Man of Steel answers insight commentary episode seven weaknesses part two observed speculated and interests I will ask the obvious question start asking questions and answers welcome to Man of Steel answers insight commentary on your Man of Steel apologist Dr. awkward I cover a mosaic of topics for fans who love discussing the Man of Steel and the DC cinematic universe together will endeavor to answer the questions criticisms and controversies raised by the Man of Steel and those excited by the anticipated DC cinematic universe last episode we broke down how the powers may work or be suppressed in today's episode applied is explanations in addition to other ones implied by the film to come up with a list of possible weaknesses or challenges that Superman may have to face in the ongoing DC cinematic universe will talk about the ones that Batman may be up to employ and will discuss if Batman and Superman a really good have to throw down this podcast dives deep into the Man of Steel to answer the critics and the confused the show is not meant to convert anybody but the celebrate a film that leaves a lot of wonderful room for interpretation and investigation reasonable minds will differ but this is a show for fans who love the Man of Steel and love to chew their food will start with die genic analysis for what happened in the film then analyze the creative decisions that took place outside the film for now were doing general topic episodes like this one so thanks for joining me today's episode is going to be a little more free-form than the typical ones usually a try to prep by writing everything out in pretty extensive notes all my little points send all a little tangents that I'm going to discuss unfortunately because of family commitments and scheduling issues that aren't interesting to you whatsoever this is the only time that I can record and none of my notes are available right now so disorder doing this on the fly I just outlined all my points on the back of the napkin Amberg and go from there so this a rough outline for what today's episodes can be a think will start off with maybe the physical threats to Superman as seen in Man of Steel the ones that were fairly clear then I think we can move into some speculated abilities things that may be might be vulnerabilities that Superman has but were not so sure where extending out the logic of what we've seen in the film and using that as a basis to establish weaknesses that we may project into the future were also taking a look at the Superman tradition and things that have traditionally stymied or stalled or harmed or heard the Man of Steel will briefly do a Batman application section just to see if any of the ones that we just listed can be used abused or easily applied by the bat against Superman and that will go into Superman's real weakness leverages against his character and his interests and how that can give rise to interesting character conflict that doesn't require Batman actually knocking out or beating Superman in a physical confrontation so based on Man of Steel I think off the top of our heads we can think of three rather clear weaknesses one that we talked about extensively in the last episode which is the atmospheric weakness we can follow that with obviously the way that's odd was dispatched the next that and then finally the way all the other kryptonian's were dispatched which is dimensional removal or the Phantom zone singularity those three are fairly obvious we also have a number of moments where kryptonian's have to deal with sensory overload and then there's a whole series of times that Superman or kryptonian's have been stunned or stalled knocked out or otherwise delayed so like I said in the opening in these episodes we start out by looking at things die genic Lee and mechanically right now were not really looking into the creative choices behind Superman and lethal force and self-defense and utilitarian values and being a moral paragon and all those other controversies at this time were just looking at it from within the reality of the story itself sort of breaking down the mechanics and details of those weaknesses so let's start with the next nap and what that can enlighten us on what kind of insights we can get from the next step the first thing is the next that obviously is a physical trauma and as we discussed in prior episodes that indicates baseline durability for solar powered kryptonian's presumably if you can apply sufficient force at the right angle at the right degree to a participant who can't resist your overcoming force you can kill a kryptonian in that manner but what we need to do is actually really break down how that trauma works having your neck broken doesn't always kill you throughout the film we never see any of Superman's bones break in a he's never had any bruises raised or blood spilled despite the incredible forces that Superman must've been subjected to in the film however ultimately Zide is stopped by twisting his neck so how does that work and this will get a little creek gruesome but will try to treat the subject a little dispassionately so don't worry I I shouldn't get too gory but essentially neck breaking can lead to a cessation of life through a number of different means one is the severing of the spinal cord another is as fixation a can be caused by internal decapitation or bleeding out in an important note is that it can be survived as we as we mentioned you can have your neck broken and you can still survive in the film we see what is essentially an instantaneous death cell typically that is the result of the severing of the CNS or central nervous system which eventually leads to the cessation of the autonomous functions as we mentioned previous episode that would take a lot of force and a lot of torque and it's something that the kryptonian would be able to potentially resist it isn't simply the tensile strength of his neck but also that superstrength factor that kryptonian's are able to contribute to their necks and not just the durability of his neck but also the strength of his neck so it is potentially something that Superman could resist of the future and therefore doesn't seem like a very plausible or reliable means of killing Superman going forwards however it could serve as an interesting visual cue if a strong enough individual were to put Superman in such a hold or headlock that would recall in the audience that same feeling of Jeopardy there was a spate of neck cracking and neck breaking within the pre-new 52 postcrisis DC comic book universe if you're not familiar there certainly was the infinite crisis sacrifice arc where wonder woman dispatched of Maxwell Lord who is mine controlling Superman via a next additionally around that time Barry Allen returned from the grave and you may remember that he was sort of pushed into in towards retirement when he killed Prof. zero with a similar next that and in fact there's actually a sort of is in this Batman panel out there were a Batman impersonator was slaying his victims by snapping their necks so there is this sort of history in the DC you of people being dispatched by the next that the only reason I raise that whole history is because heading into the new 52 that history that some of the readers had in the back of their mind would play into the comics when you would see wonder woman put somebody in a headlock certainly there is that slight recollection or that memory of that infamous headlock or next nap and you sort of wonder or anticipate whether wonder woman is going to do the deed again and to be honest that actually was a part of what had now were leaving the dietetic the which is sort of really briefly touch on it it was part of the inspiration