10 @ a Time - Batman v Superman, Part 16

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Part Sixteen: This Is My World

Welcome to the sixteenth installment of “10 @ a Time: Batman v Superman.” Last week we saw the second battle for Metropolis begin. Today, you’ll believe that a man can die.

[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 2:33:50 to 2:43:20.]

"Kneel before Zod."

As a comics collector of several decades now, it’s a little unusual to think that among my first comics were chapters of “The Death of Superman,” in which the Man of Steel met his end at the fists of Doomsday. Even at a young age, I knew he’d be back, of course, but it’s a bit striking that my introduction to Superman was as a man who could die, who could never be replaced, and who could return when the world needed him most. All of this is to say that I remember sitting in the movie theater the day I watched Superman die, and the only thing I could think was, “How did I not see this coming?!”

I think when the trailers revealed that Doomsday would be involved in Batman v Superman, many of us had an unconscious sense that the films hadn’t earned the “Death of Superman” arc and wouldn’t kill their star franchise two films into their cinematic universe. We instinctively assumed, then, that we’d be getting a Doomsday in name only, a hulking brute suitable for a third act smash-up to unite our sparring protagonists. We certainly got the latter, a shortcut past “Martha” to get Superman and Batman fighting together and not fighting each other. But having been through this film ten minutes at a time, I’m a little surprised at how inevitable Superman’s death seems to be. Put another way, this movie couldn’t end without Superman dying. The whole film has been building a Superman whose resolute heroism requires him to act against his instincts of self-preservation to save the world even as it tries to destroy him, and the ultimate act of self-sacrifice places Superman in a position to show the world what they have done to their noblest hero. You have characters like Batman and Lex Luthor who want the world to see Superman for what he truly is, and that ends up coming to pass – Superman reveals himself to be humanity’s greatest protector, even at the cost of his own life.

"I love you, Lois Lane. Until the end of time."

It’s worth repeating Pa Kent’s statement that Martha gave him “faith that there’s good in this world. She was my world.” It’s worth repeating because Superman repeats it when he tells Lois, “This is my world. You are my world.” To the first point, when Superman chooses to save the world at the cost of his own life, he’s finally choosing this world as his own, having been torn between his celestial Kryptonian identity and his efforts to fit into humanity. There’s an interesting echo when Superman dives for the kryptonite spear, a little mental ping that reminds one of the opening to Man of Steel, which saw Jor-El dive to retrieve the Codex, the genetic future of Kryptonian life. Here, Superman seeks out a dead fragment of his homeworld to save his new world. (In both cases, too, Jor-El and Superman were trying to save the future of their respective worlds from Zod.)

All of this is precipitated by Lois Lane finding herself trapped underwater, calling out for Superman’s help. Of course, Superman hears her and moves to save her, but there’s something more at play. He interrupts his battle to save this world in order to save his world, and in so doing he realizes that the two are inextricable. As per usual, Lois pieces together what her great love is planning – she throws the spear away, instinctively protecting Clark (she calls him by that name, his chosen human name). There’s a striking back-and-forth about the spear – discard, retrieve, abandon, retrieve, discard, retrieve – which lends a sense of inevitability and intentionality to this moment; after so much hemming and hawing, Superman knows what choice he has to make.

"Either you die... or I do."

In the category of “history repeating,” the score kicks in with a slowed, elegiac rendition of the same melody from when Superman killed Zod the first time (there, “If You Love These People”; here, “This Is My World”). It’s a somber piece as Superman hurtles toward his death, which itself mirrors the death of his father Jor-El, fatally pierced by Zod’s blade in nearly the same spot where Doomsday’s spike will impale Superman. It’ll be the second (and hopefully last) time that Superman kills Zod/Doomsday in order to save Metropolis, a cementing of his allegiance to this world and not to Krypton. Superman’s body will be lowered down to Lois’s feet, just as he fell to his knees in sorrow at the death of Zod, as the choral voice becomes arrested in death, a haunting note that will extend into most of the rest of the film.

Before we get to the funereal repose over the fallen Superman, though, it’s worth pausing to consider the actual manner in which Superman dies and its mythic overtones. Superman flies into the final moments of the battle with the apparent knowledge that this act will kill him; he is, after all, carrying a fragment of kryptonite that is evidently weakening him. Superman impales Doomsday on the spear, just as Doomsday stabs him with the spike (regrown from his severed hand). In order to drive the spear home, though, Superman has to pull himself along the bony spike, further impaling himself in order to stop the beast. It was, in fact, this moment that spurred me to begin this review series. I was watching Excalibur (which I reviewed back in May) because of its appearance at the beginning of the film – recall it’s the film the Waynes had seen before being killed – and I realized that the ending of Excalibur is precisely the ending to Batman v Superman. Fighting a perversion of his legacy, King Arthur is impaled on Mordred’s spear, dragging himself along the weapon in order to strike a fatal blow. It’s evident why Snyder chose to borrow this imagery for BvS: it establishes Superman as a savior in a non-Christological language, it aligns with the idea of Lois Lane as a kind of “lady of the lake” who brings Superman the Excalibur-esque weapon – the weapon of a dark knight, no less – which he needs to defeat his enemy, and it foreshadows (I assume) the return of Superman who will, as legend has it Arthur will, return when his people need him most.

