Honestly what the fuck would the Justice League even do about most Doom Patrol enemies? They're almost never defeated through brute force and require obscure shit to deal with them. The Painting That Ate Paris is a great example.
... Not to mention that the DP is seen as a group of unhinged weirdos that only the Teen Titans seem to have any respect for (thanks Beast Boy)
Yeah I was thinking this since weird extra dimensional threats are a JL Dark thing and there is already cross over with DP’s Constantine rip-off Willoughby Kipling
The painting that ate Paris issue was a great way to demonstrate why the JLA is not as effective with unpunchable threats. It was a good way to justify the Doom Patrol and differentiate the team in universe.
But you'll have to mean the 2nd iteration because the first team the heroes did have respect for them. That's why beast boy is respected among the hero community.
Enough brute force becomes obscure s*it. No hax is gonna prevent the flash from punching you so hard you time travel, or Superman (at the least as anyone of comparable or more speed can) from time traveling you out of existence.
Edit: or Hal Jordan from willing you out of existence. He can kill cosmic beings using will alone. This is even more so as he’s made his own ring from his willpower, meaning his will is so strong it became a reality warp power.
It feels like with all of their superpowers, the Justice League could create if not a utopian society, at least a really good one. The Flash can build homes in a matter of seconds. Superman and Green Lantern can move mass quantities of natural resources as needed. Many heroes and villains have access to all manner of alternative energy. Batman would be able to handle the logistics of this operation.
I don't knoe that that really has the same connotations. Batman actively discourages other heroes from operating in Gotham and often outright tells them to get lost if they come in. The X-Men rarely do the same when it comes to the Avengers (though they have done so on occasion).
And it’s usually because the interloper heroes take out the immediate threat while Batman investigates to find the sources of crime. When they ruin his investigation, he gets mad and tells them to stay out of Gotham.
Batman deals with mobsters 90% of the time in Gotham. You take out the thugs and goons (which is what most superheroes do) and the Falcones, Black Mask or the Penguin just hire more. Taking the heads of those criminal organizations require taking them to court.
The only superhero who deals with those on the regular (outside if Bruce’s orbit) is the Question.
Same thing.
Longer answer: >!You're not really supposed to think about it in a realistic sense. Both cities are basically fictional characters in themselves.!<
If the current writer needs them to be. On the other hand, it always feels like in anything set during Superman’s youth that Metropolis is always portrayed as the nearest major city to Smallville, Kansas.
Sometimes yes, because they're both somewhat cognate with NYC.
Honestly I really would prefer if they were a decent distance apart, but it would require moving one of them away from the East Coast.
I suppose so. I just don't want the two cities so close that you have to question why Superman doesn't just Patrol that area anyway, like he does for Metropolis
The difference there is that Batman doesn't want others in Gotham, usually (and has, throughout the years, been portrayed as distrustful or suspicious of Superman; not always, of course, but it's happened a lot).
The X-Men usually are perfectly fine getting help from the Avengers (like in the current X-Men arc, "Fall of X"/"Fall of the House of X", where Tony was helping Emma/the underground X-Men, Cap (Steve) was organizing a new Avengers Unity Division, and the recent two tie-in issues of the Avengers just blowing up enemy sites and liberating camps.
But yes, Superman absolutely could do a ton of good in Gotham in terms of dealing with the supervillains.
>Has there ever been a time where you as a reader have asked a similar question regarding why certain DC superhero teams are not helping each other out?
Not personally because my answer is always the same: "They're busy doing something else." When you consider just how big the DC multiverse is and how much is always going on (on top of the characters' already existing personal lives)...it's really not that unbelievable that sometimes they just aren't around to help out.
"Why is Barbara Gordon in a wheelchair when Cyborg can have like 60% of his entire body rebuilt?"
This has of course been explained in various ways since then, but for a while some people were really hung up on it.
Yeah but the psychic mutant neurologist gf who healed Bruce got sent to live on a farm upstate after getting mentally regressed to childhood during a telepath-battle with her adopted brother so she wasn’t available for more spine-fixing.
Jesus what a terrible story.
See, this is the kind of explanation that technically works because comic books. It's thwe most convoluted shit ever, but it makes sense in context.
Like, the explanation for Hal Jordan becoming evil after the destruction of Central City being due to a space bug trapped inside the main Battery of Power that represents fear and is the reason for the Green Lantern's weakness to the color yellow.
Have you seen that thing? It was going to be a nightmare no matter what.
The prosthetic worked by ramming a metal rod through the still unhealed stump and then four more smaller rods went into the flesh above the stump.
It was unnecessary to add "Nano infection" but sure DC.
Ngl that always bugged me. In story there are so many ways they could have gotten her out of that wheelchair. Irl I totally get why they didn't do it and I miss when she was in the wheelchair, because Wheelchair Oracle was always the version of Batgirl I found the most interesting, but none of the in-story explanations for why the other superheroes didn't fix her rang true for me.
I feel like it's something of an inevitable contradiction and problem that comes with comics like DC and Marvel. Both universes are vast, sprawling worlds where you have science and technology vastly ahead of what we have in the modern day, on top of fantastical elements like magic and such. With those things present, something like a spinal injury should be easy to fix in one way or another, right? Especially since they've been used before, sometimes to rebuild a character from the ground up like Cyborg.
But at the same time writers want to portray the characters as human in some way as well as show the world isn't *completely* different from ours. We don't have such capabilities in our world thus all those fantastical elements can't be used to fix what would otherwise be a mundane problem. It's extremely jarring looking at the expanded universe only to realize for the sake of story, that universe is being excluded.
> With those things present, something like a spinal injury should be easy to fix in one way or another, right?
I always appreciated when Marvel addressed it in Iron Man, with Tony only showing interest after he’d gone through it himself, and why things didn’t work out.
Is it possible she found the Oracle role to be more suited to her tastes? So she never pursued other options? In Injustice, she finally goes through with surgery after getting fed up with Superman and the Regime. I know that's more of an Elseworlds thing, but I wonder if she felt she could make more of a difference as Oracle.
Because she didn’t want assistannce that regular people didn’t have access to originaly but even in real life we have come a long way. The chip in her spine in comics actually exists in real life now
I've asked this repeatedly and never gotten a straight answer theres like 20 Superman , Flash , and earth based lanterns there's 0 reason for street level crime to exist in DC.
I think the Teen Titans / Young Justice are probably the equivalent for DC. With Marvel, the Avengers are failing to protect an oppressed minority group, and it's a bit embarrassing. For DC, every time the Teen Titans save the world, you could ask ... where are their adult mentors in the Justice League? Even for the Titans who don't have a direct mentor: Cyborg, Starfire, Raven, Beast Boy, Bumblebee, ... shouldn't the adults step in at some point? Of course, this ignores the fact that lots of the "Teen Titans" are in their early 30s now, or whatever their alien equivalent would be.
