(Note to all tagged and reading this: This is an extremely long post, but it's worth reading all the way through. It gives a very comprehensive analysis on the feats of the Justice Buster and Hellbat. It also clears up a lot of misconceptions about both armors. I have put in over an hour completely writing this up.
Even still this just a brain dump and haven't had time to proofread. I didn't include any scans or pictures for the sake of time, but I will put in some later. I plan on editing and abridging this in the future and adding some of the material to the wiki. Also, I will probably put up an final version in the blog part.
Please be honest and tell me what you think. I do plan on posting this on my blog and I want to make sure everything is accurate. Also, if you know anyone else that should be tagged in this post, please, let me know. Thanks.)
Analysis
Justice Buster
Strength and Durability
The JB was built by normal human means (as far as we know).
The JB was successful in taking down 4 JL members, that is true. However, it did require various weakness exploiting devices to accomplish.
The JB is bulky and doesn't have the agility the Hellbat has and cannot fly. Multiple buildings falling on top of the JB were able to bury it in rubble. This was enough to stagger it, interrupt the Heat Vision shielding (apparently it works off of sensors or as one continuous shield.) Which gave Superman the opportunity to heat vision off his mini suns.
An important point here, many people seems to think the falling buildings actually damaged the suit enough to put it out of commission. I don't buy into that interpretation. An earlier panel shows Superman impaling a massive stone pillar into the JB. Batman shrugged that off with minimal damage. Also, most of the so-called damage from that panel appears to be debris particles on the suit.
The JB was fighting against a weakened, but bloodlusted Justice League. Batman notes WW is "a bit slower than usual[but...]Not pulling her punches." Snyder even says in an interview the saving grace was the Justice League was weakened by the toxin. How weakened is anyone's guess. Personally, I would guess slightly weakened, like at 70%, considering Batman said 'a bit'. But, that is all speculation.
A common criticism is that they didn’t want to kill him. This stems from WW attacking him and not instant killing him when he was in plain clothes. Also, Superman didn’t instant kill him after he pulled Bruce from the armor. One important thing…he was not in any type of armor in those panels and they assumed he didn’t have a way of hurting them. They had the luxury on these two occasions of extending the fight out and torturing him.
In the armor, it’s a totally different story. He notes WW isn’t holding back at all. He tricks WW into fighting a hallucination of him. Where she pulls out her sword and cuts the hallucination to bits. Sounds like they had no problem going for the kill if necessary.
The striking power seems pretty good. He hit Wonder Woman with a good wallop knocking her off base and into a building. Also, look at her face when he lands the punch.
I can't help but think, when Bruce was designing the suit, he never intended it to go for a long fight with Superman tier characters. It was simply meant to tank enough damage long enough, so he could execute his contingincy plan for that person and move on to the next.
Speed
One aspect that’s very impressive is the JB's ability to react to characters moving at the Flash’s non-optimal speed. Flash’s optimal speed is MFTL, btw.
He spent more than what 60% of all countries spend on their militaries (fun fact, that’s about $4 billion) for this tech, indicates it wasn’t bought off the shelf (the fastest supercomputer cost much less than $4 billion). He had to develop it himself--including the processors. Suggesting to me the Flash had to be moving at speeds faster than what any machine in the world could detect.
TL;DR: The Justice League was at least slightly weakened by the Joker Toxin, when the JB fought them. The JB was meant to survive long enough to execute a quick takedown and move onto the next member. He had server’s (I believe in the suit), capable at tracking the Flash at a higher speed than any machine in the world could detect.
Hellbat
Strength and Durability
First we have to look at what actually went into building the suit. It was required to be forged in the Sun by Superman. Even then, it required a special hammer for Superman to actually forge it.
The Hellbat was able to brawl with DS without any quick way to put him down. The Chaos Shard was simply used to absorb DS Omega Beams to use in reviving his son.
It cut through massive Apokolypian armies like "a knife through warm butter", according to Tomasi. It manhandled and took down Kalibak with just 4 major blows.
Now, the most important part the fight with Darkseid....
He fought an extremely pissed off Darkseid. Uxas was not only angry for what the JL did to him on Earth, but now he has a member invading his own homeland. Darkseid crushes Batman's Motherbox and tells him, 'you will not be using that to leave here.' Uxas also notes that 'he will kill him for all that the League did to him.'
Some people point out Darkseid was weakened by his fight with the Justice League. From all appearances, he looks fully recovered and fine. Remember the JL destroyed both of his eyes in the battle, which are completely intact during Batman's fight.
Uxas was then punched briefly knocking him off his feet. Something that took the combined efforts of Power Girl doing a flying upwards punch and Red Tornado pushing against his legs to do. Uxas in rage knocked him into a ravine then proceeds to jump directly on top of him, stomp on him, pin his head to the ground and rip off the wings.
Something to note here. A stomp by Darkseid was enough to knock Superman and GL out.
Secondly, people have claimed that Darkseid was going easy on Batman here. I am not so sure I would call knocking someone off a cliff, then jumping on top of someone, followed by stomping their head into the ground as 'playing'. If you read enough of Darkseid's fights you learn something. 1. He usually starts a fight by brawling, especially for Superman tier characters. 2. Secondly, he is usually not this brutal in his brawling.
People have also noted he really didn't do any permanent damage to Uxas. This is true. But, looking at previous fights Uxas has been in it’s quite impressive. Here's why...
He couldn't go for an eye gouge, since he needed DS to use his Omega beams. The actual brawl is consistent with those in the past for Superman tier characters. When Darkseid got punched he makes the same facial expressions consistant with the one's he makes when getting a good wallop by a power house. He also escaped a bear hug by Uxas.
It's also important to note that most of the damage done was from the shard overloading the suit. The wings were ripped off but reformed. There were cracks to the helmet done by Uxas's foot which went away in the next panel. So, it seems the suit has a self healing factor.
Speed
Batman is able react to Darkseid’s Omega Beams after they have been fired. He gets DS to fire the beams without him noticing the crystal, then lift’s it over his head while after the beams were fired. Flash has had trouble in the past escaping the Omega Beams—these things are extremely high velocity.
TL;DR: Durability actually seems higher than Superman’s. Striking power is consistent with Superman’s power. Reaction times seem unknown, but seem extremely high.
Conclusion
The only way I could see the Justice Buster winning is to use the lasso he used on Wonder Woman or using the countermeasures for Cyborg in the suit (which were never shown).
Otherwise, I don’t see the JB winning this. The gear in the JB is very specific for each member of the JL. For example, the Red Suns wouldn’t help and the Hellbat could launch the cluster of bats to stagger the JB long enough to go in for the kill shot.
I would at least give the Hellbat at least 8/10.
It's important to note, while the Hellbat is very high tier, it is not without it's limitations. It took the entire JL to construct it. It literally kills him. It was destroyed. (Interestingly, Tomasi has said in his mind it survived, but, didn't see anywhere to use it in future stories. I did an analysis on why it wasn't destroyed in the past. However, since it has no other showings. We can just assume it was destroyed.)
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