Are there comic characters you think are better off in a self-contained universe rather than a shared universe?

Asita

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Eh, Batman's a very interesting example because he can work - and work well - in the crossovers, but it requires a comparatively delicate hand and an understanding that Batman's strengths are not the same as those of Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, the Flash, etc. Throw them up against Zodd, and Batman should be pretty out of his depth outside of grabbing some kryptonite and figuring out when to use it. Throw them up against Darkseid? Batman should be borderline useless in a straight fight against anything much above parademon tier.

Toss in Doctor Destiny? You know, the guy who manipulates dreams to create psychological and/or physical effects on his victims? That's Batman's time to shine, baby! See, for instance Justice League's "Only a Dream", wherein Destiny ambushed and locked down Hawkgirl, Superman, Flash, and Green Lantern within their nightmares with potentially fatal consequences. Martian Manhunter leveraged his psychic abilities to help the team overcome their personal demons, while serial insomniac detective Batman desperately hunted down the supervillain himself to stop the attack. For bonus points, this version of Destiny's emphasis on nightmares is kinda familiar territory for Batman, considering that's more or less the shtick of his personal recurring villain Scarecrow.

The trick to leveraging Batman effectively in 'multiplayer' crossovers is that he needs to be thought of as "spymaster". His strengths are in subterfuge, gathering information quickly, and using that to push peoples' buttons the right way, something he does better than most - if not all - of the League. Basically, if you want to do Batman well in a Justice League setting, treat him like old Bruce Wayne in Batman Beyond: Less punchy, more sleuthy (see also Barbara Gordon as Oracle). Where it falters, however, is cases where this is taken overboard, like Doom/Tower of Babel (aka "Batman has a plan to take down every member of the Justice League"). To be clear, the spirit of it is very much in the aforementioned niche, but the execution reeks of "my favorite character could kick your favorite characters' asses all at once".

For the one that just plain doesn't work, however? As others have mentioned, that's easily the X-Men. Their entire raison d'etre is "we're different, therefore people are scared of us"...which doesn't really work when thrown into a world where Superheros are a recognized factor, and especially not one where they're practically common. What, you're telling me that people can accept the near-mindless berserker that is the Hulk on the Avengers but the more mellow, scientific, and physically weaker blue ape that is Hank McCoy/Beast is super scary because he's powered by genetics rather than radiation? That in a world where people more or less yell "unclean! unclean!" when they see Iceman, they wouldn't do the same when they saw the Human Torch? That in a world where people were terrified because a meaningful percentage of the rising generation were developing superpowers, they wouldn't look at characters like Spider-Man and simply assume that he was part of the demographic that scared them so much? Give me a break.

Is there some kind of superhero purity test? "Mhmm, myes...We, the Gatekeepers of Superheroics do hereby find that Carol Danvers is not, in fact, a Mutant. She may continue to operate in the open with comparatively little scorn." Heck, when you think about it, the central conflict of Civil War (the comic arc, not the MCU movie) was a tacit acknowledgement by the writers that superheroes weren't treated with the same distrust as mutants were. It's almost a mea culpa admission that a "Mutant Registration Act" was unrealistically limited in scope for the setting, and that it probably should have been a "Superhuman Registration Act". Because, at the end of the day, there's not much of an observable difference between a "mutant" and a "superpowered human".
 
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Masonicon

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X-men works better in a Self-contained Universe(where Fermi Paradox works better there than even IRL) than even Batman(and related stuff) working in a self-contained universe instead of a shared universe

and here's how to make X-men works in a Shared Universe(aka Earth-616):
  1. speciesist route: those that hate Mutants are also hated Aliens while welcomes Enhanced/superpowered Humans with Open arms, cuz Mainstream marvel Universe are notorious for welcomes even Superpowered Aliens with open arms, while hating mutants
  2. or make people hate all Superpowered Beings that aren't people like Ironman equally
even then, not all Marvel Universes are need to Earth-616-like. not even MCU needs to like Earth-616(even when anyone wants to see X-men interacts with other Marvel characters in MCU, X-men characters don't need to share their home universe with the rest of marvel characters there)
 

zoey

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I hate shared universe in comics. They just turn characters into caricatures so that they can cram as many superheroes they can at once. Throughout DC history, they have produced from great standalone comic series giving us superheroes like Batman, Superman, WonderWoman. But when they come together as Justice League, the nuance in storytelling is compromised for impressing fanboys. The same goes for Marvel. Can't stand the Avenger Movies they are a huge pile of mess!
 

immortalfrieza

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Both Batman (or any superhero that's really just a bog standard human) and Superman, for pretty much the exact opposite reasons. Batman is a normal human with some fancy gadgets and access to military level tech. There is no way in hell that he's going to be any use against any supervillain Superman or any other superhuman superhero is going to be needed to handle. Brainiac could swoop into Gotham and there wouldn't be a thing the Bat Family could do to stop him. With teamups it's even worse, because in order for Batman to stay relevant they have to turn him into the spymaster, which only ever results in storylines where the rest of the heroes are too stupid to figure out how to wipe their rear ends without Batman around to tell them how and when to do it.