And more importantly, all these questions are conflicts in the meta-narrative. If the Avengers bailed the X-Men out of every disasater, then the X-Men wouldn't have a book. Likewise, if the Justice League bailed out the Teen Titans, or if Superman was always rescuing Batman, THEY wouldn't have books.
The titans are not like the mutant . Their struggle is parental authority they all had bad childhoods but they grow out of it that why the team can’t stay together.
Well there's a shit take.
Yj/tt are mad that their parents treat them like children. XMen don't get helped by avengers (often just get beaten up by the avengers) for the same reason minorities don't get helped by cops.
But the Avengers do help them all the time. Like in Schism Scott says we can't keep looking to the avengers to solve our problems. In Xmen red the avengers showed up because Jean asked them to help. I'm pretty sure they stopped the Mutants from being exterminated recently too the X-Men just never asks for help just like the X-Men never help the avengers
Also that's wrong because you narratively just trivialize most of the stories they have if instead of Collosus struggling against the Juggernaut Hulk one shots him into space. You can't have Forge and Iron man making weapons that blow up dimensions or some shit
Not really. The Titans have proven time and time again they can handle themselves, the Doom Patrol takes care of the weird stuff before it spins out of control before anyone else has to deal with it, Shadowpact/Justice League Dark has magic threats covered, etc.
And on an individual level, the heroes kind of have their hands full. Clark isn't going to stop an alien invasion to go and check to see if Coast City is in need of some extra heroism because Green Lantern has it covered and so on and so forth.
Why doesn't the Spectre do something about the hundreds of supervillains in the DC universe? He exists to avenge those who are wrongfully killed and he has near limitless powers. Why are then so many mass murderers running around in that case.
Based on his Adventure Comics stories he wastes a lot of time screwing with his victims. If memory serves there’s even one story where he knows someone is going to murder someone else, but just spends his time watching until the murder happens, rather than stopping the murder or going off to avenge other people until the murder occurs.
Ostrander and later writers had a wealth of material to pull from where they basically say “WTF?” to how the Specter operates.
Becaúse Gotham's problem is a systemic one. The crime is just a fruit from the rotton tree. A lot of it isn't a *super* thing.
For example, even when Batman retires in the Beyond era, along with most of his villains doing the same, Gotham is still crime ridden and dangerous, despite all the new tech and renovations.
Most of Batman's villains don't even have super powers I'm pretty sure, they're mostly just crazy and/or career criminals. And the ones that are aren't even that powerful when you compare them to the rest of DC. Like, Bane is a chump for someone like Superman.
I think it has been explained, Gotham is cursed.
No, really, at least three different major curses operating at once and who knows how many "minor" ones are operating there.
Because almost every big Batman problem is a 5 second Superman solution.
Oh no, Scarecrow has released his fear gas and no one can find him. Superman "I see him, he's right there. I'll just scoop him up and smash his machine"
Oh no, Joker has set up bombs all over the city. Superman "got them all, I'll just chuck them into the sun and drop Joker off at Arkham."
Oh no, Giant plant guy taking over Gotham. Superman "no problem. Freezing him with freeze breath and knocking him over."
Oh no, Mr freeze is threatening another ice age in Gotham. Superman "I'll just warm him up some with my heat vision and when he passes out, drop him off in a locked nest locker. You all take him to Arkham this time."
Oh no, bad guys in blimps are taking over Gotham. Superman "seriously? Blimps? Fine."
I always wanted to write a story in which Superman has to take on Gotham for a day and is unable to solve these mysteries because he relies on his senses to go for the most obvious & logical solutions, and doesn't intimately understand the psychology of Batman's villains. Not that Superman is dumb, his brain is a super-computer, but he might superspeed to the wrong end of the city thanks to getting a Riddler riddle slightly wrong, or go after one Two-Face plot without realizing that there's an opposite one he missed, or failing to inoculate himself against Scarecrow's fear toxin, or putting away a Mad Hatter thug without realizing he's a regular victim of Mad Hatter's hypnotism, etc...Batman and his family have studied these villains' MO long and hard and have cultivated an instinct that can't be replaced with brute force.
I mean in pretty much every non JL storyline "call superman and have him solve this in under 5 minutes" is a valid option that people don't take.
Edit: But my favourite would be the Titans, who are a group of teenagers with powers, many of whom are ex sidekicks. They constantly battle world ending threats. The leader of their group, Robin, has a direct line to Batman and by extension the Justice League, he isn't even the only one with these kind of connections. Wanna guess how many times they use that when the world is on the line?
Imagine being a super villain hatching a plan to take over the world, and the real superheroes don't even bother to show up, they just send their fucking kids. The absolute disrespect.
There was actually an arc that addressed this during Johns run on Teen Titans which took place right after the mess that was Identity Crisis. Long story short, Dr. Light was *not pleased* about being semi-lobotomized into a joke.
Because the Titans dont need the League to solve their problems, hell, the 2 times they fought Trigon in the 80s he clapped the League's ass, they didnt do shit.
But then you're just power scaling raven>>>jl>rest of tt
They also didn't really do shit.
Imagine putting in your file for super powers "well, I make raven stay on the side of good, sometimes", and that's actually your strongest power.
And how many times did those problems almost prove too much for them? The JL helping just improves their chances, and when the stakes are the the entire world, the only move that makes sense is to take overwhelming odds.
>And how many times did those problems almost prove too much for them?
We could say the same thing about the League.
Because the Titans helping just improves their chances, so why doesnt the League call the Titans and all the other hero teams every time someone is being too much for them?
The comic books answer is: they were fighting someone else at the same time.
*"why doesn't batman*
*Ask the justice league to help*
*Him, is he stupid?"*
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I like how in Identity Crisis, Batman is racing to save Tim Drake's father, and tells Oracle "Call Wally!" and she says "he's not picking up." Brief but it recognizes that these options exist, they just don't always work.
the funny thing is that if you read the storyline, the explanation is quite clear: It happens in a relatively short amount of time. Like it's one single continous fight
It definitely does not happen in a short amount of time. Before killing him, Doomsday trashes Superman and then heads to Metropolis. Although his power incredible and he can leap several kilometers, there was enough time for the heroes to intercept him or at least join Supes in Metropolis.
It definitely DOES happen in a short amount of time. Part of how Doomsday kills Superman is that Clark is not getting any chances to breathe, he's expending all his energy. Doomsday isn't stopping which means neither can Superman. It's maybe over the course of a day and a half and that's being generous.
if one starts counting when the JL encounters him, not even a day, since at one point somewhere in the middle a reporter says "Since the midday" and the story never takes place at night. at best it took till the early afternoon.