behind having Superman cross the line at least once so what that does is and still in the audience that there are no possibilities for close simply on the basis of who they traditionally think the character to be instead they understand that every choice of the character makes going forward is going to be a willful and conscious choice in the light of the history that involves this line being crossed now but it's a right thing or wrong thing will talk about in the future but the just something I quickly want to highlight is Hunter on this topic right now the real thing though that the next nap indicates is something that's very easy to take for granted in superhero properties are stories and it's the fact that Superman's organs work they work as organs should in other words he has a central nervous system he has autonomous organs which can be shut down he has a life-sustaining organs and bodily functions within him it sounds ridiculous to have to point it out but if you think about it a lot of superheroes are suspended by tropes which make them essentially fleshy golems think one of the more common comic book tropes is accelerated healing and a lot of times those comic books don't quite appreciate the a method trauma that the individual undergoes irrespective of having accelerated healing how that trauma would cause you to shut down or result in a cessation of function irrespective of being to heal and traumas which are completely unable to be healed others give you two really quick ones one is for example the the tendons in one's legs being held under tension should those be sliced or cut you would need a surgical procedure to reattach them and bring them back into tension a simile you know blood veins which will are retract up into both sides of the wound no amount of just sort of normal organic healing is going to bring those back into tension and West is particularly extraordinary healing ability that somehow has its own intelligence to have essentially perform a surgical procedure another example is when Superman has historically been made intangible and placed into objects in the comic books you could how they spectrum of different reactions to it and at least two that I can recall of the top my head one there was a encounter with sort of a ninja clan and I believe there was a female ninja is drawn in that sort of 90s which blade style I believe her name is ghost or something that affect and she had the ability to make herself and other objects intangible and so she phases Superman's leg or arm or something into the ground and he simply pulls it out none the worse for wear right now if you think about that for for second that's problematic because even if Superman is invulnerable now he has particles of things in his blood in his veins in a phase into the matter of his own being which of course is physically he problematic in and of itself so but assuming you take that leap and say now you've got matter inside your organs inside your blood was obstructing your blood vessels is obstructing your in of the function of of of your arm of your circulatory system and that's can cause problems but because we sort of just in view Superman with being a invulnerable flesh golem we don't really worry about the operations of his innards and if we just say your invincible and it doesn't bother him to be fair though there wasn't an alternate example where Superman was phase into the jail a Council tabled by the Martian Man Hunter during Graham Morrison's jail a run and that completely incapacitated him now again if we follow it to its logical conclusion actually show just outright kill them but like it said there is a spectrum or continuum of how we treat the organs of the medical function of Superman within himself limit his integrity is important that Superman's organs works because it leads into the next weakness and the other insight that we can take from it and that's the atmospheric weakness now narratively the atmospheric weakness which again we talked about very extensively in the last episode is a stand-in for kryptonite and with kryptonite we know that the source of the do powering is traditionally radiation it's a radiological in this case it doesn't seem like the it's the same issue it's not the same condition if it was a radiological event or problem well first of all the earth is now bathed in this radiological part particularly coming from the world engine for the period that it was operating right and I think that would have more import or impact on the story then he saved us have if the world was suddenly bathed in this cloud of radioactive kryptonian material secondly radioactive material would affect even Lois even if she was wearing a helmet over her head or body would still be exposed to those radiological elements and even if it was specifically harmful to kryptonian's something with that significant radiological signature would still have an effect on humans so if it's not radiological than what is it how did it affect Superman and I think the answer to that was it was a biochemical affect well that's kind of counterintuitive when you think about the tradition of Superman you try to think of him as a completely invincible individual but if you sort of breakdown the mechanics of Superman a Superman that can be affected by biochemical reactions is actually more in line with what we think of him in terms of the humanity of Superman and we have hints to this in the movie I think the best hint of this is Superman drinks beer Clark Kent during the night of's odds ultimatum to the world is watching the game and he just casually puts a beer to his lips I'm going to assume that he's able to taste it and that it isn't simply nothing I'm going to assume that he's actually able to taste the beer possibly metabolize it possibly break it down for energy but at a minimum he has to taste and how does taste work taste works essentially by a biochemical reaction the taste bud receptors on your tongue those chemo receptors have small elements there to able to react on a molecular level with the contents of the beverage are able to discern and to detect the chemical makeup and then send signals to the brain informing you of the taste or providing information to you as to what you're consuming right that means that Superman has a biochemical reaction with this beer we also see throughout the movie that he has respiration right they make a big deal about his ability to adapt to earth atmosphere as a child and then is an adults having trouble adapting to the kryptonian atmosphere in the question is why and it would be because he's taking that air into his lungs it's going down deep into those organs and the organs are doing their work so likely discern from the next not he has organs that did what organs do and with this atmospheric weakness we also see that Superman interacts with the world biochemically as an organism what despite his powers and this may sound kind of silly but it means that in theory you could attack Superman through this Avenue it would be a plausible weakness for example to make in case something awful if he can taste beer he can taste the foul taste of five something rancid or putrid and potentially cause that same sort of reaction in him of discussed or revulsion as would happen in a human right and if we take it another further step depending on how extensive those biochemical reactions are he may actually be susceptible to certain chemical effects insurgent weapons along those lines it's by no means set though in make you contravene or contradict our traditional view of Superman's invulnerability to things like asset or chemical weapons or noxious gas and so is by no means set in stone but we have