Headscratchers / Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

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Flight

• Can Doomsday fly? Not leap very high by pushing off of another body (e.g. Earth’s surface) but similar to how Superman’s flying — defying gravity and all? If not, wouldn’t it make sense to just carry it somewhere outside our solar system (let’s suppose tossing it into the sun would have a chance of just making it more powerful) and either drop it there or give it a velocity vector towards some random empty direction? It’s not like Superman didn’t demonstrate that he can carry it; and lacking any footholds Doomsday would be unable to efficiently strike back while being carried. Afterwards Superman could either just leave it there, or kill it in a controlled manner. If this version of Superman is aware that lead blocks kryptonite, he could just use that as a protection for himself while he carried the kryptonite spear to Doomsday’s location and killed it there. If not, he could’ve just attached the kryptonite spearhead to a very long pole, negating the deteriorating effect by putting distance between himself and the spearhead. Or any other number of ways, really.
  • Doomsday can't fly. It was established in the last movie that while heat vision comes naturally, flight requires discipline, something Doomsday has none of since he's a mindless beast. As for the strategic holes in Superman's approach to beating him, they can be explained by the military interfering with their missiles and Superman being too winded to beat Doomsday back into orbit again.
  • This is, strangely, a question where we need to define both "can" and "fly." Firstly, Doomsday likely does have whatever physical attribute allows Kryptonians to fly, just not the psychological attribute (and since he was a newborn it's impossible to say if that might have been learned with time). As for flight, the first movie made it clear that flight isn't all-or-nothing. Even a Kryptonian who hasn't mastered the art can mess around with the effects of gravity enough to force himself upward momentarily. So it's quite likely that Doomsday could fly in space. This creates the possibility that he didn't simply fall back to Earth after being nuked, but was able to crudely fly back.
  • Superman can carry him in the air but throwing him out of Earth's gravity pull might be more difficult. Also it would have made Superman a dick who let a dangerous abomination drifting in someone else's backyard.
  • Perhaps he traded flight for not-EMP or atomic breath?
  • Doomsday must be able to fly, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to return to Earth after the missile exploded. The shockwave of a nuclear blast from underneath would have propelled both Doomsday and Superman further into outer space. And even if they both simply absorbed the energy from the missile, their orbit couldn't have been geostationary, meaning that Metropolis would have been miles away due to the Earth's rotation by the time the missile reached them. Doomsday's power of flight may not be perfect, but he was able to return to (roughly) the same spot he left, which means he has a measure of control over his direction.
  • Unfortunately the above is incorrect. The film clearly shows with the satellite/radar detection scans that the explosion "somehow" (Hollywood writing) knocks Doomsday back towards Earth while simply stranding Supes in orbit. Doomsday is shown as plummeting downwards uncontrollably, where he crash-lands on the island. To further this point, he shows no flight capabilities after this whatsoever, even after absorbing nuke-energy which would have magnified his power levels a thousandfold.

Manner of killing Superman

• So Lex wanted to kill Superman because he was not comfortable with existence of a being so powerful. And the manner in which he decided to kill Superman was... to create another creature almost as powerful but one that lacked Superman's moral self-limitations? Similarly out of character for him was to know that Superman's death would draw Darkseid's attention and be ok with the fact.
  • Lex is obsessed with being in control. He mentions having an abusive father, which would explain his hatred of powerful men. It's possible that he was hoping Superman and Doomsday would kill each other, or that Doomsday would be loyal to him (hence using his own blood in his creation). There's also the fact that he has reserves of kryptonite that he can turn into bullets or missiles.
    • Lex even says "Blood of my blood... Loyal only to me" so it seems he expected to be able to control him.
  • This still doesn't really explain why he's willing to kill Superman at the cost of attracting Darkseid's attention. Wouldn't he have tried to arrange things so that Superman would sacrifice himself to destroy Darkseid instead if he's the larger threat?
  • What Kryptonite? He's got the scalpels, but the only other chunk seen in the movie was the big one that Batman stole.
  • It's even an explicit point made in the movie that the chunk of Kryptonite found in the Indian Ocean was the only one so far big enough to be worth making a weapon of.
  • It is completely unclear how Lex knows about Darkseid or what, exactly, he thinks is luring Darkseid to the Earth. In fact, it is possible that he is even working for Darkseid or has otherwise been made aware of his presence before the film. At no point does he or anyone say that killing Superman or creating Doomsday was what brought Darkseid to Earth- in fact, much of his erratic behavior throughout the film might make more sense if he has Gone Mad From The Revelation.
  • There is the fact that Lex was using the ships computers to apparently talk to some sort of alien being right before the police arrested him. I would assume THAT is when he found out about Darkseid. He certainly didn't appear to know anything about it before the fight took place.
  • In the comics, on the anniversary of the Death of Superman storyline, Lex uses Kryptonian DNA to revive Doomsday and unleashes him on a major city, much like Lex does in the movie. His motivation in the comics is to demonstrate Doomsday's power and give him to Darkseid in return for the Earth being put on a "do not invade" list. Assuming Lex in the movie knew of Darkseid before making Doomsday, he may have been hoping that he could make a similar deal.

Aquaman casting

• Concerning Jason Momoa as Aquaman; he's supposed to be an Atlantean, but Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean. Wouldn't a Mediterranean or Caribbean actor be more appropriate?
  • Atlantis is underwater, and thus probably not subject to normal surface climates. Plus, Aquaman is usually white.
  • Given that Aquaman apparently has a Polynesian background within the films proper (as with Jason Momoa himself), it seems fair to assume that perhaps the Half-Human Hybrid backstory was retained but with his human half being of Hawaiian ethnicity — this would both explain the mixed ancestry (if the people of Atlantis are still Caucasian otherwise), and also have the human backstory with a more modern bent with broader appeal (as opposed to the lighthouse-keeper Tom Curry, he is raised in a more traditional environment and lifestyle). But of course, it remains to be seen.
    • Seemingly confirmed by the fact that they cast Temuera Morrison (an actor of Maori descent) as Arthur's human father.

Clark and Bruce

• How does Clark Kent not know who Bruce Wayne is? There's been some amount of time since Man of Steel, Clark's working for a major newspaper, and Bruce is a major figure in business and high society. And Clark's clearly covering a high society event. Not only that, but Word of God says that Gotham is across the bay from Metropolis in the way Oakland is to San Francisco. A bit of astonishment to see Bruce would make sense, but Clark's expression shows a complete lack of knowledge of Wayne.
  • It's part of his persona. The more he plays up those little stumbles, the less likely it is for people (aside from Bruce or Lex) to even think of him being Superman.
  • Perry only lets Clark take on sports and entertainment pieces. Keeping his ear to the ground on more pressing issues would be time consuming and thus Clark would not have the time to notice an eccentric billionaire.
  • The final trailer shows a quick shot of Bruce pulling the tarp off of his car, which he drives to the event. It isn't too far to assume that Batman wasn't the only one to have retired—Bruce Wayne may have refrained from public appearances for a significant amount of time that newer reporters may not be as familiar with him (or rather his face; his name would be harder to forget) than seasoned reporters would be.
  • It's not clear in this or really any continuity exactly how famous Bruce Wayne actually is. Sure he's a rich playboy but lots of rich people lead similar lives and most of us wouldn't recognize the owner/CEO or Halliburton or Ford if they sat down and ordered us a cup of coffee.
  • At the event they meet, Clark can hear Alfred over the com-link. Possibly, X-ray vision and/or able to hear his voice over the modulator. A little digging/deduction, he knows who Batman really is.
  • That only means that he doesn't know Bruce Wayne by appearance. He may very well know who Bruce is by reputation. Bruce doesn't seem to be the tabloid headliner in this universe. He is able to go to an underground fight without being recognized by most people there. Note that Clark doesn't seem to need more clarification beyond, "That's Bruce Wayne." So it seems likely he just doesn't know him by sight, but recognizes the name.
    • That's a good point. It seems in this universe Bruce is a recluse who people have heard of but not many people would recognize his face. The party is probably his first public appearance in a while since he only did it to steal from Lex.

Luring back into the city

• Why does Batman lure Doomsday back into the city so he can grab the kryptonite spear instead of popping back, grabbing it himself, and then engaging Doomsday while he's still away from the populace? Sure, he drops a line about this area being abandoned, but this is DOOMSDAY! The big, hulking monster who can smack Superman around, who has heat vision, and just occasionally explodes with megatons of force! People are GOING to get caught up in it!
  • Because then he'd have to leave Doomsday alone. As far as he knows, the nuke just took out Superman, so he's the only person around to stop Doomsday, and the monster's not just going to stand there and wait for Batman to come back. If he "pops back in" to get the spear, Doomsday goes on a rampage. This way, he can at least try to distract Doomsday and control where he goes.
  • He lured Doomsday to the Gotham docks that were abandoned and devoid of people, hence why he choose it in the first place to fight Clark.
  • I'm not satisfied by that. If Batman lets Doomsday out of sight for five minutes, he *might* reach a populated area and kill lots of people. If Batman lures him back to the city, he'll *definitely* kill lots of people, because he's Doomsday and a single "abandoned district" is not going to make much of a buffer. It didn't when Clark was fighting Zod, and Zod didn't periodically go nuclear or smack Superman around like a small child.
    • If Batman lures him back to the city, he'll *definitely* kill lots of people Really? Because in the movie, Batman lures Doomsday back into the city and Doomsday does not "kill lots of people." So, maybe that's not so "definite". Apparently a single "abandoned district" is plenty of buffer.
    • An abandoned dock still has to be better than risking him heading off to the heart of Metropolis.
    • He was currently romping around on an uninhabited island. Bringing him to the docks, even "abandoned" docks, is bringing him CLOSER to the city. Literally one body of water closer.
    • Doomsday is fast. REALLY fast. Superman could travel at easily hundreds of miles per hour, so presumably Doomsday could too. Even if Batman was gone only a minute he could easily leap several miles away. By the time Batman gets the spear the monster could be in Hawaii for all he knows. So he NEEDS to keep Doomsday on him, better the monster attaches its attention on one badass ninja vigilante in a powerful plane than a city of innocent, defenseless people. So he can't let Doomsday wander off, and he definitely needs the spear, so he has to lure Doomsday to the city to get it.

Wonder Woman in final fight

• How did Wonder Woman manage to join Batman in the climatic fight? She learned about it on the plane, and then she is shown walking away with her luggage against the crew's instructions. Did she change and then jump out of the plane?
  • The plane hadn't taken off yet. Wonder Woman walks down the passenger entry chute corridor at the last possible moment.

Massacre in Africa

• Why was Superman blamed for the massacre in Africa despite maybe killing one only man and the rest clearly killed by gunfire? Didn't anyone actually investigate the site and instead just take the woman's word for it that Superman killed them all? And why would it be a trial as they appeared to be rebels and terrorists in opposition to the government that isn't explicitly said to be a dictatorship and thus would have public sympathy.
  • You could chalk it up to Lex doing what Lex does and working behind the scenes in order to make sure Superman looks as bad as possible. He financed the mercenaries who did the actual killing, he could have hired the woman to provide her testimony. Even then, the question isn't necessarily "did Superman kill those men" as many of them were clearly shot and him using a gun to kill someone is ridiculous, but more "was his intervention responsible for their deaths."
  • Lex's manipulation is definitely the reason for no one knowing the people were gunned down. The person Lois talks to acts like her saying there even was a bullet from the scene as if it was a crazy conspiracy theory. As for the people killed being terrorists, they weren't. They were innocent villagers on a place that was occupied by terrorists. The implication was that Supes flew there and killed everyone without regards to any consequences.
  • Nobody is blaming Superman for killing anybody. What he is being blamed for is interfering in a foreign war zone and accidentally provoking a massacre just with his mere presence. Everyone knows that it was the mercenaries who actually carried out the killing, but the way it looks from the outside is that they only did that because they saw Superman coming, realized they couldn't win, and decided to kill everyone and cut their losses since they realized they couldn't beat him. The bullet Lois uncovers just adds a different layer to the story- the mercenaries didn't have just any bullet; they had a state-of-the-art bullet meant for the military that they had no business of having, which suggests (but isn't enough to prove) that the whole thing was a set-up from the start- the mercs were waiting for Superman to show up and were always planning to carry out the massacre the moment he got close, all for the purpose of making Superman look dangerously incompetent. Nobody at any point suggests that Superman actually killed anybody there- if they actually thought that, they would be demanding a lot more than a committee.
  • They saw him coming, which they could only have done roughly two seconds before he actually lands, made up their minds, killed all those people, got into their cars and drove away far enough that Supes couldn't have caught them? How does this sound even remotely plausible?
  • The Extended Cut reveals why Superman is blamed. Those people weren't simply killed. Their bodies were burned by flamethrowers to make it seem like Superman killed them with heat-vision.
  • Wouldn't the flamethrowers leave chemical residue on the bodies, like any other flamethrower ever would do? Not to mention that, burned or not, there were still bullets and bullet wounds, which alone completely exonerate Supes. Not to mention putting bodies in the pile, which Supes would have absolutely no reason to do.
  • Why are you assuming that a bunch of dead terrorists are each going to get a full autopsy, and then have the results of that autopsy fairly and truthfully reported when Lex Luthor has control over the whole thing?
  • All the extended cut shows is that he bribed/threatened ONE woman to lie about Clark burning people (see above) and government forces murdering everyone. Meanwhile we see an entire CIA squad moving in the moment after the mercenaries left. So what, they didn't inspect and record the obviously gunned down people and a tank very clearly blown up with explosives? They didn't collect the bullets AND the bodies? They didn't interrogate Lois? They didn't interrogate Clark himself? He left? Why?
  • Why would he stay? Lois wasn't in danger anymore, he probably had other things to do and people to save. They obviously did interrogate Lois but since she is a known associate of Superman, she hardly seems like an unbiased source. The lack of proper autopsies and inspections is possibly due to the CIA squad not having the necessary equipment with them, and whatever local authorities are there will not be too keen on letting the foreign intelligence run the show on their territory.
  • Because he would certainly want to make sure she's safe, which he couldn't have known at once, and he wouldn't want to abandon her in hostile situation. Because there might be wounded people right there in need of his help. Because once they've seen the bodies, Lois would've immediately realized that something's very fishy. "she is a known associate of Superman" — since when? "local authorities are there will not be too keen" - Why? They're clearly on the same side.
• Moreover, how in the world could Clark NOT capture the mercenaries? They had a couple minutes at most, riding dirt bikes across plain terrain, and Superman failed to hunt them down? Hell, the dust trail alone would've sufficed.
  • Why would Clark capture the mercenaries? He was there to save Lois, not to take out the mercenaries.
  • They've just murdered a bunch of people, and he's kinda sorta maybe a hero?
  • Who is he going to turn them to? They're a PMC that wiped out what the local government considers a terrorist cell. For all he knows, this was what that local government planned. He is a hero, and murder is among the things he's against, but military/terrorist actions are ... tricky.
  • They also piled bodies and burned them with a flamethrower and murdered Jimmy Olsen. Can you think of a legitimate reason to do all that?
• Lex isn't trying to get Superman convicted in a court of law. He's trying to get him convicted in the court of public opinion. We all know that people are capable of ignoring facts when there's a good narrative at work. The bodies were burned, there's a woman claiming she saw Superman burn them, and Superman's not exactly giving interviews refuting anything. That's all Lex needs. Oh, yeah, and in the Ultimate Edition, we see that Lex blows up the Senate not just to provoke Batman, but also to prevent Senator Finch from revealing the truth after the Nairomi woman confessed to lying. "Today is a day for truth" was the Senator getting ready to expose Lex, until the bomb went off and kept the truth from coming out.
  • What was starting as an admonishing sermon clearly aimed at Superman and him alone ("this is how we do things in these here planets", "we talk" and all the other nonsense) seems unlikely to suddenly swerve into exposing Lex Luthor who wasn't even there. If it was, the senator would've at the very least dragged the woman on the stage, instead of Keefe who had nothing to do with Luthor whatsoever. Otherwise, what was there to expose Lex with?
  • "convicted in the court of public opinion" - What does he care? Batman has set on killing Superman from the very beginning, and there's no way some confusing isolated incident in the middle of nowhere was what pushed the candy-senator to let Lex create Doomsday. Also, wasn't Supe's death supposed to cause a global surge of fear and grief to summon Steppenwolf? Doesn't making the world turn on him first kinda contradict that?
  • The objective of making the world turn on him backfired; clearly the world is in global mourning after Superman's death, and this is what causes that global surge of fear and grief as you say.

