I was thinking about certain scenarios if Batman was real. So I came up with 9/11 Vs. Batman. It was this or the a scenario about a douchebag genie that literally word-for-word granted the wish "hung like a horse" and what you would do if you were stuck with that wish. I figured this one was more in line with the rules.

So in the event that Batman (his equipment, his base, Alfred, the batcomputer, etc) was real, could he have prevented 9/11?

If he couldn't prevent 9/11, what other tragedies could Batman prevent? I can't use superman, because superman prevents everything because he is overpowered.

Not really. Not sufficient warning. Not to mention they're in a plane, and there were multiple planes. The only way to prevent anything would have been to shoot them down, and Batman would never do that.

No? He can't stop a plane flying into a building. Maybe if he shot it down then there'd just be a flaming wreck falling onto a heavily populated area.

Plus Batman is in Gotham, and doesn't generally keep extra close tabs on things that happen outside of Gotham. UNLESS he's participating in the Justice League in which case we wouldn't be talking about just Batman anymore. So Batman wouldn't have been able to, but the Justice League might've had they been monitoring the terrorists.

Jack the Potato:
Plus Batman is in Gotham, and doesn't generally keep extra close tabs on things that happen outside of Gotham. UNLESS he's participating in the Justice League in which case we wouldn't be talking about just Batman anymore. So Batman wouldn't have been able to, but the Justice League might've had they been monitoring the terrorists.

Well this is assuming Batman was able to counter it. I know he lives in New Jersey, but for this hypothetical he is in New York.

There would not be sufficient warning.

If there was he might be able to divert the plane from its course using one of his gadgets and getting it to screw with the radar so that it went to the wrong area and killed less people.

This is more of a Superman job.

If Batman had sufficient warning, he would probably just redirect the plane using a gizmo, but that's kinda pushing things.

Superman would probably just fly up and grab the plane.

So, Batman would probably just call Superman.

I think if Batman was actively investigating al-Qaeda (not that that's something I'd expect Batman to do), he'd probably have a decent chance of stopping 9/11. I believe one of the leaders of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan (people who were allied to us during the Russian occupation and remained anti-Taliban) gained some limited information about the attack beforehand. If Batman worked with the CIA and our allies in Afghanistan, maybe he could've made a difference.

But obviously he couldn't have stopped four planes at once.

dyre:
I think if Batman was actively investigating al-Qaeda (not that that's something I'd expect Batman to do), he'd probably have a decent chance of stopping 9/11. I believe one of the leaders of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan (people who were allied to us during the Russian occupation and remained anti-Taliban) gained some limited information about the attack beforehand. If Batman worked with the CIA and our allies in Afghanistan, maybe he could've made a difference.

But obviously he couldn't have stopped four planes at once.

The US government had been keeping tabs on Bin Laden throughout the Clinton administration, and they knew enough to know that he intended to use an airliner as a weapon, just not when or how they planned on carrying out the hijacking. Considering that Batman is supposed to be the world's greatest detective, he might have been able to figure it out.

Owyn_Merrilin:

dyre:
I think if Batman was actively investigating al-Qaeda (not that that's something I'd expect Batman to do), he'd probably have a decent chance of stopping 9/11. I believe one of the leaders of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan (people who were allied to us during the Russian occupation and remained anti-Taliban) gained some limited information about the attack beforehand. If Batman worked with the CIA and our allies in Afghanistan, maybe he could've made a difference.

But obviously he couldn't have stopped four planes at once.

The US government had been keeping tabs on Bin Laden throughout the Clinton administration, and they knew enough to know that he intended to use an airliner as a weapon, just not when or how they planned on carrying out the hijacking. Considering that Batman is supposed to be the world's greatest detective, he might have been able to figure it out.

That makes sense, since he was involved in that embassy bombing in the 90s. Damnit Batman, why didn't you stop 9/11?!

Batman would call superman. Tell him Lex Luthors hired terrorists to fly a plane into the world trade center. Superman would say "Oh no he didnt." Flies. Catches plane puts it down. Sees the other, catches it lays it down. Fly terrorists back to where they were from and give them a serious talkin too and bitchslap and says "Tell Luthor he failed again.". The terrorists say "Whos Luthor." Superman looks confused.

-cut to-

Batman fucking catwoman. His face turns to camera with
Massive trollface.

He definitely could have stopped the second plane!

cuz, y'know, that's the internet's standard answer for Batman vs anything - he gets it right the second time around, because preparation!

...

I'm not very good at this, am I?

Yes and no.

Yes, 9/11 could have been preventable. Various US intelligence agencies were monitoring Al-Qaeda and new somehting was up, they just didn't share the information with each other.

Likewise, there were procedures set up to deal with that sort of thing, they just weren't followed.

Now, Batman wouldn't be able to have done anything unless he got his hands on people in the US intelligence and got them to do their jobs right, which doesn't seem to be the sort of thing he does.

No but Al Qaida wouldn't be around for a one year anniversary.

I highly doubt he'd have the foresight to monitor Al Quaeda ahead of time, so no.