is the reason why I find Batman intolerable outside his own comics; in order for Batman to have any purpose in the Justice League everyone else has to be dumbed down. He normally just gives orders at people.

I read Crisis on Infinite Earths a few months ago and I was surprised how little Batman there was, which there should be given the nature of the story.

This is why Batman on Justice League Action is so great.

Batman is still Batman but he's not portrayed as better ore more effective then the rest of the League. They're all equals and work well together, and Batman isn't some invincible BatGod that makes the rest of the League look dumb or ineffective.

[The Darknight Detective]

But thats the question, does he draw in more readers for this? Or is it just all the people over from the Bat-pool of readers thats buying this? I mean the ultimate goal should be to draw in new readers, not just move the existing pool of readers around a bit.

To be perfectly honest with you, I don't know for sure. Nobody here does, for that matter, unless someone has scientific poll data indicating trends. If marketing data suggests more Bat fans will buy comics featuring this type of story than non-Bat fans will for less Bat-centric plots, guess what will happen?

[Buried Alien]

Batman was underutilized and misused in COIE. He probably should have played a bigger role in that maxiseries as a detective...figuring out what was going on, and where the Flash (Barry Allen) had gone, providing useful intel to his fellow heroes, but then stepping back and letting them deal with it because while his skill as the World's Greatest Detective could be essential in pointing the way, he'd be out of his league and in the way in the confrontation against the Anti-Monitor and the shadow demons.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Outside_85]

This is why Batman on Justice League Action is so great.

Batman is still Batman but he's not portrayed as better ore more effective then the rest of the League. They're all equals and work well together, and Batman isn't some invincible BatGod that makes the rest of the League look dumb or ineffective.

Sadly thats just a rule when it comes to teams on cartoons, they all have to be equal or be specialists within a certain field.

Comics dont follow the same rules, and Batman has arrived at an unfortunate point really through a mix of things going on right now:
-He's the smartest guy in the room, even if surrounded by people thats smarter than him on paper, he will be smarter than them somehow.
-He's virtually infallible when it comes to solutions
-His team (Gotham ppl) are always 100% behind him no matter how big a douche he is to them
-The general consensus is that he is always the good guy (It's never Batman who turns evil or goes too far)
-And he is ultimately always right.

Each of these things are not dealbreakers if they had come in small amounts or appeared here or there, but right now it just sort of feels like it's all the time.

[The Darknight Detective]

Batman was underutilized and misused in COIE. He probably should have played a bigger role in that maxiseries as a detective...figuring out what was going on, and where the Flash (Barry Allen) had gone, providing useful intel to his fellow heroes, but then stepping back and letting them deal with it because while his skill as the World's Greatest Detective could be essential in pointing the way, he'd be out of his league and in the way in the confrontation against the Anti-Monitor and the shadow demons.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Yeah, it was strange the way he was used for that story, though I wasn't angered or upset over it. Surprisingly, some of my favorite stories don't even feature him.

[Outside_85]

To be perfectly honest with you, I don't know for sure. Nobody here does, for that matter, unless someone has scientific poll data indicating trends. If marketing data suggests more Bat fans will buy comics featuring this type of story than non-Bat fans will for less Bat-centric plots, guess what will happen?

Market should remain roughly where it is because, as we seem to hear, event-books like this are bought at the expense of something else.

[Buried Alien]

Yeah, it was strange the way he was used for that story, though I wasn't angered or upset over it. Surprisingly, some of my favorite stories don't even feature him.

I think Wolfman/DC missed an opportunity here. When Barry Allen died, his image appeared before two people: Wally West and Batman. The reasons that Barry would appear before Wally in his dying moments is obvious: he wanted Wally to know what had happened to him and for Wally to carry on in his place. Why appear in Gotham City of Earth-One before Batman, though? To me, that wasn't a random appearance: I think Barry manifested then and there precisely because he knew he didn't have much time, and had to get the word out to someone who could figure out what had happened with minimal info. In the DC Multiverse, who would you entrust with that? The World's Greatest Detective, naturally.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Outside_85]

I think Wolfman/DC missed an opportunity here. When Barry Allen died, his image appeared before two people: Wally West and Batman. The reasons that Barry would appear before Wally in his dying moments is obvious: he wanted Wally to know what had happened to him and for Wally to carry on in his place. Why appear in Gotham City of Earth-One before Batman, though? To me, that wasn't a random appearance: I think Barry manifested then and there precisely because he knew he didn't have much time, and had to get the word out to someone who could figure out what had happened with minimal info. In the DC Multiverse, who would you entrust with that? The World's Greatest Detective, naturally.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Problem is that you didn't need Batman for that bit since you had the Monitor and Harbinger to tell you.

[JBatmanFan05]

Batgod is a myth.

Read the entire JLA run from 97 to 2006. You can literally count on one hand the number of times Batman saves/beats the Justice League.

Also the Justice League of America run starting in 2007....he doesn't do crap in most of the stories.

That's true. A lot of misinformation about Batgod and Morrison's sense of it and use (IMHO it was more just a digging up of Batman in classic comics having planned ahead, unbeknownst to the reader). JLA was very egalitarian in terms of division of saving the day.

[Buried Alien]

Problem is that you didn't need Batman for that bit since you had the Monitor and Harbinger to tell you.

Yeah...necessarily, to make it work, Monitor and Harbinger's roles would need to be adjusted a bit. Of course, Barry didn't know about the Monitor or Harbinger, so his dying image might have sought out Batman anyway.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Triniking1234]

I think Wolfman/DC missed an opportunity here. When Barry Allen died, his image appeared before two people: Wally West and Batman. The reasons that Barry would appear before Wally in his dying moments is obvious: he wanted Wally to know what had happened to him and for Wally to carry on in his place. Why appear in Gotham City of Earth-One before Batman, though? To me, that wasn't a random appearance: I think Barry manifested then and there precisely because he knew he didn't have much time, and had to get the word out to someone who could figure out what had happened with minimal info. In the DC Multiverse, who would you entrust with that? The World's Greatest Detective, naturally.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

I forgot that happened in COIE. I guess that's where BvS got that from.