Communication

• Why didn't Batman ask Superman, "what exactly happened at the capitol? or what happened at [whatever incident eg Africa, etc]?" Take out an ad in the paper. Post a video. Communicate.
  • Because he doesn't care. He was fully convinced two years ago that Superman is a threat. He's been keeping tabs on Superman ever since the Kryptonian invasion and trying to work out a way to take him down. He didn't build that armor overnight.
  • Batman knows exactly what happened at the Capitol, as does everyone else. It is made no secret that an ex employee of his, the guy he saved at the start, blew himself up or so Lex wants everyone to think as a "F*ck You" to Superman. And he believes, as does everyone else, that the massacre was caused by Superman showing up and the mercenaries killing everyone and fleeing because of it. Batman doesn't think that Superman actually blew up the Capitol or that he carried out the massacre; what he thinks is that people keep dying because Superman merely exists.
  • "mercenaries killing everyone and fleeing because of it" Which is impossible because see above. Except that now it was supposedly Superman after all who killed all those people.
  • So Bruce thinks it's okay to blame the Kryptonian (and target him for death) when human beings commit atrocities? I know Bruce is somewhat off the deep end in this movie, but this is a whole new level of stupid.
  • This is ALWAYS a problem in "Batman vs. Superman" stories. You have to make at least one of them act thoroughly out of character. Either Bruce has to be an idiot (like here), or Superman has to be an idiot (like The Dark Knight Returns).
  • Batman doesn't want to kill Superman because of what happened at the Capitol or even because of what happened in Nairomi. Those were just straws on the camel's back. Batman had already been planning to kill Superman for a while. It's why he was tracking down the "White Portuguese", because he knew, whatever it was, it was connected to the Kryptonite.

Shooting Batman

• Why shoot at Batman during both the unsuccessful and the successful heists?
  • Body armor isn't impervious. It can eventually fail after enough punishment.
  • To expand on this, even when body armor works perfectly, bullets suck. Rifle bullets will knock 180 pound soldiers wearing full body armor and carrying extra ammo right off their feet. This can be seen being paid lip service when Batman goes to save Martha, and is shot in the back of the head with a pistol. The cowl deflects both shots, but Bruce still stumbles, and then takes three tries of the same technique to actually get the gun.
  • As a martial artist, watching that scene I'd like to clarify: it's not that it takes three tries of the same technique, but more that they are in a Gun Struggle and insodoing he is manoeuvring the mook into surrendering his balance so he can throw him. However, given that he's disorientated with the gunshot concussion, your point largely stands.
  • To clarify the question, shooting at Batman with bullets and rockets could easily kill him. Doesn't Lex want Batman alive for Lex's caper?
  • Lex's line of reasoning was probably 1) Not make it obvious to Batman he's being manipulated. After all, Batman will wonder "Why aren't they shooting at me?" 2) If Batman can't handle rocket-launchers and bullets, there's no point expecting him to take out Superman, so might as well make it as realistic as possible.
  • Lex planned to kill Superman with either the kryptonite or with Doomsday. The fact that Batman was tracing the kryptonite and had figured out that Lex was up to no good prompted him to improvise- he made Clark think that Perry gave him the Bat story, and he made Bruce think that his disgruntled employee had been blaming him for not being there by sending him the fake letters. Basically he doesn't actually think Batman can kill Superman even after Batman steals the kryptonite, but Batman is a thorn in his side and making the two fight (which Batman clearly wants to do) is in his interests. He expects Superman to kill Batman and then be killed by Doomsday; Batman killing Superman is plan B.

Martha and Lex

• How does Lex know that Martha Kent is Supes' mom?
  • He figured it out based on knowing that Superman and Lois Lane are a thing since Lois is also dating Clark Kent.
  • Honestly, it's surprising more people can't figure it out who Superman and Batman is. He probably just used logic, some research, and a bit of surveillance.
  • If Lois Lane was able to find out Clark's secret identity on her own, it doesn't seem strange at all that Lex, who has infinitely more resources at his disposal, could do the same.

Lois and Lex

• How does Lex know that Lois is Supes woman?
  • Because he shows her special attention, always saving her, ect.
  • You mean saving her once.
  • It was public knowledge that Lois knew of Superman before Zod showed up.
  • And? She's a reporter, that's her job.
  • Lex knows Superman is Clark Kent. Who dates Lois.
  • How would he know that? And don't you dare say it's because they look alike.
    • I don't know, it might have something to do with the fact that Lex is quite obviously investigating metahumans, and has effectively limitless resources to pour into the search. You know, like government and military contacts? We saw in Man of Steel that, for instance, Lois Lane got a ride from a cop to Martha Kent's house in direct connection with the whole Superman thing, or how obvious it was for anyone who might have tried tracking the other Kryptonians (i.e., the military who were doing exactly that) that they were directly going after the Kent farm for some reason? But that's just a wild theory and admittedly not as fun or satisfying as trying to undercut others with sarcasm.

Superman and Lois

• How does Lex know that Supes is watching Lois right now?
  • A good guess based on the fact that he always rescues her when she's in trouble.
  • Raises the question of why Superman didn't intervene before Lex shoved her off the building. OTOH, Lois banging on the rubble during the almost-drowning incident gets his attention PDQ, so maybe his hearing is just really sensitive to Lois in peril.
  • Lex didn't know. He was just doing his usual shtick and figuring out: Either Superman saves her in the nick of time, or she dies...either way, I win.
  • Except he absolutely did. His manipulation of the slaughter of the African terrorists showed that he knew Superman would go to rescue Lois, or at the very least, the fact that he did go there confirmed to him that fact.
  • The question wasn't whether Lex knew Superman would save Lois, but rather how Lex knew Superman was monitoring her at the exact moment he wanted him to save her. It was suggested that dropping Lois off the building was a Xanatos Gambit: either A) Supes hears and saves Lois from the fall (because, yes, he does know that Lois is Superman's girl, and that if he does hear her falling, he will save her) or B) Lois falls to her death, which Superman will eventually hear about (it probably wouldn't take very long) and come anyway. Superman showing up and confronting Lex is Lex's intended goal. How exactly he gets there is irrelevant.
  • Except if Lois falls to her death, she will most likely be found by the police, who would then come up to ask some very awkward questions.
  • So what if the police show up asking questions? It's not like they'll be able to prove it was anything more than a tragic accident. This is Lex Luthor we're talking about.
  • I don't know, it may have something to do with this being the crucial stage of his entire plan, which would most certainly not benefit from external interference. Also, a tragic accident of what? A woman whom absolutely no one saw entering the building and who had no business being there plummeting from its top? No matter how much clout Lex has (and I have no earthly idea how much that is in this movie, because they never bother defining it), I doubt it could be written off that easily.

Superman and Martha

• How does Lex know that Supes is NOT watching (or have a way to keep tabs on) Martha?
  • Again, good guessing. Martha lives in Smallville, which is further away, and generally safer, keeps her head down/doesn't put herself at risk so there's less need to keep an eye on her.
  • He doesn't know. If Supes managed to save her before, well, there goes Plan A, along with some goons. He never really exposed himself (aside from the hard to track evidence that Lois gathered, which could still be dodged) before he already had Martha.
  • Didn't expose himself? He was on a roof with Superman, showing him pictures of his kidnapped mother. If it turned out Superman did know where she was, Lex would have been a pile of ashes.
  • If Superman was keeping watch over her/knew where she was, then he probably wouldn't have allowed her to get beaten like that to begin with. So by the time he was showing Superman the pictures, he was confident Superman wasn't watching her.
  • If Superman knew what happened, they wouldn't even get to capture Martha, let alone beat her up, take pictures and send them to Lex. If Supes had found out, it would have been while the kidnapping was taking place, at which point he had no way of tracking the goons back to Lex other than torturing them for the information.
  • And, in Lex's mind, he absolutely wouldn't do that... why exactly?
  • Because the info he has on Superman suggests Clark is too much a boy scout for that.
  • Even after Supes killed his last living compatriot to save some strangers, or the rebel leader to save Lois? Regardless, if Clark had captured the mooks, he would've given them to the police. Was Lex absolutely sure that the police wouldn't make them talk?
  • Superman killing Zod was quite obviously a traumatic thing, not something that Clark was gonna do whenever. And who said he killed the rebel leader to save Lois?
  • "Obviously" how? Lex wasn't there. "the rebel leader" - idk, ramming a person through several walls looks (at least potentially) fatal to me. Since when does having people threaten your mother qualify as "whenever"? "the info he has on Superman" - which is what, actually? Regardless, if Clark had captured the mooks, he would've given them to the police. Was Lex absolutely sure that the police wouldn't make them talk?
  • Lex set out to capture Lois Lane and Martha Kent at the same time. If Superman had saved one, then Lex would still have the other to use as a hostage. As it turned out, he got both of them at once, so he chose to have Martha get locked up at an undisclosed location and have Lois brought directly to him.
  • Setting aside the groundless assumption that Supes wouldn't be able to save both, wouldn't Lex need one just to draw Supe's attention? If he had another way then why sacrifice Lois? Surely, having two hostages is better than one.

Superman finding Martha

• If Superman has both super hearing and x-ray vision, why doesn't he listen for his mother's voice or look for the warehouse filled with armed thugs and just go straight to her?
  • This version of Superman at the very least does not have senses so keen that he can find anyone anywhere and he can only focus on one thing at a time. He didn't even notice Lois was drowning until he got away from the distraction of fighting Doomsday.
  • You are talking about a city of millions with hundreds of buildings, many of which probably have a lot of lead pipes in the walls. Picking out one person, you weren't already focusing on would be near impossible, even for his most powerful comic versions.
  • Superman was able to find Lois in the desert and before she was thrown off a skyscraper in this movie. At this point he might as well hate his mother because he let the man who almost kill him minutes ago find her instead of working together and solve it in seconds the whole hostage situation.
  • Lois was probably a lot easier to find, since she was not only falling from a building (I'd be willing to bet that would make someone stand out compared to all the people on the ground and in buildings) but screaming all the way, whereas IIRC Martha was bound and gagged inside a building, where making any easily noticeable sound would be nearly, if not completely, impossible.
  • Actually, she was not, which was very-very stupid on part of her captors.
  • There would be a lot of ground between Smallville and Metropolis, so Martha could be anywhere in-between (and even then there's no guarantee).
  • Don't forget Gotham.
  • I don't buy the excuse that he couldn't hear Martha. She was in the next city over. Superman, as far as we know, heard Lois falling from a building while he was still on a spirit journey to see his dead father in Tibet or whatever. He could literally hear Louis scream faster than the speed of sound. On top of that, he could hear Lois thumping on a door underwater while fighting Doomsday. Seriously, "wow those wooden underwater thumps sure sound like the way Lois hits things while she's underwater!" There is no way he could not have simply listened for his mother's whimpers, flown over there, KO'd all the mercenaries instantly and rescued his mom before Lex could even pull out his phone.
  • We saw in Man of Steel that Superman puts a lot of focus and energy into specifically not hearing everything that's going on everywhere, to avoid sensory overload. It's not that he couldn't have heard Martha. It's that he wasn't listening. Note that he didn't hear Lois "while fighting Doomsday." He heard Lois after he was thrown way into the air and away from the noise of the battle. And he "recognizes" it because the area is abandoned. There shouldn't be any sounds like that in the area, and it's coming from the place he just left Lois in. "There is no way"? Bull. You're just complaining.
  • It was luck that Superman got back to Metropolis (or at least near enough) in time to save Lois. That still doesn't mean he would have necessarily noticed that Martha was kidnapped. They showed her in the warehouse, and she wasn't screaming or anything, and if she had, then the mercenaries would have just gagged her or knocked her out.

Hostage

• Upon confronting Batman, why doesn't Supes open with, "Lex has my mom hostage."
  • He does try to talk with him, but Bruce is having none of it. Even if Clark had opened with that there's no guarantee that Bruce would believe or even listen to him.
  • He does try, but Superman just doesn't get straight to the point.
  • The first thing he says on the roof is "Bruce, I need your help." He was just about to follow that with "My mom is held hostage" until Batman then triggered the first trap with those sonic speakers, followed by the auto-turrets. After that Superman tried wearing Batman down so he was more open to talk, which turned into a fight for his life when Kryptonite showed up. If they knew each other better you can truncate conversations like that and he would be on board, but the two were about the opposite of best friends at that point.
  • He did try a couple times, but then went straight into "murder batman" mode.
  • He never goes into "murder batman" mode. He's trying to subdue Batman and force him to listen. He only really starts fighting seriously when the gas hits him and he's suddenly having to fight for his life.
  • Plus he doesn't have all night to talk, he's got less than an hour. In that time, he's got to either: A. Convince Batman to help him save his Mom, or B. Kill Batman, or else his Mom dies. It's possible he was getting desperate due to not really being certain how much time he had left (cause it's not like Superman wears a watch).
  • "he's got less than an hour"... And saying "Lex has my mom hostage." would take less than five seconds. And no, he absolutely doesn't use the ample opportunities to tell Bruce. After being strafed with ineffectual fire he, instead of saying it, starts walking menacingly towards Bruce, then grabs him... instead of keeping his distance and shouting what he has to shout, like any normal person would do.
• Speaking of, how could he be sure that Lex didn't watch over the fight and wouldn't order to kill Martha the moment he sees them team up? And why DOESN'T Lex do that? Didn't he send the helicopter to observe the fight, so that people would see their hero turn killer or something?
  • What Lex said was there were cameras waiting at the Kryptonian ship, hoping that Superman would show up with Batman's head in his hand. At that point, it would all be over for Superman. The public would turn on him, and Doomsday would kill him. Putting cameras near the fight wouldn't have the same impact.
  • Uhuh, let's show people Superman saying "There, now let my mother go as you promised" instead of just attacking Batman for seemingly no reason - definitely more impactful! Regardless, this has nothing to do with the main concern, namely "watch over the fight and order to kill Martha the moment he sees them team up". Remember, the question is not so much whether or not Lex actually did that - that's his business, but how could Clark be sure he didn't.

World Engine and Kryptonite

• Why would the World Engine need to have Kryptonite in it? If it was fuel, wouldn't there be a whole lot more of it than just the one chunk embedded in the fragment?
  • Considering that the world engine exploded when superman took it out. Plus, the World Engine was terraforming the planet. Also the World Engine was actually situated over the India Ocean, making it difficult to extract material.
  • It could be an unexpected byproduct of the terraforming process mixed with the explosion of the world engine, a crystalline form as a result of the intense gravity pulses interacting with the Krypton atmosphere it was spewing out.
  • Also, when Zod & co. warped away from Krypton in the last movie, they caught some planet chunks in their wake and brought them on the trip.
  • The byproduct explanation makes the most sense, especially when you remember that, in Man of Steel, all of the Kryptonian terraform colonies died. Maybe they died of Kryptonite poisoning and the Council just never told anyone.

