Determinator / The DCU

The DCU

Comic Books

Comic Books

• Batman:
  • Whatever Happened to The Caped Crusader? portrayed the fact that Batman died in every incarnation because he refused to give up. Ever. It didn't matter if he was saving a little girl or taking on an impossible foe. He would die trying to save people and/or come out on top.
  • Lampshaded in Superman/Batman: Public Enemies where the two heroes are standing in the Mall in Washington D.C., surrounded by an obscene number of supervillains.
    Superman: They're all around us, you know.
    Batman: Do you think we can take them? I think we can take them.
    Superman: You always think we can take them.
    (Spoiler alert: they can take them.)
  • All of the Batfamily probably counts, but Jason Todd gets a special mention. In one issue, he's hanging far above the ground, hunted by a tentacled monster as Gotham burns around them.
    Tentacle Monster: Is that your super-power, boy? Too stupid to ever give up?
    Jason: heh ... Maybe it is.
  • In Batman: The Cult, he also argues with Batman when Batman, having been tortured and had his will broken by the leader of a cult, wants to give up on Gotham, and he's the one who finally persuades him to go back on his decision. At the end of the series, he also saves Batman's life after dragging himself through the sewers with a bullet in his leg.
  • Stephanie Brown's dad was the third-rate villain the Cluemaster, her mother was an addict, she took up crime-fighting to get back at her father, and she basically spent the next several years being strongly discouraged and occasionally tolerated by Batman. Then he made her Robin, then he fired her, and then she was tortured half to death. So she faked her death which added to Tim Drake's angst, but later came back to Gotham City, safe and sound, and eventually wound up as Batgirl. She is currently kicking ass under the full approval of Batman.
  • Nightwing has the nasty habit of not letting his wounds heal. Alfred once told Barbara Gordon he would understand if she had to pump him full of tranquilizers to keep him still. Alfred has also threatened to knee-cap Nightwing's good leg to keep him for running back into battle with a leg injury.
  • In Who Is Donna Troy? there were FIVE times Dick could have stopped, decided that they had enough details, and nobody would have criticized him at all. And yet, he continued until he had found all the facts and tracked down Donna's birth mother. In fact, Donna Troy had already given up at the first difficulty.
  • Red Robin drags himself and a wounded League of Assassins member to a jeep, drives across a desert, drags them into a hotel room and provides first aid for them both before passing out after being stabbed through the torso with a wound that's implied to have possibly killed him since he wakes up next to a Lazarus Pit. Earlier as Tim Drake showed signs of this trait already, at one point when badly burned on the back of his head and neck he still insisted on going out to help deal with a gang war. At another point he continued to fight rather than escape after being hit by a weapon that left him bleeding from the ears, nose, mouth and nailbeds. Prior to that he suited up and took to the roofs while recovering from the Clench even though he was severely weakened and exhausted.
  • Out of Batman's rogues gallery, Bane is probably the supreme example of this trope. His backstory includes growing up in a prison right from his birth. For several years he was held to solitary confinement, which there meant a barred off pit where all he could eat was rats, and the tides would cause it to flood twice a day. Instead of going insane or dying, it only made him stronger. The warden tried to get rid of Bane by putting him up as a test subject of an experimental drug called Venom, which had killed all the previous subjects. It made him stronger. Once Batman manages to put Bane into prison, he decides that reliance on Venom has made him soft, and he kills another inmate because he wants to be sent to solitary so he can purge his addiction by going cold turkey and train to build his body back up without distractions. It worked exactly as planned.
    • In fact, this is the trait Bane exploits in Knightfall: knowing that Batman simply cannot stop fighting crime, Bane releases every criminal from Arkham simultaneously. Batman, the consummate example of this trope, works himself raw trying to catch every single supervillain as they wreak havoc across the city; when he finally returns home, exhausted, Bane is waiting for him. Batman puts up an incredible fight, but we already know how it ends ...
• Code Name: Gravedigger: Nothing will stop Ulysses Hazard (code name: Gravedigger) from accomplishing a goal once he puts his mind to it. When he was young, he suffered from childhood Polio and spent years struggling to overcome this crippling disease. He pressed himself beyond limits just to walk like a normal human being. With time and perseverance, he conquered these restrictions and trained himself to the peak of physical perfection. Later he would apply this same determination to overcome the limitations of serving in a segregated army and taking the fight directly into the heart of Nazi Germany.
• Amanda Waller of DC Comics, the director of Project Cadmus and the leader of the Suicide Squad. Had the tenacity to pick up a handgun and shoot DARKSEID.
• The Green Lantern Corps is full of Determinators, with Hal Jordan being a big one. Seeing as their rings are fueled by will power, this is probably a given.
