In this feature, I spotlight five scenes/moments from within comic book stories that fit under a specific theme (basically, stuff that happens frequently in comics). Here is an archive of all the patterns we've spotlighted so far.

I did an article for the main site the other week about all the various reasons that Batman and Superman fight each other, so I thought I'd do a spotlight on the most common reason for them fighting - mind control!

The very first Batman/Superman fight was a mind control one, which took place in World's Finest Comics #95's "The Battle of the Super-Heroes!" by Dave Wood, Dick Sprang and Ray Burnley. In it, Batman gains superpowers and somehow this leads to him and Superman hating each other...

Robin discovers why they're at each other's throats...

In World's Finest Comics #163 "The Duel of the Super Duo" by a teenage Jim Shooter and artists Curt Swan and George Klein, Batman and Superman are kidnapped by a villain and brought to a world where Superman's powers are shut down. Batman is hypnotized into killing Superman in battle...

From 2003's "Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross, Chip Kidd and Ross did an excellent short story called "The Trust,"

Go to the next page for two more examples of this trope!

In one of the issues of Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee and Scott Williams' "Hush" storyline, Poison Ivy controls Superman and sends him after Batman...

In the end, Catwoman saves the day by throwing Lois Lane off of a building to make Superman snap out of it...

The 2005 storyline, "Sacrifice," had Maxwell Lord use his power of persuasion to make Superman attack Batman. The actual fight was almost entirely off panel, so I'm not going to feature it here.

Finally, in 2014's Batman #36 by Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo and Danny Miki, the second part of Endgame, Batman fights a Joker Venom-controlled Superman...

There have been other examples of this trope, of course, but here are the five I've got this time around!

If anyone else has a suggestion for a comic book cliche like this, drop me a line at bcronin@comicbookresources.com!