The fantasy of efficacious violence haunts both super hero stories and the equally fantastic—though far more harmful—stories we tell ourselves about about “smart bombs” and “precision guided munitions,” and military intervention on the side of what is right or just or humane. The comics, and the movies that derive from them, have an edge on reality in that no one actually has to suffer and die for them—and in that there is at least the possibility, however rare, of some narratively central reflection on the fantasy structure. In national war narratives this is mostly left to marginalized opposition groups and political gadflies.
In spite of the bad reviews, as a life-long geek I enjoyed Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice. This doesn’t make the politics underlying any less fraught.
***SPOILER ALERT***
Even as a geek—or perhaps particularly as a geek—I didn’t like the pretext for the fight between the two supers. This is the way I read it:
* Batman is driven by a relentless egoistic conservatism of the sort that can’t tolerate risk—particularly anyone who might be more of a threat than he is (he is basically an up-armored Christian patriot militia guy, spouting constitutional gobbledygook while acting out his fantasy of sacrificial violence);
* Superman is a powerful but pathetic liberal who can’t use his strength to full advantage because of phony-baloney moral constraints (e.g. in the mode of the laments about the U.S. military always and uniquely being constrained by such niceties as international law and Geneva Conventions);
Batman is driven by a relentless egoistic conservatism of the sort that can’t tolerate risk—particularly anyone who might be more of a threat than he is (he is basically an up-armored Christian patriot militia guy, spouting constitutional gobbledygook while acting out his fantasy of sacrificial violence)
In Bat vs. Super, both supers have their politics challenged. Batman/Bruce Wayne is radicalized, becoming anti-Kryptonian, as he witnesses the fall out and collateral damage from Superman’s battle with an alien menace. One of his employees has his legs amputated by a falling girder. Bruce races to just barely pull a little girl from harms way as the air of Metropolis is filled with blowing dust—indexing the iconic aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
The irony, of course, is that the Bat’s path to radicalization—to a conclusion that Superman must die—is far closer to the lived reality people affected by U.S. bomb and drone attacks and comparatively helpless foreign cities, than the American experience of terrorism. The analogy ought to be between Superman and the Super Power. Superman must die if there is “even a one percent risk” he might decide to destroy the world is exactly equivalent to “America must die if there is even a one percent chance it will use its 7,000 nuclear weapons to destroy the world.”
In his radicalization, however, Batman sees himself as the only guarantee of democratic control over doomsday power: he will do what the American government won’t. Ever the vigilante, he will act outside of the power structure to save it from itself.
Meanwhile, Superman has his own growing doubts about Batman—a free agent who takes it on himself to do what the law cannot or will not do. The alien warns Bats to take an early retirement, reminding him that if he, Superman, had wanted Batman dead, he would be dead.
Super is also the victim of a frame-up orchestrated by Lex Luthor that makes him look like a self-interested monster, using his super powers to do as he pleases under the pretext of helping people. “I can’t save everyone,” he complains. Reference: the unfair protestations that U.S. interventions abroad are not really about human rights or democracy.
A movement to hold Superman accountable, at least partially orchestrated by Luthor, end in the Man of Steel being summoned to appear before a senate committee. Is it the echoes of McCarthyism we hear, or the people’s representatives going about their business looking after the public good. The question is will the alien demigod appear before such a committee?
Nodding to accountability—he does. Luthor intervenes yet again, to plant a bomb in the hearings, killing the committee and spectators, but of course leaving Superman unscathed, except with guilt by association. Bat’s becomes more determined than ever to end the alien menace and acquires kryptonite weapons to accomplish this task. Now the only problem is luring Superman into close quarters so Batman can do the deed.
Lex Luthor to the rescue. He sets the two supers up to fight when he kidnaps Clark Kent’s foster mother and orders Superman to bring him Batman’s head. Superman flies off to the battle space prepared by Batman, an “abandoned warehouse” in an industrial district that will prevent collateral damage—which is to say the death and maiming of noncombatants. Her again is the fantasy of efficacious violence, in which the killing can be limited to authorized bodies.
Superman attempts to negotiate, trying to get Batman/Bruce Wayne to work with him to stop Luthor, but Batman won’t hear it. He armors up and weakens the Man of Steel with kryptonite gas bombs and makes ready to run him through with a glowing kryptonite spear.
The conflict is resolved not through negotiation, but when Batman stands down from a fight Superman never wanted at all because… their mothers have the same name. Yet here again is a kind of unspeakable truth: in sharing Mother’s Names, Bat and Super reveal that rather than being opposites, they share an unavoidable whiteness–ironic since appearances notwithstanding no one can be more alien than Superman–that makes them potential allies.
Bat and Super reveal that rather than being opposites, they share an unavoidable whiteness–ironic since appearances notwithstanding no one can be more alien than Superman–that makes them potential allies.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government actually launches a nuke at Superman and the super ogre–and no one in the vast ocean of commentary has anything to say about that (at least that I’ve seen, I’m sure on the whole internet its been mentioned). The real, actual threat to human existence—nuclear warfare—is kind of a side issue. These cinematic nukes—e.g. in the Avengers movie—are becoming a new kind of exemplary violence, depicted as harmless (the nuke launched in the film under discussion kills neither Superman nor his opponent but supposedly detonates outside the atmosphere without detriment to anyone on Earth) or with the intervention of super friends even beneficial (as when Iron Man successfully redirects a nuclear missile aimed at Manhattan through an dimensional rift, thwarting an alien invasion).
In Bat v. Super there isn’t even the faintest of allusions to the risk inherent in launching a nuclear armed missile. The United States and the Soviet Union/Russia have narrowly missed nuclear war because of false alarms on a number of occasions. [1] One incident, on September 26, 1983, when the Soviet early warning system falsely detected a U.S. ICBM launch, only the caution of the officer in charge of monitoring the system, Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, prevented the protocol-mandated launch of a massive counter attack and the almost certain onset of total nuclear war. This incident has particular resonance for me. I was deployed at the time in a Pershing II nuclear missile unit in Germany. It must have been difficult for Colonel Petrov to do anything other than launch as his orders demanded.
The biggest problem I have with this film is Batman’s fight first, talk later and only if your enemy’s mother has the same name as yours. My second issue: use of nukes without even notifying the Russians—who have, like the U.S., historically been on the cusp of launching a retaliatory strike when they even suspected the U.S. had launched a nuclear missile.
‘Nuff said.