WHAT WOULD BATMAN DO??...Against the X-MEN!!???

Last week we discussed possible strategies that Batman would use to beat the Avengers. The Avengers are THE super hero team in the Marvel Universe. This week we're going to talk about another great Marvel super hero team with a different set of powers and abilities. The X-Men!

I grew up reading the X-Men, and during the 1990's it was almost impossible to avoid them whether you were a comic fan or not. In the comics, becoming an Avengers is an honor and a big moment for a super hero. Becoming a member of the X-Men means something much different. The X-Men are made up of mutants, people who were born with their abilities. They were then sought out by Professor Xavier or someone else representing Professor X and brought to the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. There the children would be trained to control their powers.

Once they "graduate", the students are given the opportunity to join the team. I can't think of an instance of one of the these students refusing to join the X-Men. They all seem to see membership as a necessity, which is part of the teaching staff's influence. The students are taught to use their abilities to fight for good.

So where the Avengers are made up of a mix of meta humans, Inhumans, and mutants, the X-Men are just mutants but still offer a wide variety of power levels and abilities. So for today's WHAT WOULD BATMAN DO?...we're going to go with a classic X-Men line up of:

Cyclops, Jean Grey, Rogue, Wolverine, Gambit, Nightcrawler, and Colossus.

Once again, Batman would not stand a chance against the X-Men if he were to confront them head on. So, his plan would be to keep the X-Men separated or get them separated.

Let's take a look at the angles here. Batman needs to separate the X-Men, not a very difficult thing to do, but getting to them won't be easy either. Let's say that Batman needs to take the fight to the X-Men. Meaning that he has to go to the X-Mansion and either draw them out, or get inside. The better strategy would be to get inside, but there lies the problem; the X-Men are not the only mutants inside the X-Mansion. It's literally filled with mutants of varying powers and abilities. So while the active members of the X-Men are Batman's targets, if he isn't careful, he could find himself facing an entire school of super powered people!

Having said that, you can see how Batman needs to keep this quiet. So... in order to do that, Batman needs an over-arching strategy to keep the students where they are while also isolating the main team members. I'll get to that in a minute.

As for the specific targets, this is what I think Batman would/could do to immobilize them:

Colossus: I think he's the easiest target, despite how physically formidable he is. Collossus' weakness is his love for his sister and wife Kitty Pryde. Batman's plan would begin weeks before he even stepped foot on the school grounds. Batman would exploit Colossus fear of losing his sister, and so would send Colossus a ransom note including pictures of his sister Illyana or wife Kitty Pryde bound and gagged. Now, fans of the X-Men know that both of these characters have the power to easily slip their bonds. HOWEVER, Colossus reacts before thinking, and therefore would explode with emotion and run off without even explaining himself to his team mates. It's happened before. I have always thought that Colossus was the weak link when it came to cracking the X-Men. He even joined Magneto once, literally turning his back on his friends and joining up with the greatest enemy of the X-Men. 1 down, Colossus leaves the X-Mansion, leaving the rest of the team to cover for him. Team members have side adventures all of the time, and so they wouldn't think much of his absence.

Rogue: this is a tricky one. Rogue is one tough cookie. (I'm going with the 90's Rogue, btw, which means she has the same power-siphoning powers, but can also fly, is invulnerable, and has superhuman strength). She is the air support for the X-Men and also one of the team's strongest members. Most of the time, in order to defeat a strong opponent, you exploit their weaknesses. The X-Men don't really have many weaknesses, and Rogue especially does not have a real weakness like Superman has kryptonite. The key to taking down Rogue is to exacerbate her strengths, overwhelm her senses and use her own powers against her. Her power-siphoning ability would be Batman's primary target. So, let's say then that Batman is able to get close enough to Rogue to "infect" her with Doomsday's power and mindless rage. Rogue would become so overwhelmed with what's in her head and what it's making her body do that it would take every ounce of energy she has to control it. Eventually the effect would fade, but the residual effects would be enough to knock out Rogue. 2 down.

Nightcrawler: also a very dangerous team member. His teleportation ability being his greatest advantage in a fight against the World's Greatest martial artist, but also that's where Batman would win. This is a situation where Batman would use one of his wonderful toys to solve the problem. A gadget that would grab onto Nightcrawler and anchor him to a single spot and then fry Nightcrawler with a strong electrical current. 3 down.

This last move would cause a stir in the Mansion, drawing the attention of the rest of the team. There's 4 left, still too many for Batman to face on his own. To counter this, Batman would hack the X-Mansion's security and use that to lock down every room in the house. Keeping the students and the X-Men confined to whatever room they are in. Leaving Batman the freedom to move about the mansion at his leisure. The remaining X-Men are Cyclops, Jean Grey, Gambit, and Wolverine. Very very dangerous people. Batman needs to take out Jean first. Her telepathic powers are far to strong to face in a one on one encounter, and Batman can't counter these powers himself, nor can he protect himself from her mental attacks. He can, however, manipulate those powers.

Jean Grey: as mentally powerful as Jean is, physically she is the weakest of the team. Here is another situation that a gadget would help Batman. He would most likely develop some drug that would make Jean think she was under attack by one of the X-Men's villains. While she defended herself and counter attacked, believing the whole time that it's a bad guy she's fighting, it would actually be the rest of the X-Men she's attacking.

Gambit and Cyclops: These two would do everything they could to stop Jean from killing them, the students and herself. They'd be forced to physically fight with Jean in order to help her, this would keep them distracted and most likely leave only one of them standing by the end. Will say Gambit, because Cyclops would definitely sacrifice himself in order to help Jean. I'm not saying anyone dies here, just unconscious.

Wolverine: I purposefully left him out of the Jean situation. Once Wolverine realizes what is going on, he would see that there was nothing he could do to help Gambit and Cyclops and so would track down Batman himself. Batman would plan for this and thus lure Wolverine outside to where he could face him on more even battle terms.

Again, since this is a Batman plan that he had plenty of time to figure out, he'd lure Wolverine right into a trap. Using Wolverine's adamantium skeleton against him by utilizing a giant magnet to keep Wolverine immobilized. At that point Batman would then use a high powered weapon to continuously fire at Wolverine while he's stuck, attempting to overwhelm his healing factor. This would give Batman plenty of time to make his escape.

Boom. X-Men are done.

Now, I don't actually believe that these plans of Batman's would last long enough to keep the X-Men down. Nor were they meant to. This was to show that Batman could temporarily immobilize the X-Men and Avengers. If you want to talk about how to kill these teams, then maybe I'll consider a WHAT WOULD THE PUNISHER DO?... set of scenarios another time.

So what would you have Batman do against the X-Men? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading! Just in case there is anyone that follows my weekly articles, and has noticed that I haven't done a Friday Night Fights in a while, know this:

I started working on Batman vs. The Punisher last week, and it turned into something much more than I thought it would be and so I am taking some extra time to really make this great. It's a lot different than anything else I've written before and I'm very excited about it. So, if I don't have a FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS out for a bit, it's because I'm still working on it! The same thing goes for my Deadpool & the Infinity Gauntlet. That's going to be an ongoing series, and needs time to be worked on. I am very excited about both projects, so please stay tuned! Have a great weekend and see you on Halloween for GoT Monday!