Pros and Cons of A Not Being In A Shared Universe

[I'm a Fish]

From what I've seen, Superman loses to her villains most of the time. In Jimenez' run he was easily defeated by male Cheetah and brainwashed by Circe, in John's JL he was was easily transformed into a werebeast by Cheetah, in SM/WW he was brainwashed by Circe once again. Even in DCAU Giganta gave him a run for his money. Do we count Max Lord? Superman sure gets brainwashed a lot. I believe he defeated Queen of Fables in his own book but even that wasn't an easy fight.

(Everyone gave DCAU Superman a run for his money though, lol)

Yeah, they always brainwash Superman when they want an excuse for him to fight the League. It's on the edge of being a troupe at this point, and it's kind of annoying.

Superman shouldn't be fighting WW villains anyway. He's weak against magic and most of them use magic.

[John Venus]

JLU Giganta tossed Superman around a bit but nothing showed her as a real challenger or superior to him.

OTOH, Cheetah in Batman: Brave and the Bold outright defeated Superman in 1 vs 1 combat using kryptonite laced fingernails and by channeling the full power of Urzkataga. Supes went down like Hulk against Thanos:

[Psy-lock]

JLU Giganta tossed Superman around a bit but nothing showed her as a real challenger or superior to him.

OTOH, Cheetah in Batman: Brave and the Bold outright defeated Superman in 1 vs 1 combat using kryptonite laced fingernails and by channeling the full power of Urzkataga. Supes went down like Hulk against Thanos:

Cheetah also defeated Supergirl in Injustice 2. Looks like she fares quite well against the Superfamilly. It's the Batfamily that gives WW villains a bad rep.

[DochaDocha]

FWIW in the New 52 JL run, G. Johns made it look like Flash had no chance against Cheetah. She was Flash fast, but as Lex Luthor famously told us, she also has razor sharp claws.

But often times I feel like people think Cheetah is essentially Catwoman wearing an alternate costume.

[I'm a Fish]

Cheetah also defeated Supergirl in Injustice 2. Looks like she fares quite well against the Superfamilly. It's the Batfamily that gives WW villains a bad rep.

(She did have to shoot Supergirl with a big laser, though)

At least it makes sense for Cheetah to be able to wreak characters like Superman. Injustice 2 summed up why pretty well, "Kryptonians are vulnerable to magic. And these claws cut, like magic."

The Bat-family makes everyone look bad. I think it comes from the need to justify Batman existence since characters like Wonder Woman and Superman could clean up Gotham in an afternoon (but also like, who cares really).

I also think it comes from a lot of Batman writers just not reading Wonder Woman comics...

[DochaDocha]

BTW, about that The Brave and the Bold episode, if you argue that WW gets respect because Cheetah beats Superman, then you also could easily argue that WW gets disrespected because she gets beaten by the Joker. The show shouldn't be taken too seriously, but that's just some food for thought. Also, the Joker and Harley's abilities really tend to get overstated. It's like saying crazy is a superpower...

[I'm a Fish]

FWIW in the New 52 JL run, G. Johns made it look like Flash had no chance against Cheetah. She was Flash fast, but as Lex Luthor famously told us, she also has razor sharp claws.

But often times I feel like people think Cheetah is essentially Catwoman wearing an alternate costume.

People 100% think Cheetah is essentially Catwoman with an alternate costume, or basically the DC version of Marvel's Tigra. Just a person who spiced herself with some animal DNA so she's just a little above average when it comes to strength, speed etc.

It doesn't help that's the exact backstory JLU gave her. So it could fit the plot of the episode which was "Lex needs the worlds best scientists to help cure him of kryptonite cancer and also take down the JL" which made no sense anyway since almost no one else on the team where scientists and she never once used her knowledge of biology and genetics to help Lex that episode.

And then it snowballed into comics with Catwoman which had a "catfight" between the two cat-themed characters because the writer just couldn't help themselves. (They probably never picked up a WW comic and only watched the cartoon).

[Psy-lock]

I also think it comes from a lot of Batman writers just not reading Wonder Woman comics...

I mostly blame the editors for this. If some writer wants to use Cheetah as a punching bag for the Bat-characters he should be given dozens of reasons why that's ridiculous.

[I'm a Fish]

I mostly blame the editors for this. If some writer wants to use Cheetah as a punching bag for the Bat-characters he should be given dozens of reasons why that's ridiculous.

Yeah, it feels like there's a whole checklist and not a single person goes "hmmm, you know, I know this is comics but even that makes no sense."

And the whole story itself felt like an excuse to have Adam Hughes draw that cover.

Not to mention there's Catwoman: When in Rome which had Catwoman admit Cheetah battles Wonder Woman regularly and Cheetah still looses.

Edit: the sort-of excuse they gave was that Batman can fight Grundy. But Grundy is mostly known as a Batman character. Plus their first fight ends with Cheetah saying the words "catfight" and it really is the only reason these two characters end up in a comic together.
Like, if you're going to make a story with them can you at least add more to it than that.