  • In Len Wein and Joe Staton's "Krona War" story arc in Tales of the Green Lantern Corps the GL's Central Battery is destroyed, and their rings have a mere hours' worth of charge left. While the others bow their heads and concede defeat, Hal Jordan declares that he will not "meet death on his knees" before hurling himself back into battle. Inspired by his tenacity, the rest of the Corps rallies behind him.
  • Alan Scott, while not a member of the Corps, wrote the book on willpower!
  • Hal Jordan is not the biggest Determinator among the Lanterns, just (possibly) the best of the Lanterns. Guy Gardner, for all his faults, smugness, and jerkassery, is said to have a willpower so strong that the Green Lantern rings are actually unable to contain it. He has used a red, yellow, and green ring in the past, and his will is so strong that his rings constantly emit power—even if he's just standing still, doing nothing whatsoever, his ring will spark and flash. That's right, folks. Guy Gardner's willpower is actually too strong. Which is awesome.
  • John Stewart also deserves a special mention. His willpower is so great, it overloaded his ring. In one issue, he tried to re-create an entire planet and would have succeeded if his ring hadn't crapped out on him due to overloading.
  • Kyle Rayner, without his ring, only holding an iron bar, refused to give up when he faced a fully powered Hal/Parallax, who took Kyle's ring previously. When Hal asked him why, Kyle answered that he was a hero and heroes fight for what's right, no matter how hard the situation is. Touched by Kyle's words, Hal returns him the ring and flies away.
  • Though not a Green Lantern, Atrocitus, leader of the Red Lanterns, counts. During the Blackest Night event, the guy gets his heart ripped out by a black lantern, and through the power of his rage, comes back to life and declares that while the black lanterns may slaughter the other corps, the Red Lanterns wouldn't fall so easily.
• Huntress, the Helena Bertinelli version, is made of this trope. At one point, the Joker shot her three times at point blank range, and she still refused to give up and let him into a building where dozens of defenseless people were being housed. Another time she fought Lady Shiva in hand-to-hand combat to save Black Canary's life and did so knowing she stood no chance and would be killed. Despite this, she threw her own blood in Shiva's face to blind her and managed to actually knock Shiva down. After the fight gets cancelled, Shiva dubbed her the "Iron Owl" and asked for the honor of helping her to her feet.
• Legion of Super-Heroes:
  • Bouncing Boy was rejected by the team five times before they let him in the sixth time. After later becoming semi-retired and becoming a reserve member, he eventually became a mentor to younger members and an occasional leader.
  • No superhero has ever wanted something more than Polar Boy wanted to be a member of the team. He actually slept outside the entrance so he could be the first to apply! Being turned down because he couldn’t control his powers was, to him, a lifelong dream being crushed, but he kept his chin up and formed the Legion of Substitute Heroes with some other rejected applicants, eventually learning to control his powers, and after he and he Subs defeated (and humiliated) an army of duplicates of Computo the Conqueror, he not only made it to the true Legion (who waived the age limit rules simply to admit him), but became the leader of it.
• Shazam!:
  • Captain Marvel just doesn't know when to quit. Even with attributes like the Stamina of Atlas, it's ultimately the heart of Billy Batson that makes him such a beloved and admired hero.
  • During a JSA story, the Ultra-Humanite uses the powers of the Thunderbolt to fight against an army of heroes. He unleashes a storm of magical energy that would annihilate most heroes. Cap not only powered through the waves of energy, he launched the attack that ultimately brought the villain down.
  • During Underworld Unleashed, Cap is part of a Justice League that descend into Hell itself to try and save Superman, believing that the demon Neron has his soul. Even when the other heroes are prepared to give up, even when Hell itself is trying to tempt him into abandoning his mission, Billy keeps pushing forward, eventually leading the charge into Neron's throne room to demand Superman's freedom. At which point Neron reveals that it wasn't Superman that he wanted, but Captain Marvel. Neron then corrupts the Justice League, whom then attack the Captain, which Neron hopes will force Billy to kill in self-defense. Cap refuses to kill, and not only fights them off, but works with the Trickster to pull a fast one on Neron, saving all of Earth. Did I mention Cap did all of this with a broken arm?
  • It wasn't the only time Captain Marvel went into Hell to save someone he cared about. When Shazam was imprisoned by the demon Blaze, Cap basically fought his way through Hell, his arm STILL broken, and rescued the Wizard from an eternity of suffering.
  • During Day of Vengeance, Captain Marvel has to delay the Spectre for as long as possible. The Spectre is the literal Wrath of God, and Cap has virtually no chance against him. Cap fights him anyway, and no matter how badly the Spectre beats him down, Cap just keeps getting back up to continue the fight. The Blue Devil, who witnesses the battle, is basically awestruck by his heroism.
