Batman's Worst Plan Ever

It's common knowledge that Batman is the World's Greatest Detective, and the foremost strategist of the Super Hero community. Superman may be known as the Big Blue Boy Scout, but if we're going to start handing out out actual merit badges, then I'm giving them all to Bruce, not Clark. Superman gets stuff done because he's pretty much invulnerable and can fly. Batman is just straight up PREPARED.

He keeps Shark Repellent in the Bat-copter, just in case.

He knows seven ways to disarm you from this position - three with minimal contact, three are lethal, and one just hurts - and that's true for every position.

He made secret strategies to take out all of his teammates in the Justice League as a weekend hobby, and they worked. Like a charm.

Point is, dude's got always got a plan. And chances are it's a good one.

That's why it's pretty amazing to me that I recently came across Batman's WORST PLAN EVER.

It all happens in Batman Annual #16, part of the "Eclipso: The Darkness Within Event."

In it, the Joker discovers that powerful black diamonds which grant evil revenge powers are out and about in Gotham and decides, spoiler here, he wants one.

On a side note, he learns about the diamonds because a cop gets plastered and starts talking these babies up to anyone in the bar who will listen. This makes me think he was a recent transfer to the department, because as far as I know 'don't get drunk and talk about the crazy super weapons in storage while in a Gotham dive bar' has got to be the FIRST power point presentation new GCPD officers get - right after sexual harassment training and 'shoot the clown on sight.'

Anyway, Joker gets his hand on these things. The way they work is that it has to be at night, you have to be holding it, and you have to think about how much you hate someone specific. Once activated they manifest in one of two randomly selected settings: either a giant demon creature appears to track down and murder the person you were thinking of, or your body gets totally possessed by Eclipso - the original spirit of God's wrath, who then went evil. Batman spends most of the issue telling himself, Gordon, and us that anyone having these is a terribly bad thing, and Joker especially so.

So Joker gets a diamond, thinks of (spoiler again) Batman and gets possessed by Eclipso, turning into a roided up demon freak. Since his sunlight flashlight is broken, and instead of trying anything else, Bats immediately uses the cursed revenge diamond on himself and ALSO gets possessed. This then leads into a quarter of an issue where Batman's possessed body fights to the death with Joker's possessed body while both versions of Eclipso talk to to each other about how stupid this fight is since they are effectively the same person. It turns out, in a loophole to this point unmentioned, that Eclipso can't stop attacking until the target is dead. They are, of course, evenly matched. So even though logic dictates they team up to wreak havoc on all the innocent people in Gotham, they are contractually bound to have a giant endless slugfest with each other.

Clearly an effective use of Evil's time and resources.

This lasts until sunrise when Eclipso is excised by the sun, and Batman takes advantage of the Joker's momentary confusion to knock him out. Then he says, verbatim, to no one in particular: "My plan worked. We must've fought until dawn - when the power of the sun drove out Eclipso!"

Really, Bruce?

Your plan was to let yourself be completely subsumed by a malevolent godlike evil, assume that evil spirit would be contractually obligated to fight itself, hope for the best that you didn't die, you didn't kill the Joker, that no innocent bystanders were straight up murdered in the crossfire, that no major property damage would ensue in a battle all over the city, that both of you would be evenly matched until dawn, and that you could definitely take out THE JOKER IN ONE PUNCH once 'the power of the sun drove out Eclipso.'

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you were just wingin' this one, buddy.

But good "no really, I planned it all along" speech at the end. Very convincing.

Worst Plan Ever.