Superman and Batman share a long history with one another. Both heroes have countless solo adventures and plenty of team-up stories from their time serving in the Justice League of America. Despite being undoubtedly loyal to one another both as friends and as fellow superheroes, Batman and Superman have developed a friendly rivalry over the years. In World’s Finest #175, by Leo Dorfman and Neal Adams, Batman and Superman’s rivalry included a test that should have left not only Batman, but Robin and Jimmy Olsen de-atomized on the spot.
It’s established in the issue that one day a year Batman and Superman hold a friendly contest of skill against one another, with Superman and Jimmy Olsen on one team, and Batman and Robin on the other. Over the years the two heroes have won an equal number of contests, with neither hero proving to be definitively better than the other.
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The latest contest between Batman and Superman is to last three days, with each day focusing on a different set of tests for the heroes. The first day involves a simple test for Batman: escaping an unbreakable glass container full of knock-out gas without using any of his gadgets. Batman completes his test and the teams move on to Superman’s test. The location is stated as simply being “far out at sea”, where Superman flies over a ship. On it is a bell, a whistle, and a cannon. Batman asks Superman to figure out which of the three items would make the loudest sound. Batman, Robin, and Jimmy Olsen stand on a nearby shore, watching Superman. Suddenly, a “multi-megaton” atomic bomb detonates, a giant mushroom cloud appearing where the ship was.
Robin exclaims happily that Superman figured out Batman’s riddle, finding the item that contained the hidden atomic bomb. Superman returns and explains that the wristwatch that Jimmy Olsen had given him to repair also operated as a Geiger counter thus tipping him off to the presence of the bomb.
However, the logistics of this test make no sense, even by the standards of the era in which the story was published. To begin with, Batman, Robin, and Jimmy Olsen were all standing a few hundred feet away from the nuclear bomb when it went off. Being close enough to see the mushroom cloud from a nuclear detonation is close enough to kill someone; being a mere few hundred feet from the blast would ensure instantaneous death. There is nothing that would have allowed Batman to survive that, let alone Robin and Jimmy Olsen. The shock wave from the blast, the force of the nuclear blast itself, the heat from the blast, and the ensuing radioactive fallout are all things that would have destroyed the three non-powered beings instantly.
World’s Finest #175 was printed in 1968, nearly 30 years after World War II. While it is absolutely understandable that what the world knows of science has increased significantly since 1968, there little chance that no one knew how impossible this scenario would have been at the time of its printing. The issue also neglects to address the subsequent nuclear devastation that would have been caused to the ocean and nearby Metropolis.
The joy and wonder of reading comics is immersing oneself in the fantastic worlds contained within their pages. Disbelief is suspended and our minds are taken on wondrous journeys. There are limits to this suspension of disbelief, however, and the idea of Batman surviving that blast is well beyond the realm of possibility. The Caped Crusader’s plot armor may be thick, but it’s not that thick.
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