WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for The Batman's Grave #3, by Warren Ellis, Bryan Hitch, Kevin Nowlan and Alex Sinclair on sale now
As some of the most important heroes and villains on the planet, it makes perfect sense that Batman and Lex Luthor have a history of opposition to one another. But their latest battle didn't have anything to do with power armors or global steaks. The Batman's Grave #3 reveals Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor were fighting it out in the private sector, with the latter's home assistant device outperforming the WayneTech equivalent. But what at first seems like a silly thing for the pair to be dueling over could have major ramifications for the world of The Batman's Grave.
THE HOME WARS
The rivalry between Batman and Lex Luthor has been explored and expanded upon in recent years, positioning the two genius humans as opposites. They've been established not just as moral adversaries but economic rivals as well. Even when Luthor has tried to make a case for them to work together as business partners or even when he requests Batman's help getting him brought into the Justice League following the events of Forever Evil, there's been a quiet antagonism between them.
In The Batman's Grave #3, while investigating an apparent suicide, Batman ends up stealing a small home assistant. Taking it back to the Batcave, Bruce explains to Alfred that it's a home voice assistant called a Lexicon. It's essentially an Amazon Echo or the Google Home Hub. Alfred is actually horrified by the concept, as it suggests people willingly buy a decide that contains microphones and a camera to keep in their house. Bruce even reveals that WayneTech had developed one as well, but that Lex's version had actually outsold the WayneTech one.
UH OH
The device is established quickly as a weakness that Batman can exploit to learn more about the case at hand. He brings up how easily hackable the devices are, giving him access to the device and the capability to trace the third party who interacted with it and subtly convinced the suspect to kill himself. But that's brushing off the reality of the situation, that Lex Luthor and Batman were apparently trying to compete to introduce their own home assistants. Alfred is right to be shocked by how many microphones and cameras people are willingly paying to bring into their own homes, it's a strange thing to do.
But while in the real world that mainly unwittingly connects people closer with the online providers trying to sell to them, in comics that means a lot of potential problems. Even if Batman had won that war, it would have been a huge push for the Caped Crusader to fall into his more obsessive tendencies, like what he did with Brother-Eye in the buildup to Infinite Crisis. But that might have been better than a world where Lex Luthor suddenly has a microphone and camera in countless homes all around the world. Lex is a supervillain with a history of trying to manipulate the public to match his needs and beliefs. How long is it before he starts targeting his own devices, spread across the country, to try and send a message?
It's an unexpected battlefield to find Lex and Batman. But with Luthor winning out in one part of the modern tech war, he just gained another advantage that he could eventually use against the heroes.
Batman's Grave #4 releases January 15 from DC Comics.