#supermans on weakness

[indecisive-neurodivergent]

WTF BRO ON

[bet-on-me-13]

The weirdly competent Doctor

So! The Watchtower's Medical Bay is a hub of constant Activity. With the number of Heroes who work under the Justice League, there are always injuries, health check-Ups, and illnesses that need healing.

But with the amount of Variant Biologies that those Heroes have, it's always a guessing game as to how to help them best. Some Metahumans react positively to penicillin, but others react like it's their Kryptonite. Some Aliens have anatomy similar to Humans, others are so different you can't tell the Stomach from the Bladder.

So when they hired a New Doctor for the Medical Bay, they had to run him through an entire Course on Variant Biologies and how best to treat specific Heroes. It was long and difficult to remember fully, but it was necessary for him to know.

But then the new Doctor started correcting Them.

"Actually, Martian's react better to the Syrup of Eucalyptus Plants better than Penicillin, since Eucalyptus is very similar to a medicinal plant from Mars which they used in many of their antibiotics."

"I don't think just pumping double doses of sedative is the best way to calm down a Speedster, that could have adverse effects on their body. Perhaps try Psychic Intervention? Their minds move a Mile a Second, but if you can calm them down their bodies will follow suit."

"Of course you use Micro-Doses of Kryptonite to operate on Superman! What else would you do?! I don't know, maybe ask JLD to enchant your Equipment to make use of Kryptonian suseptiblity to Magic? The Kryptonite is just gonna give him Cancer!"

Of course the Doctors didn't take kindly to being rudely corrected by a newbie, and Fired him on his first day.

Then a few days later their usual Treatments don't work, and they decide to give those strategies the Quack Doctor gave them out of desperation.

And Lo and Behold, they work! Martian Manhunter is fully healed and feels much better than the previous times he has needed surgery. Apparently they used a different Antibiotic that worked better with his Biology. Which was incredible, how had they figured it out?

Another Doctor you say? One who was experienced on Martian Biology and Medicinal History? He would very much like to meet with the man!

...

What do you mean you fired him for talking back?!

[1001aus]

Phantom is a member of JLA when everyone finds out that the Bats have contingency plans against everyone else.

While everyone else is shouting about trust and betrayal, Danny can't help but be relieved. He's seen his bad future, after all. Dan is reformed now, but that doesn't retroactively save the timeline he wiped out.

Danny only has one issue with the contingencies for him: Batman mistakenly believes that his intangibility works the same as Martian density shifting.

It doesn't. In fact, they're very different powers. Intangibility is more of a phase shift where he turns his physical form into energy.

This means that none of the contingencies in his file will work because they don't accurately account for one of his basic powers.

(The shouting actually gets derailed for a bit when he brings it up. All the scientists are a bit horrified about the implied energy conversions happening whenever he uses this "basic" power. As a halfa with an actual physical form, Danny should be giving off enough energy to blow up the planet whenever he transforms.)

[cyanbeetle]

Trinity thesis

[bruciemilf]

if I had any kind of artistic prowess, I’d draw Clark with a mild ‘I’m about to wreck shop’ smile, grabbing at his hair, glasses halfway down his nose while helping Jon and Damian with their math homework.

“Pa, they want us to do it THIS way-“

“BUDDY. MATH IS M A T H.”

[jesterraconteuse]

The fact that on Krypton, Kal-el wouldn't be a huge warrior or a golden boy noble but a scientist makes so much sense but at the same time feels like a brave choice of the show writers and I love them for that

[satoshy12]

Baby Phantom with his Rogues Gallery in DC:

While in a fight with Skulker and Technus, Danny, now de-aged by a new invention, inadvertently, with his rogues, landed in the DC Universe. It had been Batman who saw them first as they wreaked havoc on the sky of Gotham. And all saw the robot fight the tiny meta-alien toddler. And the 2 Villians who seem to attack and try to kill the Toddler. Before he could do anything, both the toddler and the Villians were gone, seeming to be flying away. This had gone on for a long time in many cities until Danny was finally able to defeat both Skulker and Technus. And he then noticed his new body. He was in a toddler body, in public... Skulker called him Whelp and wanted his pelt by skinning him alive. Well, time to go undercover till he builds a way home, a better prison for Skulker and Technus, and escapes these newly learned heroes, villains, and civilians. Who wants to save him from his creepy villains?

Danny's fight was seen by almost every city of the heroes, and all of them are pretty pissed at Skulker and Technus. And sadly for both ghosts, magical and similar attacks work on them. So if they are caught by a hero or villain, it could give them much pain even while Intangibility.

Lex Luthor was pissed of Technus used his suit against the toddler, for once he will help Superman. He is pissed! Most other villians had similiar moments or were disgusted at the idea of hunting down and fighting a toddler.

[dailydccomics]

*barks*

[officialbruciewayne]

Superbat commission by Verrner

[superbat-love]

Villain’s Guide to Defeating Superman

…And it’s not by using kryptonite

Superbat Master Collection

[blue-boy-scout]

| Batman (2011) #20

[violent138]

Keep seeing headcanons of Martha and Jon Kent being frequent foster parents and I love it to bits because a) they'd legitimately be the best parents considering they went through the insane growing pains of multiple alien younglings, b) Clark probably drops by and is a natural at getting people to participate in the shared chores and open up to being there, and everyone always gets surprised that he was adopted because the family fits together seamlessly.