a precedent there that gives us a window to be up to do it that so the third clear means that occurs in the movies is this the straight up dimensional removal and we we talked about than the previous episode how the kryptonian's were specifically bathed in Phantom zone energy both by their travels through it by using Phantom drives also the Phantom zone criminals during their stay in the Phantom zone as well as all the things struck by the gravity beam which was slaved to the Phantom drive accounting for the debris which is lifted up into the singularity and accounting for why Lois Lane would not expect any of those things fell freely away from it in this also ties to another principle that we talk about our previous episode which is that Superman is not a being of infinite mass right throughout the film we've seen him transported by bus by ship by car by truck by bicycle if Superman always had infinite momentum or infinite mass when he was on the Debbie Sue and the cage was going to fall on him burn would not a baby to knock them over and push them out of the way you have just bounce off of Clark but the same time the boat wouldn't have been able to move Clark right and so we know that Clark basically has normal human range mass the exception it may be jumping out at you is when he was in the bar and the truck driver bullied Ludlow tries to push Clark over and just bounces off the how did Clark brace against that will that would be the superstrength vector so he psychically or mentally braces himself or impact gives himself that additional force vector and so when Lobo tries to push the invulnerability or the four Specter pushes back and the net result is Clark it's the standstill without getting knocked over but outside of Clark consciously willing such affects he otherwise is a object of normal mass and what that means is in terms of quasi-weakness this normal mass can be transported or taken away or moved away now I don't know that anyone can have any more access to Phantom zone singularities but there's still the possibility of faster than light transport of teleportation of space travel boom tubes JL a teleporters and other similar devices which may be able to move transport or exile Superman as a means of delaying him or taking them out of the battle sort of battlefield removal if you well is not an explicit weakness in the sense that Superman is being harmed but it is a way to change the face of the battlefield but having Superman not be there okay so then the other clear one that is actually in the film is the sensory overload but of course we only see those in people that are immature and their powers we only saw it in Clark at the age of nine inside when he had just awakened into his powers and losses helmet and the same in Fiorella right we never see it in Superman and throughout the movie undoubtedly he's experiencing highly intense and highly loud sounds explosions frequencies whole gamut of sensations which apparently didn't phase and distracted more knockabout now that he's had at least 24 years of experience with his powers so is not known necessarily that sensory overload would be a weakness at this time in Superman's history to use it as a weakness we be extending out the logic from the traditional comics we be saying that occasionally in the comics individuals have been able to use specific frequencies specific loud noises or something along those lines to trigger or harm Superman through the his super hearing and I think that's a trope that were just can have to get used to because if you think about it if he does have the as we discussed in previous episode auditory omniscience where he's hearing all the sounds around the world at all times or has that capability are possibility to do those kind of things once his focus is off undoubtedly somewhere in the world there's some great noise great, great great frequencies some rock band some explosion or whatever going off which would harm so they would particularly sensitive hearing and yet he never seems to be harmed in less it's an attack direct specifically at him so it may just be a comic trope that we can have to live with as he could tell I seem pretty skeptical of this particular weakness we've only seen it in rookies is another couple of examples of why sensory overload shouldn't necessarily harm Superman now that he's developed the focus and now that he's matured in his powers one is the fact that traveling into space he isn't blinded by the sun for example the UV rays and all the kind stuff of the brightness level isn't causing him to lose his vision and however as we talked about in previous episodes this may just be a function of a you psychic gate focus that he uses in order to protect himself so arguably if you can bring him into a state of disorientation take off the gate take off the focus then yes you might be up to disrupt him through hypersonic sore a specific frequency orbit goalie loud noise so it may be possible I'm kind of skeptical I think part of this all lies in whether you believe that Superman has complete control over his abilities or if everything is a sort of involuntary reflex and I think the example that I can think of off the top of my head of it being an involuntary reflex is aside from the the sensory attack so we talked about earlier that could be overcome is when Clark is being bullied at the age of 13 and he crushes the fence post in lieu of pummeling or crushing Whitney right as we sorted discussed before in the unlimited momentum principle or the idea of Superman being to resist being pushed over actually think a lot of his powers are not just passive but do require is active control so for example the superstrength would never be exerted in less he willfully exerts it there's an entire satirical essay on this point which was never meant to be taken seriously but nonetheless has become a unwitting an unintentional authority on the subject and that's Larry Niven's Man of Steel woman of Kleenex if you know what it is you don't need me to tell you about it a more pop-culture version of it may be found in Kevin Smith small rats but those mostly relate to Superman's inability to control his powers during certain involuntary reflexes personal and never bought that argument but that's another show will deftly go into that in one of these future episodes will we talk about things that are more about the Superman mythos in general now another weakness that is in it all explicitly shown or stated in the film but is a necessary conclusion is what I like to call shading times 100 as we also discussed in previous episodes Superman his clearly shaven at least twice in the film once after the oil rig incident and another time he shaves the stubble that he has in the Arctic before he dons the suit so somehow someway not seen explicitly onscreen Superman is able to damage his own hair right he's able to cut those follicles and shorten them and that means that cellular material with Superman level strength or at least somewhere along the spectrum of Superman level strength we seen his hair survive reentry into Earth we seen it survived the oil rig fire be seen it survived colliding into mountains we seen it survive the world engine explosion and getting struck by gravity beam so those curly black locks are made of more serious stuff been just ordinary hair right and Superman is somehow able to damage it short and it and cut it off so whatever mechanism he uses and the film leaves that ambiguous it doesn't tell us exactly what it is you can pick which theory you like but whatever that mechanism is that mechanism is able to destroy Superman levels cellular material so if you amplify that mechanism it stands to reason that Superman