The Pietà.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We’ll talk about the possibility/inevitability of Superman’s return next week. If the Arthurian connection moves Superman away from the strictly Christian reading encouraged by Man of Steel’s Gethsemane moment (in which a doubting Kal voiced his questions to a priest, in conspicuous view of a stained glass window of Christ in the garden), the tableau which follows Superman’s death slams us right back into Super-Jesus territory. When Superman’s body is lowered into Lois’s arms, she cradles him like a pietà (cf. Michelangelo’s Pietà, etc.). In this moment, she is Mary, mother of God (and not, surprisingly, Martha Kent, described as such by Lex), carrying the emotional weight of this salvation-by-sacrifice. Batman casts his eyes downward at the fallen body of Superman, finally learning the lesson that Superman shows us the best parts of ourselves, understanding the great love Superman possessed for a planet that despised him. Wonder Woman, too, is looking down, but as that stilted choral voice lilts over the scene, she casts her eyes upward, into the light – she will join Superman’s example in the sun. The whole scene plays out amid the rubble, within which stands an obvious cross; it also seems to invoke the wreckage of 9/11, on which Man of Steel had drawn as well.

The Ultimate Edition restores, crucially, a scene that lays the groundwork for Justice League by introducing Steppenwolf (see below) into the BvS universe. We find Lex Luthor, wading in the muck of the downed Kryptonian ship as armed troops come to arrest him. Luthor looks like he’s sniveling; his eyes seem puffy and his nose is running as he looks up to his captors. Moments before, we saw Steppenwolf – displayed in Krypton’s silver pin-prick holographic technology – growling—nay, howling!—at Luthor. Pivotally, Steppenwolf was holding two Mother Boxes, with a third floating in the air above him. We know that Cyborg was created using Mother Box technology, and rumor has it that the Mother Boxes will play a role in Justice League, so it’s a solid bit of set-up that was wisely reserved from the Ultimate Edition. (This restoration gives lie to my chestnut that the film would have performed better had it reserved all this continuity claptrap for the DVD and given theatrical audiences a more unified, less expansive experience.)

Fun fact: Lex Luthor's baldness was originally explained as the fault of Superboy,
who blew out a toxic fire and inadvertently destroyed Luthor's follicles.
In a way, Superman's still responsible for Luthor's baldness.

The rest of this segment plays out in amazingly potent silence, save for Hans Zimmer’s haunting score. We get a potent montage of images to show the fallout from Superman’s death: Lex Luthor in prison, his head shaved (great way to tie in the imagery of the comics); headlines about the deaths of Superman and Clark Kent; the streets of Metropolis, emptied for the funeral of their fallen hero; and a shot of the headline “Kennedy Dead,” which gives scale to the tragedy.

Next time, we lay it all to rest.

Observations and Annotations

• Another ad-lib: Wonder Woman’s smirk after being knocked to the ground by Doomsday. Gal Gadot has described the smirk as, “Well if [Doomsday’s] gonna mess with her, then she’s gonna mess with him. And she knows she’s gonna win . . . She’s a warrior, and she enjoys the adrenaline of the fight.” Remember, this Wonder Woman has “killed things from other worlds before,” even if we haven’t gotten to see them yet.
• Never one to miss a visual citation, Snyder poses Batman against a wall as lightning flashes behind him, an unapologetic and perhaps indulgent homage to the cover of The Dark Knight Returns.
• Here’s a thought: the opening “memory” of the Wayne murders is revealed by Bruce’s narration to be a dream. Is it possible, then, that this dream is inflected by The Flash’s “time boom,” with the presence of the Excalibur poster as a warning from the future about the precise nature of Superman’s impending death? It is a blatant and clearly deliberate diversion from the source material, which almost universally cites The Mark of Zorro as that fateful film.
• Steppenwolf is one of countless Jack Kirby creations which debuted in his masterful “Fourth World” saga. Steppenwolf is the uncle of Darkseid, the dictator of Apokolips and the literal god of evil. Of late, he’s been portrayed as Darkseid’s advance guard, staking out worlds for his nephew’s conquest and eradicating their superhuman guardians. (We hear him in the Justice League trailers noting that Earth has “No Lanterns. No Kryptonians. No protectors,” so his work is half-done.)
• The “Kennedy Dead” headline reminds us of what Perry White said earlier about Clark Kent’s insistence on the moral obligations of journalism: “The American conscience died with Robert, Martin, and John.” (Though it’s fair to think the “John” might be John Lennon, recall that the former Beatle wasn’t an American.)