Justice League Doom/Headscratchers

• How did Vandal Savage know who Batman was? I don't think he's even known who Batman was in any story.
  • In Tower of Babel, it's R'as al-Ghul who takes out the League, so they probably just kept that plot point for the purpose of convenience. Besides, he's an immortal supergenius, so the vast majority of people wouldn't question it.
• If the average speed of the earth through space is somewhere around 67,000 mph, what was the worry about the flare? Wouldn't GL delaying the flare give the Earth enough time to simply get out of the way?
  • It's safer to assume Vandal Savaged timed the flare as he's taking into account the 8 or so minutes the flare would take to reach the earth at the speed of light. A bigger headscratcher is how fast Superman is since he pursues the missile all the way to the sun AND makes it back to earth with the whole 8 minutes window intact. Suspending disbelief a bit; it's not a problem of science but ethics; yes they could let the flare just "barely" scorch the Earth, but they are heroes, they have to look for the solution where no person gets maimed or killed and that's what they do. It bothers me more that we are shown the warhead having several missiles in it; and just one is powerful enough to trigger a solar flare strong enough to get the results Savage wanted; I was left wondering if the full missile payload would have incinerated the whole planet.
  • Considering Savage's plan wasn't just to create a solar flare using missiles, but also use the original rocket to create an electromagnetic path for the flare to follow towards Earth, it makes sense. It's also a good thing he made a device to make his base intangible, since by that logic the Hall of Doom would have been ground zero for the end of the world.
  • What confuses me is how the missile reached the sun so quickly. If it takes LIGHT over 8 minutes to get from the Sun to the Earth, shouldn't that missile have taken centuries to make it from Earth to the Sun?
  • Superman is clearly at pre-Crisis levels in this movie. Not only is he faster than light, but he's not kidding when he suggests that he might simply move the Earth out of the way of the flare.
    • Well since the DC Universe is set 20 minutes into the future, its likely he had some lightspeed technology, the only problem is that how Superman manage to chase it, I know Superman is faster than a speeding bullet, but their is a difference from supersonic to LIGHTSPEED!
• This may sound like a rant, but how did the kryptonite bullet penetrate Superman's skin? Shouldn't the bullet have just shattered since he hasn't been exposed to the kryptonite long enough to affect his powers? At least in Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, one could argue that because he was exposed to Metallo's kryptonite battery for a period of several minutes, the bullet could work. But in this film, Metallo doesn't expose Superman to his kryptonite battery until after he's shot, so how did it work?
  • In some of the comics, kryptonite has much of the same toughness as Superman himself, as a result of undergoing whatever process caused Superman to gain his powers. I have no idea whether or not it applies here, but it's a suggestion.
  • Kryptonite bullets always penetrate Superman's skin, regardless of continuity. It doesn't just affect his powers, its outright poisonous to him, and it never takes long for the powers to be affected anyway. Its always instant.
• Batman's contingency plans were made in case the Justice League went evil or were mind controlled. But the plans all involved the heroes either being good or putting innocent lives in danger. For example, the plan against Flash wouldn't work unless he was noble enough to risk getting caught in a trap. And the plan against GL was specifically targeted toward his guilt. So wouldn't this mean that the plans were not in case the League went evil, but simply so that it would be more convenient for Batman if HE decided to go evil? Well remember Batman said the plans were meant to immobilized them not kill, so Savage probably tweak the plans a bit.
  • Thats a problem in the comic as well; presumably Batman just had a different method of getting to the heroes and both Vandal Savage and Ra's Al Ghul are willing to play dice with the lives of innocent people, and found that easier. The GL thing might play on his guilt even if he turned rogue, or it might just have had a different effect that still sapped his willpower. The bigger problem, which again was in the comics, was that plans themselves were pretty damn evil, like the one against the Flash actually put innocent lives at risk not as part of the implementation, but inherently- if Flash was evil, or Brainwashed and Crazy, he might decide that letting a entire city die just to spite someone is fair trade; the Martian Manhunter's fate was something Batman wouldn't wish on his own worst enemy, while with Wonder Woman the plan required her to beat up scores of innocent people before dying, several hours later, of a painful heart attack.
  • Yes, these plans all seemed to have been completely based on Batman going rogue and taking out the Justice League, not a member going rogue. If any of the members had actually turned, the ones that were designed to take advantage of their nobility (Superman, Flash, Green Lantern) wouldn't have worked, and getting the others into position for the plan to work depended on them being in their normal state (if Manhunter had become evil, for example, he wouldn't be at a bar accepting drinks from strangers, for example). Only Wonder Woman's plan would have possibly worked on a villainous character.