himself could be damaged by that mechanism so if it's his heat vision then Superman could be harmed or susceptible to something that emulates or duplicates his heat vision if it's grinding or plucking pretension or torque or any of those other kinds of arguments that the may have been posed during the Gillette marketing campaign or posited by fans and geeks and others who had enjoyed the campaign any of those other mechanisms if amplified to a sufficient state may potentially be up to harm Superman's out to a degree we know that he is not completely invulnerable and less he vision can't be duplicated it's only is efficient can armored right so it's a vulnerability unto himself alone right think that's the list of ones that we've pretty much can divine from the film clearly that we can also talk about stunning or stalling or knocking out Superman because that does actually occur a couple of times in the film after the oil rig rescue he does appear to be either knocked out dreaming or exhausted when he floats in the ocean in the battle a small bill this is several times where he stunned locked out laying motionless or offscreen and unseen for periods of time so it does appear that he can be potentially knocked unconscious we don't explicitly know these unconscious is just sort of visually implied and of course after the world engine although he was unconscious the film clearly was trying to portray that he was exhausted or tired or drained after the world engine feet it's why he didn't immediately rush off to the troublous but instead laying on his back reaching out towards the sun do showing that there was some sort of toll taken on him and I think this is an extension of to the things that we discussed one is the fact that again he has organs so he has a central nervous system he has a brainstem he has a brain and things that can be concussed and affected in similar or the same way that a human might by certain blows her strikes or whatever potentially now to be fair I mean if it really was a completely just organic brain I think the Titanic blows that you have received would've the cause much more severe neurological issues even if those elements within a more vulnerable but the point is he's got organs he's got biological components which can result in stunning stopping stalling that we talked about the other thing is that whole lengthy discussion we talked about how his powers work and how his powers can be cut off and suppressed and like I think the world engine scene gives us a little bit insight into what can drain the battery what can bring him to a state where he's exhausted and on the ground so if you cut off his battery with K air or kryptonian atmosphere and again if you haven't seen Kara got listen to the last episode which explains this whole convoluted thing about how the K air works the short version is that we analogize Superman to being a laptop with the battery and so he's in direct sunlight his power cord is plugged in as long as he's not exposed to K air his battery is also within him and charged if he gets exposed to K air that's like removing the battery and if he gets cut off from direct sunlight that's like pulling off the court the world engine scene shows us what it's like if he's cut off from both but then get access to his stores and is able to dream though stores in an incredible feat and then have to recharge them by reaching out to the sun and I sort of unintentionally spoke about the first of our speculated vulnerabilities which is solar starvation now that we know that the sun is the source of his powers and we can see what the world engine feet took out of them elites the possibility that the future villain or Batman in some sort of convoluted scenario could theoretically push those batteries and push that power source to it's limits such that Superman is low on his reserves you might remember in the dark Knight returns of the comic book that actually was a plot point Superman encountered a nuke which drained a large part of his reserves solar starvation would be a speculated vulnerability that may occur in the future another speculative vulnerability is sufficiently advanced technology you may be up to harm Superman I'm thinking sort of specifically and and let's let's layer this with the Psion X again Superman's biology works their organs so his mind it sufficiently similar to humans mind psychological or sialic assaults are able to affect him and for example the kryptonian interrogation machine was able to interface with them and impact out maybe didn't impact him physiological he necessarily but it was able to traumatize them emotionally and mentally right and theoretically you could push that to the point that he could lead to say physical trauma I'm not talking up a matrix what you diamond matrix he die reality but it theory you could stress out your own organs you could stress out your own person in a way that is harmful to yourself it also means that just like in the comics Superman would possibly be susceptible to certain degrees of mind control or psychic attack along the same lines of sufficiently advanced technology we can also talk about electricity and other forms of energy or direct energy in the film we did see the dropship Canon stunned him so he was he was briefly downed and affected by that sort of direct energy attack and most trails of Superman through other media a sufficiently powerful electrical charges able to affected in all not kill him not sit certainly not affected like any other mortal man but he also doesn't completely shrug it off as if it didn't happen there may be no specific rhyme or reason for this in may just be happy a trope that we have to deal with we see kinetic energy attacks which would have the same level of energy if not more than some of these directed energy attacks completely unfazed them but for whatever reason these more exotic direct energies I guess as a trope are more palatable to audiences to accept that they would affect Superman so again a maybe something that we just accept right moving on a number speculated potential weakness is sort of highlighted by the film itself general Swan Lake actually called out the fact that Clark might have pathogens and if you think about it that's actually a very relevant point and something that is hand waived by the film but could be explored more fully Clark's arrival on earth is under special circumstances he is in many ways distinguishable from the rest of his kryptonian brother and he had a natural birth he wasn't born through a birthing matrix or through a Genesis chamber like all the other kryptonian's and part of the process of being naturally born in parts on to larger organisms their own microbiota and if you don't know what a micro biome is it's the idea that these larger organisms actually have a symbiotic relationship necessarily somatic but has a relationship with a series of microbes on their body so a organism is not just the larger order multicellular organism that were used looking at possible whole series of microscopic bacteria fungi viruses and the like which may affect or help the larger order organism function for example humans have also to bacteria or probiotics within their got that may aid in digestion we have all sorts of bacteria and fungus is under skin then and in bacteria within her lungs and all these things which can affect the way we live our lives it can affect our susceptibility to allergens it can affect our ability to break down argent digest certain foods and it can affect our immune response to certain things so we actually are a collection of organisms were not just ourselves now Clark implicitly does not have a kryptonian micro biome with him he is