Giving up on talking

• When going to Bruce for help, why does Superman give up on conversation after two failed attacks on him, and then start attacking the very man whose help he sought? Was "pacifying" Bats more important than getting his message across?
  • Superman probably figured that the only way Batman would listen to him was by showing how outmatched he was, though this doesn't really explain why he attacked Batman after the kryptonite gas wore off.
  • Batman was still fighting him. The scenario reset to the start of the fight. Then Batman gassed Superman again. Superman is engaged in combat with a man who intends to kill him. Talking can only go so far.
  • No, he wasn't. Supes wastes tons of time walking up to him and grabbing him instead of saying the words.
  • In a few words? Batman pissed Superman off. His mother's life is on the line, and Batman is adamantly refusing to even consider listening him for the five seconds it'll take to say, "I need your help to save my mother." So Superman stops trying to talk to Bruce because he doesn't think it'll do any good, and as the fight goes on, it starts to look more and more like by the time Superman has worn him down enough to stop him from fighting, Batman won't be in any shape to help even if he could be convinced.
    
    Remember, his goal isn't, "Get Batman to listen." His goal is to save his mother, and "Get Batman to help," is Plan A, which wasn't going anywhere. He's running out of time and Batman is being a dick, so he decides that he has to kill Batman.
  • "His mother's life is on the line" - Bruce doesn't know that, and Clark knows that. "Batman is adamantly refusing to even consider listening him for the five seconds" - no he doesn't, he's just standing there until Clark comes up to him and punches him. "Clark stops trying to talk" - he never starts. "he decides that he has to kill Batman." - no, he doesn't. After half the fight he suddenly remembers the human language, and says "stand down, if I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead", which is still officially the dumbest and least helpful thing to say in such situation.
    • Bruce doesn't know that, and Clark knows that. Right. Which is why the scene starts with Superman apologizing and asking Bruce to listen. Bruce triggers the traps before Clark can finish speaking. So, yes, Clark does try to start, and Batman makes it clear he's not going to listen. Clark doesn't say the "stand down" thing "after half the fight," he says it at the very start, after the first real attack he makes on Bruce. He does so because he sees Batman's hellbent on attacking him, so he wants to show that attacking him is pointless in a direct way.
    • OK, so...either way, why does he ~slowly~ walk up to Batman?
    • Because he's trying to appear nonthreatening to the psycho who is clearly trying to kill him.
    • Uh, no, that's not how you appear nonthreatening - you keep your distance, stand still, keep your hands where the opponent can see them, strike a relaxed and vulnerable pose - in short, the exact opposite of what Clark does. And why walk up to him at all? Was he afraid Bruce wouldn't hear if he shouted from his original position?
    • He's trying to tone down the God image by facing him on equal ground instead of hovering above him in the sky.
    • Ok, then land and speak. "he wants to show that attacking him is pointless" - ok, he's shown it. He's wrecked the turrets and the sonic emmiters. Now Batman is just standing there, not doing anything else and not "hellbent" on anything. Now's the perfect chance to start talking. Instead Supes comes up to him and punches him.

Superman and Alfred

• Why does Superman not try to find Alfred? Of course, if he could find Alfred, he should be able to find his mother by himself, but I think it would be interesting to see Alfred show up to the fight.
  • Superman clearly wasn't in his most reasonable state of mind. He could grab Batman and hold him still while explaining the situation. He could use super-speed to rip off Batman's armor or grab the kryptonite-launcher and throw it into orbit. He could simply shout "My mother is in danger, I need your help!" at any point of the fight. Heck, if you think about it, he could threaten Luthor into calling his underlings and ordering them to let Martha go. His actions aren't rational, but given that he is in a very stressful situation that he is unused to and doesn't immediately know what to do (his mom is in mortal peril, he doesn't know where she is, the time is running out), the fact he doesn't particularly like Batman and last but not least his personality, it makes sense.
  • Superman has no idea who Alfred is beyond "voice Bruce Wayne talks to on the radio". He might be able to figure it out through a bit of research, but it's probably something he'd have to actively be looking for and besides, after he figures out Bruce Wayne is Batman, he starts to have other problems.
  • After the first short attempts, Superman clearly loses his temper and becomes a lot less interested in talking it out while Batman is still upright. Not to mention the fight either has Superman at a clear advantage (when he's mostly interested in putting Batman down fast without killing him) or a clear disadvantage (where he's too busy getting his ass kicked).
  • All of the above, plus the fact that, even if Supes had thought of finding Alfred and considered it worth the time (he only had less than an hour), if he left to go get him, Martha would have been killed, as Lex had told him.

Instant friendship

• Batman stops fighting Superman and his entire outlook on him changes after he learns Supes' mother's name is Martha. He even calls himself Supes' friend right after. But he's spent two years harboring resentment towards Supes, and he knows Supes had parents on Earth, so what exactly changed his motivation?
  • Losing a loved one can bring people closer.
  • Bats is a softie and Glurge Addict what else can one say. Also, I don't think he knew anything about Superman having "Earth Parents". His perspective was, Aliens attacked city. City had my employees. Superman is an Alien. Superman must die.
  • Batman doesn't seem to even consider Superman a person until this moment, and there is a kind of logic to his thinking (it's faulty, but it's there). Superman showed up right around the time of the Kryptonian invasion, he most likely assumed that Superman was a member of Zod's crew who rebelled rather than someone who was raised on this planet. He constantly dehumanizes Superman by referring to him as an alien rather than a man making it easier for him to hate Superman. It has less to do with their mothers sharing a name (but that's still part of it) and more him realizing that Superman isn't a faceless alien threat, but an actual human being which would violate his vow to never kill.
  • Maybe the mention of Martha reminded Bruce of his first PTSD inducing moment, and got him to realize that he was reacting out of PTSD and not being rational about Superman. It also revealed that if Superman has a mother, that means he has been on earth for much longer than a couple of years. And no one even knew he existed until Zod showed up. Bruce may have also had some Fridge Horror that he was about to kill an innocent. And Bruce would know the story of Androcles' Lion and reason that if he rescues Martha, then Superman will never hurt him as a result.
  • Well it's mostly a streamlined way of saying "I'm here on behalf of your son," he wasn't saying "I'm your son's Bestest Friend Forever." He probably didn't think "I'm the guy who was just about to murder your son until I decided not to," was the best way to introduce himself, especially to someone who's just been kidnapped, tortured, and almost killed. But Bruce relives that incident in the alley repeatedly in his nightmares. When he has Superman at his mercy, Superman mentioning Martha suddenly put Superman in the place of his father and put Batman in the place of the robber who killed his parents. One of the themes of the film was that Batman was going down a very dark path, becoming needlessly cruel, and when Superman has his Last Words it is a plea to save his mother.
  • Personally, I thought this Batman fitted more as Crazy Steve, and it kind of helped solidify... something else about him.
  • Maybe Batman is so desperate for a surrogate mother(even in middle age), that Clark's mention of Martha and the fact that she is his mother makes Batman not want to kill Clark so he can go rescue Martha Kent and form a mother-son relationship with her. And he calls Clark a friend because he figures that the only way to get Martha Kent to treat him like a surrogate son is to start treating Clark as a brother instead of a dragon to be slain.
  • It's long been canon that one of the reasons Bruce became a vigilante in the first place was to prevent other families from being torn apart by needless violence. This a version of him that has lost Robin and become more and more brutal and ruthless. Hearing Superman beg him to save his mother and remembering his own's death reminded him of what he was supposed to be fighting for, and helped him realize that Superman too has a family and calls Earth his home.
  • Look at it like this — throughout the whole movie, Bruce has been having weird visions, dreams and nightmares, including one that flashes back to his parents' murder, and his father's last word, "Martha." Superman choking out "Save Martha," didn't instantly trigger, "Our mothers have the same name! We're best friends now!" it triggered, "Oh Christ am I having another dream? Why is Superman talking about saving my dead mother?" and he freaks out. He backs off because he's wondering what the frack is going on long enough for Superman and Lois to explain that he's only acting to save his mother — or, in other words, that Superman right now is doing the one thing that Bruce has wished he'd been able to do since he was 7.
  • Except of course, the realistic reaction in this situation would've been: "Is this alien scum trying to use its knowledge of my dead mother against me? Ok, buddy, now you're really dead!"
  • Well, no. Batman's reaction is fueled by his PTSD and the fact that he's been having all these flashbacks and hallucinations. When he says "Martha," Batman is freaking out. He has no idea why he said it, and thinks he might be having another episode. He doesn't immediately jump to the conclusion, he just stops and that gives Lois — not Superman — the opportunity to explain the situation.
  • Batman is a byproduct of Bruce Wayne's losses. He spent two years preparing to hunt Superman like he were some kind of soulless beast, an alien invader coming to Earth to run amok carelessly and doom humanity, and then he found a young man crying for his dying mother and a loving woman pleading for his life. Not only he was doing what he wished he could have done as a kid: he was going, twice, to be what the burglar was to him. He was being the bully beating a man to death in front of his lover, and the crazed villain letting a mother die while her son was helplessly standing in tears, and thinking that, he knew that he wasn't that much different from Superman.
  • Except that if Superman was up to dooming humanity, there's no reason why it's not doomed yet. Besides, Bruce wasn't going to "hunt" Clark - he was going to challenge him. Which he knew would work, because Superman'd demanded that he stops Batmanning. Which he did because Batman was running amok carelessly, endangering human lives and violating due process. Which a "soulless beast" wouldn't give two shits about, and if it saw Batman as a threat or an annoyance, it would've simply killed him. So, in fact, Batman's entire plan to murder Superman hung on his awareness of Superman's decency. Also, killing Superman has nothing to do with letting his mother die - Bruce could've saved her afterwards, if he so desired.
  • Alfred talks to Bruce about exactly this. Alfred points out that all Superman has been doing is good, and Bruce's point is that while Superman seems decent and friendly now, he might not always be so, and the possibility of Superman going rogue is just too big of a risk. He knows that nothing is going to be able to stop Superman after he goes rogue, so he's taking advantage of the "weakness" of Superman's decency, as he feels this is the best and only chance to kill Superman before he goes rogue.
    
    Look at it kind of like this — say Superman is like a drunk. Batman would rather put him in the drunk tank than wait until he's already in a car and careening at a bunch of people.
    
    As for letting Martha die, if Superman's dead, what makes you think Lex is going to bother keeping her alive?
  • Nothing, but he wouldn't need to kill her either, so there's at least some chance. OTOH, once Lex sees the heroes team up, she's dead for sure, so no, Clark, in fact you are letting them kill Martha. "he's taking advantage of the "weakness" of Superman's decency" - yes, that's exactly my point. And whether or not Clark has loved ones should have absolutely nothing to do with this.
  • When someone's about to die, is it more normal for them to plead for their own life or the life of someone else? Superman committed a completely selfless act when he asked Batman to save his mother's life, and once Batman realized that's what was happening, he realized that Superman was being a better hero than Batman was. Plus, it's pretty obvious that Batman had to psych himself up to the point of being able to commit coldblooded murder. Once Superman derailed that and reminded Batman of a hero's true purpose (i.e., saving lives instead of taking them), Batman just lost his murderous drive.
  • But as pointed out below, Batman had a totally logical (if heartless) reason to kill Superman; his emotional urge to kill shouldn't have had anything to do with it. A more realistic reaction in character for this version of Batman would have been to tell Lois to fuck off, promise to save Martha, then run Superman through. There are the Alternative Character Interpretations though, that Batman's logical reasoning was just an excuse, and he really just wanted to kill Superman out of pure bigotry or egomania. Yes, villains have families and loved ones too, but killing is apparently a recent thing for Bruce. If KGBeast's thugs would have pleaded for their families, he might have stopped killing. Or maybe he planned to kill Superman afterwards, but Doomsday beat him to it.
  • Even if Batman's reason was logical, that doesn't mean he didn't need that "murderous rage" to actually carry out the deed. Emotion trumps reason all the time, even for Batman.
    • By that logic, I Did What I Had to Do should be impossible. Batman, no matter what version, is exactly the kind of person who sees the job through, no matter his personal feelings. I suppose it's not impossible that things could play out the way they did in the movie, but an experienced writer should know your audience will feel cheated if a conflict is set up one way, they resolved by something completely different. Ass Pull and Deus ex Machina are listed on the Bad Writing Index for a reason.
    • It's not "impossible"; just extremely difficult. Do you think soldiers and policemen find it easy to kill people just because it's their job? How much harder would it be for Batman who's tried so hard to not kill throughout his career? He could fire back at Knyazev's thugs once they'd fired at him, but that's not the same as driving a spear through Superman's heart when he's pleading for his mother's life.
    • Batman wasn't going to kill Superman just because it was his job: he insisted on killing a man he knew was not just innocent, but heroic, and was already beaten and terrified, despite the objections of his only friend, Alfred. As pointed out below, he hasn't always killed, and doesn't have to murder thugs that pose no threat to him; he's killing them because he deems them deserving to die. Plus, the movie does imply it's Instant Friendship, as he immediately throws the spear away in disgust, and later seems Superman's sacrifice as a bad thing instead of being glad that he died a hero, and never got a chance to become a villain. Again, not necessarily impossible within the film's universe, but unlikely and bad writing. Plus, the fact that Batman is only spared from becoming no better than Luthor by having a personal connection to his victim, and then proving his hypocrisy by going on to murder 24 more people, makes him seem like a Karma Houdini.
    • You use the word murder. Others (including me) use the term "justifiably kill". Batman has to be a one man gunship entry and SWAT team hostage rescuer in that scene, and those who he's fighting are all hardened criminals who are trying to kill him and who would kill Martha if it came right down to the hostage endgame. Now you could counter by saying "but many Batman incarnations e.g. in TDK do a one man SWAT with non-lethal methods, and why couldn't this one?". Well, I do have to wonder what Baleman would do against anti-air technicals which had (admittedly perhaps a less than 50%) chance of taking out his flying vehicle if he didn't want to kill their operators, or a ton of firearm and knife toting mooks which forego Mook Chivalry (seriously, on multiple occasions in TDK he fights gun users but doesn't get shot basically exclusively due to that trope, and there's probably times in the other two movies too, even if Batman Begins makes it hard to tell what's going on with it's fight scene editing) and even try (and manage) to shoot him in the head. And as depicted, there just wasn't any way to take out Anatoli without shooting the tank of the flamethrower which he had trained on Martha (perhaps the grappling gun was lost in the fight?). Furthermore, watching the scene back to write this response, I don't actually see him killing all of them. He does some brutal but non-lethal takedowns on some of them (and he can't be held accountable if the grenade one of them was trying to throw gets knocked down and blows him and a friend up), usually only employing lethal force when it's used against him or threatened on him or Martha.
  • Cinema Wins has your back: (basically, saying that if Superman's line was changed from "You're letting them kill Martha" to "You're letting them kill my mother," the scene plays out largely the same. . . except "Martha" being a noticably bigger gut punch for Bruce because it's his mother's name.)
    Here we go again. From what I can gather, this is the moment lots of people, especially the critics, turned off their brains. This is not my usual defense of the indefensible, this is plain as day, fact. If you didn't get it, please pay attention now. Batman does not spare Superman because their mothers share the same name. Batman has spent 18 months obsessing over killing this alien who can destroy the Earth. It isn't until Superman uses the name that the alien becomes humanized. At first Batman becomes even more enraged because he thinks it's another trick. Once he realizes it's Clark's mom's name he starts to understand that maybe they're not so different. He never considered the evil alien had a human mother or let alone would be willing to die for her. Bruce couldn't save his mother. No matter how many goons Batman brands, he was a helpless kid when she was killed just like Clark is now. He'll never be able to bring his Martha back. Now he has an opportunity for redemption. It literally has nothing to do with their mothers having the same name, that was just the spark (that you can see snapping Bruce out of his kill-rage) that showed him Superman wasn't pure evil. With potentially his last breath he asked his killer to save someone else. There's no argument. It's not confusing. It's not grasping at straws. It's in the narrative. It's the entire reason we were shown the murder of the Waynes one more time. This moment goes down as one of the biggest problems amongst the dissenters, when it's actually one of the most emotionally stirring and theme appropriate scenes if you're paying attention. And the reason he decided to team up with Supes is because he's finally able to listen to logic now that the kill-rage is gone.
  • Batman explicitly acknowledged that Superman had parents right before the Martha moment. He said, "your parents must have taught you that you were special", before saying that his own parents taught him that life only makes sense if you force it to by bleeding out in a gutter. He accepts that Superman had parents, and doesn't care.
  • Except he surely meant alien parents, just as alien to him as Superman himself is, rather than additional adoptive human parents. That's the whole key to this discussion.
    • Which in itself is another point of contention brought in this thread. For the plot to work Bruce had to have zero knowledge of what he considered his mortal enemy, which means in the movie Lex flippin' Luthor was a much better detective.