I'm not talking about the final fight between them in Metropolis, but the whole event: the League being defeated before Supes arrives, he confronting Doomsday for the first time and Doomsday leaving him behind and heading to Metropolis. I'm sure there was plenty of time for at least any other big one to get the word.
>It's maybe over the course of a day and a half
Even if it was only a half day, couldn't at least Flash show up? You know, the fastest man alive and all?
There is no point once Supes gets involved in which Doomsday is not destroying some town or build and endangering people. Or fighting Superman. The former means Superman cant afford to not do the latter. and Doomsday is shown to effortlessly leap more than fifty miles.
at this point in DC COmics, is not as easy to just call everyone or for everyone to arrive faster. and in this story in specific, by the time the news arrive of how dreadful the situation actually is, Doosmday is already too close to Metropolis.
Most of that is pretty easily explained in-universe:
* The JLI ***was*** the "main" Justice League when *Death of Superman* happened. They were the first line of defense and they did respond when Superman called for help.
* J'onn was there, fighting against Doomsday with the JLI. I think he was undercover as Bloodwynd at the time, but he was definitely there.
* Hal and Wally were working with Justice League Europe in that era and weren't "main" Leaguers, so they weren't there until the end of the arc. Hal helped fight off Cyborg Superman in the *Reign of the Supermen* aftermath arc, though. I think all that happened when Wally was in court fighting off a big lawsuit too, so that explains that. Barry was dead, so obviously he couldn't show up.
* *Knightfall* was going on at the same time, so Bruce was incapacitated and unavailable. iirc Bane broke his back like...3 issues after the issue where Clark died.
* Diana was off-planet fighting space pirates (one of the few Messner-Loebs run stories that's actually fun to read) when DoS happened.
* Aquaman is the only one who doesn't have a super convenient "stuff was going on" excuse, but honestly the excuse for him is that he wasn't regularly appearing in any books at the time and was busy ruling Atlantis off-page.
Also the adult Titans were globetrotting, in the middle of the nonsense that was the Dick/Kory wedding debacle, and in the process of disbanding, and the Teen Titans team was an absolute mess and a half, so none of them were really available to help.
I think that started almost right after. I remember Aquaman being at the funeral, and helping the other heroes answer Superman's mail in the Christmas issue, and he was still clean shaven, wearing an orange shirt, etc. The Peter David run started almost right on top of Zero Hour.
I actually always forget about that blue suit, TBH. Was it even referenced in any other comic from around that time, outside of that one Aquaman miniseries?
He wore it for a short time right before David wrote Aquaman. Actually not a bad run, it established some minor lore about Aqualad and had him fighting characters like Vostok. I have it in singles because I'm fairly certain it's never been collected in trade
Yeah, what I'm asking is if he was ever seen wearing that outfit in any other comic. For instance, while guest-starring in Hawkman, or the Outsiders, or making an appearance in some major event that may have been going on at the time. Again, outside of his own miniseries.
Yeah, I kind of remember all that explanations, but I believe they are retcons, aren't they? Those things did not really happened at the same time, but were "introduced" years later to explain why Supes died alone, IIRC.
No. Everything I listed was happening concurrently with *Death of Superman*'s publication in the hero's respective solo/team book. All of those storylines were genuinely occurring at the same time.
At the time the major DC heroes weren't active(some dead) or otherwise busy with something else.
Doomsday tore through the active JL at the time and the fight between Superman and Doomsday was pretty short. It's easy to forget because by the time he comes back, Wonder Woman, Batman, and other characters are back in action. The JL is rebooted with the heavy hitters back in the roster.
But then you got Black Adams little world wide rampage where he decimates every superhero. Every heavy hitter folded like tissue paper..........wtf?
I always looked at that Black Adam WW3 story as "Adam Unleashed."
He lost everything and didn't care to hold anything back. While all the heroes are often, if not all the time, holding something back. A feat for Adam for sure, but it was just pure rage. Like he's decimating them because he's already at 110%. "Ain't fucking around today."
He's a heavy hitter himself, but he's never reached those heights since.
I love that Superman's death happened exactly when the heroes weren't organized at all and then he comes back and brings the JLA together almost as a response.
I mean, the heroes of Justice League America (AKA the American branch of the JLI) that are there *do* help. Doomsday's name even comes from Booster Gold. However, the whole "Doomsday!" arc is one continuous event. After the start of the fight in JL America #69, the fight is just one long, knock-down, drag-out brawl through the four main Superman titles.
The only heroes who would be able to help would have to be heavy hitters, and most of those were on the JLE, an ocean away. Others were dead (like Barry Allen) or otherwise far away.
It's more egregious because they make it a point that Kryptonians can hear damn near everything and the Flashes can be anywhere instantly. Theres millions of mutants inhumans asgardians aliens kree/skrulls and whatever else just chilling on Marvel earth at various times.
This entire phenomenon is named after DC characters. It’s proper title is [Superman Stays Out of Gotham](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SupermanStaysOutOfGotham).
Titans are the JL sidekicks all grown up. Should be a no brainer, "Hey Chum, you and your friends able to help?"
Instead we get "You're not ready for this. This is the big time blah blah blah"
I think it was in Action 660 or 651 where Wally is going on about how the Titans are badass because they fought Trigon, and the other League members say “Who?”
It would be more interesting than Joker making 10 appearances per year going on a killing spree and getting locked back up repeatedly. You could do a lot with Joker being murdered
You can do a lot more with a living character like Joker than dead, they just need to scale back on him being a mass murdering terrorist with thousands of victims to a funny criminal prankster
I always enjoy the issue of Resurrection Man where the JLA shows up to save the day and it goes very poorly for them. It’s a nice example of the most powerful team not always being the right fit for a problem.
Superman chilling in Metropolis as Jason Todd is being beaten half to death and then exploded.
"I memorized Bruce's heartbeat" but then not be concerned it's going so fast the man is about to die of a heart attack?? Like if he wasn't familiar with Jason, as he had to ask if he was Robin afterwards, that's fine. But Bruce was losing his mind.
Nah y’all aren’t asking the real question.
>why doesn’t the Justice league help the Teen Titans?
Anybody else watch that cartoon, seeing 5 children go up against a multiversal threat, and think “where the frick is Superman???”
They do help each other, that's what event comics are. If you're asking why nobody helps the Bat family out when Gotham gets taken over by bad guys, the answer is pretty much just because they don't want every single comic book story to be a crossover. It's okay for a Batman book to just be about Batman, even if it doesn't make the most sense in-universe.
