10 @ a Time - Batman v Superman, Part 12

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Part Twelve: Boys Share Too

Welcome to the twelfth installment of “10 @ a Time: Batman v Superman.” Last week we continued the discussion of fathers and transfigurations, of rises and falls. Today, our protagonists get down to the titular “v.”

[For those playing the home game, we’re looking at the “Ultimate Edition” home video release; for today’s 10@T installment, we’re looking from 1:57:46 to 2:10:56. No, we’re not rebranding as “Twelve at a Time”; we’re running a little long because a) this is mostly a big action scene, and b) we are going to cover much less next week.]

The bulk of this segment is devoted to the all-out brawl promised by the title of the film, and we’ll get there in just a moment, but first we have to check our email.

Who was Lex's graphic designer?

Look, I love this film more than most people, and possibly more than anyone who isn’t named “Zack Snyder.” But I have to concede that it’s a little silly to have the ramp-up to the climax detoured by a scene in which Wonder Woman checks her email to learn about the next five films in the franchise. It does expand the world of the film beyond the boundaries of the film, something for which I’ve applauded Batman v Superman, but there are much better places for this sequence – the moment when Bruce and Diana discuss “the others like me” after the funeral (a scene which pays off this sequence) or even in a post-credits sequence (you can hear Christopher Nolan gasping already). I think my issue with this scene has always been that it’s blatant marketing for future films, and it’s largely incomprehensible to someone who doesn’t already know the backstory; furthermore, it’s crass capitalism to make an action figure of Aquaman solely on the basis of his thirty-second monochrome cameo here.

I have said it once, and I will say it again, plainly and for the record: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice would have fared better theatrically if the Knightmare and the email scenes had been saved for the Ultimate Edition, with the otherwise excised material restored.

Having said that, let’s think a little bit about what’s in the email. First, we’ve got the Wonder Woman photo (brought to life in the masterful film) and a fascinating facial expression from Gal Gadot. It’s a face that says, “So much for hiding. Well, now what?” The Ultimate Edition makes this scene just a little bit more about her realization that she can’t conceal herself from man’s world for much longer, with the inclusion of a brief shot where she notices her hotel room’s lights flickering, thanks to the power fluctuations being shot off by Lex Luthor at the Kryptonian wreckage. In short, Diana hasn’t paid attention to the plot until it affects her. This is a recurring theme in the film, the way we become so involved in our perspective that we miss the larger story unfolding around us.

"Outrageous!"

In that sense, then, maybe this scene makes sense, because Diana’s eyes are opened to a much bigger world of metahumans hiding in plain sight. Earlier in the film, Lex Luthor discussed “the metahuman thesis” - “the basis of our myths, gods among men.” We’ve got the mercurial speedster Flash, a sea-god in the form of Aquaman, and a hybrid deity of technology with Cyborg; of course, Wonder Woman is herself of Greek mythology, while Superman and Batman have often been compared to sun-god Apollo and Hades of the underworld. And where Lex’s approach to them has been to study them, likely to find ways to destroy them, Bruce and Diana both recognize that these gods need to be brought together to defend against whatever it is that’s coming, a horrible future prefigured by the Knightmare.

These three short videos introduce the characters in effective and curiosity-inspiring ways; The Flash is a covert speedster who can stop a robbery without dropping a carton of milk, while Aquaman is like a giant octopus with glowing eyes, capable of breaking the sound barrier while underwater. Then there’s Cyborg, whose origins here mirror his New 52 incarnation, in which his father, Dr. Silas Stone, saved his injured son by merging his wounded body with a range of technology, including a Mother Box. For those playing the home game, a Mother Box is a handheld device (sometimes cube-like, sometimes rectangular) which functions like a living supercomputer, able to manipulate matter, open teleportation tunnels called Boom Tubes, and sacrifice itself to save its user. In our world, Mother Boxes hail from Jack Kirby’s “Fourth World Saga”; in the DC Universe, Mother Boxes were created on the twinned rival planets of Apokolips and New Genesis. That’s right, folks - the forces of DC megavillain Darkseid have likely already been to earth by the time BvS begins. Tethering Cyborg, once an also-ran character whose claim to fame was a stint on the Teen Titans (DC’s brigade of sidekicks and erstwhile Junior Justice Leaguers), positions him much more centrally to the DC Universe as a kind of lure/tether for Darkseid in his bid to conquer earth; after all, one of his living computers is now one with a human.