Evacuating the Wayne building

• Why wasn't the Wayne building in Metropolis evacuated, in fact employees were still sitting at their desks while all hell is breaking loose outside, until Bruce gave explicit orders to do so to Jack who still seemed hesitant?
  • The same thing happened in 9/11. Some people in the second tower left and came back when given the all clear. The people inside Wayne Tower probably didn't know in how much danger they were.
  • They may not have been sure if leaving the building was any safer.
  • Sometimes a traditional panic response is just to hunker down where you already are.

Metahuman symbols

• When Diana is looking at the metahuman files, we see the symbols to each of them. Did Luthor come up with those?
  • Lex probably didn't look them up all by himself. He probably had a small team to investigate these weird sightings, who gave them designations.
  • Well Aquaman and Wonder Woman have their symbols on their costumes. Flash and Cyborg may be coincidences or both of these guys are active and then once again their symbols are on their uniforms. Flash has all the electricity stuff going for him they they chose a lightning bolt at the least.

Lois goes for the Spear

• How did Lois know to go for the spear? No-one asked her to, there was nothing for her to overhear. It wasn't even as if she knew Doomsday was of Kryptonian origin.
  • Lois is an investigative reporter and one who was front-and-center for the Zod Invasion, so you can give her a lot of credit for putting a bunch of stuff together and figuring stuff out on her instincts. I mean she's a better investigator than Batman in this movie. She figured out Clark's identity and address, Luthor's involvement in the attacks far sooner than Batman who was Luthor's Unwitting Pawn right until Clark muttered his safety word.
  • Lois saw Batman trying to kill Superman with it. It wasn't that hard to figure out that if the spear could hurt Superman, it could hurt Doomsday too.
  • Doomsday very clearly came out of Zod's ships's crash site. Assuming it was some kind of Kryptonian monster, and thus might be hurt by that weird glowing weapon that can hurt Kryptonians, isn't such a leap of logic.
  • How did Lois know where Doomsday came from?
  • Before the big fight starts, all the news stations are talking about freaky things going on at the Kryptonian ship. Before she heads to Gotham, Perry even suggests she go there herself, and that Superman is probably already there. Then a freaky monster shows up and starts doing things like shoot red heat-beams out of his eyes, just like she's seen Kryptonians do. So on the night that the Kryptonian ship is showing signs of freaky activity, a monster with apparently Kryptonian abilities shows up. To any reporter with Lois's instincts, that paints a pretty clear picture.

Bat thingy

• Before the "Knightmare", Bruce has a much shorter nightmare where he visits the mausoleum of his parents and notices a weird black liquid oozing from Martha's tombstone. Suddenly, a huge, bat-monster-demon thing bursts from the tombstone and attacks Bruce. Aside from scaring the beejezus outta the audience, was there any real point behind this scene?
  • It symbolizes how the Batman persona is turning into the monsters it was created to fight.
  • The Wayne tomb has a stain-glass window depicting an angel wearing a red robe descending from heaven (obviously a symbol for Superman). Since Bruce turned away from it to muse over his parents' graves he was easy prey for the bat-monster, showing that Batman is dangerously close to losing himself to his inner demon.
  • Is there evidence this Batman has only started killing recently? It's possible he has been killing his whole career with bothering with the Jumping Off the Slippery Slope reasoning.
  • Having a Batman who's killed his enemies throughout his whole career wouldn't have a living Rogues' Gallery to film sequels about.
  • Word of God is it's supposed to be the comics villain Man-Bat. And yes, it symbolizes how the Bat persona is taking over Bruce's soul.

Clark's Reasons for hating Batman

• Bruce's reasoning for not trusting and even wanting Superman dead is fleshed out fine enough (even if one killing vigilante pointing the finger at another killing vigilante is a tad hypocritical, but still). Superman is (at least somewhat) responsible for deaths of innocent lives, including Bruce's employees, and he's not showing any signs of willing to work within human laws, so he's still a major potential threat. What, then, is CLARK'S reason for not approving of Batman's vigilante actions, when he himself acts as one whenever he damn well pleases, and is even still willing to kill nonchalantly? Clark so dislikes the guy that his first face to face encounter is just to wreck his car. Is Clark just willfully ignoring his own actions to keep on a moral high horse?
  • Clark doesn't kill nonchalantly. Zod is the only guy he killed and in that scenario it was alright. Batman though as we see in this movie tortures and sometimes puts the criminals in a danger where death is certain. It's not just that Batman is a vigilante but his methods revolve around pain. When Superman takes down a warlord, he snatches them up but doesn't hurt them to stop them.
  • Clark doesn't hate Batman, not to the same murderous level that Batman hates him. As a reporter, he's concerned and curious about a Bat vigilante operating in Gotham, torturing and beating up thugs, acting like judge/jury/executioner. Then while he's busy flying around, said guy in his armored tank parades around his city and starts bombing and blowing up stuff like a lunatic, why shouldn't he stop that guy since from his perspective a maniac is blowing up stuff in a tank in his city at night. And again, what Superman does is give Batman a warning, a stern glare and flies away. Not indicative of hatred at all because for most of the movie, Superman has other stuff to deal with. He's worried about drifting from humanity, being there for his mom and Lois, trying to make his civilian gig as a reporter work, while Batman being Idle Rich fantasizes about Hunting the Most Dangerous Game.
  • Clark's motivations are clear and understandable, but they're established within the span of about two minutes, rather than the full hour and a half of build-up to justify Bruce's fears. That's partially because Batman is already a symbol of fear in the first place, it makes sense for the public and for Superman to be afraid of him. That said, some specific things that were mentioned to give Clark a stance on Batman: Batman acting outside the law, Batman targeting criminals in poor areas, Batman branding people like a psycho, etc.
    • The Ultimate Edition gives him much more time to develop motivations for opposing Batman, including meeting the mother of the child of the criminal Batman branded at the beginning of the movie. Plus, every time Clark tries to use the power of the press against Batman, he's shot down. It's clear that this is a job for Superman.
  • But Superman is ready to let clearly dangerous criminals run away just to tell off Batman when he was doing a car chase for the kryptonite. He could have stopped both but instead only flex his muscle on Batman. That's hating Batman to the point it clouds reasons.
  • By the time he arrived, those criminals were driving away in a wrecked truck. Any police officer would chase after them if only because it's a liability. The fact that they got away is just an oversight on Superman's part.
  • They had rocket launchers and assault rifles in that truck. Superman considers police officers getting killed in a shootout a possible oversight over muscle flexing a guy in a bat suit?
  • How would he know they were criminals? All he'd be aware of is the fact that they were transporting something for LexCorp and were then attacked by a vigilante. As for the weapons, they are also in a city that has been described as a crime-ridden hell hole.
  • He has x ray vision to see what they are doing and super hearing to know what they are saying through their com (which won't be something as call the police and more kill him before the cop shows up). Even if for some reason he can't recognize the same guys who framed him in Africa by uniform and tattoos no security have rocket launchers no matter how high the criminal rate is. Superman is not supposed to be dumb.
  • His x ray vision and super hearing are not on 24/7.
  • "attacked by a vigilante" - which implies criminals. For all his flaws, Batman is not known for attacking innocent people. It would spark at least a glancing curiosity about who they were and what they did to deserve Bat's wrath. Especially when they are packing that much ordnance that you don't need super sight or hearing to notice. Crime-ridden hellhole doesn't equal war zone.
  • Crime happens all over, all the time. Superman is no vigilante in the DCEU. He's a search-and-rescue-type hero who has a very dim view of vigilantes. He may suspect the people in the truck were up to no good, but he had no proof; and even if he did, he considered Batman to be the more important danger to be addressed.

Luthor's plan and motives

• What Lex doing this all for, exactly? What was he doing before that Superman gets in the way of now? Why did need to keep nudging Batman to take him on? Why did he need Superman to fight Batman specifically so desperately, to the point where he needed to capture Lois and Martha to make him? Where does Doomsday fall into this? Was he meant to be the beginning of a new brand of Kryptonian-cloned super soldiers for the army? Was it a test of the existing tech to be used for other purposes? Would he dress him up in armor and then have him kill a now publicly convicted Superman in public to win their favor for himself? Did he just want to take over the world? I know that he wanted to make Superman look bad, and blowing up the capitol certainly helped that, but then a bunch of other factors start playing in that don't fit that train of thought.
  • Goal was to kill Superman. His father abused him and he doesn't like people in power dominating over him. Superman wasn't directly in his way, he was just a powerful figure. Batman is one of the worlds best combatants and so he set him up to fight a god. Batman killing Superman was Plan A. He didn't intend for Superman to walk away from that fight. Doomsday was Plan B in case the Batman fails. Which of course happened. Lex was unhinged, I doubt he thought that much further. He was experimenting with the Kryptonian tech and in his insanity, made a monster as a plan B. I'm sure his goals were to develop more from all of it but the immediate concern was killing Superman.
  • Since Luthor signaled the arrival of Darkseid, as he implies at the end, the simple answer is that he's a species-traitor. He's weeding out potential threats before his master arrives.
  • Which kind of makes less sense because the traditional portrayal of Luthor is that he always believes he's acting in humanity's best interest. [Why would he ever submit to Darkseid?
  • I don't think it was outright said that Luthor would submit to Darkseid, but at the very least he's terrified of him and doesn't want to incur the wrath of someone with no weaknesses.
  • It's not the traditional Luthor, so saying it "makes less sense" is wrong. It's an adaptation- he isn't bound by the flaws of the character he is based on.
  • As he says at the LexCorp tower, he hates the idea of a benevolent all-powerful God. So when Superman is hailed by a good part of the world as a God he wants to either: 1) Show them that he's not that benevolent by having him kill Batman or, 2) that he's not all-powerful by having Batman kill him. And even if 1) happened, he's got Doomsday for getting 2) done anyway.
  • In the comics, on the anniversary of the Death of Superman storyline, Lex uses Kryptonian DNA to revive Doomsday and unleashes him on a major city, much like Lex does in the movie. His motivation in the comics is to demonstrate Doomsday's power and give him to Darkseid in return for the Earth being put on a "do not invade" list. Assuming Lex in the movie knew of Darkseid before making Doomsday, he may have been hoping that he could make a similar deal.

Luthor and Metahuman

• How does Lex knows Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg exist? Why is he monitoring someone who hasn't shown any signs of being a metahuman yet( Cyborg)? How does he have surveillance footage of Flash? Same question for Wonder Woman and Aquaman.
  • Since it's implied that he's a herald for Darkseid, and a species-traitor, he's probably spying and investigating them to weed out threats before the conquest.
  • It seems that he's actively looking for metahumans, and he's following up on whatever reports come up. A woman who hasn't aged since 1918, a guy stopping a hold-up in a split-second, or rumors of a strange man in the ocean would probably prompt Luthor to look further into those matters. On the subject of Cyborg, we don't known when that footage took place. For all we know, Cyborg already exists, and this is just the first time Luthor is made aware of him.
  • Cyborg is fairly easy to figure out. The footage was clearly from Silas Stone's experimental notes. Lex's company is in the technology and military fields, so it's entirely possible Silas' work in the field of cybernetics is known to him.

Superman wielding the spear

• Why, exactly, does Superman need to be the one to wield the kryptonite spear? Wonder Woman is right there, either nearly or just as physically powerful as he is (enough to do a significant amount of damage to Doomsday, even if he heals immediately), and kryptonite has no effect on her (although, I will admit I was unclear on whether this was different in this incarnation.) Even Batman has the kryptonite gas, which could be used to give him enough of a momentary advantage to stab Doomsday. Why is the only person who will actually die from using it the one who immediately decides he has to be the one to pick it up?
  • Superman is not known for having good tactics. Or he just doesn't want anyone else risking their life for his sake and doesn't think through that passing the baton to Wonder Woman would be a better idea. How does he know she would successfully kill Doomsday without getting killed?
  • What he DOES know is that she can hold her own against Doomsday because he is watching it happen in front of his eyes. She's lunged at him at least a few times by this point and looks like she's taken no damage, and even getting Doomsday CLOSE to the lance is gonna knock him off his game long enough to use it effectively. This should be a no-brainer.
  • Superman would have figured that anyone who could get close enough to Doomsday to kill him probably wouldn't survive. Ultimately it was smarter to risk his own life against Doomsday and have Wonder Woman back him up if he failed than risk Wonder Woman's, fail and then fail again as soon as he got too close. Asking Batman for help would be out of the question since Doomsday can unleash energy waves that could wipe him out.
  • Doomsday was weakened though, both by the spear and the kryptonite gas Batman shot at him, that Wonder Woman could've killed Doomsday without a problem.
  • A likely explanation is how dependent killing Doomsday was on keeping Doomsday still. It took Wonder Woman's lasso and Batman's kryptonite grenade to subdue him enough for Superman to stab him. If Superman was the one holding Doomsday still he would have lost his grip from weakness either when the grenade hit Doomsday or when the spear got close to him. It was too big a gamble compared to taking advantage of the opening Wonder Woman and Batman were already giving him.
  • A LIKELY explanation is not good enough, because it wasn't established in the movie any way. There's no proof at all that Wonder Woman actually NEEDED to hold Doomsday with her lasso. But, just for argument's sake, even if that was needed, she and Superman could just have exchanged weapons by that point. After she caught Doomsday with her lasso, she could've given it to Superman, and he could've given her the spear. Problem solved. Superman still sacrificed himself for no reason whatsoever.
    • "Likely is not good enough"? Says who? Movies don't need to spell out every little detail. We're allowed to fill in some of the blanks on our own, which makes "likely" pretty damned good enough.
  • Simply being near the spear weakened Superman, he would not have had the strength to restrain Doomsday with the lasso if Wonder Woman had tried to give it to him while he passed the spear to her. And she hadn't really even caught Doomsday, it was clearly taking everything she had to hold him still for those few seconds, she would not have been able to grab the spear from Superman without losing her grip on the lasso (i.e. she had to use both hands to hold the lasso).
  • The longer Doomsday was alive, the more damage he would have done, the more likely his friends would die, and the greater the odds of innocents being hurt in the collateral damage. Superman's priority wasn't to survive, it was to stop the carnage ASAP before it gets any worse, which is perfectly in line with his character.(Truth in Television ; the odds of further damage and chaos steadily increase the longer a violent confrontation persists, so a swift resolution is often the best regardless of the cost.)
  • Policemen (ideally) have a similar mentality regarding their firearms, and are trained to think "Shot to Prevent" rather than "Shoot to Kill" whenever employing their sidearms, as death should never be a priority even when the situations demands the swiftest possible resolution. Superman was applying a similar morality, only it was his own life he was endangering to end the threat as quickly as possible.
  • If he had the strength to hold the spear and ram it in, he had the strength to hold a lasso. At the very least for the length it would take for a mostly-full strength Diana to finish Doomsday.
    • To the above, holding and stabbing the spear takes a lot less strength than restraining Doomsday. The two are not equivalent things at all. Again, it took everything Diana had to hold Doomsday still for a few seconds even with Batman's help.
  • Wonder Woman, in a number of continuities, has had a weakness against piercing attacks (to explain why she still has to block bullets with her bracelets). Since Doomsday's arm-spear would, I believe, count as a piercing attack, then it's possible that if Wonder Woman had used killed Doomsday, she would have been killed by him the same way Superman was, despite not being weakened by the Kryptonite.
  • The bigger question would be why couldn't have Superman wielded the spear better it looks like he's pulling himself onto the spike while maintaining his grip on the middle part of the spear when it would be easier to shove the spear deeper with his other hand since it already pierced the skin.
    • He was probably trying to grip the spear as tight as possible with him being near death.
    • Yeah, he'd already been weakened in the earlier fight with Batman, and the close proximity to the Kryptonite spear wasn't exactly helping him get his strength back.
    • Except that Superman had already been healed by exposure to sunlight since then, so he was already back at full strength. The bigger question is why instead of impaling himself further, Superman simply didn't move his grasp on the spear further back. As shown in the shot he had at least another metre of spear he could have grabbed on to.
  • Plus, didn't someone above mention how Kryptonians are weak to magic since it "defies logic" or something? Lassos that compel you to tell the truth fall under the "magic" category. If Wonder Woman and Superman had swapped places (putting Wonder Woman on the spear and Superman on the lasso) he may very well have been weakened enough that he either lost consciousness/went into a coma or died. Either way, Batman and Wonder Woman would be down an ally against an enemy that can stand an atomic bomb. And by this I mean Wonder Woman would be in a 1v1, because Batman didn't do that much against Doomsday. Badass Normal and all that.
    • No, magic itself is not his second Kryptonite or anything. It's just that magical damage, being supernatural, can harm him.
    • Who says Diana would be willing to let some dude she's only just met wield her lasso?