kryptonian himself but it's or presumed that he's sterile or at least any of the microbes which he is carrying have not been able to endure living in any kind of other setting beyond himself right he cannot leave him and in the principle behind that is a fact that he's been living on the planet 30 feet three years and has infected or harm anybody to his knowledge right that's basically the retort to have that you know what right you don't know that you you have infected anybody and to be fair to Clark he didn't know that he was an elite until the age of 13 and to the degree that they had their scientific sophistication and things along those lines the idea of a micro biome actually is relatively recent at least as a perspective and looking at organisms we of course knew about germs and pathogens and things like that going way back but we almost always tended to look at them as negative things were trying to kill 99.9% of the back to have that reside on us or in us and nowadays were taking a more holistic approach and evaluating the whole being in seeing maybe some of these bacteria give us beneficial effects and that might be a distinguishing factor between why Clark had a certain reaction to our atmosphere and the kryptonian's didn't one that I didn't discussed last episode so if we contrast Clark against the other kryptonian's it is possible maybe even likely that they did bring kryptonian Michael biomes with them in less krypton had scrubbed their entire planet of bacteria and fungi and all those tiny little microorganisms is actually quite probable that's odd and his entire crew had microbial life on or in the life which they may have brought now to earth life which nobody on earth is adapted to even callow and as we discussed throughout this episode over and over again Clark's internal organs work like organs so something like a veritable molecular machine like a tiny microbial virus or to area pathogen may potentially be up to affect second weekend in fact or replicate within callow and there's a couple of potential infection vectors not only do have Zide and his crew and the black zero both of which Superman spent a certain amount of time on without a helmet with a breather but also the scout ship and the scout ship actually predated the black 0 x 18,000 years so whatever immunities or other evolutions or developments that had against or with or in spite of the microbiota they had 18,000 years ago I would not exist for this older ship and if you remember there was a deceased body on that ship so that body may also have the remnants of Michael biomes on it I don't think a be listening anymore of that might know there's extraordinary kinds of microorganisms that can live in a certain form of stasis so that might be another avenue for a speculative weakness for them but as a been talking about this this whole subject it's also possible maybe improbable the kryptonian's have complete the scrubbed the idea microbiota we do realize that Zide is supremely concerned with eugenics and genetic purity and he is an individual that has has have that belief instilled room somehow it didn't just arise originally within him it is somehow someway a value of krypton and so did the prevailing value of krypton that kryptonian's need to be sort of genetically pure and have ideal genetics is quite possible that they don't like the idea of a sort of symbiosis with all these little microorganisms on them they may have taken our same sort of antiquated belief of destroying on the microbes absolutely to its logical conclusion and done they may have completely wiped out their own personal Michael biomes and then sort of filled in the gap with their genetic science so a lot of those bacteria a lot of those viruses they sort of performance or lower and functions which in theory your body could probably due to if only you could replicate some sort Selden did the same sort of affect or device within your own body so it you they may have completely wiped out like about it and there's an argument that that was sort of the way they went because if you think about it Jor-El's Park only preserves the kryptonian genetics it doesn't preserve all of krypton's life it doesn't necessarily preserve all of krypton's knowledge it doesn't preserve all their species it seems to be the same kind of thing with the scout ships we we do know that they have the growth matrix we do know that they had the Genesis chamber's we can presume that they have the ability to fabricate at least close in some basic needs but we didn't get anything from how will the support themselves in terms of sustenance wears their agriculture their ecology wears their animal lifespan we did see a little bit of that service symbiosis between or cooperation between Jor-El and his mount but there is almost sort of a we are the high order life on this planet and where all that matters kind of sort perspective you can kind of see it on the fringes of how this sci-fi society works now obviously altogether it's really just a metaphor it's really just a of fabled storytelling device but to the extent that is bulletproof you can sort of argue that they aren't Messerli, culture that would care about preserving or protecting bacteria that they would have to be reliant on it would be maybe appointed to have to rely on such a low cellular life form disport their lives they may say know we will be the perfect individuals that don't feed Michael but anyways unless you think I'm completely talking insanity let it be known that in the comic books there was a kryptonian virus there was a kryptonian bacteria they came back to fact and harm Superman in the comic books on at least two different occasions one in the modern comic someone in the past but that's another story for another time I think I've gone this particular point to law I think what I like about next is magic as a weakness and not an allergy but as I can rant on that for ages and I think I'm going long-sought because skip over that for now the short version the bullet point version of it is that we know that wonder woman is coming we know that wonder women traditionally has magic in her repertoire in her origin in her tradition and we know that magic is traditionally one of the quote unquote weaknesses of Superman and it has been misinterpreted many times and in many regards as an allergy or a particular vulnerability above and beyond what other people would be vulnerable to I be happy to rant about that water had set up a wrongheaded perspective that doesn't make sense and has no logical basis but I think I'm going long and and I want to that there are now so let's move on for some looking at my back of the napkin notes and I just want to quickly run through what Batman could do of the things that we talked about so you know clearly Batman is probably not can be pulling off a next Batman is not going to be dropping Superman in the Phantom zone he probably doesn't have access to faster than light technology and dimensional portals so that's out he probably doesn't know how Superman shaves he probably could do some of the speculated ones that we talked about the speculated that may be Superman susceptible to biochemical reactions or affects you know may be mustard gas does trigger his taste buds we talked about sensory overload as probably not applying based on what we saw in Man of Steel however because it's such a traditional trope in may be something that just gets pulled out of the bag for Batman we talked about him being knocked out stunned or stalled and these are things that were within the US military's sort of roughly their range of be able to do that you know they were quite able to do any of those things they were a of the makes her