itt: consternation and wailing about Zach Snyder's upcoming SUPERMAN/BATMAN film/sequel to MAN OF STEEL -- official title: BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE

marvel could have followed iron man 1 with Iron Man vs Hulk: Avengers Assemble but instead they reaffirmed the strength of the iron man brand...

"heat check guys. before we go all-in here let's try a really shitty, forgettable IRON MAN 2. If that does okay we're golden."

adjusting for inflation, batman begins made less money than any modern batman live-action movie except batman & robin

you're sort of ignoring that batman & robin burned the franchise to the ground and left a radioactive crater.

based on reasonable expectations at the time, batman begins outperformed and sparked the current (lol) DC "renaissance"

then why didn't superman returns (which did as well as batman begins) following superman iv, which did worse than batman & robin?

surely The Dark Knight, for a period being the biggest movie not directed by james cameron, was the outperformer/sparker

(will admit superman returns costing 100m more than batman begins is a notable distinction, but still, nothing was sparked by batman begins except the sequel)

i think possibly bc superman returns was a movie people were a bit more psyched for than batman begins and it was overall disappointing, whereas BB was a film people were wary about and ended up liking.

i remember many ppl hating SR and then coming back from BB being like 'no it's actually good!'

if you actually read more than the first half of the sentence of my post (thanks roger!), i said BB led to the dark knight which blew the fuck up. and my point being that dc could still rake it in with BatSupes, just that marvel's shown more patience in their franchise growth

no reason for anyone to think i'm underappreciating Chris Nolan or anything

woops, sorry roger pulled the first half of my first sentence re: iron man 2, the whole "batman begins underwhelmed???" thing came earlier

"heat check guys. before we go all-in here let's try a really shitty, forgettable IRON MAN 2. If that does okay we're golden."

as for batman begins, definitely side with roger here - in the context that it was coming from the ashes of Batman and Robin, introduced a newly stylized Batman world with Bale and such, that definitely felt like a big deal and big success at the time

you're right in that it made less money than I would have expected, considering the excitement and general reception of the movie

yeah i didn't say it tanked, just that like man of steel it didn't suggest audiences were leaping with the same degree of enthusiasm they did for iron man or guardians of the galaxy despite considerably more of an established fanbase

once heath ledger showed up all was clearly forgiven

and who knows maybe jesse eisenberg will reveal a similar magnetic pull

hah. i actually like the idea of nu-Lex Luthor being a Mark Zuckerberg-like technocapitalist but... probably not gonna work

Lex is not the kind of villain that lends himself to trad action movie setpieces imo

well neither does the joker. both are inventive plotters. admittedly, joker can explicitly throw more hired goons at his foe, but lex can still instigate dramatic setpieces and act the heel.

agreed. altho I'm sure Snyder doesn't grasp that.

oh definitely, for all i know jesse will just do his mark zuckerberg shtick and eventually tell a robot to punch superman or something

Lex is not the kind of villain that lends himself to trad action movie setpieces imo

Gene Hackman's Luthor certainly wasn't, but every other Luther has been doing heavy punching in armor for decades now.

http://cdn3-www.craveonline.com/assets/uploads/2013/11/foreverevil3658.jpg

every other Luther

eh not quite

imo a regular guy in armor punching Superman isn't gonna be all that compelling on-screen

man there is so much they could do with lex, goading superman that for all his power and patriotism he'll never be as american as lex and he'll never be able to STOP lex without breaking the laws that lex can dance around. just as the joker is the nihilistic response to batman saying the system's broken, lex is the nihilistic response of superman saying the system works. it could totally serve to make superman more sympathetic, to give him definition and purpose beyond the red state hothead of the first movie.

failing that, i do hope they put eisenberg in green armor.

oh I'm sure they will, Snyder won't be able to resist and he isn't that smart. of course it will be some kind of dull, washed out green.

oh god i just realized, if this is going to jack a lot from dark knight returns...maybe BEN'S gonna be the one decked out in mega-armor

I wonder how many movies before Lex runs for office

not if they stick with young Lex

stupid question maybe but is this going to have Superman *fighting* Batman?! or have i misunderstood.

there's some laughable quote by Snyder about how it's "v.", not "vs." for some dumb, yet-to-be-explained reason

SUPERMAN YEA, VERILY BATMAN

Legal battle over use of the suffix '-man', IIRC.