Sacrificing Mercy Graves

• Why did Lex willingly sacrifice Mercy when he bombed the Capitol? He practically had no reason to send her into the room with the bomb, and the film never gave any indication that he disliked or distrusted her. This is especially jarring to a comic and DCAU fan since Lex has traditionally treated Mercy as a trusted underling.
  • More than likely, it was because he simply didn't care that she was in there.
  • It also provides him with an alibi. Without anyone present in the hearing in behalf of Luthor, people would start asking questions that could've make him show his hand earlier than expected.
  • It also gives him a bit of sympathy if anyone starts wondering too much about his involvement. He can always claim innocence by pointing out his assistant and friend was also killed.
  • If that's the case, why did he go through all of the trouble to arrange the "peach tea" joke for Senator Finch to see, which could have risked giving away his plan?
  • This version of Lex is pretty narcissistic so he had to rub in the Senator's face the fact he would always get his way.
  • Jimmy Olsen was killed off without any introduction or characterization, just because there wasn't anything plot-relevant to do with the character. The Mercy character was likely intended as simply a nod to fans, with no regard as to whether or not killing her off would have any impact.
  • DCAU fans should remember that Lex nonchalantly killed Mercy Graves in Superman: Doomsday simply to leave no loose ends in his schemes.
  • They should also remember that toward the end of the series, Lex is implied to have threatened or otherwise coerced her back into loyalty after his stint in prison — a stint during which she took over his company and refused to help him.

Kryptonian Ship Understanding English

• Why would a Kryptonian ship's AI speak in English? For that matter, why was Luthor able to assume control so easily? I can understand using Zod's fingerprints for access, but I think it would take more than that to assume control of an entire vessel.
  • My best guess is that since the ship was only running at partial efficiency, some of its security safeguards were disabled or malfunctioning.
  • The Kryptonian ship was shown to be capable of translating Zod's message of "You Are Not Alone" into every language on Earth in the previous film, and it seems to cycle through a number of languages before it gets a response from Luthor.
  • Zod might have left the security systems off in his haste. He wasn't thinking particularly clearly at the time after all.

Know Thy Enemy

• So, we've established that Bruce wants to kill Superman, and spends at least a fair amount of 18 months preparing for it by looking for Kryptonite. However, the thing that finally gets him to stop the vendetta is finding out that Superman not only has a mom, but her name is Martha. Did Bruce do...any research on Superman besides looking for green rocks? We know that he's not gonna listen to Clark's pleas for mercy to avoid a fight, but seeing as he is viewing Superman as prey to be hunted, did it ever occur to Bruce that he could get to Superman by finding out where he lives, who his loved ones are, and learning more about him personally? Lois found him out with very limited resources, so Bruce could probably find out the man behind the cape in no time. In the World's Finest animated movie, he puts a tracer on Superman's cape. In a 2007 episode of "The Batman", he traces objects moving faster than the speed of sound to triangulate Supes's regular spots. Are we to believe that in his rage-fueled rampage, he forgot that part of being a detective? At the very least it would've kept him from being caught off guard by the name "Martha".
  • Nope. No research whatsoever. All Bats care about was Superman's powers and how to get past that. He sees Superman as an animal and Not Even Human, all that matters to him is "what Superman can do, and how he can be hunted/killed" not "who is Superman and how do I get to know him", so to him the concept that Superman actually had loved ones doesn't compute at all. If it did compute, Batman would have moderated his stance, backed off from the plot. He also thinks everything written by Daily Planet is propaganda by people blinded by Superman, so his perspective is biased, misinformed and totally wrong, which made it easy for Luthor to manipulate him.
  • Which is a bit aggravating in itself. Lex also hates Superman but it did occur to him that perhaps he could have a normal life and loved ones that could be exploited as a weakness, something he researched with great success. Not only that goes against the classic Lex Luthor persona (he would never, ever accept that Superman could be just one of us), it means he is a better detective than Batman.
  • Even in his current state Batman is still adamantly Never Hurt an Innocent type. For him Superman's hypothetical loved ones would be an obstacle complicating his mission not means to be exploited. The way he views Superman, he probably thinks whatever civilian identity Supes might have is all a lie anyway and researching it wouldn't be worth it, since the time and resources could instead be spent on looking for green rocks. Consider that Batman doesn't want to simply have Superman-killing weapon someday, he wants to have it as quickly as possible, since another day without it is another day with the threat of Superman's possible Face–Heel Turn looming overhead and the chances of stopping him growing slimmer.
  • Quite simply, Batman seems to have fallen for the oldest trick in Superman's book. Namely the old "He doesn't even wear a mask so he probably doesn't even have a secret identity'' gag. He seems to be under the impression that Superman arrived on earth at the same time as Zod and the other Kryptonians, rather than having been raised here since infancy. It's not an unreasonable assumption to make, but it is a rather hasty one, basically a Surprisingly Realistic Outcome version of Bat Deduction.
  • In this movie, Lois is a better detective than Batman. She cottons on to Luthor as The Man Behind the Man early in the story and tries to warn Superman before he enters the Capitol. Batman in this movie is entirely driven by passion and emotion, not reason. So it makes it easy for Luthor to drive him into doing something stupid.
  • According to MAD Magazine:
  "(Batman) calls himself The World's Greatest Detective...I'm pretty sure I could do the same thing if my enemies left their crime scenes littered with playing cards and live penguins."
  • Remember that Lois began searching for "the superman" prior to his worldwide debut in the public eye. After Superman went from a vague myth to a cultural phenomenon, the number of urban myths and bogus claims about his origin likely sky-rocketed, making it almost impossible to divide truth from fiction. Also, Lois had the entire archive of a major media outlet at her disposal and was actively perusing the story, while Batman didn't have the relevant data readily on hand.
  • It was also a matter of opportunity cost; such an in depth investigation would have taken months, would likely yielded meager results, and he had an alien mineral mankind had never before analyzed to research and weaponize. In the end, discovering Superman's identity took a back seat in the face of greater priorities. He probably would have figured it out had he the luxury of time and resources to spare.
  • What "in depth investigation"? He was already clearly researching his actions during the fight with Zod, so how would this be any different? And again, it's been 18 months since then. We've seen Clark be active at day-saving, even if it was a brief montage, so did Bruce just not think that there were alternate angles to research? Did he think Supes just hid under a rock until disaster struck? What was stopping him from reaching out to him as Bruce Wayne (maybe for some sort of public event), then placing a tracer (which we know he can make) and then finding out exactly where Superman hangs up his cape? But no, let's just cut corners in research because bloodlust is all that matters.
  • In a related vein, it makes no sense that Bruce sees Superman as an inhuman monster who must be eliminated when he also knows full well that Superman has been spending the last 18 months saving people in countless incidents. Bruce's Fantastic Racism gets stretched to the breaking point, and the only remaining explanation that makes sense is Bad Writing.
  • Of course it makes sense that he sees him as an "inhuman monster". Bruce has had at least one vision of the dystopian future where Superman has taken over the world. Who's to say it's the only vision he's had? When Alfred says "he is not our enemy", Bruce just replies "not today". Harvey Dent was once a hero, and he became an "inhuman monster". Batman wasn't going to wait around for the same thing to happen to Superman.
    • No. It's implied that his visions are the result of his fear, not the other way around. And even if they aren't, he's fought Scarecrow and Hugo Strange enough times to know how important it is not to succumb to paranoia or delusions. He's just a bigot, and possibly and egomaniac who can't stomach the idea of someone more powerful than him.
  • At a certain point we have to step back and realize that like how in this universe Superman is recluse and gloomy, Wonder Woman has lost her faith in humanity and Barry Allen is an immature rookie, this isn't the Batman we know and love from the comics or animated series. It seems to have been deliberate on the writer's part to downplay his detective skills, or at least make it so he has to actively apply them to a subject to come to intelligent conclusions, but when it comes to picking his battles and theories, he tend to take things at their cynical face value. Superman is biologically alien and doesn't wear a mask? He can't possibly have a secret identity or friends like my allies and I do. Superman is of the same powerful species as Zod? He must try to enslave the planet eventually. Bodies were burned and building blown up? It must be exactly what the media says and not worth looking into. Presumably his experience with Superman has taught him to be a bit more cautious when it comes to these sort of things, but the plot wouldn't really work if either character has all the traits we loved about them already.

File downloads

• So there is a service hallway in Luthor's mansion, next to the kitchens, with a bunch of data cables simply hanging out the wall. On top of that, there's a head-height port readily available there, which apparently leads directly to the entire secure LexCorp network. And then the tiny hard drive cloning device seemingly was able to penetrate the network all on its own, presumably with a pre-programmed algorithm, without Bruce having to do any hacking himself. Extremely convenient, but fine. But he's still plugging into a massive corporate network with who knows how many terabytes of data. How did Bruce manage to download exactly the files he needed —the White Portuguese photos, all the metahuman investigation— instead of, say, several hundred gigs' worth of quarterly financial statements of the "welcome" package for new employees?
  • Because he quite clearly used a search function to get straight to the stuff he was looking for. And considering he was plugging into Lex's private server, it was most likely holding all of the really juicy secret info and not the mundane day to day filings.
  • But he wasn't looking for Luthor's metahuman research yet. He was researching who or what the "White Portuguese" was and how it was connected to Luthor. Everything else just came along for the ride.
  • Remember, he was ultimately looking for the Kryptonite (which is unnamed) and knew the term "White Portuguese" was related to it. His search probably included terms like Superman, Krypton/Kryptonian, "Green Rock", etc. The metahuman files were probably stored under the same file system as the Superman data and came along. The real question is why Wonder Woman believed the drive would have her relevant data since corporate espionage would have been a more likely reason Bruce Wayne was hacking LexCorp.
    • Unless Diana also knows who Bruce is. Batman has been around for twenty years. It's not inconceivable that, at some point, Wonder Woman would get curious about who he is. She's kept her distance from him, obviously, but at Lex's party, she could have heard Alfred's voice the same way Clark did. When Bruce goes back to the party, Diana leaves, pretty obviously to see what Bruce was doing downstairs. When she saw that he had installed a leech, she seized the moment.

And if Lex's Doomsday Survives?

• It looked like Doomsday was set in motion prior to the BvS, so Doomsday was happening regardless of the BvS outcome. All of the possible outcomes are bad for Lex. 1. Doomsday dies. Zod's body used up. Prison and/or death for Lex. 2. Doomsday survives. Doomsday cannot be stopped and wrecks the world (I presume Doomsday wouldn't chill out & join the circus after killing Superman, and Batman, and Wonder Woman) —> bad for Lex. If your answer is "Lex is Darkseid's puppet," then answer the next question.
  You may say, "sure, none of the outcomes are good for Lex. Lex isn't working for Lex. He's merely Darkseid's puppet." OK, then why not just forget BvS and make Doomsday? Why manipulate Superman or Batman at all? Those manipulations do nothing other than put kryptonite (Doomsday's only apparent weakness) in the hands of Superman. Just make Doomsday and leave out all the other mess. If the answer is, "this is Darkseid's mysterious caper. We're not supposed to understand it yet," then that's indistinguishable from hand waving / bad writing.
  • It's also indistinguishable from most comic-book and serial storytelling. As this deleted scene reveals, Lex was communicating with an alien being while the Doomsday fight was happening. Now, Darkseid, Luthor's Evil Overlord, is not your conventional Galactic Conqueror, he is a Hope Crusher. This is a man who wants to control the hearts, minds and souls of his subjects. So having Doomsday kill Superman, after a long Scare Campaign against him, makes Earth demoralized and bitter, ripe for his coming. It also takes out his number 1 challenger, Superman.
  • For what purpose does Lex manipulate Superman and Batman into fighting each other?
  • However, at this point it's not clear if Lex is even taking orders from Darkseid, or if he just went mad when he found out about him.
  • How can one tell the difference? Luthor was crazy at the start of the film and remains crazy throughout. As he tells Batman at the end, "the bell has been rung", and the painting showing Darkseid in his study makes it clear that he's being influenced by the New God.
  • If Darkseid's ploy involved taking out Superman, "his no. 1 challenger", by replacing him with an even bigger threat —one that is much more powerful, all but indestructible, unkillable without Kryptonite (and he can probably regenerate from that now), and who seemingly has no intellect to manipulate, or emotions to control— then it's an extremely risky one.
  • Doomsday having no intelligence is part of his appeal. It would be easy for a being like Darkseid to transport him someplace where he cannot return. Superman is both powerful, smart and more precisely loved, a figure to inspire which Doomsday can never be. Darkseid doesn't want mere conquest, he wants to control the human will. And as the deleted scene shows above, with Luthor giving information to, what seems like Steppenwolf (Darkseid's underling), Darkseid has information on how to create Doomsdays.
  • As for when Luthor became a Darkseid puppet. As the videos Batman sent to Wonder Woman reveal, Cyborg was formed via the bonding with the Mother Box. So Apokoliptan technology was already making its rounds on earth and Luthor knew about it. As Luthor's conversations about Gods, Devils and that painting reveal, it's not inconceivable that he was in some kind of contact with Darkseid all along. Look at the deleted scene video, that's not a scene of a man who went mad after seeing information on the ship, that's the scene of someone willingly submitting to an alien being. The title is called "Communion" which implies that Luthor sees Darkseid and his agents as his true Evil Overlord.
  • In the comics, on the anniversary of the Death of Superman storyline, Lex uses Kryptonian DNA to revive Doomsday and unleashes him on a major city, much like Lex does in the movie. His motivation in the comics is to demonstrate Doomsday's power and give him to Darkseid in return for the Earth being put on a "do not invade" list. Assuming Lex in the movie knew of Darkseid before making Doomsday, he may have been hoping that he could make a similar deal.

Superman's Burial

• At the end of the movie, Clark Kent is laid to rest in a field on the Kent family farm. Meanwhile, there is a funeral held in Metropolis, complete with a casket. After Clark's funeral there is a shot of his casket with levitating dirt meant to foreshadow his return. Does that mean his body is in that casket? If so, what did the city of Metropolis bury? An empty coffin? Does the government know where the real body is? Did they just let Martha have it? Did they let Batman have it? One would think they would be hesitant to hand over a Kryptonian corpse after Luthor weaponized General Zod.
  • After what Lex pulled probably the last thing the government wants is a Kryptonian corpse.
  • Superman's secret identity has been utterly ruined. In the original "Death of Superman" storyline Clark Kent was listed as missing and presumed dead after the Battle of Metropolis. In Dawn of Justice, he has an obituary printed in the Daily Planet and an open casket funeral. The ass-pull required to restore the status quo when Superman returns is going to be one of astronomical proportions...
  • Superhero movies don't need to have sprawling decade-long arcs like they do in the comics. There's usually an endgame. Presumably when Superman comes back to life that will just be a new chapter in his life similar to Bruce Wayne eloping with Selina Kyle.
  • Superman can create a new identity...Jordan Elliott.
  • He could just go public with his identity, counting on Batman and the League's resources to keep his loved ones safe. Several DC heroes have shed their secret identities long ago and it's been (mostly) fine.
  • The military dealt with Superman's casket (which Batman confirms is empty), and they're implied to already know he has a secret identity. The dozen people at Clark Kent's funeral are certainly also in on the secret. Indeed it is going to look a little odd when he finally comes back, but we'll have to wait and see how they deal with it.

