Batman and Superman

So, I'm still kinda new to comics, but I gotta ask—Superman has super intelligence, right? But then why is Batman the brains of the Justice League? Is it that Superman actually doesn't have super intelligence in many of his renditions, or is it more that Batman is actually less intelligent than Superman, but Batman's just so paranoid about failure that his paranoia makes up for his lack of superhuman intelligence? Or is it that Superman's super-intelligence is just not "super" enough for the genius of Bruce Wayne? I didn't even know Superman had super-intelligence until I learned about it recently.

Superman's certainly smart. He has to be, in order to be a putlitzer-prize winning journalist. That said, I think "super-intelligence" as a specific power is nonexistent nowadays, the way Flash has to be the fastest by a country mile to keep him from being redundant against Supes. As well, Batman's schtick is that he's THAT damn smart and capable on all levels of operations from small tactics to grand strategy to be both the world's greatest detective solo as well as earning him a spot on the League.

Certainly while stories will have to bow to Batman being the brains, having Clark do some legwork in journalism and reporting to help Bruce out solving stuff would be welcome, the way Bruce and Barry worked together in The Button. You can certainly show Batman's THE smart guy, but Superman is no slouch himself.

Superman is super-intelligent in the sense that he can do incredibly complex math inhumanly quickly or solve nigh-impossible physics problems, but he doesn't have the guile or intellectual creativity that Batman has.

Usually Superman has regular to clever intelligence, with some stories harking back to the Silver Age giving him Super Intelligence.

Though Batman is the brains partly because he's the only one with any sort of information network, the others either dont bother or have ones limited to their won spheres of influence, while Bruce has connections everywhere.

Superman has above average intelligence, but nothing genius level. The only field he may have some leg up on is Kryptonian technology

So essentially Superman is smarter than Batman because his brain works really fast, but Batman with his Batcomputer is better than Superman?
Why doesn't Superman just build his own Supercomputer, then? Is he just too poor to do that?

Also if Superman is that smart, why doesn't he end up like Dr. Manhattan? I guess Dr. Manhattan IS that exact critique of Superman, but what would DC's response to that line of thinking be?

>Why doesnt he end up like Dr Manhattan
Because Clark isnt a emotionally stunted man who can bend matter to his will, and was brought up by 2 loving parents that instilled good values in him. And he already has a computer at the Fortress of Solitude

Superman intelligence is closer to Spiderman, they both can create some high teach gadget and traps but Batman is a top tactician like Captain America.

Also unlike superman Batman is a real "professional" hero that trained and studied for his whole life while superman was living as a farmer.

They make Batman the brains of the League because
1. He is arguably more popular right now
2. They need to have a justification for him even being there beyond "rich"

Superman is an Isekai story. He is a human who has been reincarnated into a super hero world and given cheat powers. So he enjoys himself. Occasionally, he will go out and rescue a kitten from a tree, or go visit a make a wish kid (who is dieing from cancer that Superman could cure in less than a week) in a hospital. But he doesn't really use his powers or abilities for much because that would be too much WORK, and he really just wants to have fun "playing" super-hero, but not doing any of the hard work associated with being an actual super-hero.

1) Bruce, driven by the murder of his parents, trained his mind his entire life with the intent of using it to fight crime. Clark, on the other hand, still did, although on a more moral and ethical level as opposed to Bruce's more mechanical thinking.
2) While Superman is still a fantastic tactician, Batman's tactical prowess is heightened by his autistic obsession. Bruce isn't exactly the most mentally sound individual, do this allows him to think and fight in a more cruel and emotionless fashion.
>What would DC's response to that line of thinking be?
Doomsday Clock.

Superman is smarter than Batman the same way a computer or calculator is smarter than a person.
Being able to calculate things fast doesn't give him an edge in any real world application; Its the same reason why despite being able to process info on a scale humans can't comprehend AI are functionally retarded.>Why doesn't Superman just build his own Supercomputer, then? Is he just too poor to do that?
This is the equivalent of buying a calculator even though you can do everything a calculator can. Superman just isn't as creative as Bruce is and in some cases he doesn't even have a technological edge. Bruce is just light years ahead of him in the intelligent department.