    Blue Devil: Want to see real bravery? Take a look at this guy. He calls himself Captain Marvel, the Earth's Mightiest Mortal. Who knows? Maybe he is. Now he's in the middle of a one-on-one throwdown with the Spectre — an immortal being so incalculably powerful that our Mightiest Mortal's like a paraplegic child taking on a heavyweight prize fighter. From what I understand, Captain Marvel can survive only so long as his magical power source holds out. But the Spectre is bleeding it dry so quickly, Marvel's continued life span can be measured in a matter of seconds, double digits at most. And every one of those precious seconds will be spent in indescribable agony. Regardless, Marvel fights on. Take a note, boys and girls: that's what real bravery looks like.
• Superman:
  • In Kryptonite Nevermore, Superman makes clear that he doesn't give up when a power-stealing criminal attacks him.
    Nyxly: Surrender, Superman!
    Superman: Maybe I will... Ten minutes after I'm dead! Not a second before!
  • In Emperor Joker, Batman is broken by having himself killed, night after night after night. Only Superman's selfless offer to take those memories (thanks to Mxyzptlk and the Spectre) enables him to go on. Superman is also seen in the John Byrne reboot boosting the willpower of a group of Green Lanterns' rings. He beat Doomsday after the JLA had been crushed, the story frequently describing him as never giving up.
  • Superman's Determinator status is best encapsulated in the following quote from What's So Funny About Truth, Justice & the American Way?, in which he handily defeats a cynical Nineties Antihero and declares that:
    Superman: "Dreams save us. Dreams lift us up and transform us. And on my soul I swear... until my dream of a world where dignity, honor and justice becomes the reality we all share... I'll never stop fighting. Ever."
  • In Superman: Brainiac Pa Kent reveals that he spent almost six months looking for a baseball batted by his son when Clark was a kid.
  • In an issue of JLA (1997), Superman, at the time with his electric powers, goes toe-to-toe with Azmodel, leader of a rogue group of Heaven's angels. Two words (and a very awed Wally West) sums up Superman's Determinator status.
    Azmodel: YIELD!
    Superman: NEVER!
    Flash: This is the guy who said he couldn't live up to his myth... He's wrestling an angel.
  • Supergirl never quits. Never. Not even when she's poisoned with Kryptonite, her body is getting stolen by an alien abomination, and her heart has stopped. Even so, she'll keep fighting.
  • In Supergirl Volume 2 #20, super-villain Parasite depowers Supergirl and seals her in a metal coffin that is floating a mile above solid ground. And she will run out of air within less than four minutes. So... what does she do? Relax, breathe shallowly and think of a plan. She breaks out, uses her cloak to glide downwards, and fights Parasite again.
  • In the Red Daughter of Krypton arc she explains that her mother taught her to never give up.
    Supergirl: But then I thought of mother. I remembered all I had to live up to. A daughter of the House of El never quits. I wasn't about to be the first.
  • In War World, Supergirl proves to be a bigger determinator than her cousin. As Superman is wondering whether they have some chance to defeat Mongul, Supergirl encourages him to fight, declaring that they will definitely try.
  • In Bizarrogirl, Lana Lang tells Kara she cannot become a member of her family if she will not stop whining and try to help. Langs don't quit.
    Lana: Your choice, Kara, but you might ask yourself, what would your people want you want to do?
    Linda: It's Linda.
    Lana: If you're going to keep pretending you don't care about people, no, it's not. We're supposed to be fighters, not sit-around-and-mope-ers.
  • Last Daughter of Krypton: Supergirl faces four Worldkillers in the final battle. On top of being exhausted, weakened, outnumbered and overpowered she has to be careful about protecting civilians since they are fighting in New York. Kara is getting her butt handed to her, but she refuses to give up, so she keeps fighting on until she finds a way to win against all odds.
    Reign: Only a Worldkiller can defeat another Worldkiller. Why continue a fight you cannot win?
    Supergirl: "I guess... It's like my father always said..." (smashing Reign with a car) "I'm stubborn."
  • The Jungle Line: Deconstructed. Superman almost gets killed by Bloodmorel malady -which causes hallucinations, high fever and other nasty symptoms- because he is unable to give up and stop fighting his nightmares, unaware that the harder he fights, the higher his fever climbs.
  • Krypto the Superdog can be beaten but never stopped. In The Coming of Atlas, the titular villain beats Superman into the ground and likewise tries to pummel Krypto. Nonetheless, Atlas is unable to take him out will because Krypto gets back up again to fight on every single time he gets knocked into the ground. Not even blasting him with debilitating types of sunlight slows him down.
• Rorschach from Watchmen:
  "No. Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise."
• Wonder Woman:
  • Wonder Woman (1942): Oscar Sweetgulper once peddled his bicycle non-stop from Washington D.C. to Texas when he thought his sweetheart Etta Candy was being conned by one of the Candy Ranch farm hands. He even managed to get there in time to help rescue her and the Candy family horses from the criminal.
  • Wonder Woman definitely counts. Batman's plan to neutralize her during JLA: Tower of Babel was basically to trick her into believing that she was fighting an opponent equally as powerful as she was. Because she'd never give up a fight, she'd eventually drop dead from exhaustion. On a more general note, Wonder Woman possesses an incredible amount of durability, and her Amazonian training gives her an immense pain tolerance. Make of that what you will.

