Quote:

the G-man said:
Understand, NW, I'm not attacking you. I'm must illustrating that this whole "Batman the rebel, Superman the conformist/authoritarian" storyline has been done several times before (off the top of my head: Dark Knight, Kingdom Come, a Superman Elseworlds Annual, Superman:Red Son, the New Frontier, and probably others I don't remember) and it'd be interesting once in a while if they reversed the dynamic.



Quote:

Rob Kamphausen said:
aye, most comic book stories, and their most basic form, have been done before. itsa twists that make'em better.



I understand that. I'm simply noting that I think it would be an even better twist if, for once, Superman was the rebel and Batman the conformist.

Like I said: Batman has a long history of working with the police. At the same time, Bruce Wayne is friends with a fair number of politicians.

Suppose a politician who was a great friend of Bruce's, say, a John McCainish straight shooter or former Gotham Mayor with national cred, ala Rudy Guiliani, who was now a US Senator, was the guy representing "the people." Suppose that this "Rudy McCain" had enlisted the support of Jim Gordon and Lucius Fox. So you have Jim urging Batman to come aboard and Lucius (and "Rudy") urging Bruce. Furthermore, over the years Bruce has been outed to a number of his enemies: Bain, Ras, Talia, the Riddler, Catwomen, etc., Hush, Jason, etc., without any significant repercussions. Who is to say that, given the deaths and tragedy in Bruce's life recently, coupled with the lack of consequences from being outed as Batman so many times, that he might not say "maybe it is time to come in from the cold," especially if Jim and Lucius support the idea.

Hell, you could even have Alfred tell Bruce something like "the Batman has done much good, but this double life has eaten away at you over the years. Have forgotten how until recently you had all but abandoned Bruce Wayne? How lonely and paranoid you were getting? Master Bruce, I will stand by you no matter what you decide, but I trust the people to realize that both Bruce Wayne and Batman have been a force for good."

At the same time, as noted in my earlier post, you have Clark's parents who have, despite your characterization as "conservative," never really trusted the government. Martha and Jonathan, after all, raised Clark to believe that the government would take away and possibly kill him for being different. Add to that the fact that Lex, the public face, is his sworn enemy, do you really think Clark would say "okay, let's give away my secret ID to Lex Luthor...he won't use it against me and endanger Lois, Ma and Pa..." Remember Clark didn't even tell Lois he was Superman until sometime AFTER they got engaged. That says Superman, not Batman, is probably more paranoid about the old secret ID.

So, in a twist, Superman says "no, I'm not registering. You don't even know that I'm an American citizen. I won't interfere with your law as long as it goes peacefully, but if you harm or threaten a single friend of mine in enforcing it, all bets are off....to quote an old friend, Mr. President, 'you won't like me when I'm angry.'"

And, let's face it: if there is a guy in the DCU who could say "fuck you" and scare the shit out of the government, it would be Superman.

So now, instead of the old "Superman and his supporters hunt for Batman" you have the twist of "Batman and his supporters try to bring about the registration without incurring the wrath of the most powerful person on the planet."

Of course, this being a comic book, something would go wrong and now you have Superman saying "its war."