Batman v. Superman v. WTF?

The recent release of a trailer for the upcoming movie Batman v. Superman has gotten a lot of people looking forward to seeing the film, and I guess I’m one of them.

I say “I guess”  because I’m sick of superhero movies.  We've reached the point of such superhero saturation that the new movie will also feature Aquaman, a superhero so insipid his greatest power is the ability to order mackerel to defecate on the bad guys should they happen to fall underwater. 

I've always liked both Batman and Superman, however, but pairing them together in the same movie is kind of strange.* Superman is the most powerful being in all of time and space. Batman?  He has as many super powers as you and I except he looks a lot better in tights. 

Frankly, Batman is only a big cheese in a universe in which there is no Superman.  So what does Batman have to offer the Man of Steel in a world in which they both exist?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Superman:  Great Scott, Batman!  Lex Luthor has catapulted a huge Kryptonite boulder right in our path!

Batman:  Great Scott, Superman, you're right!  Umm ... are you feeling sick, by any chance?

Superman:  No, Batman, I'm sitting here playing strip poker with Wonder Woman. Yes, I'm feeling sick! Hurry, remove the Kryptonite and put it in the lead containment box!

Batman:  Of course, Superman.  But first, we've got a few things to discuss.

Superman:  A few things to discuss?  

Batman:  To tell you the truth, Superman, I'm sick of being the junior member in this partnership.  I want a broader role.

Superman:  But, Batman, I only need you whenever there’s Kryptonite around. That's the job: you pick up the Kryptonite, you put it in the box, and then go take study hall.

Batman:  Yeah, for which you pay me the grand sum of Superhero Minimum Wage!

Superman: But that's all the job's worth. Frankly I could get Aquaman to do this. 

Batman:  Aquaman? That's a low blow.

Superman:  Batman, please hurry!  I'm so nauseated I feel like I've just seen a Val Kilmer movie!

Batman:  Cool your pecs, Clark!  I want a raise and a company match in the "Strange Visitor from Another Planet 401 (k) Plan!"

Superman: But Batman, (cough, cough, cough!) aren't you a millionaire as Bruce Wayne?

Batman: Ever heard of Bernie Madoff, Superman?

Superman:  Okay, okay!  What do you want? 

Batman:  Let’s make it 45 bucks an hour, a 6 % match, and a health care plan that covers having the shit kicked out of you by Bane.

Superman:  Sure (cough, sputter) sure, whatever you say!

Batman:  And I want you to help get the Superhero Minimum Wage raised.

Superman:  Great Scott, Batman, that'll ruin the economy and cost superhero jobs! What will Kochman say?

Batman:  Kochman?! Great Scott, Superman, you’re a conservative?

Superman:  I am. For me truth, justice, and the American way is the Second Amendment, Fox News, and "let's impeach the Muslim President."

Batman:  Superman:   I quit. 

Superman:  You quit?  Batman,  where are you going? 

Batman: Maybe you can get Kochman to help you out at Superhero Minimum Wage.

Superman: Great Scott, Batman, I'm turning into a plate of Kryptonian Goulash!!!

Batman:    Great Scott, Superman, I'm sorry!  Looks like maybe I am the hero Earth needs after all.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*Back when I was a kid, Superman and Batman were always paired in World's Finest Comics, which was anything but. The stories were silly and the artwork often second tier. Even when I was ten, I didn't buy it.

What Do You Give the Superhero Who Has Everything?

In Brightest Day, In Darkest Night

Scarlett Johansson is my Ex-Delight.... 

What do you give the Superhero Who Has Everything?

 In the case of Green Lantern, it’s a big budget 3D mega-movie promising to be one of this summer’s biggest blockbusters and starring Scarlett Johansson’s ex-husband,  a man whose any one orgasm with his former wife would probably serve to satisfy the sexual needs of the entire male population of a pretty good sized Midwestern city.

Talk about having everything!