[whumpypepsigal]

Whumptober 2023 | No. 31

“I thought that I was getting better.” | “Take it easy.”

Superman & Lois s02e14: “I just need to sit down for a sec.”



@whumptober @whumptober-archive

[bombusbombus]

It is vitally, vitally important that Clark Kent is boring.

I don't mean 'boring' in an inherently bad way. A desk job is boring. Data analysis is boring. Due process is boring. All of these things are imperative for a functioning society but almost nobody will ever be praised for them.

When my car got stolen a year ago, the guy who took it stole a bunch of other stuff too. I was sitting with a cop in a backroom of the campus police station for almost an hour while he was doing paperwork (to make sure everyone would get their stuff back), and at one point he looked up at me and he said, "sorry about this. It's not all shootouts and car chases like on TV."

And I almost said, "well, due process is sexy" (I didn't, for obvious reasons). But he looked surprised when I told him I thought due process was pretty cool. Like nobody is supposed to think due process is cool. Things are only cool if they're glamorous or flashy.

The guy who stole my car was horribly addicted to meth. The sheriff told me, "you should press charges so we can put him away for as long as possible."

The sheriff was lost in a world of heroes and villains. He was the "hero." The addict was the "villain." But the person who helped people was the guy at a desk, who went back over the mile long paper trail and returned every stolen item to its owner. The important stuff is when some guy in an office writes an algorithm to save endangered whales, or when the third double blind test finally shows sufficient evidence for the efficacy of a new cancer treatment. The goose that actually lays the golden egg almost never cackles.

This is why the 'Glasses' comic is so important, to me. We live in a world which glorifies exciting acts of heroism but not "boring" ones. We live in a world that thinks people like Clark Kent aren't important, when they're often doing the most important work, solving the systemic issues, saving people who aren't lost yet. Sometimes we need firefighters, but in a perfect world, we'd only need safety inspectors.

And sure, Superman is necessary within the story. There are disasters and villainy he can prevent. There are lives he can save. But being Superman is ultimately a terrible sacrifice, and if the heroism wasn't necessary he'd be Clark Kent all day. That's what makes him not a cop: he's not enjoying the car chases and shootouts. He avoids letting things get 'interesting' at all costs. He avoids glory.

The comic Strong Female Protagonist (by Brennan Lee Mulligan and Molly Ostertag, BRING IT BACK) has several fascinating pieces of philosophy on superheroes and society, but my favourite is this:

Kal-el, living solar battery, isn't just someone who contributes to society from the outside or the top. He plugs away at boring, everyday kindnesses just like other humans. (This can make for great contrasts with Lex Luthor, who is the epitome of a light bulb person and could never understand why Superman would want to be a battery.)

Clark Kent is boring. Clark Kent plays things by the book. Clark Kent is sexy in the same way that due process is sexy, and any character who thinks the Clark Kent side is 'less than' the Superman side, is textually a goddamn idiot. "No glory save honour" and he will always have both.

[el-ffej]

OK: According to the credits of the latest episode, "Most Eligible Superman", the voice giving instructions to Kara is: (a) Braniac, and (b) voiced by Michael Emerson.

PLOT TWIST: It's actually The Machine talking to Kara, not Braniac. It's taken on it's creator's voice, and boondoggled Kara into thinking it's her father.

[captorations]

my adventures with superman does the she-ra thing where it pretends to do some tedious straight plotline only to then subvert it in the funniest way and/or make it good. like. clark being peer pressured into thinking that his valentine's day plans aren't enough, and the viewer braces themselves for an entire episode of secondhand embarrassment as clark proceeds to try way too hard. instead the episode is immediately derailed by Actual Plot and then it's revealed that lois didn't even know it was valentine's day so it didn't matter that they spent the day doing plot things. this can easily be compared to princess prom, which started as a classic episode formula and then went off the rails in the gayest way possible.

it also does the tangled series thing, where it blindsides you with incredibly good writing when you least expect it. take clark and lois's dad bitching at each other. like of course this reads as the stereotype of two guys being competitively possessive, one as a father for his daughter and one as a boyfriend for his girlfriend. and then when lois tries to call clark on it he goes ??? no that's not it, i think he sucks because of how he treats you. "he makes you feel small." which is just the most pleasant surprise. it's dead on AND something that will keep causing friction, because lois can't process that yet. the tangled series was aggressive about this from the start, having eugene recover from a fuckup with a completely sincere "i don't understand, but i promise to do everything i can until i do understand." it's *using* their characters, creating the story WITH them, rather than having the story happen TO them.

these are admittedly only subtly different, but she-ra often failed with the latter and tangled went wildly back and forth on the former. it's different scales of writing, large scale concept vs. small scale execution. and the superman show passes both metrics fairly consistently. tl;dr it's good fucking writing and it makes me happy