These are just teases; come November, I imagine these scenes might scan a little differently, particularly some of the Apokoliptian backstory (for all we know, it was the denizens of New Genesis who hid the Mother Box on earth to conceal it from Darkseid). The film doesn’t spend a whole lot of time on these winks to the future, probably less than justifies the slightly sour taste in my mouth. The bulk of this installment in the film is dedicated to the big fight between Batman and Superman. which doesn’t actually need to be a fight. For one, Superman does not come to fight. He tells Lois that he’s going to seek help from Batman, or to kill him if he must in order to save his mother, but he’s obviously, painfully conflicted about the Kobayashi Maru into which Lex Luthor has placed him. But observe - Superman’s first instinct is to find a way out of Lex’s plan, to skip over the obligatory battle of the heroes and get right to the team-up phase. (Cf. The Avengers, in which Iron Man and Thor duked it out over custody of Loki before shaking hands and calling it a day.) When we get to Gotham, Superman continues not to want to fight; he tries speaking first before being met with violence, responding by shoving Batman aside with all the force of a gentle pat.

Heat vision: for shaving, cooking steaks, and intimidating your enemies.

“Stay down,” Superman implores; “If I wanted it, you’d be dead already.” Strikingly, Superman is echoing something Batman himself told him earlier in the film, at Lex’s bash: Bruce Wayne had described Superman, right to Clark Kent’s face, as “an alien who, if he wanted to, could burn the whole place down.” As ever, though, Batman’s not in a listening mood; his arrival on the scene, standing beneath the illuminated Bat-signal and looking up to Superman, is a shot-for-shot echo of Lex greeting Superman from atop Lexcorp Tower. Put another way, he’s in a Luthor state of mind. There’s a striking moment where Superman uses his heat vision to incinerate the machine guns Batman uses against him (did Batman really think that was going to work?), and we see the scene first from Superman’s perspective, then from Batman’s. Superman is clearly defending himself, but Batman only sees Superman setting the world on fire, emerging from the flames like Batman’s worst fear.

There are three things that itch at the back of my brain in this section of the film. The first is the necessity of the aforementioned email sequence, and the second of them is how Superman knows Batman’s secret identity; he refers to him as “Bruce,” but there’s no scene in the movie that clarifies precisely how he’s come by that information. (Believe me, I’ve looked, again and again. If I’m wrong, I’m happy to be proven so!) Now, it’s extremely likely that he pieced it together from hearing Alfred’s voice in Bruce’s ear at Lex’s gala, or that he used his x-ray vision to see through Batman’s cowl, but the film doesn’t show us that, not even in the Ultimate Edition. It’s a little niggling curiosity about the film, reason enough to drive me to revisit the movie again and again.

"Well, performance issues, it's not uncommon. One out of five..."

The third thing that had always perplexed me about this scene is a creative choice, and I say “had” because I think I’ve figured it out. Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL do some fantastic work with Batman v Superman, and their use of recognizable motifs has been something of a standout in the realm of superhero soundtracks. I’ve often wondered, then, why the fight scene plays out to a medley of Batman’s theme and... Zod’s theme? We don’t, however, need to go outside the boundaries of the film to understand this decision, nor do we need any expertise in musical theory to recognize that mixing a hopeful theme and a fatalistic one will not (pardon the pun) fly. We only need to look back to the first ten minutes of the film, in which we saw the Battle of Metropolis from Bruce Wayne’s vantage point. Bruce isn’t fighting the heroic Superman here; he’s fighting the superpowered destroyer of worlds, an imagined version of Superman much closer to the warlike Zod than the “just a guy” we’ve had the luxury of seeing for the past two hours.

