For a guy whose job description is literally "crimefighter," Batman sure does spend an
awful lot of time fighting other heroes.
You'd think having an entire asylum full of homicidal clowns, living refrigerators, and
the occasional immortal bio`-terrorist would keep him busy enough, but no.
Every now and then some well-meaning do-gooder gets in his way, and it's ON.
Batman has a pretty strong track record against his fellow heroes.
Here are just a few who've felt the wrath of the Bat.
Superman
Historically speaking, Batman and Superman have been best friends, and the World's Finest
crimefighting team, since they met in the mid-'40s.
They share a mutual desire to devote their lives to helping others, but like all friends,
they occasionally have their disagreements.
We're willing to bet that most arguments between pals don't usually devolve into one person
using a radioactive space rock to poison the other, but these guys don't really seem like
the calm and reasonable types.
The two heroes most famously came to blows at the climax of The Dark Knight Returns,
in which an aging, post-retirement Batman enlists the help of Green Arrow, Robin, and
the entirety of Gotham City's power grid to have a fistfight so brutal that he ended up
giving himself a heart attack.
Their arguments aren't limited to non-canonical alternate futures, either.
Take a look at Hush, which is essentially Batman's Greatest Hits wrapped around one
of comics' most ludicrously convoluted mysteries.
We see Superman's mind taken over by Poison Ivy, which leads Batman to put on a Kryptonite
ring and uppercut Superman back into his right mind.
It's worth noting that both of those fights involved Superman holding back, but hey: a
victory with an asterisk is still a victory.
Green Lantern
Then we have the highly controversial All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder.
It's so controversial that you're probably familiar with it even if you don't read comics.
Batman cussing at Dick Grayson in the Batmobile?
Wonder Woman calling a random pedestrian "sperm bank?"
Batman and Black Canary getting turned on by ultra-violence?
It all happens in this one story, and you can trust us: context doesn't really make
it better.
Batman's scene with Green Lantern, however, is one of those rare moments where something
is so ridiculous that it loops back around to being amazing.
In order to face Hal Jordan, whose Green Lantern ring can't affect anything yellow, Batman
lures him into a room where he has painted literally everything yellow.
The furniture.
His costume.
He's even spray-painted his own face, and to top it all off, he even taunts and sneers
at Green Lantern while sipping on a refreshing glass of lemonade until he finally baits him
into a physical confrontation.
Of course, it's actually Robin who does the fighting, but considering that Batman's the
one who orchestrated the entire situation so that a grown-ass superhero could get his
throat crushed by a ten year-old slathered in spray paint, it's fair to say the win belongs
to him.
Guy Gardner
Batman's Lantern problems are nothing new.
Coming at you from 1987's Justice League #5, Batman landed the single most famous hero-vs.-hero
punch in the history of the DC Universe, and possibly all of comic history.
On one side, you have Guy Gardner, the bowl-cut Green Lantern commonly known as the biggest
jerk in the DC universe, constantly running his mouth about how he should be running the
team.
On the other side, we have Batman.
At this point, you probably know what happens next.
The conflict builds for a few issues until finally, Guy rears back to take a swing, and
Batman drops him with a single punch directly to the nose, knocking him out cold.
Guy is hit so hard that the punch crossed realities into the Brave and the Bold animated
series.
"You so much as sneeze without my permission your are going to regret it."
"That I'd like to see"
"One punch, one punch!"
And the best part?
Guy remains unconscious on the floor of the Justice League's kitchen until halfway through
the next issue while the rest of the team goes on a mission—then knocks himself back
out by hitting his head on the underside of a counter as soon as he wakes up.
In other words, Batman punched him so hard it knocked him out twice.
Wildcat
It's a tale as old as time.
Boxing champ Ted Grant was inspired by a Green Lantern comic book and decided to dress up
as a six-foot kitty cat and punch criminals until crime wasn't a thing anymore.
Listen.
It was 1941.
Nobody really knew what they were doing back then.
Wildcat has traditionally been shown as one of the fighters that trained Bruce Wayne in
the art of combat during his teenage years, but in Brave and the Bold, the Joker was able
to force them to fight each other.
How?
By threatening to shoot a puppy.
Ultimately, they knocked each other out at the same time.
Listen.
It was 1975.
They definitely knew what they were doing, but that doesn't mean they didn't get weird
with it.
And if it's good enough for National Lampoon, it's good enough for The Joker.
Punisher
While they're both on the same side in the broadest possible way, the Punisher's tendency
to leave his opponents as bullet-riddled corpses clashes with Batman's time-tested code against
killing, and that comes to a head when Batman stops the Punisher from killing the Joker
during Punisher/Batman: Deadly Knights.
Before Batman can explain that this is probably why the Punisher doesn't have a lot of recurring
villains, Frank Castle decks him with a hard right, and Batman, in classic fashion, tells
him he let him have one punch because he knows he's frustrated.
When Punisher takes a second swing, however, Batman doesn't just catch his fist, he casually
throws him face-first into a wall with a blunt "I said one."
Captain America
Batman versus Captain America is one of the most perfect matchups you could ask for.
The only problem is settling on a winner, and while the odds would tend to favor the
super-soldier over the world's greatest detective, that's not always how it works out.
In 1996's DC vs. Marvel, the decision was left up to a vote by the fans.
The result was a brawl that took place in a sewer, in which the heroes fought each other
to a standstill, until a sudden rush of water swamped Cap and gave Batman the chance to
bop him over the head with a batarang.
It's not exactly the most dignified ending to a fight, but hey, a victory with a technicality
is still a victory.
Interestingly enough, when the two characters squared off again for 2003's JLA/Avengers,
Batman conceded that while Captain America could beat him in a straight-up fight, nobody
had time for all that.
"Ain't nobody got time for that!"
Which, when you think about it, is a pretty great way to weasel your way out of a rematch.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
The weirdest thing about the Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover is that it
somehow didn't happen in 1990.
It wasn't until 2015 that they actually met up, but when they did, it was pretty much
everything you wanted to see: dimension-hopping adventure, Shredder pitted against Ra's al-Ghul,
and Mr. Freeze transformed into a mutant polar bear.
Which is pretty amazing.
And of course, it also gives you a hero versus hero fight, just to start things off, and
unlike most of these, this one actually makes a lot of sense.
If you're Batman and you see a bunch of five-foot turtles with ninja weapons running around
your town, everything that's happened over the past 75 years is going to lead you to
the conclusion that they're probably up to no good.
Batman not only takes out each of the four Ninja Turtles in turn and fights Splinter
to a draw before the Turtles have to retreat, he also takes their weapons, and uses Raphael's
sai to shatter Leonardo's katana.
In the end, the Turtles pretty much became Batman's biggest fans.
"Give me the camera"
"Look, he's doing his Batman voice"
Hulk
It's the most improbable victory of all time, and it happened in 1981's Batman vs. the Incredible
Hulk.
For the most part, it's a pretty fantastic fight, putting Batman on the defensive against
Hulk's unstoppable physical force.
It even includes awesome moments like Batman busting out a Jackie Chan-style dodge by leaping
straight through the open windows of a Hulk-hurled car as it smashes against a wall.
The end of their first encounter, though, has one of the biggest bits of belief-stretching
since Captain America was swamped by sewer water.
After realizing that punching isn't going to get anywhere, Batman simply drops some
knockout gas, and then delivers a kick to the solar plexus so hard that the Hulk is
forced to take a deep inhale of that sweet, sleepy cloud.
Hulk hits the floor, and Batman celebrates a victory that probably never should have
happened.
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