I was thinking about Mark Waid's "Tower of Babel" story in JLA on Monday for some reason. The one where Ra's al Ghul steals Batman's top-secret "defeat the Justice League" plans and uses them to try and clear the way for his latest plot to improve the planet by killing a bunch of humans.
The League, of course, survives and saves the world, then votes Batman out. Or more accurately, Batman leaves before Superman can cast the deciding vote in favor of giving Bats the boot. So at least it makes sense where Damien got his "you can't fire me, I quit" mindset.
If I remember right, Superman's main issue is that he was the only one who knew Batman had a plan to take him down, just in case, and that it's just one more example of Batman not being a team player by keeping secrets. I'm not sure it would make a difference if the League knew, since they wouldn't know the specifics of the plans or that Ra's was using them unless Batman told them. And Bats was distracted by Ra's stealing his parents' corpses (done for precisely that reason, solid strategy).
The thing that struck me, isn't that Batman had these plans, but how cruel they seemed to be. Like, it's not enough to just kill them, he's got to hurt them. Aquaman gets dosed with fear gas so he's afraid to go in the water, and will eventually die of dehydration. He plans to blind Green Lantern*. Flash gets hit with a bullet that causes him to basically seizure while vibrating at near-lightspeed. Plastic Man gets frozen and shattered (which Joe Kelly's Obsidian Age story suggests wouldn't have killed him, but would leave him aware of what's happening for however long he remained frozen).
I suppose Batman could argue they weren't intended to kill, only to thoroughly incapacitate until the Justice Leaguer in question could be helped or imprisoned. But man, having nanites infect the Martian Manhunter so his entire body is on fire when he's in contact with oxygen, would seem a little much. How are you going to help him if he's on fire? Plus, I'm pretty sure the captions in one issue mention the nanites and that layer of skin eventually burn off and fall away, but the plan didn't call for J'onn to still be alive by then.
It all just seems excessive for a vigilante whose normal shtick is to scare criminals by making them think he'll do stuff he'd never do. Like how we know he's not going to let that crook he dropped off the roof go splat, but the crook clearly thinks otherwise. There are lines, but apparently not when it comes to his teammates.
* I feel as though Kalinara and Ragnell both pointed out Kyle's used his ring while asleep before, so being blind really shouldn't have slowed him down that much. Maybe it was a leftover Hal Jordan plan, although you'd think that would just be the plan Zemo used on Hercules in the "Under Siege" story. Send a leggy blonde at him and get him too drunk to function.
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I am reminded of that issue of Action Comics which DC published because it was salty about the success of The Authority even though DC was also publishing The Authority at the time, so er...
In that comic, Superman goes to these absurdly elaborate* lengths to make it look like he kills the members of the fake-Authority live on TV, so he can prove to the world that superheroes don't kill people.
What?
As far as everyone watching at home knows, he has killed them, so... yay Superman? And then he reveals that he hasn't killed them -- even though in some cases* it's impossible to see how that could be the case -- so everyone should stop buying The Authority and buy Action Comics instead? Or something?
*Like, he does things which aren't in his power set in order to "win" -- like turning invisible and eviscerating one of them -- so I'm not sure what the message is suppose to be there.
That was Joe Kelly's run on the book, issue #775 I think. Titled, I feel like Wizard Magazine used to go on and on about that issue and how good it was. Which was funny considering how Wizard Magazine also went on and on about how cool great The Authority was. Never read it myself, but Joe Kelly just seems like an odd choice to write Superman, based on the books I typically associate with him.
(Generally speaking, I don't see how any series that would allow Mark Millar to indulge his worst impulses could be worth a damn, but I guess some people swear by the Ellis run that preceded it.
That's the one. So odd. I mean, if you want to make Superman look good in comparison to the Authority, then it's not difficult. He's Superman. Having him go around killing them and then going "Aha, no I didn't kill them after all but I won't explain how!" is probably not it.
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