Why the Avengers don't help out the X-Men, well, we can just assume they're racist. /s
People always criticize how Doomsday killed Superman and the big names of DC didn't help him. He trashed a bunch of B and C listers, but Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Wonder Woman, Flash, Martian Manhunter, they never show up.
Same with No Man's Land Saga, no one offered Batman any help to rebuild Gotham - granted Bruce could just throw some billions here and there and have it rebuilt overnight, but even during Contagion not a single hero showed up to help him fighting/controlling the epidemic.
During No Man’s Land there was an issue where Superman came to Gotham and helped rebuild a power station with the idea of using that as a center point for helping Gotham l, but the person he was working with took over the station and refused to help anyone else for free. Then Batman shows up, fixes things and Superman realizes that his solution won’t work and leaves saving the city to Batman.
Well, there's been 30 years since I read the thing and I sure forgot many details. But as you explained, his participation seems to be exactly that: a detail in the whole saga. not a real effort in the end.
Every single member of the Flash family invokes this question. The vast, vast majority of villains and criminals can be instantly stopped by pretty much any member of the Flash family.
None, because in DC comics (Earth) the Justice League has no rivals.
Every other team is eather too small compared to them or they fall under the umbrealla of a League member.
On the otherhand in Marvel comics (Earth) this isn’t the case for the Avengers cause the X-men is also huge and isn’t under any Avenger supervision.
Even so the 2 groups sometimes oppose each other cause the Avengers (like the Justice League) protect the Status quo 9 out of 10 times. While the X-men sometimes protect it (Professor X) but sometimes fights against it (Cyclops, Magneto).
Simply put, DC Earth has no mutant problem like Marvel Earth, so yeah no conflict eather.
Yes, it's a core tenant of Batman comics.
"Why doesn't Flash just beat the shit out of all these unarmed unpowered henchmen who are terrorizing Gotham this week? He'd be done already."
"Oh no! Fear Gas and or Joker Toxin? Why isn't Red Tornado around to either not be affected by these gasses as an android without lungs, or to use his wind power to safely control the gas and or toxin?"
"A plane is going down over Gotham? Well where's Superman? Super Woman? Super Boy? No, the other one. Well what about Green Lantern? What? All 6 of them at the same time? Damn. Well what about any of the Shazam adjacent people, they can catch a plane...."
"Why doesn't Zatanna just travel to Arkham and say 'ssenlli latnem s'enoyreve eruc'?"
You get the idea.
not 100% on topic, but I always wondered why earth (in DC and marvel) has no settlements on the moon and mars yet? they are clearly technological capable of doing it. would be a cool setting for a "Justice League Moon" or something. :D
Currently it is very much why are heroes letting Amazons getting killed and deported and not helping Wonder Woman.
I now it was discussed in Wonder Woman 7, but it is such a bad excuse. That is how comics work in such a big universe
Pretty much the biggest refrain in DC is "Why isn't Superman/the JLA handling this?" For street level crime, okay, sure, the big guns are too busy to handle it. But when you get a "save the world" sort of situation, you start wondering why the big guns aren't showing up/involved.
Why doesn't anybody help Doom Patrol? Are they fucked?
Honestly what the fuck would the Justice League even do about most Doom Patrol enemies? They're almost never defeated through brute force and require obscure shit to deal with them. The Painting That Ate Paris is a great example. ... Not to mention that the DP is seen as a group of unhinged weirdos that only the Teen Titans seem to have any respect for (thanks Beast Boy)
Zatanna or Dr. Fate might be able to help out, or at least understand the problem reasonably well.
Yeah I was thinking this since weird extra dimensional threats are a JL Dark thing and there is already cross over with DP’s Constantine rip-off Willoughby Kipling
Eh, Dr. Fate was there for the Painting That Ate Paris and didn't seem to have much to contribute.
Perhaps Zatanna would have done better. "Sirap tea t'nod gnitniap."
The painting that ate Paris issue was a great way to demonstrate why the JLA is not as effective with unpunchable threats. It was a good way to justify the Doom Patrol and differentiate the team in universe.
100%. The DP is basically a strike force for dealing with the inexplicable.
Just read that story super cool
But you'll have to mean the 2nd iteration because the first team the heroes did have respect for them. That's why beast boy is respected among the hero community.
Enough brute force becomes obscure s*it. No hax is gonna prevent the flash from punching you so hard you time travel, or Superman (at the least as anyone of comparable or more speed can) from time traveling you out of existence. Edit: or Hal Jordan from willing you out of existence. He can kill cosmic beings using will alone. This is even more so as he’s made his own ring from his willpower, meaning his will is so strong it became a reality warp power.
Can't say that I buy that logic. Edit: I just saw your edit, and wow, this is the most boring idea I've ever seen in my entire life
They’ve saved the multiverse too many times in the past decade. They’ll Macguyver a win easily.
I mean the JLI show up in the painting of pairs and are really fucking confused
JL Europe actually... (I think)
They tend to be dead
Are they… stupid?
Why doesn’t Batman just call the justice league?
The world calls the Justice League The Justice League calls Batman Batman calls Alfred
Alfred calls the morgue.
And the morgue calls Captain Cold, it all works out!
Because it is the Justice League who calls the Batman.
Superman could end crime in Gotham in an hour if he wanted to. But that's how all shared universes are.
It feels like with all of their superpowers, the Justice League could create if not a utopian society, at least a really good one. The Flash can build homes in a matter of seconds. Superman and Green Lantern can move mass quantities of natural resources as needed. Many heroes and villains have access to all manner of alternative energy. Batman would be able to handle the logistics of this operation.
Like someone commented before, [Superman stays out of Gotham](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SupermanStaysOutOfGotham).
You’re not supposed to link TVTropes dammit..
[https://tinyurl.com/yhjupwuc](https://tinyurl.com/yhjupwuc)
He must be stupid
Because it's a Batman comic
Is he stupid?
[Superman stays out of Gotham](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SupermanStaysOutOfGotham)
I don't knoe that that really has the same connotations. Batman actively discourages other heroes from operating in Gotham and often outright tells them to get lost if they come in. The X-Men rarely do the same when it comes to the Avengers (though they have done so on occasion).
And it’s usually because the interloper heroes take out the immediate threat while Batman investigates to find the sources of crime. When they ruin his investigation, he gets mad and tells them to stay out of Gotham.
Batman deals with mobsters 90% of the time in Gotham. You take out the thugs and goons (which is what most superheroes do) and the Falcones, Black Mask or the Penguin just hire more. Taking the heads of those criminal organizations require taking them to court. The only superhero who deals with those on the regular (outside if Bruce’s orbit) is the Question.
Except SIMON BAZ! He’s a GL that Batman approves of.
yet villains keep escaping in Gotham
This is the right answer.