of Superman's head jerked back they were able to affect him a little bit so it may be within Batman's range to be up to you and with a rocket hit him with a back car those kind of things that they consider knock him walking around knockabout a little bit but not Messerli take them out of the fight the directed energy thing it's can it be what you I don't know if Batman can be that sort of science fiction a we have started to see shots of the new Batmobile which is sort of radically confronting it does, look a little bit like the old tumbler cross with a Formula One racer cross would like it dragster so if that man has access to and deploys sort of cutting-edge technologies he may have directed energy weapons he may have hypersonic some may have some of these things that push the border on sufficiently advanced technology that we talk about things that might potentially harm Superman the real question is does he need to write I think the problem is that everyone is sort of expecting or thinking that Batman needs to eat Superman and the question is what is that mean to you because we're not to be putting them in an arena and ringing about and then say around one fight the rules of engagement are going to be let's keep it clean three rounds all that that may be these are construct that we used to simplify things to sort of understand how two people coming the conflict can overcome one another to sort of measure per stats and figure out how they can harm each other and what the likely outcome would be but that's sort of an oversimplified experiment the doesn't reflect reality or storytelling reality very infrequently in storytelling do you get that very contrived conflict situation instead you get a contrived conceited reaction for why the to come into conflict outside of the ring and a maybe asymmetrical warfare in may be combat where your interests are different for example Batman may be interested installing embarrassing affecting Superman but not Messerli taking him out per se K owing him having complete victory over him in a fighting sense his interest maybe lay there and and in Superman's interest may lay in trying to talk trying to understand the situation trying to have a dialogue while this guys harassing him on throwing bombs at him in trying to trigger his temper whatever so with that sort of asymmetrical nature you can't use the artificial experiment of two people fighting a ring as printed a predictor of how the conflict would occur in a storytelling situation in this is such common sense and yet nonetheless because of the way fan them operates we fall victim to wanting to put them in the ring and fight in those sort of artificial constraint all the time so somebody just a little reminder to say you know that's not really a stories work we don't have to always fight as a for in a ring and instead we may have different goals and we may have different interests and in talking uncles and interest I think that is the real way that these two characters will come into conflict right it's been a be a conflict of good the way there too characters mesh and the way their interests either different were aligned so for example in terms of interests things that Batman can apply leverage to things that drive Superman into conflict with them me obviously there are his loved ones theirs Martha there's Lois there's his acquaintances both in small bill in Metropolis there's America as a whole and then humanity as a whole the whole planet and cannot use a prerecorded essay which doesn't quite go on topic but sort summarizes this thing and I will fill out my time so that's where we're go with that of answers and will discuss it Batman and Superman are really going to have to throw down let me preface this by saying there is no greater advocate for Superman's superiority in a street fight then we in fact I think in most arrangements that are a straight fight is still in Superman's favor except for that one scenario where the writer is specifically attempting to contrived a victory for Batman in fact angry Joe did a video based on why Superman beats Batman based on a short essay that I wrote on the topic you can find a link to that in the show notes that said as a huge Superman fan I think that Superman being challenged by Batman is going to be a great thing for his character in the long run prior to Man of Steel the two most common critiques raised again Superman is a character he's too strong he's too perfect I have not heard that tired refrain in some time after Man of Steel even by critics of the film if anything they fault him for not being stronger or more perfect and then comes boring if he is strong and perfect in my eyes they overcame those criticisms not by deconstructing Superman but by creating a challenge that rose to his level however the scope of that threat was limited and primarily physical and I mentioned there was an aspect of heritage and lineage and duty to one's people but it was mostly a back note to Superman flexing his powers for the first time the reason Batman acts as such a perfect foil in a follow-up film is that it lets general audiences see Superman is multidimensional without having necessarily to raise the physical stakes again catastrophe can lose its meaning of the audience becomes numb to its ever-increasing scope Batman allows the filmmakers to challenge Superman's alleged perfection again without necessarily deconstructing it but by providing a different lens by which reasonable minds may differ to test but not exceed Superman strength in context and to show that Superman is anything but boring how could Batman represent any kind of threat Superman Superman is clearly much stronger and much more capable one for the purposes of who would win type conversations we can often be reductionist and try to simplify the variables to the point that we have two combatants in a ring attempting to defeat subdue or kill the other but real-life and stories with the veracity of real-life don't need to be so simplistic threat does not need to be limited to physical threat to oneself a threat can be against anything which one holds is an interest in which contravenes that interest in Man of Steel Superman exhibited many interests that went beyond his physical preservation of self he had interests in protecting the lives of others he save the people on the bus in the oil rig etc. he had an interest in protecting his secret both during the film and in Downing the drone in talking with general Swanberg he had interest in saving the world even at the expense of his freedom surrendering to humanity or at the expense of his life in fighting the world engine or the expense of his heritage and giving us his ship and his pendant and his potential people Superman had an interest in having a career which is why he becomes Metropolis Clark has an interest in having a love-life that's his attraction to Lois and so on and so forth with two years of Batman prep time I'm certain that the world's greatest detective could find ways to exert pressure or leverage or be a threat to Superman's non-bodily preservation interests a threat against the planet was enough to get Superman to give up his secret and his freedom of threat against his mother was enough to get him to give up his father instilled lifelong conviction against violence it's not unreasonable the Batman could crater threat the causes Superman to be his own weakness or to reveal it for example if Superman doesn't share that atmospheric weakness in fact that exactly what Batman did in their first classic post crisis meeting in Burns Man of Steel miniseries Batman used Superman's nature against him by threatening to hold random innocence hostage if Superman were to touch