Rate batman/superman relation/bromance

[manwhohaseverything]

So as the title suggests,rate batman/superman relationship from overall viewpoint..Share your feelings regarding the same.1 is bad .5 is good.Overall enjoyment, relatablity..etc from the relationship you have gotten from all the stories you have read.

[The Frog Bros]

Debating the numeric value but I do prefer their bromance as depicted most recently by Yang in Batman/Superman and Waid's current World's Finest. Both are among my fave recent runs period.

(That is, as opposed to the more antagonistic type relationship.)

[K7P5V]

All things considered, Post-Crisis will always be my preference...

[Last Son of Krypton]

I think Superman deserves better friends... someone that doesn't have secret backup plans to defeat him.

[The World]

Bruce wasn't Clark's friend after COIE's. Clark was portrayed as generically cordial and Bruce was an irrational smug rich kid. They were taking a Pre-Crisis concept slapping it into Post-Crisis and it fundamentally didn't work. The relationship requires some level of nuanced writing to work, there's got to be more to Clark than "generic nice guy, there's got to be more to Bruce than "I'm angry because my parents died." or it just doesn't work.

Pre-Crisis is an easy 5/5. Created comics most iconic friendship.

Post-Crisis is a 2/5. Effectively the Post-Crisis writers just couldn't manage to wrap their minds around it. They were focused on simplification first and the World Finest Bromance doesn't do well under those kind of rule imo.

[Hoodj]

Richest Prep Kid and God Mod Jock, meh.

[Ascended]

Not sure how to vote here. Is 1 good or bad? Friend or foe? Are we supposed to be judging their printed history, and if so the whole eighty+ thing, or a specific era, or what?

Anyway. For myself, I can go either way on the S/B bromance. They can be good as friends, they can be good as rivals. Waid's S/B is one of the best things I'm reading and one of the most fun, feel good comics DC has made since Smashes the Klan. But I do kinda miss the old antagonism, not gonna lie. They're allowed to call each other out on their bullshit in ways nobody else gets away with, though Diana and Dick do come close. And I liked that friction between them, that acknowledgement that while both are good, Bruce is lawful and Clark's more neutral-skewing-chaotic.

Allies or frenemies what I don't like is a lack of nuance in their dynamic. Like, when writers take a Loeb approach to things, and it's all "hey guys, guys, look, they're day and night, see? Clark's the day, like the sun is shining get it, and Bruce is the night 'cause it's dark, but like, y'know, he's a Knight!? Pretty slick right?" Stuff like that isn't necessarily wrong, it's just thin and can end up treating both characters like caricatures of themselves.

If I had to pick my personal preference/approach, I like the idea of them as....not friends, but brothers. I think there's a lot of mutual respect, understanding and love between these two guys but I think deep down, they drive each other nuts and don't particularly *like* each other a lot yet spend a ton of time together and, generally speaking, get along. I like a little Kingdom Come in my S/B bromance I guess?

And I'm fascinated by the idea that they're each other's final challenge. Like, someday the last thing standing in the way of Clark remaking the world, setting us on a course for the Legion's bright future and thus shaping humanity in his image...the last threat to that will be Bruce. Because the world Bruce, consciously or not, wants to build maybe can't co-exist with Clark's. Bruce wants a world that is safe and orderly, Clark one that's free and open, and those aren't the same thing. When all the villains and other distractions are gone, are these two still allies or are their goals actually opposed in a few critical ways? Brothers, always. Allies? Maybe not.

And I know that whole "rival brothers" thing is done to death in genres like this, every genre really, but still. The thought sticks with me.

[manwhohaseverything]

Not sure how to vote here. Is 1 good or bad? Friend or foe? Are we supposed to be judging their printed history, and if so the whole eighty+ thing, or a specific era, or what?

1 is bad ...i should have put it in the title.Sorry.Overall enjoyment, relatablity,feelings..etc from the relationship you have gotten from all the stories you have read.You can even compare to other bromances in fiction.

[Jon Clark]

When it was the World's Finest back when Batman wasn't always trying to be top dog it was easily a 5.

Once writers kept trying to push Batman as an alpha-dog wannabe it fell to a 2 (often below zero depending on the writer).

Of course, Superman being freinds with the Denny O'Neal Batman makes a lot more sense than being friends with Ben Affleck's paranoid version or Frank Miller's cynical strategy take. And Batman dealing with someone he respects rather than a powerful being who is always unsure or misguided makes a better freindship as well. The problem Post-Crisis is the way the writers need to show Bruce as ubercompetent and Clark as needing Batman's help whenever the two meet. Instead of "Superman tackles the villain's planrt threatening weapon while Batman infiltrates the headquarters" we more often get "Batman instructs Superman how to defeat the weapon and then saves Superman's bacon against the villain"

[Jackalope89]

It really depends. Bruce being kind of difficult for most people to get along with, sure. But if its shown that the two go back to the early days of both of their careers, when Bruce wasn't so emotionally constipated, and are still friends, then yeah. I get it. Ubercompetent Bruce, just no. But a Supes that's been there since Dick was Robin, before Jason died (along with Man Who Has Everything), gives them history.

[DochaDocha]

It's mostly good, though sometimes I wonder if they should be more like Penn & Teller or Adam and Jamie from Mythbusters, two pairs who work great together but aren't really friends.

That said, let me illustrate how I'd like to see their professional relationship: Superman willingly gives Batman the Kryptonite to make Batman feel at ease about the risk of a rogue Superman and his faith in Batman's resourcefulness in coming up with a plan. This was canon at some point and may still be. What I'd also like to see is one day Batman decided to destroy the Kryptonite because he's afraid if he ever got compromised then Superman would be at risk.

[king81992]

At times it doesn't feel real, but there was a time when it was real.Current Batman is such a terrible person, I find it hard to believe he's friends with anyone.

[Ascended]

1 is bad ...i should have put it in the title.Sorry.Overall enjoyment, relatablity,feelings..etc from the relationship you have gotten from all the stories you have read.You can even compare to other bromances in fiction.

No worries.

Okay, so knowing how you wanna rank things I'm giving the bromance an overall average of a 3.

At times, Clark and Bruce have one of the best dynamics in comics. Sometimes, their relationship brings out the best in both of them. In those instances I'd give them a solid 5 (Waid's World's Finest for example). They're alike enough to make me believe that they'd actually get along but are still different enough to have some fun friction.

But a lot of the time, mostly in modern comics where Bruce is written like the world's greatest ******* and Clark is a clueless country bumpkin, it makes no sense that they'd be allies, much less BFF's. In those stories it feels like the writers are just trying to maintain a popular pre-Crisis relationship despite it not fitting either character. Bruce is too much of a d-bag for anybody to actually like him (even his kids can barely tolerate him) and Clark's such an idiot that you'd have to be an idiot too, to trust him with the power he wields.

When it works, it's a thing of beauty. And it seems like a lot of the pre-Crisis stories pulled it off. But most of what I've read are more modern comics, and those often feel forced and unnatural. But that's more of a complaint about how DC has written the characters and not a condemnation of the idea itself.

[Jackalope89]

In short; an Adam West-like Batman is easy to see as friends with Clark. A Ben Affleck-like Batman, not so much without serious character development.

[K7P5V]

Kevin Conroy (R.I.P.)