Superman
Batman Gambit in this franchise.Comic Books
- This is the kind of planning that allows Lex Luthor, with no superpowers, to be a threat to Superman nearly every time the two of them meet.
- A Pre-Crisis Superman story had Luthor falling in love, turning good, curing a deadly disease, marrying, and even allowing Superman to read his mind (with a machine) to convince his former foe that he'd changed- but it was all a trick; he erased his own memories of the plan and arranged it so that he genuinely believed he had reformed in order to lure Superman into an inescapable trap. His only error was that he had to make himself forget that he was already married (to an alien woman) for the plan to work... and Superman was aware of that.
- In Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man, when Superman shoves Lex Luthor's robot into the ground, the mecha's head detaches from the body and blasts off. Superman flies after it and discovers that it is a decoy. Meanwhile, Lex gets away laughing loudly.
- The Death of Luthor: Subverted. Luthor declares he will use his knowledge of feminine psychology to get rid of Supergirl, but his chosen method to lure her into a trap — a baby buggy dashing down the street — would have worked with any male hero.
- Superman pulled one of these on Darkseid, and himself in The Supergirl from Krypton (2004). After rescuing Supergirl from being a Female Fury, Supes inducts her as an official hero and sort of parades her around Earth. Angered about losing his prize, Darkseid comes to Earth and seemingly vaporizes her with his Omega Beams. Superman goes apeshit over losing her and beats Darkseid to a pulp and seals him inside the Source Wall. Superman then meets with Supergirl, who used a device to teleport away at the last second, and reports that the plan was successful. They were able to goad Darkseid into coming to fight them personally, and the mere sight of Supergirl's seeming death was able to trigger Superman's Unstoppable Rage so he could curb stomp Darkseid's ass. Batman muses that the plan had no input from him, it was all Clark, and it was brilliant.
- War World: Superman's plan to destroy the titular super-weapong was goading Mongul into firing at Supergirl and him until overloading Warworld's circuits.
- Supergirl: Uh-Oh! Something tells me Mongul isn't kidding anymore!
Superman: Perfect! He's reacting exactly as I'd hoped he would!
- Kryptonite Nevermore: A group of pirates raid a freighter to distract the Coast Guard. Meanwhile, the main body of their band captures a Government facility.
- The Third Kryptonian: As fighting Amalak's men off, Superman suddenly shouts "I have to protect Kandor" and flies off, knowing Amalak will think him stupid enough to give away the city's location, and give chase.
- In H'el on Earth, H'el was counting on Superboy to destroy most of his Star Chamber because he was actually destroying the fueling station for his ship and freed his ship from its launchpad, helping H'el in his plan to resurrect Krypton at the expense of Earth.
- All-Star Superman: If you subscribe to the theory Lex Luthor is Leo Quintum, Superman allowed him to see the world through his eyes if only briefly to reform him.
- In Who Took the Super out of Superman?, villain Xviar gaslights Superman into believing he's undergoing a psychotic break by chemically treating his Clark Kent suits so that they block off his powers. Xviar's trick convinces Superman that he needs to forfeit one of his dual identities, so he spends extended lengths of time out of his apartment, trying to find himself, as Xviar sets a trap to turn him into a ticking bomb. Xviar's scheme falls apart when Clark Kent is called as a witness in court. Being in a hurry, Superman picks a spare suit he keeps in his office, which hadn't been touched by Xviar, and finds out he still has powers as Clark Kent.
- Superman Unchained: Anticipating Wraith's species will soon invade Earth using the equation, Lex Luthor creates a syringe with synthetic solar energy that will transform whoever uses it into a solar bomb. He wants Superman to use it so that he can defeat the invaders and get himself killed in the process. Luthor does not anticipate, however, that Wraith would take the syringe and use it on himself.
- In Who is Superwoman?, Lucy Lane has a plan to lure Supergirl out and into a trap. First Lucy tricks Kara via false evidence into believing her friend Thara: is the titular villain; and helped Reatron murder her father. Then Lucy puts on her Superwoman suit and parades Reactron around Metropolis, goading a very emotional Kara into attacking them.
- Supergirl's specialty regarding Batman Gambits is using them to Out Gambit villains' Batman Gambits.
- A double subversion occurs in Action Comics #304. Supergirl encounters Black Flame, a woman who seems to be a super-powered Kryptonian, in the process of some rather destructive vandalism. The villainess claims she's from the distant future of the year 4000, and "invites" Supergirl to view her time using a computerized exhibition device. It shows the heroine a terrible future where Black Flame extorts wealth from thousands of worlds (as in, she can blow them to little pieces if they don't comply). Worst part: she's Supergirl's direct descendent, "Supergirl XXV", and the citizens of this distant future despise the first one just as much for starting this hated family line. Supergirl is naturally very upset, and after pursuing numerous leads (she senses something fishy here) including visiting the bottled city of Kandor, and eventually decides to unearth a chuck of gold kryptonite, and use it to erase her own powers, eliminating the possibility she could pass them down to a descendant, in effect, making Black Flame Ret-Gone. Then Black Flame appears with a cruel laugh, revealing her true identity, that of an assistant of a criminal from the Kandor who was interred in the Phantom Zone. Black Flame had set up the plan out of revenge, leaving Kandor and using something called Red-K to increase her size, then pulled the ruse hoping Supergirl would depower herself. After listening to the powerless heroine her beg a little, she shoves Supergirl into a pit of quicksand and watches her drown. Or so it seems. Black Flame gets a big surprise as the Red-K wears off, shrinking herself to normal size, because Supergirl actually figured the plan out, and was outgambitting her with her own Batman Gambit; now that she's shrunk, Supergirl grabs her, showing her the (fake) chuck of gold kryptonite and shoving her inside a make-up compact that holds a few minute grains of real gold kryptonite. As she ships the criminal back to Kandor, the last panel of the story shows the one flaw in Black Flame's plan — a cavity in her teeth with a dental filling that Supergirl noticed while investigating records in a Kandor dental clinic, something a superpowered descendant would not have.
