FEAR THE HAMMERS OF JUSTICE! Batman: The Brave and the Bold discussion thread

[Edward Nygma]

I didn't make any attempt to catalog the feats of this series, it was just too good not to have its own thread.

I'll run down what I can remember and sort that into a half-baked list of feats. Tragically, very little will probably be about Batman. I'm terrible at keeping track of street level feats. When Bane is throwing around cars, or whatever, it's pretty easy to forget that Batman shoulder checking that same car's door off its hinges is also extremely superhuman. I do have one or two reaction feats that stuck out for Bats and other street level fighters, but that's about it.

-------------------------------------- Feats (very much a WiP)------------------------------​

5D Imps / Emporer Joker: Standard reality warping. Star to solar system level DC shown; blew up the sun.

Stargirl disperses clouds just by creating a bat signal. Casually city+, if I were betting man. Would scale to whoever she was failing to beat up, and to Blue Beatle who helped beat whoever that was up.

Wildcat and/or Batman dodge electricity running through a subway rail. Could easily be rel+, sub rel at the very least.

Superman scores a homerun at the top of the 1st; the ball is confirmed passing Saturn by the top of the 9th. Baseball games average barely over three hours. Clocking the trip at an even 3 hours gives us ~49% of lightspeed. 458 megatons relativistic KE. Well into city level while literally playing games. Gigachad.

 

[Edward Nygma]

-------------------------------------BatB: A 5th Dimensional Setting---------------------------​

If we are going to talk BatB, we need to embrace the essence of this sub-forum and get META. Thanks to 5D fuckery (Bat-Mite), BatB is a disgustingly meta show. There are, at least, three layers of reality; beyond even the core concept of the BatB multiverse.

Reality (literally us) --> an animated facsimile of our world (heroes only exist as TV characters) --> Brave and the Bold multiverse (the show we watched).

This list probably looks out of order. Obviously, the facsimile exists within BatB, right? Well, yes. As you say, hypothetical questioner, we obviously watch this facsimile take place within the bounds of the series. The characters of that world are BatB characters BUT, within the confines of the story, this realm has direct control over the existence of BatB as a series.

The finale of BatB sees Bat-Mite sabotaging the series after he tires of the show's lighter tone. His successful push to get the show canceled manifests as blocks of the sky turning into TV static as viewers (from the facsimile) change the channel. The actions of this not-quite-real world literally begin erasing BtaB from existence. We even see an animated facsimile of the showrunners choosing to shut it down. Ultimately, this backfires on Bat-Mite. As a fictional character, cancelation in our reality means the erasure of his existence as well.

I suppose it's entirely possible that there are only supposed to be two realities; ours and BatB. That we are supposed to take the facsimile of our world as an animated record of events, not as a separate reality. It's hard to say, given how little we see of it. I can say for certain that our world is a part of the story, given how many IRL comic events Bat-Mite references, not to mention the actual IRL collectibles he has. He's the only character to mention Jason Todd. He even hints at having voted for Jason's death. There is never even so much as a hint towards the continuation of the Robin mantle in the show (outside of Alfred's daydreams) and Batman's lack of a reaction makes it clear that Jason's death didn't happen off-screen or something. This is can only be a comment about our reality.

I think what's most interesting about this are the possible implications for the rules of 5D imps throughout fiction. Comic Mxy made a bold claim a while back that every incarnation of him, throughout any reality, they are all actually him. There is only one Mxy in all of fiction. This can be a tough pill to swallow given the nerfed versions of 5D imps running about. But is pretty easily rationalized with the knowledge that most imps want to play, and would obviously nerf themselves to appropriate levels for a given setting. With the erasure of this Bat-Mite in this setting, I think it is fairly safe to say that, if Mxy's 'the one-and-only' claim is legit, imps use a Dakrseid-esque avatar system. They aren't omnipresent with their full comic book power.