Films

Films

• DC Extended Universe
  • Man of Steel: Very much Zod. Even after the entire destruction of his ship, crew, terraformer, and everything he was going to use to turn Earth into Krypton 2.0 was destroyed, he still tried to do "what is best" for Krypton. He also overcomes the debilitating effect of his new haywire Super-Senses by concentrating really hard.
  • Billy Batson from SHAZAM! (2019) devoted his entire life searching for his long-long mother whom he got separated from at a local fair when he was 4-years-old. He constantly broke the law and ditched his foster families in order to see her again for the past ten years. However, he was completely heartbroken upon realizing his mother never wanted him in her life.
• Justice League: Doom:
  • Batman refuses to stay down, literally punching his way out of a grave and digging himself out of six feet of Earth before continuing on with the mission without a moment's rest or medical attention.
  • Deconstructed for Wonder Woman, as her refusal to give up a fight is the crux of the Legion of Doom's plan against her. Cheetah's claws were laced with a drug that made Wonder Woman perceive everyone around her as Cheetah. She continues to fight, attacking innocent bystanders and police in her delusion. Cyborg speculates that the Legion intends for her to keep fighting until she dies of exhaustion, assuming one of the police don't get a lucky shot in first.

Live-Action TV

Live-Action TV

• Arrowverse
  • Arrow:
    • Oliver Queen has sustained numerous serious injuries and been tortured many times, but has always survived through his own will.
    • Malcolm Merlyn. First he almost completed The Undertaking which had effect anyway because of redundant earthquake device, then presumed dead he started rebuilding his empire. He showed up again during Mirakuru crisis to save his daughter Thea. After which he trains her and, with help from Oliver he take on Ra's'al Ghul and takes his place. Not to mention that he makes Team Arrow, many of which should hate it both because what he did to the city and because to what he did to their loved ones, if not like him, at least tolerate his presence when he is around.
• Gotham: James Gordon, has shown qualities of this on multiple occasions but one that stands out is where he gets beaten bloody and knocked unconscious but upon waking up his first act is to reach for his gun and head to the police station, where he had been informed of trouble, instead of seeking medical assistance for his injuries.
  • This is one of the defining characteristics of Gordon's Evil Counterpart Oswald Cobblepot. Virtually every major character in the show has tried to arrest him, kill him, or overthrow him at one stage or another. He's lost his mother, his father, his surrogate son, his position at the top of the Gotham mobs several times, his job as mayor, his best friend betrayed him, and he has been landed in Arkham. Twice. Where he was horrifically psychologically tortured, not to mention all the other times he’s been beaten and humiliated. And yet, through a combination of cunning, tenacity, and a sheer bloody-minded refusal to stay down, he always bounces back, often as a significantly more dangerous threat than before. No matter what happens, he will not give up his quest to be the King of Gotham.
• Smallville:
  • Clark Kent, period. Mostly when he gets pounded by other Kryptonians. Or weakened by kryptonite.
    • But even if he doesn't have any powers, he just won't stay down.
    • Even death cannot stop this guy.
  • Chloe Sullivan. You could try to break her, use bribes, torture her, threaten her with jail and death, but nothing, I repeat, nothing is going to make her betray Clark Kent. The lengths to which the pair would go to for each other is amazing and heartwarming.
  • "Legion": After Clark saved the world when it would be a lot easier (physically, not emotionally) to kill Chloe:
    Chloe: Thanks for not giving up on me.
    Clark: I'd never give up on you, Chloe. You know that.
    Chloe: I just hope that if it turned out that there was no other choice, you would choose to do the right thing.
    Clark: What choice would that be?
    Chloe: To do what's best for the world... and not for me. Know that I'd understand.
    Clark: Well, as long as I'm around, that's never gonna happen.
  • "Collateral":
    Chloe: I guess that's the true test of believing in someone — knowing that their lies are there to protect you. It's not really trust if you ask someone to explain themselves.
    Clark: But that's hard.
    Chloe: It's really hard.
    Clark: You never gave up.
    Chloe: And I never will.