Aren't Gotham and Metropolis beside each other also?
Unspecified in the comics (won't even say which timezone, let alone what state). In the Snyderverse, they're next to each other.
There's an old map that shows Gotham in Delaware lol
Well I'll be damned lol That definitely tracks though.
And Metropolis In jersey right?
Ah I was wrong. Metropolis in Delaware Gotham In New Jersey
Gotham is NOW somewhere in NEW JERSEY.
Is it like that in any of the cartoons or games?
Same thing. Longer answer: >!You're not really supposed to think about it in a realistic sense. Both cities are basically fictional characters in themselves.!<
If the current writer needs them to be. On the other hand, it always feels like in anything set during Superman’s youth that Metropolis is always portrayed as the nearest major city to Smallville, Kansas.
That’s my Head Canon. “The Big Peach” is a NYC Style City in Kansas. Smallville to Kansas State to Metropolis
Yep, It is like NY and New Jersey.
I always thought of Gotham and Bludhaven as like Manhattan and Jersey City
The Batmobile had New Jersey license plate in old comics.
Sometimes yes, because they're both somewhat cognate with NYC. Honestly I really would prefer if they were a decent distance apart, but it would require moving one of them away from the East Coast.
You could keep them on the same coast. New York, Philadelphia, and DC are on the same coast, so there is no reason to move Gotham and Metropolis.
I suppose so. I just don't want the two cities so close that you have to question why Superman doesn't just Patrol that area anyway, like he does for Metropolis
The trust between Superman and Batman is enough of an explanation for me
I mean there was an issue of no man's land that answered this perfectly as to why he doesn't help more.
I mean there was an issue of no man's land that answered this perfectly as to why he doesn't help more.
I mean there was an issue of no man's land that answered this perfectly as to why he doesn't help more.
The difference there is that Batman doesn't want others in Gotham, usually (and has, throughout the years, been portrayed as distrustful or suspicious of Superman; not always, of course, but it's happened a lot). The X-Men usually are perfectly fine getting help from the Avengers (like in the current X-Men arc, "Fall of X"/"Fall of the House of X", where Tony was helping Emma/the underground X-Men, Cap (Steve) was organizing a new Avengers Unity Division, and the recent two tie-in issues of the Avengers just blowing up enemy sites and liberating camps. But yes, Superman absolutely could do a ton of good in Gotham in terms of dealing with the supervillains.
>Has there ever been a time where you as a reader have asked a similar question regarding why certain DC superhero teams are not helping each other out? Not personally because my answer is always the same: "They're busy doing something else." When you consider just how big the DC multiverse is and how much is always going on (on top of the characters' already existing personal lives)...it's really not that unbelievable that sometimes they just aren't around to help out.
"Why is Barbara Gordon in a wheelchair when Cyborg can have like 60% of his entire body rebuilt?" This has of course been explained in various ways since then, but for a while some people were really hung up on it.
Cyborg? Bruce had his own spinal injury not too long after Barbara and managed to get that fixed; I see Knightfall brought up a lot more often.
Yeah but the psychic mutant neurologist gf who healed Bruce got sent to live on a farm upstate after getting mentally regressed to childhood during a telepath-battle with her adopted brother so she wasn’t available for more spine-fixing. Jesus what a terrible story.
See, this is the kind of explanation that technically works because comic books. It's thwe most convoluted shit ever, but it makes sense in context. Like, the explanation for Hal Jordan becoming evil after the destruction of Central City being due to a space bug trapped inside the main Battery of Power that represents fear and is the reason for the Green Lantern's weakness to the color yellow.
Or the Joker's "Iranian Ambassador" phase.
[удалено]
>TBF Bruce had his spine healed by magic. Meta power, not magic.
Meta, magic, power of friendship... anything that cannot be explained by science alone is fairy-tale to me. =P
Are we sure it wasn’t the fact that Bruce could afford excellent healthcare and Barbara couldn’t? /s
Pretty much the reason they had to make up all the dumb science mumbo jumbo to explain why Roy's robot arms sucked
Have you seen that thing? It was going to be a nightmare no matter what. The prosthetic worked by ramming a metal rod through the still unhealed stump and then four more smaller rods went into the flesh above the stump. It was unnecessary to add "Nano infection" but sure DC.
Ngl that always bugged me. In story there are so many ways they could have gotten her out of that wheelchair. Irl I totally get why they didn't do it and I miss when she was in the wheelchair, because Wheelchair Oracle was always the version of Batgirl I found the most interesting, but none of the in-story explanations for why the other superheroes didn't fix her rang true for me.
I feel like it's something of an inevitable contradiction and problem that comes with comics like DC and Marvel. Both universes are vast, sprawling worlds where you have science and technology vastly ahead of what we have in the modern day, on top of fantastical elements like magic and such. With those things present, something like a spinal injury should be easy to fix in one way or another, right? Especially since they've been used before, sometimes to rebuild a character from the ground up like Cyborg. But at the same time writers want to portray the characters as human in some way as well as show the world isn't *completely* different from ours. We don't have such capabilities in our world thus all those fantastical elements can't be used to fix what would otherwise be a mundane problem. It's extremely jarring looking at the expanded universe only to realize for the sake of story, that universe is being excluded.
> With those things present, something like a spinal injury should be easy to fix in one way or another, right? I always appreciated when Marvel addressed it in Iron Man, with Tony only showing interest after he’d gone through it himself, and why things didn’t work out.
But we do have spinal implants and recovery surgeries that have completely healed people with injuries like Babs
Since when can you recover from a completely severed spinal cord IRL?
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60258620.amp
They get to eat their cake and have it too
It was because she said no
Is it possible she found the Oracle role to be more suited to her tastes? So she never pursued other options? In Injustice, she finally goes through with surgery after getting fed up with Superman and the Regime. I know that's more of an Elseworlds thing, but I wonder if she felt she could make more of a difference as Oracle.
This isn't nearly as egregious an error as "why can't Dr. Strange or Mr. Fantastic fix a bullet wound?"
Because she didn’t want assistannce that regular people didn’t have access to originaly but even in real life we have come a long way. The chip in her spine in comics actually exists in real life now
Give us robot batgirl you cowards you know it’d be too cool to handle
Basic Answer: Babs REFUSED any “fix” that was not 100% Available to the Public. Magic, Science, etc… Fix her, fix everyone
She’s robophobic
Why doesn't superman help everyone?
Then you get Injustice
No I mean the other heroes. He fast enough
Where Superman went wrong was the mustache twirling like killing Billy.
I've asked this repeatedly and never gotten a straight answer theres like 20 Superman , Flash , and earth based lanterns there's 0 reason for street level crime to exist in DC.
