#said robot went rogue and teamed up with Amanda Waller to imprison all the superheroes

[incorrect-green-lantern-quotes]

Taking the context of Parallax out of the story is why I think Tower of Babel is near impossible to adapt as a standalone story without losing key aspects of Batman's characterization.

Case in point: Justice League: Doom. It's supposed to be an adaptation of Tower of Babel, and it does get the broad strokes of the story right insofar as that the villain is trying to take over the world and adapts Batman's contingency plans to take out the Justice League. But that's really about as close as it gets. I'm not going to go over all the differences between the movie and comic, just the ones that I think are most crucial.

Firstly, the Green Lantern in Justice League: Doom is Hal Jordan, as opposed to Kyle Rayner in Tower of Babel. This isn't the only character change (Barry is the Flash, and both Aquaman and Plastic Man are switched for Cyborg), but it's the most significant because Hal Jordan isn't a ghost haunting the narrative. He's just another superhero, with no indication that he was ever Parallax. Ironically, this actually makes Batman's actions even worse, since there's less justification for his paranoia

Second, a lot of the contingency plans in the movie are significantly tamer than those in the comics. In the movie, Superman is shot with a Kryptonite bullet, Flash gets a bomb planted in his wrist, and Green Lantern takes a huge dose of fear gas.

In the comic, Clark's cells are overloaded by Red Kryptonite that Batman specifically created. Wally is shot in the neck with a vibrating bullet, causing him to suffer epileptic seizures at light speed. Kyle gets blinded by a hypnotic suggestion, which is especially horrifying because the comic shows that Batman got the idea from Kyle talking about how important his sight was to him as an artist.

Both the comic and movie indicate that Batman made his contingencies to be nonlethal, but the former really pulls no punches with just how cruel the plans were to their victims.

Third, the movie tries to end on a more positive note by having Batman quit before the League has to vote on whether he is allowed to remain, and Superman goes after him to talk. That's where we get this scene, where Bruce tells Clark that his contingency plan for himself is the Justice League, implying that he does have some measure of trust in them.

The original comic does not have this scene. It does not have any version of it, and Superman is actually the tiebreaker vote to kick Batman out of the League, though Bruce is already gone by then because he knew Clark would never allow him to stay after violating everyone's trust so badly.

In fact, the trade paperback of Tower of Babel shows that Batman's actions have consequences far beyond the Justice League. Both the Titans and Young Justice are suspicious of Nightwing and Robin because of their association with Batman, and the Justice League are reluctant to call upon Oracle for any information.

The original version of events makes it clear. Batman's contingency plans were not a good thing. They were rooted in paranoia, and his secrecy was costly for everyone.

Justice League: Doom is fun to watch, but it's also limited by the nature of being a standalone movie. It loses the context of Batman being driven by fear to make plans to hurt his friends while keeping, and the difficult process of regaining trust afterward.

which makes it all the more ironic when batstans point to the contingencies as "proof" that Batman is the only sane and rational man on the Justice League and could take them out if he wanted to. like, way to miss the point guys

The real tragedy of the whole “Batman contingency plans” thing escaping containment into the wider cultural zeitgeist is that it’s become completely divorced from the original context of, you know, the Tower of Babel story-line happening after a beloved member of the Justice League did in fact go mad, become all-powerful, and destroy all of reality.

Which is devastating because it loses so much when you take Hal Jordan out of it! In both adaptations and fan discussions!

Despite only being mentioned by name once in the story, Hal haunts the whole narrative in how unspoken he is. The whole theme of the story is the failure to communicate and how it destroys trust, and an essential part of that is how the whole League won't (and can't) talk about Hal.

When Kyle finally tries to bring him up, Wally shoots him down. He is the forbidden topic at the heart of the League's breakdown of trust!

When the contingency plans plot is removed from the context of Hal's fall from grace, isn't proceeded by a JLA founding member doing what was supposed to be unthinkable, Bruce's actions lose their emotional core. It becomes just "Batman is the coolest and smartest and also a huge untrusting asshole" instead of "Bruce was already on the knife-edge of crippling paranoia regarding his powerful allies, and then one of those same allies started slaughtering people and he couldn't do a thing to stop it, confirming all his worst fears and sending him right over the edge"

You take Bruce's feelings of very personal betrayal out of the equation. He's not operating on just hypotheticals, but fears that were heartrendingly justified!

Bruce claims the reason for his plans on some past mind-control incident, but Clark calls Bruce out on it being an excuse.

Maybe that's how it started, but there's a reason the fail-safes aren't against mind-control and possession. The fail-safes are ways to permanently stop your friends should they willingly or unwillingly become a threat.

And they both know it. They've argued about Hal several times before.

Bruce has a lot of unresolved feelings about Hal. He's still hurting.

The contingency plans are not some cold, clinical necessity. They are the product of pain.

I think all readings and tellings of the Tower of Babel should be followed by the JLA/Spectre story.

It provides the necessary emotional conclusion to the unspoken conflict! Because they finally have to talk about it! They heal the broken trust! Bruce admits how much Hal's betrayal hurt him and his faith in heroes, and gets past it! Instead of letting a former and potential future threat be eliminated as his fail-safes say he should, he invites the threat back, even if he can't guarantee it won't happen again, because he chooses to believe in his friend!

The contingency plans are a cool and interesting concept, but again, you can't just...take Hal out of it. You can't make it about some evil alternate versions, or about Clark. By doing that, you lose the most heartbreaking part of the story. Batman isn't in the right or the wrong, but he's not heartless. He's brokenhearted.