Scott Snyder Says Batman is Not a Metahuman, Suicide Squad Writer Weighs In

No, Virginia, there is no super-Batman (according to Scott Snyder, anyway).

Earlier this week, eagle-eyed fans spotted a line of dialogue in a new issue of Suicide Squad that suggested Batman was, at least in the eyes of Amanda Waller and ARGUS, a metahuman.

That was an odd classification for a character whose defining characteristic in a vast, shared multiverse of superheroes is his ability to stand toe to toe with gods and monsters using only his wits and boundless fortune, but it wasn’t the first time someone had intimated Bruce Wayne might have a little help from the metagene; back in the ’90s, some writers suggested that basically every costumed hero was a meta.

There is an in-story explanation for why he might carry such a classification, but longtime Batman writer Scott Snyder — currently working on All-Star Batman and the Metal event — isn’t buying it, and took to Twitter to dismiss the claim.

…Well, mostly. Snyder did acknowledge that he cannot speak for what the Suicide Squad creative team is going for, and can only speak to his perception of the character…but Snyder’s perception of a character he has written more or less continuously since 2010 seems like a pretty solid foundation to build on.

So what’s this whole debate about? Let’s take a quick dive in…

THE ORIGINAL CLAIM

Spoilers incoming for Suicide Squad #22.

While Batman has yet to manifest any actual powers, according to Amanda Waller the Dark Knight is not a normal human.

Towards the end of this week’s issue of Suicide Squad, Waller instructs the remnants of her team to retrieve two metahumans: Killer Frost and…Batman.

Given her role in ARGUS, it appears as though Batman is now considered a metahuman by the federal government in the DC Universe.

As noted earlier, this isn’t the first time he’s been categorized as such, but it is the most recent (and likely the only time recognized as canon).

Batman and Green Arrow were considered metahumans by the slimmest of margins under Chuck Dixon, but that has since faded until now. 

SNYDER’S REBUTTAL

“Not to speak for Suicide Squad, but Batman is not meta,” longtime Batman writer Scott Snyder tweeted in response to all the attention the story was getting. “He gets powers for stories (like Darkseid War), but he’s never been meta in nature.”

Of course, that leaves open the question of whether he will have been classified as metahuman for a reason in this story, and/or if he is going to get powers in the Suicide Squad story that Snyder himself acknowleges he cannot speak to, but there are some context clues that say neither of those things is at play here.

Snyder, of course, is currently writing the Metal event for DC with Detective Comics writer James Tynion IV, in which a multiverse of dark matter is revealed and a number of the Dark Multiverse’s Batmen — each of whom has taken on the traits of one Justice League member — launch an attack on the main DC Universe Earth together.

As such, he is no stranger to the idea of “enhancing” Batman for a story at a time.

THE DEBATE

The reasoning for it has been teased by DC in Dark Days. In that series, it is revealed that Batman had contact with Nth metal in an unexpected way when he was healed by the metal dionesium. Since it contains Nth metal properties, Batman was essentially restored to peak condition.

The Joker also revealed that Nth Metal can have unexpected effects once introduced into the bloodstream, turning normal beings into metas.

While thus far it only seems to have healed him and nothing more, the thinking may be that doesn’t mean it hasn’t given him other abilities. Even if not, he is now still considered a metahuman, and odds are that will start showing up more and more in DC’s upcoming Metal event.

The problem with this logic? Well, Scott Snyder is the mastermind behind the Metal event, and so if he rejects the notion of Batman as a metahuman for the purposes of his storytelling, it seems unlikely that will play a key role in Metal.

For his part, Suicide Squad writer Rob Williams took to Twitter to clarify his position, which is essentially that it doesn’t matter whether Batman is a metahuman or not for the story he is trying to tell.

“People reading too much into this. Waller/The People’s goal in the current storyline is to lock away all superhumans, Batman included,” Williams explained. “Whether Batman has powers or not doesn’t matter to her/them. Given his actions and how he runs with the Justice League, he’s a target.”

It appears as simple as ARGUS/Waller/Williams using a precise term in an imprecise way, and fans getting hung up in the semantics of it.

MORE BATMAN

Suicide Squad #22 is written by Rob Williams with art by Gus Vazquez with covers by Eber Ferreira, Eddy Barrows, and Whilce Portacio. You can find the official description below.

“KILL YOUR DARLINGS” part two! Face to face with the Russian mastermind she’s been tracking since SUICIDE SQUAD: REBIRTH #1, Amanda Waller is horrified to find the Suicide Squad commanded by her own dark mirror, the enigmatic Direktor Karla, who’s surpassed the Task Force X leader in the one game she cannot afford to lose: control.

Suicide Squad #22 is in stores now.

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