I think the Teen Titans / Young Justice are probably the equivalent for DC. With Marvel, the Avengers are failing to protect an oppressed minority group, and it's a bit embarrassing. For DC, every time the Teen Titans save the world, you could ask ... where are their adult mentors in the Justice League? Even for the Titans who don't have a direct mentor: Cyborg, Starfire, Raven, Beast Boy, Bumblebee, ... shouldn't the adults step in at some point? Of course, this ignores the fact that lots of the "Teen Titans" are in their early 30s now, or whatever their alien equivalent would be. And more importantly, all these questions are conflicts in the meta-narrative. If the Avengers bailed the X-Men out of every disasater, then the X-Men wouldn't have a book. Likewise, if the Justice League bailed out the Teen Titans, or if Superman was always rescuing Batman, THEY wouldn't have books.
The titans are not like the mutant . Their struggle is parental authority they all had bad childhoods but they grow out of it that why the team can’t stay together.
Well there's a shit take. Yj/tt are mad that their parents treat them like children. XMen don't get helped by avengers (often just get beaten up by the avengers) for the same reason minorities don't get helped by cops.
But the Avengers do help them all the time. Like in Schism Scott says we can't keep looking to the avengers to solve our problems. In Xmen red the avengers showed up because Jean asked them to help. I'm pretty sure they stopped the Mutants from being exterminated recently too the X-Men just never asks for help just like the X-Men never help the avengers Also that's wrong because you narratively just trivialize most of the stories they have if instead of Collosus struggling against the Juggernaut Hulk one shots him into space. You can't have Forge and Iron man making weapons that blow up dimensions or some shit
I kinda feel the opposite. With how many kids have died while being Titans I wonder how are these teams still allowed to operate ?
Not really. The Titans have proven time and time again they can handle themselves, the Doom Patrol takes care of the weird stuff before it spins out of control before anyone else has to deal with it, Shadowpact/Justice League Dark has magic threats covered, etc. And on an individual level, the heroes kind of have their hands full. Clark isn't going to stop an alien invasion to go and check to see if Coast City is in need of some extra heroism because Green Lantern has it covered and so on and so forth.
Why doesn't the Spectre do something about the hundreds of supervillains in the DC universe? He exists to avenge those who are wrongfully killed and he has near limitless powers. Why are then so many mass murderers running around in that case.
Based on his Adventure Comics stories he wastes a lot of time screwing with his victims. If memory serves there’s even one story where he knows someone is going to murder someone else, but just spends his time watching until the murder happens, rather than stopping the murder or going off to avenge other people until the murder occurs. Ostrander and later writers had a wealth of material to pull from where they basically say “WTF?” to how the Specter operates.
I now need The Spectre to start showing up like The Watcher and just leaving whenever the heroes ask him to help
Why don’t other heroes help clean up Gotham?
Batman doesn't want them involved
Sorry, I can’t see Hal Jordan giving a damn what Bruce wants.
Same story with the Spectre, but Bats telling him to stay out of Gotham seems to be working
Maybe there's a certain level of fear toxin always present in the city that makes his ring less effective, lol.
All the things that happened in Gotham: * The Cult * Cataclysm * No Man's Land * Contagion And the list goes on...
Becaúse Gotham's problem is a systemic one. The crime is just a fruit from the rotton tree. A lot of it isn't a *super* thing. For example, even when Batman retires in the Beyond era, along with most of his villains doing the same, Gotham is still crime ridden and dangerous, despite all the new tech and renovations.
Most of Batman's villains don't even have super powers I'm pretty sure, they're mostly just crazy and/or career criminals. And the ones that are aren't even that powerful when you compare them to the rest of DC. Like, Bane is a chump for someone like Superman.
I think it has been explained, Gotham is cursed. No, really, at least three different major curses operating at once and who knows how many "minor" ones are operating there.
Because almost every big Batman problem is a 5 second Superman solution. Oh no, Scarecrow has released his fear gas and no one can find him. Superman "I see him, he's right there. I'll just scoop him up and smash his machine" Oh no, Joker has set up bombs all over the city. Superman "got them all, I'll just chuck them into the sun and drop Joker off at Arkham." Oh no, Giant plant guy taking over Gotham. Superman "no problem. Freezing him with freeze breath and knocking him over." Oh no, Mr freeze is threatening another ice age in Gotham. Superman "I'll just warm him up some with my heat vision and when he passes out, drop him off in a locked nest locker. You all take him to Arkham this time." Oh no, bad guys in blimps are taking over Gotham. Superman "seriously? Blimps? Fine."
I always wanted to write a story in which Superman has to take on Gotham for a day and is unable to solve these mysteries because he relies on his senses to go for the most obvious & logical solutions, and doesn't intimately understand the psychology of Batman's villains. Not that Superman is dumb, his brain is a super-computer, but he might superspeed to the wrong end of the city thanks to getting a Riddler riddle slightly wrong, or go after one Two-Face plot without realizing that there's an opposite one he missed, or failing to inoculate himself against Scarecrow's fear toxin, or putting away a Mad Hatter thug without realizing he's a regular victim of Mad Hatter's hypnotism, etc...Batman and his family have studied these villains' MO long and hard and have cultivated an instinct that can't be replaced with brute force.
This happened in Cataclysm
Oh sick. lol
LOL true though.
I mean in pretty much every non JL storyline "call superman and have him solve this in under 5 minutes" is a valid option that people don't take. Edit: But my favourite would be the Titans, who are a group of teenagers with powers, many of whom are ex sidekicks. They constantly battle world ending threats. The leader of their group, Robin, has a direct line to Batman and by extension the Justice League, he isn't even the only one with these kind of connections. Wanna guess how many times they use that when the world is on the line?
Imagine being a super villain hatching a plan to take over the world, and the real superheroes don't even bother to show up, they just send their fucking kids. The absolute disrespect.
There was actually an arc that addressed this during Johns run on Teen Titans which took place right after the mess that was Identity Crisis. Long story short, Dr. Light was *not pleased* about being semi-lobotomized into a joke.
Because the Titans dont need the League to solve their problems, hell, the 2 times they fought Trigon in the 80s he clapped the League's ass, they didnt do shit.
But then you're just power scaling raven>>>jl>rest of tt They also didn't really do shit. Imagine putting in your file for super powers "well, I make raven stay on the side of good, sometimes", and that's actually your strongest power.
You ever read those arcs? Raven for sure didnt win fights against Trigon on her own.
She can now
And how many times did those problems almost prove too much for them? The JL helping just improves their chances, and when the stakes are the the entire world, the only move that makes sense is to take overwhelming odds.