empty bomb would blow off somewhere in the city he used his own reputation as a violent vigilante to keep Superman it they sort out there was some one-upsmanship but that's another story for another time know how Batman does this what interests are exposed and what limit both are willing to go to is the stuff that character studies are made up and potentially compelling and multidimensional this would mean that Batman needs to develop some form of technology to expose Superman's weakness right now as discussed above he could exert leverage another way or use context to cause Superman to essentially we can himself in the dark Knight returns the infamous face-off only occurs after Superman agrees essentially to a public tool rather than just incapacitating Batman from space when burning the where into the ground and survived nuclear attack because of his proclivity post Man of Steel Superman may have a strong aversion to death violence collateral damage which in and of itself with heavily limit the context of his power usage the bottom line is I'm expecting a far more intelligent and compelling story to come out other conflict than a mere fistfight in the streets if we get some of that now all that said additionally for only strength we didn't see any appreciable damage to kryptonian armor clothing now do any of those allow for Batman to have decisive victory over Superman well not really not without contrivance that's the point of the film to create such contrivances to make it believable as possible and that assumes that the goal is told decisive victory over Superman and we know that Ms. necessarily the goal Batman may only need a temporary delay to disorient annoy or distract Superman in order to make a statement what a humble him or whatever within the context the story even in the dark that returns that fight ends with Batman in the ground is getting a few hits in is a when then let's split the bat fans habit at the end of the day we know that there conflict leads to the justice league so it ultimately Superman's ideals that prevail you all that said I don't know that Batman has to do all this to work especially if there are known meta-humans and play which could contribute to any of Superman's personal weaknesses as for something from a comics something that I always found innovative was Batman throwing red dust that Superman to blind him since his x-ray vision doesn't work on let down Man of Steel we haven't been given that limitation so it would be a little less field but that's more within the spirit of what people looking for anti-Superman Batman tactics to get the end of the day that the premise of the question how would Batman when is wrong it assumes that Batman needs a credible I need to stop Superman by myself physical threat ability rather the two can be in conflict both ideologically and physically without Batman needing to be able to put Superman down to answer so I fortune pressed for time some discover run through the of the rest of my back of the napkin outlined in terms of sort of character weaknesses things that the inexperience and frustrated Clark showed which could be exploited as a rookie Superman somebody that's not completely developed as a caveat and which allows for a character arc in which allows for a novice Superman to come into conflict with Batman as opposed to a more seasoned Superman Haymore established Superman one that could basically readily handle any kind of conflict or inciting incident with a Batman without having to fight or without having sort of any issues what we have here is the possibility that the Superman prior to discovering his origins clearly had a temper or impulse control issues as we talked about before he did share that with his father saying that you I wanted to hit him so bad I he did crush the fence post he didn't go so far as to actually hit Whitney the cadets show a certain amount of self-control but by the time that he had some distance from his father and he's had to live with frustration for decades when he comes the Ludlow's truck clearly he had an issue of temper and impulse control there I think in his saner, moments if he asked himself what would Jonathan can do what would Mohammed say he certainly would not destroy the lovestruck but when he's independent he's a man but nonetheless perpetually frustrated by questions he can answer and put into a situation where he felt powerless but knew that he wasn't there somebody is able to trigger his temper and his impulsiveness is also highly inexperienced right after Man of Steel he's only ever done this on this scale and in this public persona wants Lois does indicate that he has had a history of helping people he has had a history of being that guardian angel and rescuing people obviously only see a couple of incidents in the movies and the only draw.between a couple of incidents in the movies but the dialogue between Lois both in her narration and in speaking with Clark seems to indicate a larger history of do Gooding but nonetheless in his public persona he is inexperienced and that inexperience can potentially lead to all sorts of far character flaws are mistakes or things that the back pain could exploit and one of those hot buns one of those things that might be something that could affect a rookie or somebody inexperienced or novice in a emergency services Satterfield is guilt right so we did talk about in a previous episode if you're going to be in that field if you are been a be an emergency services if you are can be a fireman if you are to meet somebody that rescues people as your profession you cannot continuing your profession if you get consumed by the people that you couldn't save you just have to focus on doing your best and on the good job that he did do that people are human and especially on your first time out on the first time that you failed the first time that you have those problems those issues are been away on you they are ineffective but it is something that those who are called to that profession overcome it is something that they get beyond once they have more experience it's not a hardening of the heart is just a changing of perspective they understand at a certain point that they aren't helping anybody I carrying around the burden of those that they didn't say so that may be a part of the Superman arc in the upcoming films and maybe a may not be a lot of people want to see it dealt with they want to see it handled and actually not in the camp it particularly wants to see it but I can understand can understand why people might one half this see that part step at the same time I don't think it is at all unreasonable for Superman to have a ready move past it and we talked about than in private previous episodes American retreading right now but it is a it's not in inevitability that one should feel guilt it does tend to be something that comes out of inexperience so it's possible that Superman just has a Superman has a more ideal a more idealized reaction to what happened in the BZ and therefore doesn't have guilt as a specific vulnerability or hot button point for him in terms of his acute inexperience but is inexperience can come into play and also to other matters within the larger DC cinematic universe he also have to remember that Superman is essentially debuting as the world's first superpowered being and so a lot of these rules a lot of these tropes why these things that we come to expect and take for granted or assume as people that have watch all these films web readily's comics can have been entrenched in superhero culture these things we just take for granted and we adopt this tropes and we just assume but from his perspective he's coming into a completely as a