  • Batman clearly states that his plans were altered. The plan for the Flash was all about putting a device on wrist that would have forced him to keep running until he was exhausted. Wonder Woman's was all about fighting endless waves of enemies (that could have been robots or something) until she tired out. Some of them would still have been cruel, like burning Martian Manhunter or playing on GL's guilt, but both can be done without hurting others. But all of them can be done without putting innocent people in danger or relying on the hero's goodness.
• Savage's plan involved all electronics more advanced than the steam engine being shut down, so why is Metallo just going along with this? Wouldn't he die if this plan succeeded?
  • Metallo would have been protected from the EMP by the base being intangible.
• How was Superman unable to notice that Metallo... was Metallo? Even without X-Ray vision, with his super senses he should have noticed something was off. And since he was trying to talk the man down, you'd think he'd at least be trying to monitor his vitals, breathing, heart rate and blood pressure to see if he's making any headway.
  • Two explainations for that: 1) Superman didn't bother to check the guy's vitals, since he knew him, or 2) Metallo could have a system for making it appear that he has a heartbeat or blood pressure.
• 1) How is it that Lex Luthor doesn't know anything about this? 2) Did Savage always look like Sebastian Shaw?
• What part of Vandal Savage's plan required the Justice League be alive? If not all of the League at the very least finishing Batman off would have been less than child's play for Bane. Supes was in no position to fight off Metallo, I doubt Wonder Woman could have stopped Cheetah if she'd stood by and waited but maybe she could have, Green Lantern would have been easiliy killed if Star Sapphire had stuck around an extra five minutes or so. Is there any reason aside from villians never finish the job that the Justice League survived this meeting.
  • It is possible the answer is 'none of it'. Not actually finishing off Batman there and then might have been Bane's decision (he wanted to break the man...), both Metallo and Cheetah would have been at risk of being stopped by more regular forces if they went for a kill (and both Superman and Wonder Woman were well on their way to dying anyway -- if Cyborg hadn't shown up, they both would have died), Martian Manhunter might not have been killable given the available resources and situation, and Vandal Savage may have overestimated just how much Star Sapphire wanted to truly kill Green Lantern (given her implied love/hate relationship in the movie itself and their relationship in the comics).
  • Also, recall that there was a throwaway line from Savage back at the Hall of Doom after the victory toast where he said that his plan required the Justice League, "out of the way", specifically either dead or incapacitated. From what was seen at the end of the movie his missile launch essentially needed twenty or so minutes of non-interference to go off as he wanted it. After that, whether the League was alive or not really wouldn't have mattered since half the planet was dead. It does become an issue for his post-apocalypse plan though, as any survivors of the League would certainly oppose him out of spite if nothing else.
• So the plot starts when Vandal Savage buys a piece of tech from Lexcorp that he gives to Mirror Master to use on the computer in the Batcave and steal Batman's secret plans for taking down the Justice League. How did Savage know that these plans even existed in the first place?
  • It's not crazy for Savage to assume that Batman keeps files on the JL members on his computers. He was probably just trying to find weaknesses, and stumbled upon Batman's contingency plans.
  • Or, Savage just assumed Batman has secret plans for taking down the Justice League because of his Crazy Prepared-ness.
• Is there a reason why our heroes pair off to fight their villians aside from plot contrivance? (And I mean this not just in this movie but whenever these team ups happen) It seems to me that at the very least Superman fighting Metallo is stupid when Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter are all comparable strength wise and not allergic to green rocks. Any of the four heroes mentioned already can just reach out and bitch slap Bane while Batman does something important like, I dunno, stop a missile launch.
• Given Cheetah's entirely accurate point that Vandal Savage's plan would make her money useless why didn't the Injustice League take him down. Most of them are a tad bit crazy but not kill 3 billion people so I can get better parking crazy. There wasn't a person in that room who couldn't take Vandal one on one and easily at that. He's immortal, unkillable. He doesn't seem to have any other powers and the end of the movie seems to suggest that locking him up and throwing away the key is a viable plan. This whole "you're not leaving us much choice" bs is just that. BS. Any one of them could have stopped him and stopped him with ease. Especially on a plan that had a narrow window but even long term I think Star Sapphire for example could drop him off on the moon and see how long it takes him to figure out how to get back.
• Batman's "contingency" for if he goes rogue. Let me get this straight, Batman's plan for if he goes rogue or gets mind-controlled is the Justice League...the very league that we just spent the whole movie showing that Batman can kill/disable them with almost embarrassing ease. Anyone else see the problem here?
• I have a problem with the age of Vandal Savage. The first time he says: 50000 years (spent gathering money), the second time he says: 80000 years (since he gained immortality). Does that mean that he basically led his people around the world, for like 30000 years having no desire to gather any kind of "shining rocks, that looks pretty"? Or something similiar, or is it implied that he didn't realised the value of items until said time passed? Isn't he supposed to be some kind of genius?
• And on the same note, what does it mean - being a genius caveman?

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