Batman’s Justice League Contingency Plans, Ranked by How Brutal They Were

By now, everyone knows just how practical and brutally efficient Batman is when it comes to ensuring his victory against his foes, given enough prep time. But furthermore, despite it being upsetting, the Caped Crusader knows that there might come a day, no matter how unlikely, when he would have to go up against the members of the Justice League.

Thus, as we have seen in the comics, he has prepared contingency plans since early in the League’s formation. Thus, let’s take a look at all the contingencies that Batman has made in DC’s continuity, and rank them based on just how brutal they were.

3 Justice Buster Batsuit – The Ultimate Weapon

Starting the list, we have the iconic introduction of the Justice Buster Batsuit (Iron Man’s Hulk Buster at its core, but more versatile in application), which Batman deployed in the Batman: Endgame storyline.

Batman whipped this bad boy out after it was revealed that Joker had used a mind-altering virus on the League, which meant his teammates had become his opponents and forced him to use the Fenrir Protocol. And thus, we got the Justice Buster, which was a suit of armor kitted out with all the tools he needed to take down his fellow League members.

The countermeasure tools that the armor was fitted with are:

• The Bind of Veil: A perfect counter to Wonder Woman’s Lasso of Truth, the Bind of Veil projects delusions in its victim’s mind, which freezes them at the perfect moment that the victim achieves the goal of their delusions. Wonder Woman got trapped in a stasis-like state after defeating an undefeatable foe in her delusion, leading to Batman incapacitating her in the fight.
• Hyperfast Servers and Frictionless Fluid Cannons: To counter the Flash, Batman fitted the Justice Buster with server relays that acted faster than Barry, and synced it to the cannons, which shot fluids out that had no friction at all. Thus, calculating his moves, Bruce took Barry’s strength away from him.
• Electromagnetic Nerve Tree: A counter to Cyborg, this tool worked like an EMP and disoriented him by attacking his nerves, which led to his incapacitation.
• Citrine Neurolizer: Used against Green Lantern, the Citrine Neurolizer is basically a yellow light transmitter made of yellow quartz, which emitted the light into his brain and made him lose control over his Power Ring.
• Plasma Shields, The Red Giants Gauntlet, Enhanced Armor, and Strength: After taking down Aquaman, he finally faced Superman, which required everything that the Justice Buster had. The Plasma Shields were used to counter his heat vision, while the gauntlets of the suit were fixed with miniaturised Red Suns, which made each hit from them weaken the Man of Steel. And to endure his blows, the Justice Buster was clad in some of the strongest armor, which also provided it with enhanced strength.

Unfortunately Superman still managed to tear the Justice Buster open, pulling out the Caped Crusader. But naturally, Batman had a counter, as he spat out a chewing gum laced with Kryptonite, which significantly weakened Clark, and Batman was able to make him feel every single move he learned from the Tibetan Monks after that.

It ranks last on this list since the Justice Buster was only created to incapacitate the Justice League, and not hurt them fatally.

2 JLA: Tower of Babel – The Element of Betrayal

Running from JLA #43 to JLA #46, the ‘Tower of Babel’ arc started when the rest of the Justice League found out that Bruce had made contingency plans for each member of the team if they were to ever go rogue, voluntarily or otherwise. This makes everyone in the League feel betrayed by Bruce.

Unfortunately, Ra’s al Ghul managed to steal these files away from Batman and use them against the League members. The tools used to do so and their effects are listed below.

• Martian Manhunter: Nanites were deployed to cover his skin, which dissolved into magnesium after full coverage. And since magnesium burns at room temperature, J’onn J’onzz was literally burned alive, as fire is a Martian’s greatest weakness.
• Plastic Man: Liquid nitrogen was used to freeze him up into solid matter, and later, his body was shattered.
• Green Lantern: Kyle Rayner, often considered the strongest Earth-based Green Lantern, was reduced to a husk as his willpower was drained from him through a post-hypnotic suggestion, which also made him blind by the powers of his own Power Ring.
• The Flash: The Flash was hit by a unique ammunition called a ‘Vibra-Bullet,’ which, when it hit Wally in the nape of his neck, made him lose bodily control and have seizures at light speed, incapacitating him.
• Aquaman: Using Scarecrow’s Fear Toxin, Aquaman was made aquaphobic, literally making him deathly afraid of his element, which could’ve killed him in hours.
• Wonder Woman: Using Diana’s Amazon Pride against her, a nanite was planted in her ear, which made her hallucinate fighting an undefeatable enemy. And since she couldn’t defeat it ever, her pride would force her to die trying.
• Superman: Created in a lab, the synthetic Red Kryptonite managed to completely make Clark’s skin transparent, while simultaneously also overloading his absorption limit of Yellow Sun energy, which broke his mind and his body slowly by overloading his senses.

This contingency is the runner-up since these tools and plans were brutal enough to kill the members of the Justice League if they were deployed to their fullest extent

1 Brother Eye / OMAC – The Global Catastrophe

Topping the list is the Brother Eye protocol, simply because its creation, although unintentional, almost led to not just the league, but the whole world coming to the brink of annihilation.

After Zatanna used her magic to wipe out Batman’s memory of a certain horrific incident in the past, which he was slowly beginning to recollect, he believed that he couldn’t trust any of the League members. This led him to create a semi-sentient AI called the Brother Eye, which was made to collect data on almost every metahuman on Earth via an untraceable satellite, which helped Bruce to create contingencies if any of them went rogue.

Unfortunately, this tech came into the hands of Maxwell Lord, a.k.a. the Black King, who hacked this tech to respond only to his commands and systematically take out all metahumans on Earth. This was carried out by nanotechnologically enhanced androids called Omni Mind and Community, or OMACs.

Seeing this, the Justice League went to work on stopping Lord’s plans, which ended in Wonder Woman snapping the Black King’s neck, killing him in the process. Brother Eye acted accordingly and initiated the ‘King is Dead’ Protocol, which was targeted at the complete and utter annihilation of all metahuman life on Earth by any means necessary, even waging war on Themyscira via the OMACs.

This was also followed by Alexander Luthor Jr. giving the AI sentience in an attempt to create a new Multiverse, which led to Brother Eye becoming a superpowered cosmic being. But thankfully, with the help of Mr. Terrific and Blue Beetle, Batman was able to destroy it and the OMACs, but not before it caused a global catastrophe and the deaths of millions.

Here’s an overview of the aforementioned comics.

Title	Issues	Initial Release	Creative Team
The OMAC Project	6	The OMAC Project #1 (June 2005)	Greg Rucka, Jesus Saiz, Cliff Richards, Bob Wiacek
JLA: Tower of Babel	4	JLA #43 (July 2000)	Mark Waid, Howard Porter, Steve Scott, John Kalisz
Batman: Endgame	6	Batman: Endgame #1 (October 2014)	Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, FCO Plascencia

Do you agree with our rankings? Tell us in the comments below.

The aforementioned titles are now available on DC Universe Infinite.