For the same reason why Captain America is the Leader isntead of Tony Stark,Hank Pym or Peter Parker

Why would bat man allows super man to finger his mouth

Batman is a slut for Superman

Earth 1 Superman is smarter than Batman though. He got scholarships and accepted to any company he wanted to go to. But he realized then he would have no secret identity so he basically doesn't use that part of his superpower. It's kinda stupid.

Same thing with Hyperion, he can think at the speed of light (both Supreme version and 616) and so can instantly do any math problem he wants.

The only reason why it isn't used is cause Batman is more popular and without giving him super intelligence there would be no reason fro him to be partners with Superman and part of the Justice league

>Same thing with Hyperion, he can think at the speed of light (both Supreme version and 616) and so can instantly do any math problem he wants.
Again this is Stupid, that's not how problem solving works. The ability to calculate things fast does not solve a problem because if that was all it took all the earth problem would be solved. We have machines that can solve complex equation in a fraction of a second and we do use them but Scientist are also needed to actually put the Data to use. There is a difference between Information and Data. Superman wouldn't be smarter than batman using this logic as all Bruce would need to make superman redundant is a really fast computer which he also posses just not in his Brain.

To put it another way; Superman has Eyes that allows him to see molecules however that doesn't make him a Physicist. He wouldn't know what he is looking at however Bruce is a Scientific genius and all he would need to even the playing field is a telescope something he undoubtedly poses. When it comes to Science creativity and problem solving trumps raw data and observation that's why Einstein was able to do so much even though he couldn't outright test his theories.

Superman's brain can process stuff faster but Batman has a better actual understanding of science/tactics/gadgets. It's the same way Iron Man or Reed Richards are smarter than Sentry or Quicksilver.

partly true, but you forget the interface is a major bottleneck of all learning. To learn you have to read; to do complex math you have to program. These things are practically eliminated by Superman powers. He can read every book on the planet and calculate all the variables in his brain nearly instantly. Sure there are limits on some things, creativity IS an important part of science, no denying that. But there is A TON that brute force can do in science

I think you are also partially right, that's why I said in a real world context; Like you know leading a team and just everyday life of a superhero Batman is functionally smarter than Superman. Plus the disciplines that Superman could brute force are not very helpful so to speak and Batman could also order his Bat-Computer to do it too, I mean he already has a network he calls Internet 3.0 which does the same thing. Your Bottleneck Theory is true in practice but as far as comic book logic is concerned its false since people like Lex and Bruce show no signs of such restrictions.

congratulations, I actually got assblasted

>Superman has super intelligence, right
He does if you're reading comic books made before 1985, or you read something Grant Morrison pulled out of his ass

Doesn't he have perfect memory too, it came in handy when they made the miracle machine in final crisis

He was super intelligent before the reboot, but then DC decided that a smart character won't be relateable to the Marvel readership they were looking to attract.

Even then he doesn't you have to go before the 70's and Grant Morrison Batman is smarter than Grant Morrison Superman.

Superman is very smart. Batman is a genius but not a supergenius like Lex, Sivana, etc.

Can you prove this? Because as far as what the characters manage to accomplish Bruce is superior to both although I would give Lex the "Worlds smartest man title" as I consider him a slightly better scientist.

So Lex should be able to punch out Darkseid and rule the universe as a New New God. If Lex was smarter than Bruce then that would be his endgame would it not?

regardless Batwank is bullshit anyway, and the only reason he is smarter than Superman is fucking Batwank being the entire direction of DC's business modle

It's simple plot convenience. If super intelligence was enough to make Batman play in the same field as Superman, Superman would have died ages ago. Take Batman, give him Superman-tier strength and multiply his intellect by a million, and you have Brainiac, Superman's arch-enemy and most famous foe after Luthor. Luthor himself also explicitly has super-intelligence, and usually much more super science bullshit than Batman does. And it's a pretty major aspect of the Superman Mythos in his own stories that Clark is basically a super genius, or at least can understand and wield advanced technology no humans can.