ManMan v. Man

agree that best use of Lex as foil is as 1% puppeteer

"what are you going to do, punch ~the system~?
you and your ma and pa have ~always~ been working for me"

etc etc

what are you going to do, punch ~the system~?

I'm sure Snyder would find some way for Superman to punch the system

until there's more news, my money is on batman being all "yo this asshole fucked up metropolis and forgot to save the wee ones, gotta tell this punk how we roll in superhero land" and superman being all "hey i'm from nebraska why u not like me?"

maybe lex exploits their distrust of each other but that the big battle is MECHA-BAT trying to beat the tar out of Superman like the end of dkr. also possible that happens earlier and they fight the real enemy in the end.

dunno if they'll have batman bring in the other heroes to help him macgruber style before the big stand-off or if they just wave hi after the credits

Maybe Supes will laser eye Luthor's dick off, MacGruber style.

In fact if they use MacGruber as a template for this movie it can do nothing but help

agree that best use of Lex as foil is as 1% puppeteer

"what are you going to do, punch ~the system~?
you and your ma and pa have ~always~ been working for me"

etc etc

― resulting post (rogermexico.), Thursday, 30 October 2014 20:51

Wasn't there an "event" storyline recently where one of the characters punches REALITY ITSELF hard enough that it ended one version of the universe?

Always thought that image of Lex Luthor riding on Dr Octopus's back (Doc Ock with enormous tentacles climbing across the city) was hilarious. That was Superman vs Spiderman in the 70s I think.

In fact if they use MacGruber as a template for this movie it can do nothing but help

*van blows up with flash, green lantern, wonder woman and cyborg inside*

batman: NO NO NO FUUUUUUUUUCK

lol

tbh if this movie bombs that will be basically what happens to those characters, while ben affleck runs around screaming "call 911! oh jeez!"

stupid question maybe but is this going to have Superman *fighting* Batman?! or have i misunderstood.

― piscesx, Thursday, October 30, 2014 8:08 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

it seems to be heavily inspired by The Dark Knight Returns so yeah prob

or yeah, what da croupier said

It's much better when they're pals:

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080311020656/marvel_dc/images/5/56/World%27s_Finest_Vol_1_172.jpg

http://emtoast.com/wp-content/uploads/batman_superman.jpg

One of my pet hates in superhero comics was the cover art depiction of superheroes fighting each other. It's supposed to make you want to buy it because you're wondering "why are these two heroes fighting?", but I thought it made them look like pathetic and petty. They rarely came up with good reasons for them to fight.

But some of these covers are hilarious. Quite a good article by Ayo.
http://comixcube.com/2012/06/17/the-superhero-genre-will-never-attain-the-thematic-purity-or-unaffected-honesty-of-1950s-70s-jimmy-olsen-stories/

I think the "who would win" aspect drives the comics in a lot of ways. I remember some articles talking about X-Men being more of a crazy wrestling match than a exploration of the mutant race idea.

Ian McKellen once said in an interview "Marvel tells me..." (I might be imagining it but I think he sounded sceptical) that X-Men appealed a lot to outsiders like racial minorities and gay people. I was feeling cynical about that but maybe it is true?

the big battle is MECHA-BAT trying to beat the tar out of Superman like the end of dkr. also possible that happens earlier and they fight the real enemy in the end.

and I just realised Marvel are kinda doing this first with the Iron Man Hulk fight in Age of Ultron

they win again!

Well, the heroes fighting the Hulk is pretty central to the Avengers mythos. Wasn't there an inter-hero fight scene in Avengers Assemble? Can't remember a thing of that film, other than Hulk punching out Thor later on and unprovoked, and Hawkeye shooting down an helicarrier with an arrow.

Oh, and Shawarma!