We looked at the previous chapter of this story in September, but now for the conclusion! From 1981, World's Finest #274, "Greater Love Hath No Man...!" Written by Cary Burchett, pencils by Adrian Gonzales, inks by Brett Breeding. Previously, to save Superman and the earth from the clutches of the Weapon-Master, Batman puts himself in Superman's experimental power-charger, giving himself super-powers...that will burn him up and kill him in four hours!
Using his Bat-plane as a diversion, Batman smashes his way into the Weapon-Master's citadel, and proves invulnerable to Kryptonite. (Since, duh, he's not from Krypton. Although I thought it sometimes worked on humans given super-powers, too? Depends on when you ask.) The freed Superman immediately realizes Batman has doomed himself to save him; but they still have to fight their way through the Weapon-Master's...weapons. While Bats needs a little coaching in the use of his powers, Superman also thinks to use some utility belt gadgets in the fight. Yet he's also a little too sad about Batman's impending demise:
Knowing he can't take both super-powered opponents, W-M regroups and uses his will-paralyzer to hypnotize just about everyone in the Daily Planet building. Unless Supes and Bats surrender to his device, he'll simply order them to jump to their deaths. But Bats had suggested that they use super-hypnotism to fight the will-paralyzer, and they destroy it. (Batman had apparently picked up super-hypnotism with his other powers, and could use it after having the powers for about an hour.)
The Weapon-Master escapes (possibly not to appear again pre-Crisis) but Batman is still doomed. He tells Superman to tell Robin and Alfred goodbye for him, but Supes isn't giving up: using the Weapon-Master's energy crystal, which had powered the will-paralyzer to take over the earth, he transfers the energy into it and out of Batman. Destroying the crystal and perhaps ending a golden opportunity for earth to achieve energy independence, but saving Batman. Well, that's what's important, anyway.
Hey, of course you saving Batman's impriotant! He's the Goddamn Batman! That's not even a question or pause;)
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, unending clean energy would be nice. But both the US and other major capitalist countries wouldn't be too happy about that unless they could exploit it for extra $ in their back-pockets. Probably the real reason why Superman or Batman never made that idea a reality a long time ago.