Should batman give himself some meta human powers?

[Harrynorine]

Given his high profile status as a hero and always being involved in apocalyptic/world ending events against god like beings, it seems rather ridiculous that he thinks a cape and cowl will cut it. Granted new 52 tried to address this by having the justice league design a suit or him and recently batman designed a killer robot that could take out the entire justice league.



With that said, It would be nice if batman had like a pill/injection in his suit that could give him meta human abilities temporarily. Similar to how one of the dark knight batman was able to transform into doomsday at will and could revert back into his human form whenever.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Something like Hourman's Miraclo would work better.

[Ascended]

Yellow Lantern ring. If there's anyone on earth better at using, creating, and controlling fear I don't know who it is.

Miraclo is a good idea, if the addiction problems have been dealt with. Not gonna make him a heavy hitter but it'd be more than enough to deal with guys like Croc and Bane.

Maybe he could start hearing and talking to the city like Jack Hawksmoore?

Honestly he could just use some Ted Knight cosmic tech, or stuff from any number of villains the League has taken down. Kanjar Ro had a pretty powerful energy weapon as I recall, that's probably collecting dust in some JLA storage locker.

If you really wanna be crazy with it, you could always adapt Warworld from the Young Justice cartoon and have Bruce wear the crown. For those unaware, on YJ the Warworld is a fully automated battle station and every facet of it's functions are controlled by a crown. Bruce could be in charge of a weaponized planet, and finally be a planet-breaker like Clark and Diana! Of course PKJ just finished an amazing run with Warworld that wouldn't really fit the YJ version and it's not worth losing just so Batman can be even more badass.

But I always thought that if Bruce was going to get powers, which I don't agree with and don't want to see happen, it'd make sense for him to lean more into the supernatural than the superhuman. Making him a vampire is super stupid obvious, but you could also give him some more "stealth" based abilities and look to the old pulp heroes for inspiration; the Phantom, the Shadow, etc., those guys dealt with some occult powers that weren't over the top powerful.

I question why Bruce needs powers though. He already has the greatest power of all; DC favoritism. Batman is already an unstoppable force that nobody can compete with; he takes down kryptonians with spit, speed gods with glue, he's humiliated the Omega god with his bare hands, shattered the Source Wall, blown up the timestream, and makes everyone around him dumber just by proximity. Seems like he's plenty powerful already.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Yellow Lantern ring. If there's anyone on earth better at using, creating, and controlling fear I don't know who it is.

Miraclo is a good idea, if the addiction problems have been dealt with. Not gonna make him a heavy hitter but it'd be more than enough to deal with guys like Croc and Bane.

Maybe he could start hearing and talking to the city like Jack Hawksmoore?

Honestly he could just use some Ted Knight cosmic tech, or stuff from any number of villains the League has taken down. Kanjar Ro had a pretty powerful energy weapon as I recall, that's probably collecting dust in some JLA storage locker.

If you really wanna be crazy with it, you could always adapt Warworld from the Young Justice cartoon and have Bruce wear the crown. For those unaware, on YJ the Warworld is a fully automated battle station and every facet of it's functions are controlled by a crown. Bruce could be in charge of a weaponized planet, and finally be a planet-breaker like Clark and Diana! Of course PKJ just finished an amazing run with Warworld that wouldn't really fit the YJ version and it's not worth losing just so Batman can be even more badass.

But I always thought that if Bruce was going to get powers, which I don't agree with and don't want to see happen, it'd make sense for him to lean more into the supernatural than the superhuman. Making him a vampire is super stupid obvious, but you could also give him some more "stealth" based abilities and look to the old pulp heroes for inspiration; the Phantom, the Shadow, etc., those guys dealt with some occult powers that weren't over the top powerful.

I question why Bruce needs powers though. He already has the greatest power of all; DC favoritism. Batman is already an unstoppable force that nobody can compete with; he takes down kryptonians with spit, speed gods with glue, he's humiliated the Omega god with his bare hands, shattered the Source Wall, blown up the timestream, and makes everyone around him dumber just by proximity. Seems like he's plenty powerful already.

I'd probably use it to retroactively explain why he's so skilled. For example I'd give him Cipher's omnilingualism or Taskmaster's fighting mimicry. Or something comical like talking to bats. .

But the ability to talk to animals would be cool for Ollie. And I don't mind the ability to talk to cities either but I'd use that for the Question instead.

Shadow manipulation is a favorite of mine but one of the legacies would use it better.

If Batman wasn't a master of everything I'd consider it more.

[The World]

It's weird how much of a complex Batman's writers seem to have about how he stacks up to the rest of the Justice League given how much more popular he is. I've never seen something similar with the Spiderman and the Avengers.

[Frontier]

Remember when Damian had powers in an issue? After he came back from the dead?

[Jackalope89]

Remember when Damian had powers in an issue? After he came back from the dead?

You mean his all-but admitted Kryptonian-esque abilities? Yeah.

And, at this point, hard not to think Bruce is some level of metahuman, inspite of what DC says. Somehow functions on 2 (or less) hours of sleep after running around Gotham (or the world) and punching people in the face, "dodging" Darkseid's Omega Beams, having his spine broken, and then not with no real lasting ramifications...

That's not even the tip of the iceberg.

[CPSparkles]

Remember when Damian had powers in an issue? After he came back from the dead?

That was a fun story arc. Who knew a Robin with Superman's power set would turn out to be such a fun concept delivering comedic moment after comedic moment as Bruce and the JL tried to wear him out.