The issue here is expectations, and particularly the expectations that flow from several irreconcilable premises. Let me try to list these out:

1) Batman fights street level enemies. Batman is best known for fighting non-powered or low-powered criminals: the Joker, Harley Quinn, the Riddler, the Penguin, Bane, Ra's, Scarecrow and so on. Batman is a detective who unravels conventional crimes. Even Batman's superpowered enemies tend to have relatively modest powers by the standards of the genre. Bane, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, Ra's al Ghul, etc., have powers or supertech, but they're still fairly limited. A guy with a pistol could put any of them down if they got the drop on them. These enemies pose reasonable threats to Batman, in order to maintain drama. Conventional law enforcement can't handle these villains because they're quick and clever and because Gotham's PD is hopelessly corrupt, not because of their raw power. In some stories it's even a major plot point that the GCPD can be effective against the super criminals if properly led and inspired by Gordon and Bats.

[1/?]

[cont.]

2) Superman fights planetary scale or larger enemies. When we think of Superman, we think of outrageously powerful villains who can easily threaten all the Earth such as General Zod, Parasite, and Atomic Skull. Some of them are villains we think of who have slaughtered trillions and threaten the entire galaxy or universe, such as Brainiac, Darkseid, Doomsday, Solaris, and so on. Superman villains are often capable of singlehandedly conquering the world or at least threatening to destroy it. At the least, they are usually capable of singlehandedly crushing a regiment of the US army and needing heavy artillery to take down (e.g. ATGMs, cruise missiles), even their weaker film and TV incarnations. These enemies pose reasonable threats to Superman as well, and Superman is not laughably outclassed by them. In fact he's stronger than all but a few of them (That said, there is more divergence here, because Superman's power level tends to fluctuate much more than Batman's, which sometimes leads to problems with legacy villains. Lex Luthor is the stand-out here, since he really is not in the weight class of any of Superman's other villains. In any case, this premise suggests a relatively high-powered Supes.)

3) Superman and Batman are nonetheless relatively evenly matched. Neither of them is clearly superior in effectiveness or competence. When they cooperate, they do so as relative equals. The Justice League is not "Superman and some other guys," or at least it's not supposed to be.

How can all these premises be true at once?

Your first option is to power up Batman. You can do this via mental capabilities, but that seems difficult in practice. How smart can he be? Is he smarter than Superman's many genius opponents, like Brainiac or Luthor, but without their powers or resources? The problem with this is that it quickly becomes very dumb: either Batman can deduce things that a human being has no possible way of deducing, or you make Supes dumb.

[2/?]

He's pretty smart, he's shown to have near perfect memory when he only had a minute to memorize the miracle machine back in final crisis also I think Kryptonians get smarter under a yellow sun.

[cont.]

Furthermore even if this approach works, you don't get to have Superman and Batman fighting alongside each other. If you have a super-intelligent Batman supporting Superman, then effectively Batman has become Oracle. He is Superman's mission control, and no one wants to read a story that's just Batman telling Superman what to do. So you can compensate by instead giving Batman access to super physical capabilities. This is the approach you get with bat-powered-armour or the like. The problem with this is that if Batman takes out all this supertech whenever Superman's around, it really makes no sense for him to go back to the street level in his own titles. Bat-armour strong enough to go a round with Superman ought to let Batman effortlessly crush Bane or Killer Croc.


The second option is to depower Superman. In some ways this is just a return to their power levels when the Batman/Superman team up first came into existence, in the Golden Age of Comics. Golden Age Superman was much closer to being a street level himself (though still higher). Throwing cars was still impressive back then; he could run at several hundred mph at his best, but didn't have FTL reflexes or anything ridiculous like that, so he couldn't just wipe the villains out before they knew what happened. Small arms bullets bounced off his chest with no harm, but a "bursting artillery shell" could still break his skin. Et cetera.

If so, the problem with the Batman/Superman team up is Superman's power creep. If you dial that back and have a Superman who is only mid-level superhuman on the level of e.g. MCU Thor - then there's no problem. The difficulty here is that this is not what anyone is accustomed to seeing Superman as, especially since it requires depowering all of Superman's villains as well (except the tech-based ones). The DCAU sorta did this. But General Zod is much less frightening if the National Guard can take him down.

