Batman: An Inhuman Monster?
Man of Steel
Those versions of Batman during his early years under the cowl come off, as foolhardy, unprepared and amateurish, something that the character has steered clear of in recent years, depicting the bat as an obsessive compulsive who always has a contingency plan for almost every eventuality.
If DC’s upcoming Rebirth event once again retells the meeting of these two heroes then hopefully they can come up with something more interesting that the above, like John Byrne managed when he rebooted the Superman myth for the (then) modern day in 1986’s Man of Steel miniseries, after DC wiped clean years of confusing continuity and characters in the Crisis on Infinite Earths.
While this version of Superman is a little less slap happy than his descendants, he still has no time for vigilantes and tries to capture Batman for the authorities upon their very first encounter in Gotham city.
Not all confrontations between these two have to devolve into fisticuffs however, with the Dark Knight Detective outsmarting Superman by informing Superman his body is encased in a forcefield, like those used at airport metal detectors, that if breached by Superman’s hands will result in the detonation of a “bomb hidden somewhere in Gotham that will kill an innocent person”.
While leaving Superman aghast, this give Bruce Wayne enough time to clue Superman in on the situation in Gotham and his pursuit of a criminal known as Magpie.
Only once the two have worked together to put Magpie behind bars does Batman reveal that he was the innocent person at risk from the bomb, earning Superman’s wary trust and respect. Hopefully Zack Snyder’s Batman in can come up with something as elegant in the film.
