So what do you get when you spend too much time reading TV Tropes during Bad Cross-Over Month (Extended Edition)? Why, you get the case from UNII sitting around discussing Batman, of course!
For the record, Loki’s theory is that being a Badass Normal actually is a ‘metapower’ in and of itself, combining New Powers As The Plot Demands resulting from Applied Phlebotinum (in this case: money), Possession Implies Mastery and liberal applications of the Rule of Cool and Screw The Rules I Have Money where ‘the rules’ actually means ‘common sense’.
This is more a mental brainfart than an actual story. Pretend the characters are in character but ‘off set’ during the making of UNII. Or not, it’s up to you.
These things always start with inanities.
“Okay, well obviously Loki would be the Joker.” Miriah is all-but hidden beneath a stack of absolutely ancient Action Comics from the 1940s. She almost wet herself when Sigmund mentioned I had them ferreted away in a room underneath the Haunt. She had to sit down for about ten minutes when he mentioned I don’t mind people reading them.
I roll my eyes from where I’m sitting upside-down in an old recliner. “Well if we’re going to be like that then you’re stuck with being Harley, hat-girl.”
She sticks her tongue out at me and buries herself back behind her stack.
From behind a far more recent issue of I Can’t Believe It’s Not the Justice League! Sigmund groans. “Fuck,” he says, voice absolutely destitute. “You’re going to make me Wonder Woman, aren’t you? Oh gods…”
With exaggerated emphasis I ponder the logical conclusion of this, which primarily involves Sig is small, star-spangled hotpants. “I’m not seeing any downsides…”
“Miriah is definitely not Harley, mon cher.” Tara’s husky, accented drawl comes from the antique ottoman she’s lounging across pouring intently over an issue of Harley & Ivy. Anyone watching would get the distinct impression Tara and comics aren’t generally something that goes together, though she seems to have found something of an interest in the ubiquitous depictions of fit young men and women wearing very little clothing.
“Damn straight!” Miriah agrees. “I mean think about it. The Princess is the Princess because, well, it’s obvious. And you’re the Joker because you’re both indestructible pains in the ass. And as for me, well; who do we all know who’s a normal human with no powers, hanging out with crazy non-humans, and an heir to a vast fortune. Not to mention dreadfully clever!”
Sigmund snorts. I shake my head. “You are not Batman,” I say.
“You have to admit,” Sig begins slowly, “you guys totally don’t get along, either.”
“A-hah!”
“I have not tried to kill Miriah for at least“– I think briefly –”four chapters. It totally doesn’t count.” This doesn’t seem to be particularly convincing, so I move to firmer ground. “Besides, Batman totally has super-powers. He’s like, the second most powerful being in the DCU.”
Tara’s eyes flick back and forth between me and the stacks of comics. “Have I been reading the wrong ones?” she asks Miriah, who just rolls her eyes.
“Loki, please do enlighten us mere mortals with your amazing insight into Batman,” she says in the voice of the long-suffering.
I just grin. “Why, don’t mind if I do, luv. Okay, how about we think of it this way; simply ask yourselves the immortal question. The one fans of comic books have been wanting to answer for the last fifty-odd years, to whit–”
“Who would win a fight between Superman and Batman?” Everyone asks it at once.
Miriah thinks for a moment, but it’s more with reluctance than because she’s thinking. “Well, Batman would. Everyone knows that, right?”
Tara and Sigmund both nod in agreement, so I ask, “Ah, but why?”
“He would play dirty.” Tara supplies the obvious answer. Obvious, but not quite correct.
“Rephrase the question,” I say. “Ask yourself how you would defeat Superman if you were Batman.”
Everyone thinks, though not terribly hard. The answers are easy; everyone knows they are. This is how the magic works.
Tara surprises us. “I would shoot his reporter woman.” Though maybe, in retrospect, it’s not that surprising. When everyone just gives her blank stares she elaborates, “Well, define ‘defeat’.”
“She’s got a point,” Sigmund admits. “Shooting Lois would cause a major emogency.”
“‘Cept Batman wouldn’t shoot anyone,” Miriah protests. “I think, If I were Batman, and I absolutely had to defeat Superman in a fight — like, if he was evil or something — I would totally like, weaponise Kryptonite into an aerosol, and like spray him like a big blue bug whenever he got close.” She mimes the action, with sound effects.
“Holy Bat-Anti-Superman Repellent Spray, Bat-Miriah,” Sigmund announces in mock surprise.
I grin wider. “And there you go. That’s Batman’s super-power.”
Miriah doesn’t get it — she’s got that “what choo talkin’ ’bout, Loki?” look — but Tara does. She was always a little bit better when it came to these sorts of things.
“It’s not really a super-power, though, is it?” she says. “It’s more like… a meta-power.”
I nod. “It still counts,” I argue, because it does. I know that it does because I have exactly the same thing, albeit in a slightly different incarnation. Mine generally just means boxes always fall on my head when I try opening cupboards.
Realisation dawns on Miriah. “Oh, I get it. You mean that, like, because Batman essentially can do anything the readers can reasonably imagine they could do if they were, like, richer than God and knew kung-fu or whatever.”
I make gunfingers at her and click my tongue. “That’s the one.”
Miriah’s still frowning. “I’m not sure that really counts as a super–”
But Sigmund cuts her off. “It’s true, though, isn’t it? I mean, say Batman needed to, like, fly. He’d just make a jet pack or an aeroplane or something. Or if he needed to, I dunno, travel through time he’d be all like, ‘Ah, well here’s this time machine I’ve been keeping safe all these years after defeating Insert-Time-Travelling-Villain-Here; I knew it would come in handy eventually!’ Or, yanno, if he had to clone God he’d just assemble a God cloning machine.”
“Don’t forget breathing in space,” I remind him. “But whatever Batman needed to do, the writers would invent some spurious excuse and the readers would totally buy it because, y’know, he’s rich. Rich people can do whatever they want.”
“I suppose so.” Miriah still looks dubious. “If you’re going to start counting, like, bad writing as a power.”
I shrug. “Works for me.”
Everyone is silent for a moment, thinking. Finally, Tara asks, “You said Batman was the second most powerful being. So who is the most powerful?”
This one is easy, and we all answer it at once.
“Alfred.”