[3/?]

Remembering E=MC2 doesn't make you as smart as Einstein user.

[cont.]
You might mention kryptonite here, but it doesn't really solve the issue. Kryptonite is useful for Superman villains, because it lets Superman's weaker villains depower him to a point where they can have a fair fight. It's an equalizer. It doesn't work terribly well here, because most of Superman's villains are not vulnerable to kryptonite. This is very problematic when Superman's villlains are largely still in the same league as him in terms of power. Batman can have access to kryptonite, and that would be fine if Batman were a regular Superman villain, but it's not really any good when Brainiac comes knocking, thus Batman can't contribute. You wave that in his face and he's just going to crush your skull like a grape before bottling some cities and blowing up the planet. It also ceases to work when you introduce any of Superman's allies who have similar levels of power. Shazam is often portrayed as similar in power to Superman, but has no weaknesses. Kryptonite doesn't do anything to the Flash or Wonder Woman or Aquaman, and all those people are, even if not quite as powerful, at least in Superman's league (well, sometimes; their film/TV incarnations are usually at much 'saner' power levels- e.g. bullets are still a threat).

I'm not sure there are many other options. You could do something like Injustice, I guess, where everyone gets a Kryptonian super-pill that gives them Superman's physical abilities, or DCU Online, where Brainiac inadvertently creates Superman-tier cybernetic enhancements anyone can have access to, but while those are fine hand-waves for a video game, it doesn't seem like it's something you want long-term in a comic. If nothing else, it makes Batman and all his villains supermen, which kills any chance of more street level stories.

[4/4]

This, Superman basically has a computer brain in a lot of ways but it doesn't make him a tactical genius or anything like that

Doesn't make him not smart, plus he understands Kryptonian tech that alone would make him smarter than most people on earth.

We are not talking about "most people on earth" we are talking about Batman and understanding something his people built isn't impressive as he has an hologram to teach him and a whole fortress load of it to reverse engineer, Oh and you know who else understand Kryptonian tech and even speaks Kryptonian? Batman

god you are an idiot. knowing a simplified equation doesn't make you smart, it's calculating all the things it implies. Superman HAS to understand that equation entirely because the full one is e^2=((mc^2)^2+P^2*M^2)^2

it's a complicated equation that he has to understand at least implicitly when he hit someone like Darkseid.

>Fucking Superfags
The implications of the post is that Superman isn't smart for remembering this

Thanks for making me laugh.

>Understanding Kryptonian tech
>Still uses normal earth tech
Supes is smarter he just doesn't have the creativity that Bruce has when it comes to inventing.

...

>Batman the brains of the Justice League

It was not really a thing in the 1990s Justice League and was something really pushed by the DCAU. It's really something to blame Batfags for.

How was he not the brains of the Morrison/Waid era JLA? Steel was the engineer, but Batman was the tactician and detective. FFS Tower of Babel memed him into what he is today

batfags are the worst.

to be fair, the dog also hate the bat

Superman is pretty smart, he kinda needs to have an incredibly powerful brain in order to register information than moves faster than light. But he can only put that smart in field he gets. If he wanted to be a super scientist he would be one of the best ones out there. Instead he focus that intellect in other areas.

But Batman isn't inspirational, they see him as the opposite.

Ill try to explain it like this:
Superman is an Intel i7 processor, powerful and good at multitasking (multiple threads), can generally process info and understands things way better than your average human. batman is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
Insane processing power focused on a purpose (crime fighting, investigation, problem solving).
When they are together you can do amazing things but if you separate them and put them to a specific task (frame rendering for instance) your batman 1080 ti will come out on top because it specializes in crime rendering....fighting...whatever, you get the point.

Creativity and strategic thinking are skills earned by reading books, doing programs, asking questions. Asking better questions is a skill learned the same way.

This. Superman should be as intelligence as he is powerrful. Sometimes writers get that. Seems like too many don't.