Superman is a whole other can of worms because he's an all around terrible superhero in the first place which is only exacerbated by the fact that he shares a universe with hundreds of other superheroes. The fact that he is so much more powerful than even the vast majority of his own threats not to mention that of other superheroes creates a constant question for all superheroes of "why don't they just call Superman to deal with this?" over and over for nearly all of them. Then we get to teamups where in his solo stories Superman could easily beat the supervillain but instead they have him either out of the lineup entirely for the issue, weaken him, or just have him arbitrarily not pull his weight anywhere near as much in order to justify the existence of the rest of the team.

Of course, this isn't even getting into the fact that because it's not just him Batman could've become this sci-fi tech filled Iron Man/Doctor Fate/Hulk/whatever decades ago with all the tech and mutagens, spellbooks and such he's come across in even the shortest continuities and thus kept up with everybody else, but he hasn't because of the need to have a "normal" guy in the superhero lineup.

Putting each in their own separate universes solves things quite nicely by allowing each to handle threats at their own level only and ensures that they can't just call for help from someone else to solve things, it HAS to be them.
 
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laggyteabag

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Shared universe superhero stuff is super cool, but, it can sometimes be problematic to large-scale stories.

As it has been mentioned a few times before, when you have someone like Batman, living in the same world as Superman, and the Flash, and Wonder Woman, etc, you really have to suspend your disbelief over why X event doesn't have the attention of the whole superhero world.

Take Captain America: The Winter Soldier, for example. This was a New World Order-level event. Millions, if not billions of people were on Hydra's hitlist. Giant, weaponised, aircraft carriers were flying over Washington DC. Yet, aside from Cap, Black Widow, and the newly-recruited Falcon, no other Avenger even bothered to lift a finger.

It just doesn't make much sense.

I don't mind Superhero worlds that are occupied exclusively by low/medium level superheroes, like Batman and the Green Arrow, or Spider-Man and Daredevil - but as soon as you introduce these mega-powerful beings, who can be anywhere, at any time... you do have to start wondering, well, why aren't they?

On a similar note, when you do have comparatively weaker superheroes, it does make me question why they are even involved in a lot of conflicts, and it can be really tonally jarring.

Again, lets take Batman, for instance. My exposure to Batman is pretty much limited to the Arkham games, and the Nolan movies. So, basically just a lot of Batman punching goons in an alley, and occasionally someone with a freeze ray, or someone pumped up on super-steroids - nothing totally detached from the world. So, when something like Justice League rolls around, and we have Batman standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Aliens, and Goddesses, and actual super heroes, Batman just seems a little pointless, in comparison. Not to even mention when Batman then starts fighting other aliens, or whatever the villain of the week is.

Extra-terrestrial super-villains are best left to the extra-terrestrial super-heroes. I don't want to see Batman throw-down with an alien, because it is just weird.
 

Thaluikhain

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Extra-terrestrial super-villains are best left to the extra-terrestrial super-heroes. I don't want to see Batman throw-down with an alien, because it is just weird.
Dunno, Batman has been hunted by Predators a few times, and that worked.
 

Cicada 5

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Both Batman (or any superhero that's really just a bog standard human) and Superman, for pretty much the exact opposite reasons. Batman is a normal human with some fancy gadgets and access to military level tech. There is no way in hell that he's going to be any use against any supervillain Superman or any other superhuman superhero is going to be needed to handle. Brainiac could swoop into Gotham and there wouldn't be a thing the Bat Family could do to stop him. With teamups it's even worse, because in order for Batman to stay relevant they have to turn him into the spymaster, which only ever results in storylines where the rest of the heroes are too stupid to figure out how to wipe their rear ends without Batman around to tell them how and when to do it.

Superman is a whole other can of worms because he's an all around terrible superhero in the first place which is only exacerbated by the fact that he shares a universe with hundreds of other superheroes. The fact that he is so much more powerful than even the vast majority of his own threats not to mention . It creates a constant question for all superheroes of "why don't they just call Superman to deal with this?" over and over for nearly all of them. Then we get to teamups where in his solo stories Superman could easily beat the supervillain but instead they have him either out of the lineup entirely for the issue, weaken him, or just have him arbitrarily not pull his weight anywhere near as much in order to justify the existence of the rest of the team.

Of course, this isn't even getting into the fact that because it's not just him Batman could've become this sci-fi tech filled Iron Man/Doctor Fate/Hulk/whatever decades ago with all the tech and mutagens, spellbooks and such he's come across in even the shortest continuities and thus kept up with everybody else, but he hasn't because of the need to have a "normal" guy in the superhero lineup.

Putting each in their own separate universes solves things quite nicely by allowing each to handle threats at their own level only and ensures that they can't just call for help from someone else to solve things, it HAS to be them.
In the case of magic, Batman has either been depicted as not believing it exists or just being too poor at learning it.
 

Masonicon

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In the case of magic, Batman has either been depicted as not believing it exists or just being too poor at learning it.
cuz fair amount of DC Universes make teaching Baseline Humans actual magics are like teaching insects to play classic music(in terms of it's impossibility)

even when not all DC Universes automatically make any human with Magic or Superpowers different species from us, and even not all DC Universes with Homo Magi make Magic-using Humans exclusively Homo Magi's
 
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