Lex is involved in sex trafficking?

• Batman's first scene is him taking down sex traffickers that he later identifies as people working for "White Portuguese." This is before he learns that's actually a ship, not a person. But he's tracking a sex trafficking organization, which he later identifies Anatoli Knayez as a higher-up in. This is also before Lex even acquires the Indian Ocean Kryptonite sample he then transports on the White Portuguese. So..., For the Evulz aside, why is Lex involved in sex trafficking?
  • Lex most likely is simply giving Knayez whatever he asks, as long as he has the merc's unconditional loyalty. Luthor isn't directly involved, he simply doesn't give a hoot about what Knayez does with those resources as long as he is always available to do his bidding.
  • More likely, he was trying to get Batman's attention. We know from the Ultimate Edition that Lex is behind the death of the sex trafficker, Cesar. He knows the significance of the Bat-brand, and he used it to manipulate Superman into confronting Batman. Why not provoke Batman into branding more criminals so he could be sure it would get Superman's attention?

Lex willingly serving Darkseid

• Lex got abused by his father as a child, so he came to conclusion that God either isn't all-powerful, or isn't all-loving. Superman seemingly being both contradicts that, so Lex hates and tries to destroy him. Now Darkseid, being a god who is the exact opposite of all-loving, does fit in well with Lex's worldview... thing is, according to said worldview, Darkseid is responsible for every bad thing that ever happened to Lex, so why would Lex want to serve this guy? Unless he plans to betray him in the future, but that seems like a way too long shot.
  • Lex is very much a death-cult nihilist. The kind of kook, amoral/misanthropic/evil, who is perfect for Darkseid.
  • Who said anything about "willingly"? More than likely, Darkseid is forcing him to serve. It's one thing to think God Is Evil and to hate him, it's another entirely if "God" actually shows up in your house, tells you that you were right, and makes you serve him on pain of death or worse. Luthor probably doesn't want to work for Darkseid, but "It is better to be on the right hand of the Devil than in his path", so to speak. In his ideal world Darkseid wouldn't exist, but since he does, it's a reality that he'll have to adjust to. He's likely convinced that Darkseid can't be defeated (which is a central component of the Apokoliptian Religion of Evil- that the victory of Darkseid is inevitable, so worshipping him isn't a matter of choice so much as "kneel, or be knelt"), so his "reward" for helping Darkseid might just be You Will Be Spared.
  • Also, Lex doesn't think that either Darkseid or Superman literally are God, so where is this coming from that he holds either of them responsible for every bad thing that happened to him?
  • It's unclear exactly how Lex knows about Darkseid at this point. The Deleted Scene shows him apparently viewing a recreation of one of the New Gods (possibly Steppenwolf) via the Kryptonian database, said to contain information from 100,000 worlds, and his reaction to that is one of pure terror. It seems possible that his decision to create Doomsday stemmed more than just a little of Go Mad from the Revelation, and that he isn't actually serving Darkseid at this point.
  • I don't think there is any "pure Terror", Luthor is willingly supplicating to that figure, that scene is called "Communion", and Luthor is standing before him like a devotee before an altar. And that Mother Box disappears, obviously containing all the information from the archives on the ship, so Luthor is obviously selling out his own species. Remember the Cyborg video earlier...shows Silas Stone interacting with a Mother Box, so obviously those devices have been on earth at some point before the events of the film, and Luthor's interest in metahumans probably dates before Superman arrived.
  • Lex is notably shaking when the SWAT team approach him. That would indicate something has him rattled at that very moment, and this is a Lex who was taunting Superman just minutes prior. It very well could be that the apparent Mother Box in the Cyborg video was something discovered but no one really knew what it was. Lex used the Kryptonian database (which he only accessed in the middle of the film) to see if they knew what it was and it shows him images of Apokolips and the New Gods. That makes a lot more sense than Lex being an outright Darkseid cultist.

Knightmare and The Flash

• Was it a vision? A dream? And was Flash really there? The papers were still fluttering when Bruce woke up, but then why did he wake up twice?
  • It could be that it was real, but some side effect of Flash's time travel - sudden depressurization, some sort of radiation, Speed Force? - so close to Bruce (really, Flash could've touched his nose if he stretched out a hand) has rendered him unconscious, hence waking up twice.
  • If it was real, why did Flash play the You Know the One game other than the Rule of Drama?
  • If I recall, Flash says "Did I come early?" or something like that, so it's possible that Flash was using pronouns assuming that Bruce would know who he was talking about. Alternatively, if he was wary of arriving early, he may have been using pronouns because he didn't want to reveal too much of the future to a Batman that might not be ready for it.
  • Except he distinctly says Lois's name. He doesn't muck about with pronouns, he says exactly who he's talking about.
  • He still doesn't really explain what she's the key to, so he's still being pretty nondescript about the situation.
  • Looking back at the scene, he first talks about Lois being the key, assuming that he arrived at a point in time where Bruce would know what he's talking about. After seeing that Bruce doesn't know what he's talking about, or even who Flash is for that matter, then he starts saying the more cryptic pronoun stuff like "You were right about him" and "Find us."

Lex's hypocrisy

• It's implied that Lex is on Darkseid's payroll, hence his desire to kill superman, and why he keeps tabs on the other metahumans. But he also went on this huge spiel on how he despises all-powerful beings who lord their superiority over humanity in general and himself in particular. Yet he's backing Darkseid of all people, who is not just more powerful than superman, but also possesses the spite and the ego to be the alien overlord Luthor accuses Superman of being. Luthor essentially devotes himself to a being that fills the criteria for his hatred even worse than Superman does; is he too psychotic to recognize the irony in this?
  • It would be easy for him to recognize the irony but to go along with it anyway on the simple grounds that his hate is outweighed by his fear; heck, you could even argue that he is just projecting onto Superman as a substitute both for his father (obviously) and for Darkseid since hating Superman is safer. Besides, Darkseid is an Obviously Evil God of Evil so what might bother him is the supposed hypocrisy of Superman, who is (in the mind of Lex) a Villain with Good Publicity, while Darkseid at least seemingly admits it. Finally...Lex Luthor a hypocrite? WHAT A STORY! CALL THE DAILY PLANET!
  • It's implied in the film that Lex learned about Darkseid from the database in the genesis chamber late in the film, not that he knew of him long before and plotted this entire confrontation from the start solely in service of Darkseid.
  • Lex's belief in this movie is that one can't be all-powerful and all-good at the same time. He tries to prove that by having Supes either kill Batman for him (proving he isn't all-good) or dying in the attempt (proving he isn't all-powerful). Darkseid doesn't need much proof that he isn't good.
  • A superhuman being who's overtly evil might be easier for Lex to tolerate than one who superficially seems good and wholesome — given how many of his issues seem to stem from his father, who played the part of loving father and capitalist success story in public but dealt out "fists and abominations" in private. The superior strength and power of these beings might chap him, but there seems to be an element of paranoia as well. Alternately, Lex was already unstable; maybe he's been flat-out mind whammied due to his proximity to extraterrestrial material and technology humans were never meant to know.

The senate committee hearing

• Isn't there some way all-powerful, super-fast reaction times Superman could have contained the explosion and protected everyone (or at least a majority of them) there? The very attosecond the bomb starts to go off, fly forward and contain it within your hands, swallow it, rush it out of the room, whatever? Or if not, at least pick up as many people as his limbs are capable of simultaneously and flying them out of the room stat?
  • This version of Superman may not be capable of doing that. Or he could have been in shock and not reacted fast enough. Or he hasn't had any experience with bombs, didn't scan for threats, and may not be able to save people with super speed in this version.
  • Because he's not the Flash. So far in all his fights he doesn't appear to have nearly the reaction time of Barry. Also he states that he didn't expect and wasn't looking for a bomb, and so didn't see one until it was too late.
  • Superman is fast but he doesn't have millisecond level speed and reaction time.
  • Well, considering an attosecond is several orders of magnitude smaller than a millisecond, yeah that seems pretty clear now.
  • The DCEU has definitely played down Superman's superpowers from the comics; which is good, because he'd basically be GOD.

Why a spear? Why not bullets?

• Batman can weaponize Kryptonite in gun-like fashion, as evidenced by the stun/gas grenades he uses to weaken Superman. However, his main weapon is a spear. Even with all the backup plans Batman would have had, he needs to get in close and stab Superman for that to work. There's no way to know that would work, and that sounds like a bad idea all around even on paper.
  • If you miss with a spear you can throw it again or thrust it again. If you miss with a bullet, you can't re-use that bullet.
  • But we know Batman could hit Doomsday with the bullets because he hit him fine with the gas, so this remains a valid point.
  • But if the bullets fail to kill him, then Batman is in trouble.
  • The issue here is how you penetrate a Kryptonian skin so the Kryptonite can do its work, with the finite amount of Kryptonite that Bruce got, a spear was his safest bet.
  • It's not like this was an either/or situation. Batman could have carved a few bullets (or kryptonite bullet tips) off that rock and have a spear with a slightly smaller head. The real reason is that bullets aren't Jesus-y enough.
  • Didn't really need even that. After hitting Superman with Kryptonite gas grenade he could shoot him with simple armor-piercing bullets.
  • There are multiple ways to potentially answer this:
    1. First and foremost Kryptonite in this continuity is not nearly as potent as in the comics. Small amounts can certainly harm him but it seemed like it required the massive spear head within arms reach to really affect him just by proximity, while in the comics he can collapse from a sliver of Kryptonite in the same room. A Kryptonite bullet would be so small that the rest of his body would remain invulnerable, possibly even regenerate damaged tissue after it passes by. So even if Batman managed to get a bullet lodged in his head there was no guarantee it would take him down.
    2. The flexibility of Kryptonite as a material is also in question. Not all forms of metal and minerals are good for shaping into a bullet. Crystalline materials in particular would likely fragment upon being fired instead of retaining its shape to do the work of a bullet. Complex metallurgy may diminish or even remove the unique Kryptonite properties that makes it so valuable. The spear head Batman used looked fairly crudely shaped, as well as the surgical tools Lex was shown using on Zod's body.
    3. Batman's logic was that the explosive gas grenades would aerosol the Kryptonite and get into his lungs, doing the most potential harm to his body for the longest period of time. Once weakened he would use the spear to do A LOT more direct physical damage than a handful of bullets could do. Splitting up the limited Kryptonite cache for a variety of different types of weapons may have wasted more than he could afford, that's the problem with weapons research using Unobtanium.
  • Also Batman wanted to play the hunting motif of his family, which explain why it's not a bunch of batarangs.
  • Besides, in many versions Batman just really Doesn't Like Guns.
• There's a certain logic to the choice. We've seen what happens when humans try to fight Kryptonians; they have a tendency to plow straight through people by being too strong to deflect and too quick to avoid. Batman may have chosen a spear for the same reason spears were used against cavalry for centuries, on the idea that Supes could not just charge in and crush him instantly without getting impaled by his own momentum.
  • Probably because he still upholds one law of not shooting one directly with a gun just like what he did with Anatoli and yet to break that law since all the deaths are indirectly cause by explosions. Also the kryptonite is not that easy to process since even though heated to gas, it still has chunky for.
• Two things. One, Batman doesn't just want to kill Superman; he wants to punish him. A lot of people have compared this version of Batman to the Punisher, and they're not too far off. The movie is supposed to show how far Batman could fall if he let himself fall. Two, while he was willing during the car chase to shoot at people who were shooting at him, killing Superman is a case of coldblooded murder. Batman needed to psych himself up for that, no matter how justified he may have felt in doing it. He needed to weaken Superman with the gas, and he needed to make Superman fight him so he could fight back and work himself up to the point where he could kill someone who hadn't actually done anything. So, yeah, he made a spear rather than a gun because a spear is a weapon you use in a fight, unlike a gun, which is a weapon of assassination.
  • Two problems with that: 1. You're really splitting hairs to say he can kill thugs who are shooting at him, but clearly pose no threat to him (as he's only now started killing), and can drive a spear through a not just innocent, but heroic man's heart as he's beaten and helpless, but only if he fights back first. And 2. so he makes Superman angry so Superman fights back. Okay, then what? Because logically, then Superman obliterates him with heat vision, or retreats and grabs a meteor to obliterate the block with, or punches his head off, all before Batman can even react. Yes, there's the possibility that he will piss Superman off enough to fight him, but not to kill him, and/or that the kryptonite will weaken him just enough to make it a fair fight, but if you're cautious and cynical enough to kill a man able and currently willing to save millions from disasters down the line out of the possibility that he might someday turn evil, you don't make getting so incredibly lucky a critical part of your only plan; remember, he hasn't done any research into who Superman is behind the cape, and has no way of knowing exactly how various forms of kryptonite distributed different ways will affect a living kryptonian. Plus, if the movie leave this much room for speculation as to why Gilligan wasn't eaten, it's failed in its job.

Why get that close?

• Superman gets in close to Doomsday in order to stab him with the Kryptonite spear. Even with the spear weakening him, he's able to fly to Doomsday and do this. Why not plant the spear in the ground or somewhere where the pointy end could poke out and tell Wonder Woman to knock Doomsday into that? Or do that himself after he rested up from planting it (he didn't seem to have a long recovery time from Batman's Kryptonite gas)?
  • Because that's not a very good plan. Mainly, it would take way too long to maneuver Doomsday to fall on a spear planted in the ground or anywhere else. Getting in close and stabbing Doomsday ends the conflict right then and there, an outcome Superman would consider favorable even at the cost of his own life. Not to mention simply stabbing Doomsday was not enough, he was still able to fight and the spear had to be forced further in after the initial stabbing.
    • Does raise the question of why he doesn't use the spear like a javelin, since that would get the job done, and would let them reuse the spear if they missed.
  • It's implied that Wonder Woman is starting to get winded from the fight and Batman has precisely one Kryptonite grenade left, while Doomsday was growing stronger and more dangerous by the minute. They didn't have time to regroup and create a plan of attack, Superman figured a direct charge while Doomsday was distracted was the best bet at taking it down.
  • Wasn't DD only getting stronger when he was attacked with energy?
    • Yes but, the longer the fight drags on, it becomes more likely that Doomsday would get attacked with energy.

The Bat-Brand

• Why does Batman resist at the very last moment from branding Luthor?
  • Personally I think Superman's example has convinced him to back away from the Sociopathic Hero he was becoming.
  • Criminals whom he's branded have had a tendency to get killed in prison. Even if he's aware that Lex arranged for some of those attacks to happen, he's probably aware that branding Lex will make the guy a target for inmates who think it's a great idea to beat the bat-marked to death. Batman's trying to back away from being a killer in the wake of this film's events, even secondhand.