novice completely as the test case the groundbreaker on all these things and so it's a common mistake to judge him or compare him to sort of the established the expected that we've come to internalize from worlds where superhero seem to be more prevalent as another sort of little character flaw if you want to call it is that Superman is more trusting and more optimistic not to say that the film is necessarily trusting or optimistic per se I don't say that the film cynical either I don't think that it is I think it actually is filled with a lot of hope a lot of faith in both of those things are rewarded but it is a reality not supported by a lot of disorder traditional tropes that make a more lighthearted superhero possible nonetheless Clark shows a lot of trust and optimism in moving forward with thinks he essentially agrees to or believes enzymes the LP goes on to's odds ship rather than initiating a physical confrontation when Lois agrees to tagalong he doesn't immediately protest or completely rebel against that he trust he has optimistic belief that Lois is go to make it through it and that potentially Zide will uphold his end of the bargain so there's that sort of trust and optimism going he trusts Pok hence position despite the imposition on his own personal life in the end that repressive guess of that position the truss his father he believes that his father has's best interest at heart and because he trusts and he trusts him with such conviction and at such personal cost again that's that level of trust is something that potentially could be exploited or affected by the Batman he trusts one like to speak for him in this day and age there's many other avenues in order to bring your message forward he could just spew whatever he wants on the Internet he could go through the press he could go through skywriting or putting stuff on the moon or whatever but instead he takes a more moderate approach he takes a reasonable approach which is to go through Washington to go through the official channels and those who make the rules and establishing rules in order to first get their position first hash out things with with them and then reach the public but in doing that the open is the dialogue with swaddling Swan Lake was a guy that showed a certain amount of skepticism and did sort of come from Superman on a number of times and nonetheless Clark extends certain amount of trust in him in a number ways for small heap trusts one like to be the one to bring his message to Washington and not only bring his message to Washington but bring his message in a way that is persuasive he's asking Swan Lake to convince and something has to emphasize is all this trust all is optimism this is not out of character both within the film and for the larger character throughout the ages and in tradition if we think about something like the kryptonite ring or the kryptonite bullet depending on which up a trail your seeing giving that to Batman is that sort of extension that symbol of trust showing sort of two-sided both trust and optimism but also pragmatism in a little bit away right because it it's a complicated symbol right because it's saying I trust you and I'm making myself vulnerable to you but the reason or part of the reason I'm doing this is not only because I trust you but in case something goes bad I want you to be there is a catchall and so there is that that cloud over the over the gesture of kindness to say well of course this is a contingency in casings goes bad but somehow that never quite envelops or infects that's that scenario the scenarios almost always one which x-rays the bond between the two care is the trust that Superman has for Batman over something that could make them week that could make a mortal that could harm him the last one real quick is Superman's morality such that it is I don't want to go into they harvest Hawk right now I tone of the time but it is true right Superman it is one of his interests in terms of protecting him insert in terms of protecting others it isn't just the protection of others but he also does have morals he does have codes he does have beliefs which constrains and restrains his behavior and those might be points of leverage points of contention which Superman can use against Superman their first meeting in the John Byrne Man of Steel reboot actually did leverage Superman's morality as a way of standing toe to toe with Superman right that's can be my time again I really apologize for how haphazard this episode was it was a definitely is not as fully noted as I would like but it was more free-flowing it was sort of more off the top of my head so if you did like it this way that let me know and maybe I'll stop script episodes so harshly and maybe I'll just do more free-form personally I hate that because I don't get all the points I want not sure that I'm not repeat myself endlessly and I don't know it's organized this is structurally as I like as he may or may not be aware I am an attorney and I'm used to writing briefs were things are very structured your you're really try to attack very specific points and layout of very thorough argument on everything the your trying to do and so being a little more free-form is sort of Intuitive to that approach but at the same time if it does cut down on my preproduction. Then these episodes may be easier to get up and we might be have to More of them just so you know the plan for the next episode is secret identity I think there's a lot of fun issues surrounding the maintenance and control and potentiality of the secret identity so I think that's where we go next and that will be episode eight aren't I think I've rambled on long enough Man of Steel answers insight commentary is a proud member of the Superman podcast network so here are some promos for the network and a couple of promos for some fellow shows that I suggest you check out if you want to extend your enjoyment of the Superman mythos got it together from the far reaches of beings that are assembled and that's what got dedicated to the bust greatest superhero is affected Superman like featuring Superman: the DC comics crisis Superman podcast is Superman this you podcast is Superman forever and about the you you you will podcast KL from Superman homepage.com is John Wilson really help you are sobriety retailer Michael they start to Sam result is Mario is given by an highlighted I gave Younis and how has Gotti they because that what everybody this is to write in his voice I hear on is following is late 90s have a lot of is available in iTunes and no everywhere else so come check is a this is the number McRib.com unlikely new is starting with to John's daughter managing is run on Superman 30 also be covering the DC a single graphic novels some of for any of is a little what details are spoilers is in the language will be family-friendly so head over to McRib.com now subscribed to the next as a.com is all right welcome back thanks so much soliciting I just love discussing the stuff and it stuck with me hopefully you do to continually grateful for each and every listener I hope you send me some feedback in the comments via email Man of Steel answers.com that way if you have a question that you want answered insights that you want to share commentary to make composing our forms all your like-minded apologist to see her get email me@mosaictheManofSteelofSteelanswers.com have actually received a lot of great feedback a lot of great questions and I'll definitely be getting the future episode so you just be patient with me forget that soon if you like what you heard please review the show in iTunes and subscribed this is Dr. awkward your DC cinematic universe apologist signing on CNX five answers