- In Action Comics #362, Mr. Mxyzptlk (well, a relative of his) commands everyone in the 40th century to believe Supergirl is a criminal. Supergirl is captured with Kryptonite, tried, and sentenced to have the word "OUTLAW" branded on her forehead. Afterwards Kara is marginalized, insulted and bullied until she cracks and decides that "[She's]] been branded an outlaw, so [she'll] be one!" just like Mxy had planned. Or rather, planned, but failed. Supergirl's act of rage was an act to fool him into revealing himself which he did.
- In the Red Daughter of Krypton storyline, two villains tried to pull off separate Batman Gambits to defeat Supergirl:
- Lobo tries to use Supergirl's rage against her by taunting her into not holding back. As such, Dr. Veritas teleports them out of the Block to prevent their fight from damaging it. Once outside, Lobo calls his ship and flies to Supergirl's old apartment in New York, hoping to calm her down. He then tries to be friendly to her offering to mentor her so she can learn to control her rage. Big mistake. Supergirl has had it with people trying to manipulate her and gives him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
- Worldkiller-1 had taken over the body of an alien warlord and wanted to steal Supergirl's body. However he couldn't destroy his host body. So he goaded Supergirl to use her Eye Beams on him until she reduced his body to ashes involuntarily.
- In 2005 story arc Girl Power, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman have to spot an imposter Supergirl. Superman hits both Supergirls, assuming that his real cousin will not retaliate. His plan fails because both girls fight back.
- In The Killers of Krypton, Supergirl, who has been captured by Harry Hokum, spits on his face while he is wondering what to do with her. As expected, Hokum gets so mad that he forgets about cutting her up on the spot, and orders she is dragged to a cell instead. On the way, Kara taunts his minion Splyce until the alien fires her solar blasts at her. Supergirl feels her cells recharging, but she pretends to pass out; and after being dumped into a cell, she breaks her handcuffs and makes her getaway.
- In Strangers at the Heart's Core, villain Klax-Ar wants to find the Earth's location so he can use his weaponized sled to take over the world. Kara's blows seem ineffectual against his flying vehicle, which has been built from the remains from a broken-down Superboy Robot, so she pretends to flee in panic, knowing Klax-Ar follow her trail. When they arrive in Earth, Klax-Ar thinks Supergirl has made a stupid mistake until his vehicle malfunctions, and Kara explains their robots have been rendered inoperative by Earth's pollution.
- In Starfire's Revenge, the eponymous crimelord needs to lure Supergirl out of hiding in order to set up a Honey Trap, so she gets Derek Marlowe to drive around Stanhope College, where Supergirl is often sighted. Then her mooks drag Derek out of his car and start beating him up, raising a very loud and public ruckus. Just as expected, Supergirl hears his shouts for help, scares the mooks away, and Derek pretends to fall for his "savior".
- The Death of Superman (1961): As watching several inmates pounding boulders, Lex Luthor spots a strange glowing stone, and he immediately punches a guard. Luthor is put to work on the rock pile, which gives him a chance to examine the strange boulder.
- In Escape from the Phantom Zone, Batgirl taunts and baits Xa-Du until he becomes so mad that he blurts out that he lied to his minions about getting them out of the Phantom Zone. His minions, who let Xa-Du slaughter plenty of them to fuel his power, believing he would set the survivors free, are not amused. Realizing that he has been baited and his minions have turned against him, Xa-Du gets angrier at Babs, who reminds him that she told she knew his kind.
- Let My People Grow!: Superman needs to trick Brainiac into using his shrink ray, so he throws a massive asteroid at the villain, expecting him to reduce it instead of blowing it to smithereens.
- The Super-Revenge of Lex Luthor: After realizing his supposed mental collapse is a Luthor-Brainiac scheme, Superman behaves crazily in public, knowing that both villains will want to come out and admire their work. And they indeed take the bait.
- Batman/Superman: World's Finest: When Superman seals himself in a cave together with the devil Nezha, the heroes are despairing...until Batman realizes the Phantom Zone Projector, which Superman used to try to send Nezha into the Phantom Zone, is missing. Quickly the group hurry back to the dimensional tear which was created when Nezha tore his way out of the Zone, and pull Superman out. Batman says Superman's gambit was very risky.Superman: "I was depending on Batman to notice something. That's not a gamble. That's a plan."