MARTHAAAAAA

• Fairly minor one here, but it is super awkward writing for Superman to call his mom "Martha" instead of "mom" or something. Batman and Lois are the only ones present, and both of them know he's Clark Kent. So there's no point pretending she's not his mom. Even if Bruce hadn't known, he should have said "Martha Kent" if he expected Batman to help save her because, well, good luck finding someone by their really-common first name only. And it's not like Superman knew the name's significance to Bruce. It would have made way more sense for him to say "mom..." and, since Bruce's "Martha" was also his mom, it would have had the exact same effect without being the most awkward line ever.
  • He's trying to appeal to Batman's humanity, also. By saying "Martha", he's giving a specific person, not an abstraction. Had he said "mom", Bats could easily have interpreted that as being another Kryptonian, rather than a human, and would have basically decided "who cares about another dead alien", whereas saying "Martha" is saying "a person is in danger".
  • Not directly related to the headscratcher, but I don't recall anything in the movie indicating that Bruce knew who Superman was. The fact that Clark was around during Lex's party and Bruce spoke openly with Alfred over the radio implies that he had no idea. Which is odd, because it's usually Bruce who knows everything about Clark beforehand, whereas it is Luthor who can't even consider that Superman may have a normal human life.
  • Answering the question, Clark was trying to convince Bruce to save his mother and didn't expect to survive the battle himself, so there'd be no later for him to clarify whom he meant by "mom". I suppose he was trying to say "please save Martha Kent from Lex Luthor", but didn't manage to speak past "Martha".
  • Nope, he said literally: "You're letting him kill Martha", and when Bruce asks in response, "What does that mean? Why did you say that name?", he responds "Find him. Save Martha," suggesting that he didn't mean to say more, when absolutely anyone would've said "...my mother". His wording only makes sense if they both already know who "Martha" is, which Bruce doesn't.
  • He'd just inhaled poisonous (to him) gas, been thrown through several walls, and gotten beaten over the head with a kitchen sink, so it's extremely possible he wasn't thinking clearly and just blurted out the first words he could manage.
  • But not thinking clearly is exactly WHY he shouldn't have been able to say "Martha". Even if you think of your mother normally, with a clear head, you don't refer to her as her first name; you refer to her as "Mom". Most people who aren't estranged from their parents require a conscious effort to call their parents by their first names. Clark isn't thinking clearly enough to consciously separate "Martha" from "Mom", I don't think. Personally, I think it was Clark using the fact that their mothers share names to try and shock Bruce out of killing him in some way, which backfired, but again that requires the mental acrobatics someone who has been smashed through like ten columns would be unable to do. (Also was my reasoning clear? Just want to make sure.)
    • It was. But since Clark didn't even know who Bruce Wayne was until recently, and he hardly had time or inclination to research him afterwards, it's highly doubtful he would've known Bruce's mother's name.
  • Superman is used to living a double life by now. He's probably practiced calling Mrs. Kent "Martha" instead of "Mom" when he's acting in his capacity as Superman, just to minimize the risk that someone he doesn't dare trust with his Secret Identity might overhear.

Resurrecting Kryptonians

• The very last moment of the film strongly suggests that Superman is not quite dead yet, and probably is regenerating. Why didn't the same happen to Zod?
  • Probably a side-effect of carrying the Codex inside him. Having the cells of a billion different Kryptonians may have created a mutation that would heal any wounds no matter how serious. Plus, they're the cells of his native species, so they probably wouldn't bring him back like Doomsday.
  • In the comics, IIRC, there were claims that Superman could be resurrected because he had enough latent sun energy reserves to jumpstart his body once the Eradicator used it as his personal battery. Clark has had 35 years to store energy. Zod had one or two days at most, during which he had pretty big power expenditure. To be confirmed in Justice League, obviously.
  • It could also have something to do with the manner of death. Perhaps Kryptonian biology can heal being stabbed through the heart, but not a broken neck.
  • Personally I think the kryptonian robot that created Doomsday stole the body, and the floating dirt is from some kind of levitation beam. Likely she intends to bring it back to proper medical facilities for healing.
  • Until "Justice League" comes out, we won't know how Superman is resurrected, so this question is impossible to answer until then.
    • Justice League is out. Superman gets resurrected via The Flash jumpstarting him with help from a Motherbox. It's possible that because Zod's neck was snapped, if he was revived, it would stay snapped, and he'd die once again.

Lex & Bruce Co-Ordinating Efforts

• Leaving aside all the other questions Luthor's plan raises, the timing of his staged showdown between Batman and Superman seems terribly convenient. Did he just happen to kidnap Martha and Lois and blackmail Supes into fighting Batman on the same evening Batman had chosen to call Supes out?
  • It all had to do with the ex Wayne employee. Lex gave him the chair with the bomb and arranged for him to testify at the capitol. Lex was somehow involved with the returned? checks with the notes and definitely with the "You Let Your Family Die" newspaper clipping. He's been pushing Bruce the whole time. Why didn't Mercy escort Bruce out of the server room when she caught him? They wanted him to get the kryptonite.
  • OP here: I get that Lex is manipulating Bruce - my issue is with the seemingly fortuitous timing with which the showdown takes place. When Lex kidnapped Lois and Martha in order to draw Supes to him and issue his ultimatum, how did he know that Bruce would be decked out in his power armor and lighting up the Bat-signal at the same time on the same evening? We can assume that some time, several days at least, passed during Bruce's preparation montage, and the film never gives us any indication that Lex has Bruce under direct surveillance, at least not inside the Bat-cave, so it seems like a considerable stretch to ask us to believe that Lex knew to the hour when Bruce was going to put his plans into action.
  • Darkseid did it, I know it doesn't make much sense but Batman gets mystical dreams at the same time Luthor set his plan, if Luthor received info from Darkseid maybe he tried the same thing on Bruce to really push the Superman is evil sentiment and since he is watching both so he can help with coordination.
  • What? Why bring Darkseid into this? If Lex was planning to pit the Bat against Superman, then he may well have been waiting on that building for several days and nights for Batman to do something theatrical in order to publicly challenge Superman. Alternatively, he could have been made aware of the bat signal being turned on while he was elsewhere (it's shown that the bat signal is visible from the Daily Planet, so he could have seen it while in his own tall company building), had a helicopter take him to the roof of that building, and then called his mooks.
  • Once Batman had stolen the Kryptonite, Lex knew it was just a matter of time. He may not have known exactly what Batman was planning when the Batsignal was lit up, but he knew Batman would be there, and that was enough.

White Portuguese

• So, tying into the above headscratcher about Lex's involvement in the sex trafficking, the timeline for Batman's investigation into Lex/White Portuguese makes no sense. Batman's introduced in the middle of tracking a sex trafficking ring, and he knows that someone or something called "White Portuguese" is behind it. That leads him to KGBeast, and eventually to Lex's party, where he gets the data on the metahumans. Except, White Portuguese is a ship Lex charters, but only after Batman's introduction. He's transporting the Kryptonite that's found, but that happens only after Batman is already searching for White Portuguese. The timeline makes no sense.
  • The ship was probably chartered soon after the discovery of the Kryptonite. Lex spent several months trying to get it into the country through official channels before Bruce discovered it was a ship and not a person.
  • Some of that could also be Bruce trying to mislead Alfred to hide his intentions with the Kryptonite.

Where's the evidence?

• So why is Luthor being arrested at the end of the movie, anyway? He didn't kidnap Martha personally, he had KGBeast do it with his lackeys, and he had Lois kidnapped and brought to him by mooks, too. He created Doomsday himself, but the only person with him then was Superman. So, the only people who would know he was involved in any of those things would be Superman, Batman, Lois, and Martha herself. Superman is dead. Batman can't exactly bring Luthor to court with evidence (he'd probably be arrested himself, him being Batman and all) and any evidence he provided, in whatever way he provided it, would be highly suspicious. Martha and Lois are really the only ones who could speak out against Luthor, and it's their word against his. If he could be convicted of any of the earlier crimes (bombing the Capitol Building, transporting Kryptonite, etc) then he would've been earlier. So, how is Lex Luthor being arrested?
  • Pushing Lois Lane off a building, killing her had Superman not saved her. She has evidence that Luthor is linked to the massacre in Africa and he told her he manipulated Batman and Superman into fighting each others.
    • Lois can only connect Luthor to the African terrorists IF her source comes out and confirms. And pushing Lois only pits Lois' versus Lex's words unless she gets a reliable witness.
  • Also once they figure out where the bomb was and who gave the wheelchair Luthor is in trouble.
    • Lex could say he presented the wheelchair bomb-free.
  • If I recall correctly, the Daily Planet article seen during the ending does mention that Luthor was arrested for the bombing of the Congressional hearing.
  • It should be incredibly easy to pin Doomsday on Luthor...he was given special access, he and he alone. The Doomsday is a living Weapons of Mass Destruction, illegal genetic experimentation and terrorism. That alone is enough to put him to pasture. And the deleted scene Communion, has soldiers arresting Luthor while he, conscious and static, and otherwise unmolested is communication and interfacing with an alien being or object. That is "smoking gun".
  • But he was working at behest of the government. They commissioned an anti-Superman weapon - he delivered. It was kinda messy? Well, he was not being asked to neuter some poodle, and besides, the casualties were minimal. It got out of control? Not at all - if it didn't die in the process, Lex had this thing right here that would've instantly put it down. He used it without authorization? Superman attacked him, he had to make a call. Communicating with an alien being? No idea what that thing was, it just activated by itself and he decided to take a closer look. Must've been a decoration or something.
    • The government never commissioned him to make an anti-Superman weapon. Nothing else in the paragraph is supported by the movie, or even at all believable.
    • Uhm, yes they did! That's how he secured the access to the ship and Zod's body! The candy scene? The rest is how he could've rebutted all the other accusations. "even at all believable" - care to elaborate?
    • I would imagine that when the US Government commissioned Lex to make an anti-Superman weapon (or at least gave him access to the ship and Zod's body), what they had in mind was something more along the lines of the Ultimate Nullifier as opposed to Doomsday. I would imagine that either a), in the written version of the agreement (I find it very hard to believe that the US Government would make an agreement of this sort only orally), the US Government had a clause that stated that Luthor would be held liable if the weapon proved to be just as destructive, if not more destructive, than what it was supposed to take out (Superman), or b), they would've let him off the hook if it was a weapon that they had a guarantee that they could control - if Lex had pursued something like an Iron Man-esque suit of armor with Kryptonite weaponry or the aforementioned Nullifier and had been able to kill Supes with it, they would've let Lex off (maybe perhaps having him cover the damages at most, which Lex could afford to do); Doomsday would violate both criteria, given that a), he's just as strong as Superman (if not stronger), and b), unlike Superman, he can't be reasoned with.
  • IIRC Martha couldn't have implicated Luthor since she never witnessed his involvement in the scheme.
  • In the Ultimate Edition, it's shown that the metals in Keefe's wheelchair match the metals used in the bullets from the desert incident. Since Keefe got the wheelchair from Luthor, that connects him to the desert (his company, at least). Besides, now that Superman is dead and Lex has been making monsters, I'm sure Secretary Swanwick is more than motivated to find a way to "declassify" Lex's involvement.
  • He could claim the bullets were stolen from his company, if not that he legitimately sold them to someone, and, as was mentioned above, that he donated the chair to Keefe without the bomb. Also, as stupid as giving the mercs some kind of unique, easily traceable bullets was, why in the Seven Hells would the same metal be used in a wheelchair? Do those things have anything in common?
  • What makes the bullets so "easy to trace"? It took the Secretary of State himself to tell Lois where they came from. And it makes more sense to build the wheelchair from the same metal when you remember it's a BOMB. Lex's special bullets could have other explosive properties, which is why they were being tested by terrorists and mercenaries.
  • "What makes..." Already answered that elsewhere. Let's keep to the point. Ok, suppose you have proven that both the bullets and the wheelchair have been produced by LexCorp from the same alloy. How does that prove that he supplied the bullets directly to the mercenaries or gave Keefe the wheelchair with a bomb? Mind you, the wheelchair wasn't the bomb - only a container/disguise for it, so there's no reason to believe the metal had any special explosive properties (what would those even be).
  • Because Luthor was officially given sole and exclusive access to the site Doomsday came from, he can be traced to the Russian mercenary, and there's a slew of things pointing directly at him.
  • And? He created an anti-superman weapon, exactly as he promised. The Russian mercenary went up in flames, and everything else is circumstantial at best. Bullets? Stolen last week. Wheelchair? Didn't have a bomb when he was presenting it.
    • The mercenary may be dead, but Batman has a slew of evidence linking Lex to him and his operations. If you hired someone to rob a bank, and they die of a heart attack fleeing the scene, that doesn't exonerate you from the conspiracy.
    • Evidence like what?
• The Ultimate Edition answers this question. Extra scenes show Lois building up evidence to prove Lex's conspiracy against Superman. This includes the bullet, lead-lining in the wheelchair and the fact the Wallace Keefe didn't know his wheelchair had a bomb in it. Additionally, an extra scene added by the Ultimate Edition shows that the police investigated the area Doomsday burst out of and found Luthor chest-deep in what appeared to be blood. With Luthor being the only man found on the ship after Doomsday was made while being seen in an overly incriminating position and all the evidence collected by Lois there is enough to indict Luthor.
  • Bullets? Stolen last week or even sold legitemately. Wheelchair? Didn't have a bomb or lead lining when he was presenting it. "Wallace Keefe didn't know" - how are they going to prove that? "chest-deep in what appeared to be blood" - how is that a punishable offence? "Luthor being the only man found on the ship after Doomsday was made" - he was permitted to be there. And I still fail to see the "slew of evidence linking Lex to him and his operations".
  • Investigations don't completely stop and let the guy off just because there's a pithy one-line explanation you can come up with off the top of your head. Cops don't just take Lex's word for it, and the courts would order an investigation.
  • With regard to the guy knowing about the bomb in his wheelchair, the main page states that Lois established that he did grocery shopping before the Capitol meeting, which wouldn’t have made sense for someone to do if they were planning on killing themselves in a suicide bombing.

The Same Song Again

• Batman is constantly built up as one of the smartest people in the DCU. But if that's the case, why did he make so many stupid mistakes while fighting Superman? Remember when Superman said "If I wanted it, you'd already be dead"? Does that sound like a situation Batman would put himself in? Batman's plan was supposed to be well thought-out but look at all the mistakes he made: he put a huge hole in his suit's helmet, he didn't have a way to guard against heat vision, he didn't make the suit strong enough to fight Superman equally, he misused the kryptonite he had, and he didn't study kryptonite and figure out how to make technology that could replicate the radiation that damages kryptonians. So if Batman's so smart, why did he screw up so badly? And it's not like this is unique to the film. No, this series of mistakes happens EVERY SINGLE TIME he fights Superman, whether it's comics, animation, or otherwise. Why does one of the smartest men alive keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?
  • Batman always exploits the if I wanted you dead trope. Covering himself in more protection is an invitation for Superman to cut lose and simply ram him at mach 5 from a dead angle since hey he'll live. Chin open mean Superman can't simply punch him out, heat ray protection will make Supe turn up the heat even higher and if Superman see kryptonite on him he'll just throw a mountain on his head. This is a game of letting your enemy fighting fair because Batman can't win regardless of what he does to even the fight, he needs to trick Superman that not only he can win but win without having to use lethal force from the get go because he will if you force him. This is like daring a cop to shoot you when you are about to wave a bazooka at him.
  • That operates on the extremely weak assumption that Superman will always "hold back" (also, doesn't that reasoning imply that Batman always think of himself as the bad guy in these fights?). So what happens if Superman doesn't hold back, like when he's under the influence of red kryptonite? Are we really saying that Batman, the man that killed DARKSEID, can't find a way to fight Superman equally? Why not just make a suit strong enough to beat him? Why not set up some kind of energy field that scatters heat vision and makes it useless? Why doesn't he research other ways to defeat Superman's super durability, like vibration weapons? But setting all that aside, why didn't he at least find a more intelligent use for kryptonite? At the very least, he could have scraped some off the spear and put it on the suit's fists. Why does Batman never use all the "tactics" (which he's supposed to be legendary for), to legitimately beat Superman for once? And since he's supposed to eventually make files on how to take down the Justice League, why does Superman's file never work against him? Why does Batman get to be super-smart EXCEPT when he's fighting Superman?
  • The "extremely weak assumption" here is that Batman is capable of making a suit that can fight equally with Superman (Superman survives a nuclear explosion that literally hit him in the face), that the resources even exist to make "some kind of energy field" to completely counter his heat vision, or that there are any other ways to defeat Superman's invulnerability.
  • It took Flash bringing death, Superman empowering a miracle machine and a magic bullet to kill Darkseid. Also Batman, greatest tactician of all time, can't beat a clown with guns. If Superman goes all out Batman is dead because he can outrun a human's reaction time and see and hear everything, if he sees Kryptonite dust Superman won't come close to him and will simply throw stuff at a speed Batman can't dodge (A evil Superman once threw Atlantis in the desert because Aquaman was pissing him off, what can a bunch of gadgets do if he decides to steal nukes from bunkers and throw them on Gotham? He could do it before anyone notices too). Why Batman should be able to defeat Superman when he has trouble with his rogue gallery that includes simple thieves and thugs? He is ready to spend billions making weapons that he won't share and plan machinations that some super-villains would be disgusted of all to kill his friends but he won't put a tracker on Joker's cell? So yes he can't win any scenario where meta humans with resources above humanity's reach decides to kill him unless the story is siding with Batman too and shoving the Idiot Ball in the other hero's mouth. That's why Batman is always the bad guy in those fights because if he is the good guy he is dead, he can't turn Gotham into a trap zone before Flash snaps his neck or Green Lantern levels the place. This is the smartest ant against an average person it can't win alone unless the person uses the least amount of effort which he won't if it's clear he is in danger.