That image of Superman is so cemented in Batman’s head that it filters into the soundtrack to the film. For a moment, we’re fooled by seeing Superman depowered by the Kryptonite gas manufactured in the Batcave; we’re seeing a Superman who goes toe-to-toe with Batman, and for just a moment we forget that he’s fighting for his life and for his mother’s. Even then, though, the film is reminding us that this is a battle over what it means to be human, and Batman insists that Superman cannot be both human and all-powerful, so the Kryptonite gas is designed to render Superman human, to make him vulnerable – because those two are equivalent for Batman. “You’re not brave. Men are brave,” he snarls during the fight. In the face of absolute power, Batman falls prey to the powerlessness Alfred anticipated, and his impulse as a fallen creature is to pull Superman down with him, to weaken him and throw him down a stairwell. To compensate, Batman wraps himself in a suit of armor, but tellingly the metal helmet cracks open to expose Batman’s mortality moments before Superman’s own humanity is laid bare.

"The knight is here."

It takes a mighty blow from Superman’s fist to reveal Batman’s humanity, but it’ll take something more potent to unveil Superman’s humanity. Contrary to what we heard earlier, it might just be that words will stop the Bat in his hunt. It might even take only one.

Next time - one word, two syllables, six letters that split fandom straight down the middle. (And no, it ain’t Jar Jar.)

Observations and Annotations

• “No one stays good in this world.” Well, not with that attitude, they won’t. The world needs the example of Superman to keep itself good.
• Dr. Silas Stone’s video of his son is watermarked “S.T.A.R. Labs,” which makes me wonder whether Jenet Klyburn knows about this. (You’re probably wondering why I’m wondering about a character from two deleted scenes who will probably never appear in a DC film again. Me too, buddy.)
• In the Cyborg video, Dr. Stone describes the Mother Box as “Object 61982,” a reference to Tales of the Teen Titans #1, the first issue to spell out Cyborg’s origin story, published in June 1982.
• I greatly appreciate Perry’s implicit trust in Lois and his concomitant compassion for her. We might ask later whether Perry knows Clark is Superman, and by extension if that’s why he charters the helicopter for Lois, but even if he doesn’t, he proves himself more than just a boss. One would think, however, he might know better, given that Lois and helicopters historically don’t mix well.
• Batman exposes Superman to hypersonic weapons and machine guns, and I have to wonder if this is a deliberate homage to Lex Luthor’s gauntlet from Superman (1978), a director’s cut scene in which Superman (Christopher Reeve) had to plod through machine guns, a blow torch, and blocks of ice to get to Luthor (Gene Hackman).
• Batman douses Superman with Kryptonite gas, reminding us that Krypton’s very atmosphere was toxic to Superman when Zod brought him aboard his ship in Man of Steel. Batman conceals the gas in smoke grenades made of lead, exploiting the same vulnerability in Superman’s vision manipulated by Lex Luthor with Wallace Keefe’s weaponized wheelchair.
• As Superman inhales the toxic cloud, Batman gloats, “That’s fear.” While it’s nominally another moment where Batman exposes his belief that to be human is to be flawed, to feel fear, I wouldn’t put it past him to have laced the gas with Scarecrow’s fear toxin.
• Batman literally throws the (bathroom) sink at Superman in this fight.
• Echoing his monologue to Alfred about the Wayne legacy, Batman hauls Superman over his shoulder like captured game. He’s become the hunter he believes himself fated to be.
• “I bet your parents taught you that you mean something, that you're here for a reason. My parents taught me a different lesson, dying in the gutter for no reason at all... They taught me the world only makes sense if you force it to.” Compare this line to Batman’s dialogue from the fourth issue of The Dark Knight Returns: “You sold us out, Clark. You gave them the power that should have been ours. Just like your parents taught you. My parents taught me a different lesson... lying on this street... shaking in deep shock... dying for no reason at all. They showed me that the world only makes sense when you force it to.”