Western Animation

Western Animation

• Red Hood, of Batman: The Brave and the Bold suffered the same chemical bath as the Joker (being his counterpart from the Mirror Universe ). However, he didn't crack (albeit he did, in his own words, "bend"), and he kept this up throughout his career, repeatedly battling whole teams of villains with nothing but large spades (the playing card symbol, much like Batman's batarangs) and grit. His response to electroshock torture? "Ahaha, it tickles!"
• DC Animated Universe:
  • Captain Clown from the Batman: The Animated Series episode "The Last Laugh", who takes a ridiculous amount of crowbar shots to the head. Being a robot helps with that.
  • Justice League:
    • In the Series Finale, with no time to come up with a better plan, Batman keeps on coming after Darkseid with nothing more than his fists, feet, and utility belt, relentless even though the other tosses him away casually. After the last such attempt, irritation is evident.
    Darkseid: You still try to fight? (tosses him thirty feet) Can't you see that it's hopeless?
    (Superman gives him a flying punch, then a right hook, and pins Darkseid against the wall by the throat, one-handed)
    Superman: That man won't quit as long as he can still draw breath. None of my teammates will. Me? I've got a different problem.
    • Batman also provided a page quote for the main Determinator article:
    Dr. Destiny: But you're different. You don't have any special powers.
    Batman: Oh, I have one, Johnny. I never give up.
    • Earlier in the series was another example. Shining Knight, an embodiment of the Knight in Shining Armor trope, was fighting a mutated and transformed General Eiling and refused to give in no matter how badly he was beaten.
    General Eiling: You can't win.
    Shining Knight: I'll die as befits a knight: Defending the weak!
    • Then there's Wonder Woman in the adaption of For the Man Who Has Everything. She absolutely gets the shit beat out of her by Mongul for almost the entire episode and refuses to stay down even though each hit she takes brings her closer and closer to death. She shows that you CAN be on the receiving end of a total Curb-Stomp Battle and still look badass.
      • And, after this, she gathered all her remaining forces to free Batman from Black Mercy, resist to the plant's attempts to dominate her, and throw it at Mongul.
    • Captain Atom in Flashpoint. He gets a horrible ass whooping by Superman when trying to keep Huntress from helping the previously tortured Question escape Cadmus. Though Supes is perfectly fine at the end of the Battle, Cap is beaten so badly his suit cracks and he's barely able to walk, much less throw a punch. And yet he still keeps coming until he's completely unconscious.
    Superman: You fought a good fight, stay down!
    Captain Atom: ...I can't do that, Superman. (rushes him)
    Superman: (dodges his attacks and punches Captain Atom into the wall)
• Saint Walker from Green Lantern: The Animated Series. Climbs a mountain in search of a savior to battle the Red Lanterns, and when he reaches the top he seemingly finds nothing there. Instead of giving up, he keeps hope and vows to find a way to battle the Red Lanterns, resulting in the Blue Lantern of Hope to come to him, its reflection showing him to be the savior he was searching for, and give him the first Blue Lantern ring.
  • Heroic willpower is the Hat of the Green Lantern Corps. Hal Jordan's character, in particular, is built of this trope.
• Teen Titans (2003) Robin, playing the Batman-esque Badass Normal Leader role in his team. He is described as "stubbornly determined to the point of being crazy".
  Starfire: They are too numerous to fight! What shall we do?
  Robin: Fight anyway!
  • This goes triple-overload for anything involving Slade and sometimes even further.
  • One episode in particular shows that Slade had found a way to weaponize this against Robin. One of his masks that Robin had in storage released a chemical that caused Robin to see Slade when he wasn't there, driving him into a frenzy, especially since the other Titans couldn't see Slade (him not being there and all). Robin's heart is straining and he is likely to drive himself to death trying to stop a foe that isn't there. It takes a psychic assist from Raven to clear his head, and it cost her a bit of pain in the process, because she could feel the blows Robin's mind told him he was receiving in the fight.

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