Hugo finally understood what a modern-day Xianglin's Wife was.
The word "Superman" simply could not appear in Doomsday Batman's mind. The moment it did, a flood of memories came surging in—how the two had met, how they had become friends, how they had handled one major crisis after another together in the Justice League.
And, most importantly, how Superman had betrayed him.
Whenever Superman was mentioned, Batman would replay all of those memories in his head. The recollections came too densely and too quickly for Hugo to find any opening to insert new memories.
But as a master psychologist, Hugo would not admit defeat so easily. Put simply, he was determined to lock horns with Batman.
Then, after trying all night and hearing the entire story more than two thousand times, Hugo finally gave in.
This Batman's entire mental world seemed to revolve around Superman. No matter what topic Hugo brought up, even if he asked whether Batman had eaten bread or sausage for breakfast that morning, Batman could recall having breakfast with Superman.
Hugo had tried tampering with the broader concepts, such as erasing and correcting Batman's memories of Superman. But Batman would quickly pull everything back on track, deducing from the causes that Superman was bound to betray him, and from the consequences that Superman must have been deceiving him.
He had also tried working from the details, adding bizarre little elements into the memories to make Batman notice something was wrong—but Batman did not notice anything wrong at all. He only felt that Superman was wrong in every possible way.
Hugo finally understood. Taking love-brained obsession to the extreme was a talent in itself. At the very least, it granted complete immunity to brainwashing and hypnosis. Forget justice, ideals, national hatred, and blood feuds. Even if the