Dr. Doom VS Batman

Doom 3rd round KO from a left hook.

The problem with that is that one of the key things about Joker is the utter impossibility of predicting him. His uncompromisingly chaotic nature is second only to Deadpool's, and he makes up the difference with pure, gleeful malice. Doom's downfall is his hubris, and likely his critical mistake would be the very assumption that he could ever hope to calculate the Joker's behavior to begin with.

Well, we the readers usually know very well what to expect of him. It's more like the characters being Genre Blind. Deriously, that Grant Morrison Batman book... the one with Zurr En Arh... when father Wayne or whatever he is went and called shirtless!Joker "my servant". Without restrzining him. How much of a moron can this man be? Seriously, what did he expect? The Joker can be manipulated, but you need to play several levels above.

Plus, if Doom decides to use the Joker specifically for his unpredictability, it would be stupid of him not to include it in his own planning.

edited 7th Nov '10 1:24:03 AM by RawPower

The problem here is that the Joker is very prone to backstabbing, while when Doom gives his word, he gives his word. I'm not sure Doom could recognize how little the Joker's word is worth.

However, I would be very interested in seeing how well the F4 would mesure up to the Joker. Again, the F4 are ot really used to deal with chaos, but Joker is not really used to deal with powers at the F4 level.

Not really, the Joker is a regular for Super Villain team-ups.

The Fantastic Four are very much capable of dealing with Chaos. Don't forget these characters have been around for a long, long time, and they have tons of experience with all sorts of menaces. Reed himself would likely flounder for a while, but the rest of his team (especially Ben) are far more adaptable and can easily pull him out of it.

The Fantastic Four are very much capable of dealing with Chaos. Don't forget these characters have been around for a long, long time, and they have tons of experience with all sorts of menaces. Reed himself would likely flounder for a while, but the rest of his team (especially Ben) are far more adaptable and can easily pull him out of it.

There is a problem in Doom & Joker team-up - they both have sort of Only One Allowed To Defeat You with their respective nemesises, so I don't know if they would agree so easily to let the other guy kill them.

Of course it may be easily avoided - they agree to just defeat both Richards and Batman and give them to each other on the silver plate, ready to be killed.

Or Doom just wanted to distract Richards from his further plans and knew Joker wouldn't succed. Similiary Joker never believed Doom would defeat Batman and just wanted to bring trouble upon his nemesis.

edited 7th Nov '10 3:56:56 PM by PrimoVictoria

Doom has "defeated" Reed on a number of occasions before, so on some level, it wouldn't be odd for him to let the Joker have his shot.

One could also argue that each would doubt that the other could actually deal their respective nemesis a permanent end, but that it wouldn't hurt to capitalize off of the attempt.

That's true, both would be sure the other will ultimately fail. Ad both would be sure they won't fail in defeatig the other nemesis. Come on, Doom will probably be certain of killing Batman -it's just a man. The guy can kill demons! And the Joker will be like " A piece of chewing gum and massive chunk of rock. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

As for the F4 being prepared to deal with the Joker, I wonder. After years of beating super-powered and cosmic menace, would they be taken by surprise by something as mundane as a homemade bomb? It could easily slip under their radar until it's too late.

edited 7th Nov '10 5:48:53 PM by collex

Interesting, Doom would most certainly underestimate Batman, and I can see the F4 not taking the Joker very seriously in the beginning - some Dude in a clown costume, where's the problem with that?- paying a high price for later.

edited 8th Nov '10 3:15:36 AM by eX

^^ I love it when people make that mistake. Or when people underestimate Batsy for being non-powered. Or, even better when people do both at once. World's Finest had that in spades, and it was glorious.

"It is very simple, " Doctor Doom said, his voice low and deep, echoing slightly. "Reed Richards has thwarted my plans at every move. I have accepted that his genius is, in fact, near to mine own. However, he still has a weakness: his mind, incredibly though it is, works logically. It cannot work if faced with something illogical, some plan that is insane enough to break his own sensabilities."

"You know, " the Joker said, "you sound an awful lot like James Earl Jones. Whelp, if you can handle old Batsy, then count me in!" He cracked his knuckles and then he shouted over his shoulder, "Harley! Pack your bags! We're going to the Big Apple!"

