Luke Owen looks at the big reveal in the latest Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer…
It’s the showdown we’ve all been waiting for – World’s Finest collide as The Dark Knight takes on The Man of Steel in next year’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The Comic-Con trailer teased us with what this showdown could entail, while giving us their reasons and motivations for why they’re fighting. Batman doesn’t trust this alien who has come down to earth and feels like he needs to protect us, while Superman doesn’t like The Dark Knight’s unique brand of justice. Their emotions make sense, their motivations make sense, the movie makes sense.
So why the hell do we need to see them fight someone else?
In one of the more recent Flickering Myth TV videos, myself and Oli Davis talked about how Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice didn’t need an antagonist. Davis reckoned the movie will be Bats v Supes for the first two acts, and then they’ll “Spider-Man 3 it” and have them team-up to take down a bigger threat in the movie’s finale. But, as I argued, shouldn’t the film be focused on the fight between Batman and Superman? Isn’t adding in a villain for the sake of having a villain in the final act just a touch lazy?
Batman’s issue with Superman is that, should he lose control, he would be unstoppable. So their best option for humanity’s survival is to take him out before that happens. The teaser released earlier this week suggests a Bruce Wayne dream sequence in which Superman has taken over the world as our God, and has an army at his control. As a 50 second piece of marketing, it’s the best thing DC have put out for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice so far. From this I theorised that the more impactful third act for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice would be for Bruce to be proven right, and for Superman to lose control – or go “full Zod”, if you will. This would force The Dark Knight to team up with Wonder Woman (and possibly Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash) to finally stop him and make him realise the error of his ways. From a character stand point, it’s a more interesting journey for Superman to go through, and something we’ve not seen on our screens before. Imagine Batman pinning Superman against a wall, begging for him to regain control and telling him, “you are not Zod”. It would have been awesome.
Instead what we’ve got – according to the latest trailer released last night – is Batman and Superman having a scrap, until someone bigger comes along and they have to put aside their differences to take him down. And not only that, it’s one of the most iconic of DC villains, thrown in as a third act MacGuffin rather than given time to develop.
As a character, Doomsday is something special within the DC world and is a villain like no other. Regardless of what they have done with him since, he is sill the creature who killed The Last Son of Krypton in The Death of Superman. That’s huge. If DC are really putting all their eggs into this Extended Universe basket, should a character that iconic be wasted in such a frugal manner? Doesn’t a character like Doomsday deserve his own movie where his threat can shine? It would be like throwing The Joker in as the final act bad guy for them to fight. Or if they had Venom show up in the last third to have a scrap with Spider-Man. Oh… wait.
But even taking the wasteful nature of using Doomsday as your third act evil to overcome out of the equation, the point remains that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice doesn’t need a “bad guy”. It doesn’t need an antagonist for them to fight. The title of the film is Batman v Superman – why isn’t that enough? Bruce and Clark throwing down for superiority is far more interesting from a character standpoint, and entirely what the film should be focused on.
As a contrasting piece, imagine if Captain America: Civil War ends with Cap and Iron Man teaming up to fight Baron Zemo. Wouldn’t that be super disappointing? You’ve paid to see these two fight, and what we’re given is a lame-duck third act finale we’ve seen in dozens of other movies? It could very well happen, of course, but the initial trailer for the movie released last week suggests that Cap vs. Ol’ Shell Head is the film’s main event. With that said, so did the first trailer for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice…
Luke Owen is the Deputy Editor of Flickering Myth and a contributor on The Flickering Myth Movie Show. You can follow him on Twitter @ThisisLukeOwen.
Originally published December 3, 2015. Updated November 29, 2022.