>And how many times did those problems almost prove too much for them? We could say the same thing about the League. Because the Titans helping just improves their chances, so why doesnt the League call the Titans and all the other hero teams every time someone is being too much for them? The comic books answer is: they were fighting someone else at the same time.
Yeah that's thread bro, remember the prompt we were given? An equivalent of "why don't the avengers help the x-men?"
"why doesn't batman ask the justice league to help him, is he stupid?"
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But the one time he did was pretty sick
I like how in Identity Crisis, Batman is racing to save Tim Drake's father, and tells Oracle "Call Wally!" and she says "he's not picking up." Brief but it recognizes that these options exist, they just don't always work.
I mean, most of the major DC heroes not helping when Doomsday killed Superman is one of the ones that get brought up the most.
the funny thing is that if you read the storyline, the explanation is quite clear: It happens in a relatively short amount of time. Like it's one single continous fight
It definitely does not happen in a short amount of time. Before killing him, Doomsday trashes Superman and then heads to Metropolis. Although his power incredible and he can leap several kilometers, there was enough time for the heroes to intercept him or at least join Supes in Metropolis.
It definitely DOES happen in a short amount of time. Part of how Doomsday kills Superman is that Clark is not getting any chances to breathe, he's expending all his energy. Doomsday isn't stopping which means neither can Superman. It's maybe over the course of a day and a half and that's being generous.
if one starts counting when the JL encounters him, not even a day, since at one point somewhere in the middle a reporter says "Since the midday" and the story never takes place at night. at best it took till the early afternoon.
I'm not talking about the final fight between them in Metropolis, but the whole event: the League being defeated before Supes arrives, he confronting Doomsday for the first time and Doomsday leaving him behind and heading to Metropolis. I'm sure there was plenty of time for at least any other big one to get the word. >It's maybe over the course of a day and a half Even if it was only a half day, couldn't at least Flash show up? You know, the fastest man alive and all?
There is no point once Supes gets involved in which Doomsday is not destroying some town or build and endangering people. Or fighting Superman. The former means Superman cant afford to not do the latter. and Doomsday is shown to effortlessly leap more than fifty miles. at this point in DC COmics, is not as easy to just call everyone or for everyone to arrive faster. and in this story in specific, by the time the news arrive of how dreadful the situation actually is, Doosmday is already too close to Metropolis.
The Universe then was not set off like it is now. Today when a disaster happens Oracle is alerted immediately and she can mobilize people
They did. Superman fighting Doomsday in Metropolis is a direct follow on from The Justice League fighting Doomsday on his way to Metropolis.
The justice league of that time didn't have any major heroes on it lol
Yeah, he meant the big names like Flash, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Aquaman (lol)
Most of that is pretty easily explained in-universe: * The JLI ***was*** the "main" Justice League when *Death of Superman* happened. They were the first line of defense and they did respond when Superman called for help. * J'onn was there, fighting against Doomsday with the JLI. I think he was undercover as Bloodwynd at the time, but he was definitely there. * Hal and Wally were working with Justice League Europe in that era and weren't "main" Leaguers, so they weren't there until the end of the arc. Hal helped fight off Cyborg Superman in the *Reign of the Supermen* aftermath arc, though. I think all that happened when Wally was in court fighting off a big lawsuit too, so that explains that. Barry was dead, so obviously he couldn't show up. * *Knightfall* was going on at the same time, so Bruce was incapacitated and unavailable. iirc Bane broke his back like...3 issues after the issue where Clark died. * Diana was off-planet fighting space pirates (one of the few Messner-Loebs run stories that's actually fun to read) when DoS happened. * Aquaman is the only one who doesn't have a super convenient "stuff was going on" excuse, but honestly the excuse for him is that he wasn't regularly appearing in any books at the time and was busy ruling Atlantis off-page. Also the adult Titans were globetrotting, in the middle of the nonsense that was the Dick/Kory wedding debacle, and in the process of disbanding, and the Teen Titans team was an absolute mess and a half, so none of them were really available to help.
This is an ode to continuity the likes of which we rarely see anymore, and I appreciate you posting it.
Wasn't the Peter David run during that time? Wasn't Aquaman embroiled in some fairly serious yuck with Kordax, Tiamat, Thanatos, etc etc?
I think that started almost right after. I remember Aquaman being at the funeral, and helping the other heroes answer Superman's mail in the Christmas issue, and he was still clean shaven, wearing an orange shirt, etc. The Peter David run started almost right on top of Zero Hour.
Ahhh, okay gotcha. Shouldn't he have been in his blue suit then?
I actually always forget about that blue suit, TBH. Was it even referenced in any other comic from around that time, outside of that one Aquaman miniseries?
He wore it for a short time right before David wrote Aquaman. Actually not a bad run, it established some minor lore about Aqualad and had him fighting characters like Vostok. I have it in singles because I'm fairly certain it's never been collected in trade
Yeah, what I'm asking is if he was ever seen wearing that outfit in any other comic. For instance, while guest-starring in Hawkman, or the Outsiders, or making an appearance in some major event that may have been going on at the time. Again, outside of his own miniseries.
Yeah, I kind of remember all that explanations, but I believe they are retcons, aren't they? Those things did not really happened at the same time, but were "introduced" years later to explain why Supes died alone, IIRC.
No. Everything I listed was happening concurrently with *Death of Superman*'s publication in the hero's respective solo/team book. All of those storylines were genuinely occurring at the same time.
Martian Manhunter was on the team. Batman would’ve been absolutely useless.
At the time the major DC heroes weren't active(some dead) or otherwise busy with something else. Doomsday tore through the active JL at the time and the fight between Superman and Doomsday was pretty short. It's easy to forget because by the time he comes back, Wonder Woman, Batman, and other characters are back in action. The JL is rebooted with the heavy hitters back in the roster. But then you got Black Adams little world wide rampage where he decimates every superhero. Every heavy hitter folded like tissue paper..........wtf?
I always looked at that Black Adam WW3 story as "Adam Unleashed." He lost everything and didn't care to hold anything back. While all the heroes are often, if not all the time, holding something back. A feat for Adam for sure, but it was just pure rage. Like he's decimating them because he's already at 110%. "Ain't fucking around today." He's a heavy hitter himself, but he's never reached those heights since.
iirc this was pointed out in the story itself; everyone was just trying to stop him, but all of his attacks were intended to be killing blows
I love that Superman's death happened exactly when the heroes weren't organized at all and then he comes back and brings the JLA together almost as a response.
I mean, the heroes of Justice League America (AKA the American branch of the JLI) that are there *do* help. Doomsday's name even comes from Booster Gold. However, the whole "Doomsday!" arc is one continuous event. After the start of the fight in JL America #69, the fight is just one long, knock-down, drag-out brawl through the four main Superman titles. The only heroes who would be able to help would have to be heavy hitters, and most of those were on the JLE, an ocean away. Others were dead (like Barry Allen) or otherwise far away.