Yes. Yes. YES!

And yes, I'd rather have Jeph Loeb than Grant Morrison doing this kind of thing, if only because of the type of story it would end up being. On the other hand, knowing what kind of stories they tend to write, I'd actually rather have neither.

How about some Frank Miller?

If it's Frank Miller from the late 80,s, yes. If it's current Frank Miller, no.

For a big crossover like that, Geoff Johns could do soemthing nice. And Ed Brubaker is one of my favorite writer, but i'm not sure this is a project for him.

Okay, how about Stan Lee, Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore?

edited 12th Nov '10 6:44:34 AM by RawPower

Stan Lee - does he still even write regularly? It would be funny, though, that,s for sure.

Neil Gaiman - Would love to see it, but might not be "esoteric", or "mystical" enough for him. One thing would be sure, the magical part of Doom would be more exploited.

Alan Moore: Look, I love many (but not all)of Alan Moore works , but the fact is that more and more his concepts and stories are weird and peculiar, and strange and unique. Which is great and makes for interesting read, but not for a crossover where the main aspect is to see what would happen between meeting of canon characters. And anyway, he'll prefer being burned alive before he works for Marvel or DC again.

Actually, I'd like Paul Dini to write it. He's been doing great writing Streets of Gotham and Gotham City Sirens. I'm also amazed how well Brian Q. Miller has been doing with the new Batgirl.

On some of the people suggested so far.

• Grant Morrison: Not a good idea for something that isn't deeply existential, existentially meta, and/or existentially mindscrewy.
• Jeph Loeb: Lends himself to having the plot be a vehicle to constant introspection. Works very well, but not the best for this kind of thing.. It would work better than Morrison, however.
• Frank Miller: *shudder*
• Neil Gaiman: I've never read his runs on mainstream comics, but from what I know of his other works he writes like he's writing mythology, and not just because his characters in Sandman were mythology. His style is very fantastical... that's the best way to put it. It could work.
• Alan Moore: Another person who gets really philosophical by default, plus theres the fact that he pretty much always deconstructs everything. For both him and Morrison, you gotta ask: what are you looking for in a crossover between Bats and Doom. Grandiose, super-complex, intersecting plots, schemes and wills are a given, but such that eventually we break into musing on how their incessant plotting hides the broken, piteous wrecks they really are? That's pretty much the first thing I think of when I think of either writing something like this.
• Paul Dini: Might work. Maybe. The only non-DCAU comics I've ever read from him are the ones in Batman Detective, and most of those... are ok. Just ok. "Slayride" is the only one I thought was particularly great. His style is very old fashioned yet slightly quirky, so he'd do very well in a certain kind of story like this.

edited 13th Nov '10 4:00:32 AM by KnownUnknown

After Watchmen, Alan Moore did Tom Strong, Supreme, and Terra Obscura, which were straight-up heroic stories and homages to established superhero history.

And they were good. He could do this well if he wanted to.

Also, I recommend Warren Ellis.

edited 13th Nov '10 4:49:06 AM by Kraken

Yep, Moore is quite capable of writing more traditional superhero fare if he wants to, and it can be quite good.

Forget it. He hates DC.

BATMAN VS. DR. DOOM
In the Style of:
* Grant Morrison: Doom lit the Corridor of Forever with his dreams and waved with one iron-clad hand to Batman. "Welcome to the neverending trap, the inescapable hallway. Each door an entrance to failure, each opportunty a false lead, each hope actually despair. This is the Place of No Exit."
Batman pressed a button concealed on his glove. Suddenly, there was a large explosion as the entire end of the Corridor exploded into dust. "Beg to differ," the Dark Knight said.

• Alan Moore: Rat carcass in ditch this morning, wooden tire tread on burst stomach. Latveria is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The roads are iron masks and the masks are full of blood and spikes and when the masks come off, all the rodents who let Doom rule will drown. The accumulated weight of all their passiveness will boil around them and they look to me and shout 'Save us, Batman!' and I'll look down and whisper 'No.'

Well, the second one is obviously Watchmen, but I don't recognize the first one. If it isn't from one of Morrisons works, respect, because it matches his style perfectly!

How about Ed Brubaker? He wrote Books Of Doom and sucessfull Batman run, I think he could handle the story quite well.