In fairness to Ruckas second run, for as much as the Diana/Steve stuff may turn people off, Perez did a bit more to inflict the Diana/Clark ship teasing on us than anything that really came before it. They are also on equal footing on giving us a bland Etta who is just an accessory to Steve, though arguably Perez is worse because he established it first. Or at least heavily reinforced it after the Bronze age.
I do think his second run deserves more credit for setting up a lot of potentially cool interpersonal dynamics between the female villains that unfortunately have rarely been followed up on. I honestly don't think Steve as a love interest gets in the way of any of that all that much despite being the main love interest again. Another woman (Barbara) still comes across as the deuteragonist in the run over Steve
Even after their first date where Diana has second thoughts, they still did ship tease them, like in their interaction where she asks for Clark Kent to come to the Feast of Five, and he suggests Lois instead. Intentionally or not, it may have planted the seed for later stuff like their trip to Asgard and general being another romantic rival to Lois when a better alternative could have been just not touching any SM/WW romance period.
Of course, Rucka also managed to squeeze in some light Diana/Bruce ship teasing at their new canon meeting in Rebirth, and that's a thousand times worse
Morrison is one of the few who makes it work. And really, the only reason the Batgod doesn't work most of the time isn't because of anything involving Bruce, it's because writers dumb everyone else down to lift him up.
Now, I prefer a grounded Batman who can't pull trillion dollar space stations, ultra rare materials, and warmechs, all out of his ass like it ain't no thing. But I don't dislike the notion of Bruce being, in his own way, just as capable as the other Leaguers and it's certainly easier using him on that team when he does have a few crazy toys at his disposal. I just dislike it when everyone else is made less than they are for his benefit. And I don't get why so many Bat fans have no issue with that; by dumbing down Diana and Barry and Clark and the rest, just so Bruce has something to contribute, the writer is basically saying that Bruce can't hang with these guys when they're at their best, that *he* isn't good enough so everyone else has to lower themselves down to his level so he isn't inadequate. I'd expect Bat fans to be the loudest in decrying this treatment.
Don't write everyone else as an idiot, give them badass moments that play to their strengths. Everybody looks good. Everybody is happy. It's not hard.
Last edited by Ascended; 05-16-2022 at 02:44 PM.
"We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe."
~ Black Panther.
I feel like this stuff is also why Bruce is pushed to "billionaire" status in terms of wealth, when the character (especially in this day and age) would probably be better served as "just" being a millionaire.
He has to be wealthy just for the basics of the character to work, but making him one of the richest people on the entire planet so he can afford to bust out mecha suits, have 100s of Batmobiles at the ready and fund the entire JL operation (when he doesn't need to- Superman alone can access all the stuff they need before we start factoring in stuff like Amazonian and Atlantean connections) is serious overkill. He'd work just as well as one of the wealthier figures in Gotham, but doesn't even have to be the wealthiest.
I was toying with the idea of a Satellite-era League team that didn't include the Big Seven, and it struck me that Elongated Man would be the team detective, Black Canary would be the team melee specialist, the Hawks would supply the ubertech through their alien connections, Firestorm would be their science-guy, etc. So many of them would end up taking on roles that Batman, *by himself*, covers for the Big Seven.
It seemed like he'd been expanded over years to be kind of indispensible, and all the rest of the League got downgraded to just collections of powers, since he'd already taken all of the skills and backgrounds and resources niches.
And yet everything Batman brings to the table, the other Big 7 are also capable of bringing. Barry is a scientist. J'onn is a detective. Clark's more than a bit of both. He, Arthur, and Diana all have easy access to advanced resources, and Lantern can mimic tons of resources. Diana's a terribly skilled combatant even before we consider her powers. Bruce is better at some of these things than the others, and frees up some of their time by handling it while they're doing more superhuman-y things, but the only place he really shines that the others don't at all is stealth...and to a lesser extent, tactical planning; Diana is a skilled general but isn't as good at strategy as Batman.
And those things alone make Bruce League worthy, he doesn't have to be the bestest ever at all the best things the best people do bestly.
"We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe."
~ Black Panther.
Only if the writer is on auto-pilot.
Actually, even then that's not an excuse. People love ninjas. Batman's a ninja. Have him sneak down a hallway full of bad guys without being seen or something. If all the colorful, loud heroes are in a fight and you can't think of something deviously fun for Bruce to be doing while everyone is distracted then you shouldn't be writing Bruce.
"We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe."
~ Black Panther.
No. Batman being a steathy ninja sneaking down a hallway full of bad guys without being seen, and the Flash being a human-sized projectile trying to run down said hallway so fast you can't see him only for the sonic boom and turbulence in his wake to end up destroying the hallway, probably the building said hallway is in, and any possibility of him being actually "stealthy", are not the same damn thing at all.