[Psy-lock]

Not to mention there's Catwoman: When in Rome which had Catwoman admit Cheetah battles Wonder Woman regularly and Cheetah still looses.

Fortunately, When in Rome is a story of dubious canonicity since it's supposed to take place in the early years of Batman's career. Post-Crisis Wonder Woman shouldn't even be around at that point, let alone fighting Cheetah regularly.

[Gaius]

(She did have to shoot Supergirl with a big laser, though)

At least it makes sense for Cheetah to be able to wreak characters like Superman. Injustice 2 summed up why pretty well, "Kryptonians are vulnerable to magic. And these claws cut, like magic."

The Bat-family makes everyone look bad. I think it comes from the need to justify Batman existence since characters like Wonder Woman and Superman could clean up Gotham in an afternoon (but also like, who cares really).

I also think it comes from a lot of Batman writers just not reading Wonder Woman comics...

Yeah, people can point to The Hiketeia as place where Batman's portrayed a jackass chump in-universe and on the losing end of a curb stomp but you can find way more examples of Bat-writers pulling the reverse without even the effort Miller put into having Batman face off against Superman in DKR. And that's not even the times they've tried to pull the arm candy route.

[I'm a Fish]

Fortunately, When in Rome is a story of dubious canonicity since it's supposed to take place in the early years of Batman's career. Post-Crisis Wonder Woman shouldn't even be around at that point, let alone fighting Cheetah regularly.

Ah, that explains why no one talks about it.

Even in Catwoman's ongoing I hear more about how Zatanna was handled than Catwoman. (That's a whole other thing though)

At least the new Catwoman comic has her with her own cast more.

I mean I did say that if you tally indignities suffered among suffered among DC characters, sure, maybe Wonder Woman has a lot, though, I think Superman has probably suffered the most. Like, both Batman and Wonder Woman beat up on him a lot and pretty much everyone else too. To be honest though, I just don't like the concept of Power Levels, I think people treat these comics too much like a game of war where the character with the highest attack wins, which is a mindset that is not conducive for good stories. I'd probably rather read a story where WW fights Angle Man than Doomsday.

I'd take an WW vs Angle Man story over a WW vs Doomsday story any day of the week. Angle Man is a WW character who can use his powers in interesting ways, Doomsday is a plot device with fists that served his purpose but people keep using him for some reason.
Interesting characters always make the fights better.

Yeah, people can point to The Hiketeia as place where Batman's portrayed a jackass chump in-universe and on the losing end of a curb stomp but you can find way more examples of Bat-writers pulling the reverse without even the effort Miller put into having Batman face off against Superman in DKR. And that's not even the times they've tried to pull the arm candy route.

It feels like too many writers have to have Batman win the higher morality card against his friends. Like, no his morality isn't any higher than Superman or Wonder Woman.
And I don't mind Batman pulling out weird gadgets to win a fight, but like you said, put the effort in to have it make sense (as much sense as comics can make anyway ).

Edit: Like Gail Simone usually has characters win in ways I can believe when they do cross over.

[Geraldofrivia]

JLU Giganta tossed Superman around a bit but nothing showed her as a real challenger or superior to him.

OTOH, Cheetah in Batman: Brave and the Bold outright defeated Superman in 1 vs 1 combat using kryptonite laced fingernails and by channeling the full power of Urzkataga. Supes went down like Hulk against Thanos:

Didnt Joker defeat Wonder Woman and entire Amazons in the same episode

[WonderLight789]

But everything is canon now. *infinite frontier or something*



When does Superman fight a WW villain and vice versa? I can only think of them teaming up against their respective villains in Superman/Wonder Woman series and she was fighting kryptonians in that series too. Honestly I haven't read that series in a while, and don't remember much, but that's the only time I can think of Superman fighting WW villains and I think only Apollo got humiliated because Superman absorbs sunlight and Apollo is the sun.

The only WW villains that really get the raw end are Cheetah and Giganta. Because Batman writers insist on having a cat themed villain in their book, and Giganta is just there for the group shots and they don't know what to do with her after.
At least they've been more consistent with Cheetah after Rebirth, I only saw her go up against Batman once since then and he had to be in a mech-suit to pin her (which is still "blah" but, it's a step up).

Not everything is canon now. And WW still has not defeated SM in a canon story. SM does not get it as bad as her let alone worse like somebody else here said.

[I'm a Fish]

Not everything is canon now. And WW still has not defeated SM in a canon story. SM does not get it as bad as her let alone worse like somebody else here said.

Ok, but that's not what my message said.

Plus they would never do an actually fight in a cannon story without mind control, and when that is used that as a plot element it's not about beating Superman but breaking the mind control. She canonically fought Superman twice (that I can think of, someone correct me if I'm wrong, I'm thinking of post-crisis stuff idk if we're going all the way back to silver age here). She didn't defeat him, but he didn't defeat her either. Not to mention, in one of those fights he was enhanced with the doomsday virus, or whatever it was that made him spikey.