Superman/Batman; Friendship V Inadequacy
So I don’t have a ton of time for the “what if Batman and Superman FOUGHT” stories outside of mid control or some other kind of compulsion because, while the spectacle can be fun with the right team behind it, the larger stories about considered conflict between the two hinge on interpretations of one or both characters that I’ve never been too enamored with. Yeah, they’re different people with different priorities and outlooks on life, and that can drive tension between the characters, and tension between people who share the same goal and similar methods makes for great storytelling, but these guys do ultimately share the same goal. They even have similar perspectives on their duties as heroes.
Superman is an exemplar for humanity and a symbol of hope (which, I’m told, is what the “S” stands for), not just that the most powerful man on the planet will guard us from its horrors, but that the world and the people in it really are capable of deep-down genuine goodness. There is good in the world, good in us all, and if you ever doubt it all you have to is look up. Look up to the man with the colorful suit and the kind eyes.
Batman, likewise, seeks not just to save and protect the innocent, but incite a feeling, in both directions. The powerful and the cruel must know fear. They don’t even have to fear him necessarily, they just need to look out into the night, the time that once felt so unimpeachably theirs, when Gotham and all its little people felt like theirs and know that they are not safe. That somewhere, out in the dark, there’s a figure waiting to swoop down and plant a boot on their neck. And the little people? They know it too.
And the stories that involve these two that are my favorite, are the ones where they’re friends, or, even better, where they’re gonna be friends.
So I have a lot of problems with Tom King’s recent run on the main Batman comic, but there’s a dynamic he introduces between Batman and Superman that I love. Essentially, at a time where the two characters are certainly allies and even on good terms beyond that, but are both still unsure how close it gets to friendship, Bruce excludes Clark from something personally important. When they’re each talking to their respective significant other, they each express the same thing.
Clark isn’t that surprised. He and Bruce are coworkers, not friends. Why would they be, really? Why would Bruce have time for him?
Bruce, severe as ever, also comes across a little deflated when he explains himself. He’s not gonna put Clark in that position, because if he tells Clark, if Bruce invites him into it, then, because Clark’s really nice, he’ll say yes, and then Clark and Lois will be stuck somewhere feeling awkward and obligated.
They literally have the same reaction: “Of course this is this way, we’re not really friends, he doesn’t respect me. And on some level, I understand why he wouldn’t.”
Superman and Batman look at each other and each feel so totally inadequate that the thought of the other viewing them as friends seems terminally unlikely to both of them.
And I get it. Clark looks at Bruce and sees a man, mortal in ways that Clark himself just isn’t, leaping into impossible danger, over and over, because maybe he can help. Can he claim bravery like that? And even more, for Bruce, all this, the crimefighting, the sacrificing, it’s a choice. Clark has the powers he has and understands that it’s a moral imperative that he use them to help people and stand up for those weaker than him. He could never have been anything but extremely important. But Bruce? Bruce could have done anything and been anyone. He could’ve retreated from the world, and really, how much could we blame him? But no. Violence and crime and greed and the worst parts of the world took those he loved from him and he decided that he’d dedicate everything he had to make sure that happened to fewer people. A man who had all the choices in the world chose to be Gotham’s guardian, at great personal cost. Would Clark have made that choice, as a younger man? Any life he wanted, free of responsibility, simple and quiet and full of love, under the protection of some other super being? Would he have still made it his mission to help? He doesn’t know. And that shames him.
And Bruce! Of course he looks at Clark and sees none of the frailty that might have cost innocent people their lives because Bruce wasn’t fast enough, wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t bulletproof. But more than that, he sees this man, this being with so much power, always choosing to do good. To be good. A man with the power to be anything, and he’s the best of them. Nigh incorruptible, not because he can lift buildings and holds a sun in his eyes, not because of what he is, but who he is, that bone-deep compassion that makes him a hero. A man who trades in hope, instead of fear. Bruce lost his parents and sought to protect others from that pain. Clark never had that. He doesn’t remember Krypton. There’s sadness there, and longing, but not the same kind of grief. There was no great lived tragedy in his life to make him selfless and giving and righteous. He’s just like that. He’s a hero. Would Bruce have been, without that deep sympathy that was so violently thrust onto him? Would he have gotten there himself, to that place of deep, actionable empathy, from which Clark operates? He doesn’t know. And that shames him.
I just this love that. This deep admiration and insecurity it fosters is the best hurdle to these twos’ friendship.