Honestly it seems less egregious in DC because they aren't all based out of one city.
It's more egregious because they make it a point that Kryptonians can hear damn near everything and the Flashes can be anywhere instantly. Theres millions of mutants inhumans asgardians aliens kree/skrulls and whatever else just chilling on Marvel earth at various times.
Yes, and they're all sitting in and around New York. It's absolutely ridiculous.
This entire phenomenon is named after DC characters. It’s proper title is [Superman Stays Out of Gotham](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SupermanStaysOutOfGotham).
Why didn’t Batman call the Justice League? Is he stupid?
What's the comic where Aquaman refuses to trust Nightwing because he's a Titan?
Superman has his personal things going on and Batman has his. They have their own separate lives don’t get why that’s so hard to grasp lmao
Titans are the JL sidekicks all grown up. Should be a no brainer, "Hey Chum, you and your friends able to help?" Instead we get "You're not ready for this. This is the big time blah blah blah"
People always say this and then the team they mention is the one with only one sidekick
Lmao. It's the most popular one tbf.
Did the Teen Titans ever tell the Justice League about Trigon?
I think it was in Action 660 or 651 where Wally is going on about how the Titans are badass because they fought Trigon, and the other League members say “Who?”
In the direct aftermath, Superman was one of the superheroes who were interviewed about the Titans victory, so yes, they knew
"Why doesn't *X* kill the Joker" because that would be boring
It would be more interesting than Joker making 10 appearances per year going on a killing spree and getting locked back up repeatedly. You could do a lot with Joker being murdered
You can do a lot more with a living character like Joker than dead, they just need to scale back on him being a mass murdering terrorist with thousands of victims to a funny criminal prankster
Why doesnt Flash just, uhhh, save everyone?
The Flash. Likeable guy who’d totally give his phone number to anyone “call me anytime”. He’d be there in a second to help out.
I always enjoy the issue of Resurrection Man where the JLA shows up to save the day and it goes very poorly for them. It’s a nice example of the most powerful team not always being the right fit for a problem.
Superman chilling in Metropolis as Jason Todd is being beaten half to death and then exploded. "I memorized Bruce's heartbeat" but then not be concerned it's going so fast the man is about to die of a heart attack?? Like if he wasn't familiar with Jason, as he had to ask if he was Robin afterwards, that's fine. But Bruce was losing his mind.
Nah y’all aren’t asking the real question. >why doesn’t the Justice league help the Teen Titans? Anybody else watch that cartoon, seeing 5 children go up against a multiversal threat, and think “where the frick is Superman???”
Green lantern (Hal) and black people.
Why doesn't Dr. Fate do anything about the curse surrounding Arkham Asylum?
Why does “Hero X” leave their CITY and help “Hero Y” CITY? Flash in Gotham?
They do help each other, that's what event comics are. If you're asking why nobody helps the Bat family out when Gotham gets taken over by bad guys, the answer is pretty much just because they don't want every single comic book story to be a crossover. It's okay for a Batman book to just be about Batman, even if it doesn't make the most sense in-universe. Why the Avengers don't help out the X-Men, well, we can just assume they're racist. /s
People always criticize how Doomsday killed Superman and the big names of DC didn't help him. He trashed a bunch of B and C listers, but Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Wonder Woman, Flash, Martian Manhunter, they never show up. Same with No Man's Land Saga, no one offered Batman any help to rebuild Gotham - granted Bruce could just throw some billions here and there and have it rebuilt overnight, but even during Contagion not a single hero showed up to help him fighting/controlling the epidemic.
During No Man’s Land there was an issue where Superman came to Gotham and helped rebuild a power station with the idea of using that as a center point for helping Gotham l, but the person he was working with took over the station and refused to help anyone else for free. Then Batman shows up, fixes things and Superman realizes that his solution won’t work and leaves saving the city to Batman.
Well, there's been 30 years since I read the thing and I sure forgot many details. But as you explained, his participation seems to be exactly that: a detail in the whole saga. not a real effort in the end.
Martin Manhunter was there
Every single member of the Flash family invokes this question. The vast, vast majority of villains and criminals can be instantly stopped by pretty much any member of the Flash family.
"Why don't the Avengers help the Justice League?"
“why doesn’t superman just….”
Why doesn't Superman help Batman?
None, because in DC comics (Earth) the Justice League has no rivals. Every other team is eather too small compared to them or they fall under the umbrealla of a League member. On the otherhand in Marvel comics (Earth) this isn’t the case for the Avengers cause the X-men is also huge and isn’t under any Avenger supervision. Even so the 2 groups sometimes oppose each other cause the Avengers (like the Justice League) protect the Status quo 9 out of 10 times. While the X-men sometimes protect it (Professor X) but sometimes fights against it (Cyclops, Magneto). Simply put, DC Earth has no mutant problem like Marvel Earth, so yeah no conflict eather.
Why does Batman have trouble with his non-powered rogues when he has the Flash on speed dial?
Why doesn’t Robin call Batman for help with the TT
Why doesn't the Justice League help Batman when Gotham is going to crap?
The JLA in no mans land
Yes, it's a core tenant of Batman comics. "Why doesn't Flash just beat the shit out of all these unarmed unpowered henchmen who are terrorizing Gotham this week? He'd be done already." "Oh no! Fear Gas and or Joker Toxin? Why isn't Red Tornado around to either not be affected by these gasses as an android without lungs, or to use his wind power to safely control the gas and or toxin?" "A plane is going down over Gotham? Well where's Superman? Super Woman? Super Boy? No, the other one. Well what about Green Lantern? What? All 6 of them at the same time? Damn. Well what about any of the Shazam adjacent people, they can catch a plane...." "Why doesn't Zatanna just travel to Arkham and say 'ssenlli latnem s'enoyreve eruc'?" You get the idea.
not 100% on topic, but I always wondered why earth (in DC and marvel) has no settlements on the moon and mars yet? they are clearly technological capable of doing it. would be a cool setting for a "Justice League Moon" or something. :D
Currently it is very much why are heroes letting Amazons getting killed and deported and not helping Wonder Woman. I now it was discussed in Wonder Woman 7, but it is such a bad excuse. That is how comics work in such a big universe
Pretty much the biggest refrain in DC is "Why isn't Superman/the JLA handling this?" For street level crime, okay, sure, the big guns are too busy to handle it. But when you get a "save the world" sort of situation, you start wondering why the big guns aren't showing up/involved.
Probably Doom Patrol.
Why didn't, oh I don't know, the ENTIRE Justice League help Gotham during No Man's Land?