But you’d also have to give the guy in the form-fitting green stretch top and black leotards a Kryptonite-like vulnerability to go along with the awesome capabilities of the power ring he wields. Because Green Lantern is the one superhero actually more powerful than Superman because with his mighty power ring, he could make a Superman!

Superheroes are as omnipresent these days as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s progeny. The array of mythic men and women who’ve been portrayed on stage, screen, and all but enacted live in your living room include Superman, Batman, Spiderman, the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Green Hornet, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Watchmen, Catwoman --- draw deep breath! --- Supergirl, Captain America, the Phantom, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Spirit, the Crow, and Spin Cycle, whose superpower is the uncanny ability to locate missing socks from the dryer. (OK, so I made up Spin Cycle!)

What a far cry from the way it was when I was a super-starved superhero-loving small fry in the Fifties!

Back then superheroes were thought of as strictly kid’s stuff, something you’d magically grow out of as soon as you hit puberty and began to think of Lois Lane not as Superman’s wise-cracking girl friend but as the secluded narrow country road to which you fantasized you’d one day squire off Nicole Halaylos!

The only contact an adult was supposed to have with a superhero flick was the flickering cognizance that he was sitting through one when his 11 year old woke him up to go get the popcorn.

If a superhero movie or TV show got made at all back in that day, the best level star it could muster would be some blandly handsome actor whose greatest claim to fame was having been briefly elevated to the rank of playing Ronald Reagan’s rubbed-out-in-the-first-reel best buddy, the dialogue would have all the depth and conviction of a phone number written on the back of a match book cover, and it would have all been shot on a budget equal to or less than Beaver Cleaver’s annual allowance.

Mostly we kids had to content ourselves with the Adventures of Superman. But although the show did feature George Reeves, the best actor ever to play the Man of Steel, the Adventures of Superman in truth was about as exciting as a Vice-President Richard M. Nixon pin-up calendar.

Week after week, the most malevolent villain Adventures of Superman presented was a bald, weasily, Damon Runyoneque actor named Ben Weldon whose plans for world domination didn’t extend much beyond knocking over the corner Fanny Farmer outlet and making off with the nonpareils. Aside from its passable main effect of Superman flying, other special effects were largely limited to the Man of Steel showing off his super speed by standing in place and saying to the bad guys “want to see it again?”

And that’s why, Gen X and Y’ers, you never see a big budget A-movie superhero flick any earlier than the late 70’s. Why do you think Humphrey Bogart, the greatest tough guy of all time, never played Batman? “You know, Robin, this could be the shtart of a beautiful friendship” does have a certain ring to it, but not to mainstream movie audiences of the 1940’s and 50’s.

Jimmy Stewart would have made a wonderful “aw shucks, turning that lump ‘a coal into a diamond weren’t nuthin'” kind of Superman, but then every Christmas we’d have all been forced to endure:

“Clarence, I don’t know how you know these things.  But tell me, what became of Lois?”

“You're not going to like it, Clark!”

“It’s all right, Clarence.  Just as long as she isn’t an old maid who never married who’s about to close up the library.  Anything but that!”

“What the hell would be wrong with that, you 1940’s superhero chauvinist pig!  No, Clark, she’s Lex Luther’s mistress, she’s about to close up his zipper!”

Would Katherine Hepburn have made a great Wonder Woman? Actually it’s a better question if Wonder Woman, invisible plane and all, would have been up to playing Kate!

But all these attitudes, all these inhibitions, all these limitations --- everything --- changed when the kids of the fifties and sixties grew up and somehow didn’t grow out of superheroes. And now we once super-starved superhero-loving small fry are superhero-saturated!

Even so, I think I might yet check out the Superhero That Has Everything when he opens this summer. Even now, I get a small thrill every time I realize that what would have been so untenable and unthinkable to movie moguls and audiences not so long ago is daily happenstance today.

And as for Green Lantern’s vulnerability? For those of you amongst the great unwashed who know not, it’s the color “yellow.” That’s right; the greatest power in the universe can’t handle the color of bananas.

Hey, even I’m not afraid of bananas!

Scarlett, call me!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~