Super powers brought out the kid side of Damian as he revelled in his new abilities. Being bullets proof and super strong obliviously going to his head

[exile001]

Modern write him with powers, they just don't admit it. He just fell from space and was fine.

[marhawkman]

I'd probably use it to retroactively explain why he's so skilled. For example I'd give him Cipher's omnilingualism or Taskmaster's fighting mimicry. Or something comical like talking to bats. .

But the ability to talk to animals would be cool for Ollie. And I don't mind the ability to talk to cities either but I'd use that for the Question instead.

Shadow manipulation is a favorite of mine but one of the legacies would use it better.

If Batman wasn't a master of everything I'd consider it more.

One of the most interesting things about the Bat-Blackrock incident was... Blackrock deciding Batman was an UNWORTHY host and leaving him because of just how mentally deranged Batman is. On one level this is Batman being so afraid of superhumans he'd welcome death over being forced to be Blackrock's puppet. but then you realize... BATMAN had been keeping Blackrock prisoner where he could use it's powers in an "emergency". Seems a bit nutso if you ask me. He was also nuts enough to think that if he mentally focused properly he could control the Blackrock and force it to bow to his will. Well, we know where that ended.... Bat-Blackrock-Puppet.

[JBatmanFan05]

Batman S. Files #1 "True Strength" (only 3 pages) by Tom King poses this very question. Batman fails someone and has a moment of doubt about whether he's doing enough, Superman offers permanent Superman-like powers, Bruce just has to touch this platinum kryptonite once, and Batman ponders (and Batman presumably refuses to do so, he chooses his normal humanity/mortality).

Story is in here: https://darkknightnews.com/2018/11/0...ecret-files-1/

[Jim Kelly]

It's funny how Batman fandom has evolved. The idea of Batman with super-powers was anathema to fans at one point in time.

I have an alternate timeline theory that if Julie Schwartz hadn't come along and grounded the Darknight Detective, the powers that be might have continued in the direction they were going with Batman and Robin becoming a super-duo. They would have their own Bat-Rocket to travel to other planets. There would be a planet called the Joker World (like the Bizarro World) populated by joker-people. The Bat-gadgets would have been even more high tech, with Bruce Wayne following the path of Tony Stark, wearing a robotic suit of armour that granted him super-powers.

Instead, the "New Look" took the character more seriously and going forward, the Batman was the World's Greatest Detective--not a super-hero. He could get hurt and did get hurt many times. After all, he was just a human being and not perfect. He was smart, but he could be defeated by smart crime bosses. And this became the new normal for Batman readers.

The Frank Miller version of the Dark Knight seemed to push even further in that direction, with gritty and realistic tales. And with Denny O'Neil--who had authored many of the Masked Manhunter's grounded thrillers--then becoming the new Bat-editor, it seemed like the Gotham Gangbuster would continue down that road. Yet the insistence on Batman being better than anyone else, took him into the territory of incredible fantasy. And readers incrementally changed their expectations of what the best Batman should be.

[JBatmanFan05]

It's funny how Batman fandom has evolved. The idea of Batman with super-powers was anathema to fans at one point in time.

I still think it is by and large. It's anathema to me.

[Ascended]

I still think it is by and large. It's anathema to me.

Agreed. I like my Batman to be an actual person with limitations and failings, not a plot armor god who easily defeats the entire League within seconds and chumps Darkseid on his home turf.

At this point getting "real" powers would just be a downgrade.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

One of the most interesting things about the Bat-Blackrock incident was... Blackrock deciding Batman was an UNWORTHY host and leaving him because of just how mentally deranged Batman is. On one level this is Batman being so afraid of superhumans he'd welcome death over being forced to be Blackrock's puppet. but then you realize... BATMAN had been keeping Blackrock prisoner where he could use it's powers in an "emergency". Seems a bit nutso if you ask me. He was also nuts enough to think that if he mentally focused properly he could control the Blackrock and force it to bow to his will. Well, we know where that ended.... Bat-Blackrock-Puppet.

Who is Blackrock?

It's funny how Batman fandom has evolved. The idea of Batman with super-powers was anathema to fans at one point in time.

I have an alternate timeline theory that if Julie Schwartz hadn't come along and grounded the Darknight Detective, the powers that be might have continued in the direction they were going with Batman and Robin becoming a super-duo. They would have their own Bat-Rocket to travel to other planets. There would be a planet called the Joker World (like the Bizarro World) populated by joker-people. The Bat-gadgets would have been even more high tech, with Bruce Wayne following the path of Tony Stark, wearing a robotic suit of armour that granted him super-powers.

Instead, the "New Look" took the character more seriously and going forward, the Batman was the World's Greatest Detective--not a super-hero. He could get hurt and did get hurt many times. After all, he was just a human being and not perfect. He was smart, but he could be defeated by smart crime bosses. And this became the new normal for Batman readers.

The Frank Miller version of the Dark Knight seemed to push even further in that direction, with gritty and realistic tales. And with Denny O'Neil--who had authored many of the Masked Manhunter's grounded thrillers--then becoming the new Bat-editor, it seemed like the Gotham Gangbuster would continue down that road. Yet the insistence on Batman being better than anyone else, took him into the territory of incredible fantasy. And readers incrementally changed their expectations of what the best Batman should be.

I'm just problem solving. I don't mind him getting powers if he gives it up by the end or if he's learning magic- fails at it.