2015 is a year to get hyped for superhero movies, mostly due
to Marvel’s big climax of their second phase with Avengers: Age of Ultron. From
the debut of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver to the band getting back together it’s
easy to get excited. 2016 is when things really heat up because it’s the year
when the DC and Marvel cinematic universes start to deck it out with their
respective titles. Marvel will be giving us characters like Doctor Strange
while DC will introduce us to the Suicide Squad. There’s even bigger things on
the horizon though as the two major films that year will be Captain America 3
and Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. To cut straight to the point: Which
film looks more promising?
The parallel themes shared between these two movies is the
concept of superheroes fighting superheroes. The premise is pretty simple when
you look at DC’s movie due to the title: Batman vs Superman. Captain America
3’s plot might not be all that obvious if you’re not too familiar with Marvel
comics. Captain America 3’s subtitle is “Civil War” and the film will be based
on the comic book storyline of the same name. After a tragic battle involving
rookie superheroes results in a number of civilian deaths, the idea of
registering superheroes is brought up. This act would make superheroes similar
to something similar to civil servants, due to having to answer to the United
States government as well as being held responsible for problems such as
collateral damage. Any superheroes who aren’t registered with the government
are basically considered outlaws and are just as guilty as the criminals.
Ironman is the one leading the cause for registering superheroes while Captain
America voices his stance against the act entirely. Surrounding heroes pick
sides which eventually heightens into a high stakes war - a “Civil War” if you
will.
The storyline was actually heavily criticized by many comic fans because of its questionable motivations regarding certain characters. Personally, I agree with these complaints and I felt that the pacing of the story was very uneven and just decided to wrap itself up with an ending that comes out of nowhere. That being said, the premise of the story is very interesting and can bring about a well-balanced discussion. It’s obvious that the battles between various heroes can bring about so much large scale destruction that it could ultimately do more harm than good. On the other hand, you have the issue of the government cherry picking their own good guys and tarring everyone else with the same brush. The idea of Tony Stark pushing this bill is extremely believable in the context of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: his creation of Ultron will most likely cause him enough guilt to come up with this concept in the first place. In Captain America 2, Rogers showed that he wasn’t a military puppet and had the balls to stand up for his own beliefs. This isn’t all set in stone but it looks to be the way that Marvel is headed. Hopefully, Marvel Studios can tweak the story a little bit in order to craft a more satisfying tale. The fact that we’ve grown familiar with these characters over time and have seen them lock horns (Such as Tony and Cap in the first Avengers movie) will make the inevitable battle all the more exciting.
On the DC side of things, we have Batman and Superman fighting each other. When a Batman/Superman crossover was announced it made perfect sense for them to go this route. You get the big time crossover appeal while setting up a future Justice League film down the line. The only problem I had was the big ol’ “vs.” logo punctuated between them. This is when the doubt crept in and since then I’ve been unable to shake it off. What made me groan more was when Zack Snyder showed a sample of the animated version of the Dark Knight Returns as a way to get us hyped up for the movie. You may remember me praising this story back in my John Cena piece and I still stand by what I said. However, I feel that while the Dark Knight Returns is a very good Batman story, it’s not really a great Superman story. Clark is portrayed as a government lackey and while he isn’t an outright villain, it’s not a fair representation of the iconic character. There’s a Superman story called Red Son where Batman is a Russian Bolshevik-esque terrorist (Long story) so it’d be weird if this was the most recent depiction of the Caped Crusader in DC’s cinematic universe. Yet we might get the warped perception of Frank Miller's Superman governing the script in the upcoming 2016 movie.
I’ve been doing some diligent research (such as reading Wikipedia articles) and discovered that The Dark Knight Returns won’t serve as too much as an influence to the story. But there’s still the worry of Superman being represented as a symbol of “The Man” for Bruce to take down. On the other hand, perhaps Supes won’t be written in this manner but then it’s hard for me to think why they would be fighting in the first place. I’ll confess that I’m not a huge DC buff but there are stories I enjoy, one in particular was the Batman/Superman comic series written by Jeph Loeb. It did a good job in displaying the dynamic between the two. Batman’s intellect was a good pairing for Superman’s strength and Clark’s hopeful outlook balanced out Bruce’s cynicism.
The storyline was actually heavily criticized by many comic fans because of its questionable motivations regarding certain characters. Personally, I agree with these complaints and I felt that the pacing of the story was very uneven and just decided to wrap itself up with an ending that comes out of nowhere. That being said, the premise of the story is very interesting and can bring about a well-balanced discussion. It’s obvious that the battles between various heroes can bring about so much large scale destruction that it could ultimately do more harm than good. On the other hand, you have the issue of the government cherry picking their own good guys and tarring everyone else with the same brush. The idea of Tony Stark pushing this bill is extremely believable in the context of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: his creation of Ultron will most likely cause him enough guilt to come up with this concept in the first place. In Captain America 2, Rogers showed that he wasn’t a military puppet and had the balls to stand up for his own beliefs. This isn’t all set in stone but it looks to be the way that Marvel is headed. Hopefully, Marvel Studios can tweak the story a little bit in order to craft a more satisfying tale. The fact that we’ve grown familiar with these characters over time and have seen them lock horns (Such as Tony and Cap in the first Avengers movie) will make the inevitable battle all the more exciting.
On the DC side of things, we have Batman and Superman fighting each other. When a Batman/Superman crossover was announced it made perfect sense for them to go this route. You get the big time crossover appeal while setting up a future Justice League film down the line. The only problem I had was the big ol’ “vs.” logo punctuated between them. This is when the doubt crept in and since then I’ve been unable to shake it off. What made me groan more was when Zack Snyder showed a sample of the animated version of the Dark Knight Returns as a way to get us hyped up for the movie. You may remember me praising this story back in my John Cena piece and I still stand by what I said. However, I feel that while the Dark Knight Returns is a very good Batman story, it’s not really a great Superman story. Clark is portrayed as a government lackey and while he isn’t an outright villain, it’s not a fair representation of the iconic character. There’s a Superman story called Red Son where Batman is a Russian Bolshevik-esque terrorist (Long story) so it’d be weird if this was the most recent depiction of the Caped Crusader in DC’s cinematic universe. Yet we might get the warped perception of Frank Miller's Superman governing the script in the upcoming 2016 movie.
I’ve been doing some diligent research (such as reading Wikipedia articles) and discovered that The Dark Knight Returns won’t serve as too much as an influence to the story. But there’s still the worry of Superman being represented as a symbol of “The Man” for Bruce to take down. On the other hand, perhaps Supes won’t be written in this manner but then it’s hard for me to think why they would be fighting in the first place. I’ll confess that I’m not a huge DC buff but there are stories I enjoy, one in particular was the Batman/Superman comic series written by Jeph Loeb. It did a good job in displaying the dynamic between the two. Batman’s intellect was a good pairing for Superman’s strength and Clark’s hopeful outlook balanced out Bruce’s cynicism.
While Batman is a symbol to strike fear in the hearts of his
foes, Superman serves as a symbol of hope who tries to rescue those who have done wrong. The relationship between the two has always interested me much more
than a battle. Hopefully, the film will set up a premise that would make sense
for them to fight each other but I’m afraid that it’s just running on its name
value. All in all, Captain America: Civil War seems to have more depth to it at
the moment. Perhaps Batman vs Superman will look much more promising when it
comes to closer to release day. Honestly, I’m more excited for the Wonder Woman
cameo than anything else.
But if there’s some kind of ‘Kryptonite spray’ in Batman’s
utility belt then consider all things forgiven, Warner Bros.
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