Why Luthor invited Wonder Woman?

• Luthor had a picture of her and unlike Clark and Bruce he had no plan for her. So why inviting her at his cocktail, and if he didn't why not having security kicking her out?
  • Two possibilities:
    1. One of Lex's reasons for inviting Clark and Bruce (aside from adding some more fuel to their rivalry) was to get his jollies at talking to them while knowing both their secrets. Maybe he invited Diana with this goal in mind.
    2. She knew Lex had something on her and used her connections to get herself an invitation.
  • It's also possible Lex didn't invite people personally. Instead he had someone working for him (probably Mercy) draw up the list and send the invitations. Probably the only prerequisite was that they be either reporters, like Clark Kent, or members of high society, like Bruce Wayne. Diana could be the latter, too.
  • She came as someone's companion?
  • Maybe she wasn't invited, she just snuck in. Doesn't seem like it'd be much of a problem for Wonder Woman.

Why did KGBEAST aka Anatoli Knyazev have the Romanov family sigil tattooed on his neck?

• Anatoli Knyazev is known as the KGBEAST in the comics and former KGB agents are still a thing, look at the CURRENT leader of Russia, with this background why on Earth does he have a TSARIST tattoo? Did Zack Snyder think "he's Russian that double headed eagle is Russian just put it on his neck."
  • Adaptation wise that would make KGBeast in his 60's if he was ex KGB. It would be like asking why Punisher in not a veteran from 'Nam anymore.
  • WMG here: This version of Knyazev is probably a reactionary who was conscripted under pain of death. He might wear the tsarist symbol as a way of rebelling. Imagine a communist version of Generation X Americans wearing Che Guevara t-shirts and you might have Knyazev.
  • As pointed out above, assuming that Knyazev is about the same age as his actor, he wouldn't be old enough to join KGB when it was dissolved 25 years ago. Even if he did work for Russian special forces, Russia hasn't been communist for just as long, and nowadays the double-headed eagle is associated there with the national coat of arms rather than the Romanov family sigil. So it's more like an American having a one-headed eagle tattoo.

Team Iron man or Team Captain America?

• What would Superman have said to the committee? Would he submit to the government control? Would he keep doing what he thinks is right, rejecting oversight?
  • From what we've seen of Superman's viewpoints, he would probably side with Captain America, but would involve himself heavily in any internal debates just to ensure that superheroes don't need government intervention.
  • In Man of Steel, he told Swanwick that he's here to help but that it has to be on his terms; also, that they'll never control him. My guess, he went to that hearing to tell his side of things, and if the government said "we don't want you getting involved", he'd have said "okay". I'm sure other countries would gladly let him save people from natural disasters without oversight.

Wonder Woman photo

• Which was the point for Wonder Woman trying to get the photo? It doesn't really prove anything, it's just a photo of a woman with some uncommon suit and using a shield and sword. So? Nobody can reason the existence of a hidden race of warrior women just because of it. None of the elements seen in the photo is intrinsically alien to human culture, and there is no evident reason to suspect there's more than meets the eye. In fact, this photo was taken a century ago and nothing happened in that time about it. NOTHING. Why is she afraid that something may happen now? Why not just let the photo stay forgotten?
  • We don't know why she wants the photo. For all we know, she just doesn't have her own copy and wants a keepsake of her time with Steve Trevor.
    • As we see in Wonder Woman, she wanted the original copy because it was, indeed, a very important keepsake; a memento of a defining moment in her life, with friends she'll never see again. It had nothing to do with hiding her identity from anyone.
  • Nobody can reason it except Luthor and Batman who saw her in modern time and the photo. That is the two persons who are ready to kill or beat up meta-humans and that don't give a shit about due process. So yes she doesn't want the photo to be passed to every dangerous psychos with a hatred of super-being.
  • Neither has made their hatred of supers even remotely clear by that moment or stands a snowflakes' chance in hell against her for that matter. Besides, what does stealing the photo would get her? She's stealing it from LexCorp. If Lex wanted to use it somehow, he would've done it a hundred times already.
  • The photo alone doesn't prove anything, but if someone acquired it and started researching it, what other records might have been attached to it?
  • You mean someone like Lex Luthor in whose possession it had already been and who had clearly already been investigating it and other metahumans?

Most Gullible Supercomputer Ever

• How does Luthor's "reasoning" ever work on the ship's AI? "What you're doing is considered an unholy abomination by the people who created me!" "Well, they're all dead now, right? So it must be ok!" "Oh, good point, one unholy abomination, coming up!" Even for a person that argument by itself would've been extremely week and shaky. I'm not saying it's impossible to make such a point, but it would definitely require a deep knowledge of Kryptonian history and culture, their faults that'd brought on their destruction, so that you could argue their believes (and therefore directives) invalid. And even then you'd need a very solid and convincing motivation, pertinent to that person's interests, because after all is said, you're still creating an insane destruction ogre. Lex has none of that, and he's trying to convince an AI! Why does it care? It has its directives, they were never cancelled, and I highly doubt the Kryptonians would've included such a caveat, because why would they? It'd be like a security system that let's you bypass it, if the owner is dead!
  • That wasn't Luthor's reasoning. His reasoning was, "The people who used to be in charge of you are gone. Now I'm in charge of you, so my current orders supersede your previous orders." He's not "convincing" it on logical or moral grounds, he's saying, "I'm your owner now, not them. Do what I say."
  • Also, Kryptonians are jerks. If their planet does not exist anymore, then there is no problem creating an abomination against God, because it will never be a threat for Krypton. Yes, it can be a problem for someone else, but who cares?
  • Also, isn't Lex just plain simply wrong here? There're a lot of Kryptonians alive at that point, namely Zod's people who'd got sucked into the Phantom Zone and Superman.
  • None of whom were on the high council that the ship's computer was talking about.
  • The AI doesn't appear to be self-aware, but still dependent on certain programming features. Luthor had administrator access and the robot was programmed to assist, not make moral choices. Luthor's line about obeying the Kryptonian Council explains what he is up to and his attitude towards it more than anything.
  • Just to clarify the above, Luthor just made a comment. The AI would obey him regardless.

Tricking the AI

• For that matter, how did Lex even managed to access and control it? Yes, he has Zod's fingerprints, and I guess the super-advanced alien tech works like it's a goddamn iPhone, so no voice recognition or DNA testing, but then he introduces himself as a human! Why does the AI buy it? It can accept philosophical arguments like the above, but it doesn't think that a human with a Kryptonian's fingerprints sounds fishy?
  • Well in the comics Jor El research was labelled heresy (Keep in mind this is not modern society saying a geologic report is incorrect, this is modern society calling it blasphemous) and in the DCAU they made a super villain computer named Brainiac, Kryptonians have a weird relation with science. Even the first film shows they don't seem to get the difference between technology and mysticism that well so it's not impossible they are really dumb when it comes to making an A.I.
  • In Man of Steel the security robot attacked Clark until he inserted the key into the slot. The point was made to show Lex examining the console and the key ejecting, with Lex reinserting the key to turn the system back on. It suggests that Lex used the Borrowed Biometric Bypass to get past the initial security and being the one to insert the key gives him essentially administrator access.
  • Again, the AI wasn’t accepting a philosophical argument. It wasn’t accepting any argument, because it wasn’t arguing with Lex. It was merely informing Lex of information it judged to be possibly pertinent to the request he was making, not unlike the way a digital assistant might ask if you really want it to do something that you asked it to do—but it’s not saying no, and it’s still going to what you say if you insist. Lex’s response of “And where is the Council of Krypton?” was his pithy way of insisting, “Yes, I understand the warning. Proceed anyway.”

Most Gullible Military-Government Guy Ever

• Not that humans are any smarter, mind you. Apparently, Lex made three conditions to the MGG: Access to Zod's ship, Zod's body and complete lack of any supervision or accountability while he's tinkering with the two. Even notwithstanding the... candy scene, which alone would warrant immediate cessation of all partnership on the grounds of partner's clear mental instability (and a punch in the face from any normal man), how is it a good idea to deliver the two currently most technologically advanced assets in the world to an unaffiliated businessman and then not keep tabs on him? Even the terrorists from Iron Man were (a bit) smarter than this! They somehow confused a body armor suit for a missile, but at least they watched over Tony!
  • As far as the hand-feeding-candy scene goes, if someone's sufficiently wealthy and powerful, people find it much easier to excuse inappropriate behavior as merely eccentric. Even if it gave him the creeps, it would be regrettably reasonable for someone to assume "this man is a (really weird) workplace bully" or "this man is sexually harassing me" (not wholly unfounded given his personal-space-invading tendencies toward other characters like Lois and Sen. Finch) before "I must cease doing business with this person because he is obviously violently unstable". The rest still stands, though; was someone greasing the wheels there somehow, or what?
  • I'm sure, once Lex's scientists got their hands on Zod's corpse, they shared whatever information they found with the government to avoid any potential conflicts. Lex, of course, did his own experiments on the side. Same with the crashed ship. They didn't just wheel it into Lex's garage. It was still under military observation. They just didn't have video surveillance of the deeper areas of the ship that Lex accessed.
    • As for the candy scene, it's a sign of how much power and influence Lex has that he was able to get away with it. That was the point of the scene, to show that Lex can do whatever the hell he wants, including making a Senator literally eat out of his hand.

Funerals?

• So is it safe to assume that for his Smallville funeral at least, Clark Kent was not embalmed? Is that even possible given his physiology? Because if so, it'd put a considerable hitch in the potential resurrection suggested by the film's last moments. Natural burials are common practice in some religious traditions, and Bruce Wayne's assistance might have expedited the process of getting Clark's remains home, but that would have been a lot for Martha to handle after recently having a huge traumatic experience herself.
  • Well he already need to come back from an impalement so maybe his healing factor is that good. Although no way someone injected formyl in Superman's body and not realized the needle couldn't pierce his skin.
  • Zod's body didn't look very decomposed. It's possible Kryptonians take much longer to decay (if they do at all when they're only mostly dead), which Bruce could have known at that point. If so, there's no need to put in the effort to try to embalm. The cover-up for it all probably wouldn't be much harder than the rest of what needed to be kept secret.

"Granny's Peach Tea"

• How in the heck did Lex get a mason jar of urine past the security guards and onto the desk of the senator? Wouldn't any bags be checked? And for that matter, shouldn't someone have seen him putting said jar on the desk? Did he bribe an intern? Have Mercy impersonate a page? There is no way that it would have been unnoticed by someone.
  • Most likely bribed some people (possibly some of those very guards) to put it there before the hearings began.
  • Probably the same way he got the bomb in.
  • Did he urinate in it? If you're planning to commit a crime, is it really a good idea to leave traces of your DNA? What if the bomb failed to go off? He would have been screwed.
    • I doubt it was his urine. He could have paid a bum to piss in the jar.
    • Also, urine doesn't contain DNA.
    • There is no way an entire jar of urine doesn't contain a single cell
  • The bomb was hidden well enough that if it failed to go off entirely, no one would have known it was there. The jar would have just seemed like a really childish prank, maybe with a vaguely threatening interpretation. Lex acts loony enough that it wouldn't be too surprising. Would have been a little trouble for him, but really minor compared to his other stuff. Now, if the bomb went off but caused a much smaller explosion, it might have been a concern, but considering the size of the blast even with the lead reducing it a bit, he may have taken measures to be sure it would either do enough damage to annihilate the jar or nothing at all.
  • Do we know for sure that was actually urine in the jar? Like, was it confirmed by Word of God or something? Because Lex is definitely kooky enough to try turning the joke on its head by putting actual tea into the jar to begin with. I could see him doing it, at least.

What Exactly Was Wonder Woman's Plan?

• So Wonder Woman wanted to get that picture of herself from a hundred years ago, a copy of which is sitting in Luthor's mainframe. If there hadn't conveniently been someone else also stealing Luthor's data with a device she could snatch herself, how was she going to get the picture off there? Just carry the entire mainframe off?
  • She was being deliberately vague, she was actually investigating what Luthor knew about her. And it was established that she is an antique dealer, suggesting that she was looking for a valuable original picture and not just a digital copy.
  • She may not have had a "plan". The picture was an important keepsake from a key moment in her past. She may have just been casing Lex's home at the party and heard Alfred's voice the same way Clark did. When Bruce goes back to the party, Diana leaves, pretty obviously to see what Bruce was doing downstairs. When she saw that he had installed a leech, she seized the moment.

No Third Option

• Lex may or may not have had a Xanatos Gambit with throwing Lois off of a building or creating Doomsday but Superman's options were not binary; why not use freeze breath to immobilise Lex as opposed to killing him or leaving him alone, even merely out of spite?
  • Superman hasn't demonstrated freeze breath in either movie. And you're assuming Harmless Freezing is in play. Even if it is, doing anything to Lex risks him giving the order to kill his mother somehow.
    • As of Justice League, Superman inexplicably does have freeze-breath. So it's fair to assume he had that here, too (since it's not like he had any time to suddenly learn it between this film and JL).
  • He should have snatched up Lex Luthor with his super-speed and taken him to see Bat-Man, saying "Oh, you want to see us fight? I'll give you a front row seat. Maybe when get there you can explain to him why you want me to kill him." Luthor would both be shocked, unable to call his men for help, and be confronted by Bat-Man.
  • At which point Martha dies because, again, if Superman does anything to Lex, Martha dies.
    • How so? Lex admitted that he had no way of communicating with the people who had Martha at that point.

Bat-Brand a Death sentence?

• So, I'm not going to say I fully understand the psychology of prisoners, but why would having the Bat-Brand be a death sentence in prison. All it says is that you are someone Batman especially disapproves of. Why would prisoners accept Batman's mark as a sentence, when he's just a symbol of police brutality?
  • The news report states that the brand was used on a sex slave trafficker and a pedophile I think. Both of these people are not welcomed in prison. It's an Even Evil Has Standards thing. Still it does raise more questions. Like why is the news so happy to state something so horrific on air, why the authorities aren't making efforts to keep something like that under wraps (yeah Gotham I know) or why the Joker hasn't earned one yet. Chalk it up to another attempt at being Darker and Edgier.
    • The branding is only a recent thing. He probably hasn't faced the Joker in the time since he started doing it.
  • Then why does a brand matter? Every new inmate's charge gets instantly known in any prison, that's just how things work there. And yes, "normal" criminals don't like sex slave traffickers and pedophiles, that's nothing new either.
  • The Joker was probably incarcerated before Batman's branding phase started. Either that or he's just Crazy Is Cool.
  • It's also possible that the Joker was branded at some point, but he covered it with one of his smiley tattoos as a way of taunting Batman even further.
  • Even if the Joker were branded, he's hardly easy to kill, even stuck in prison. There was a comic (I don't think the instance is hard to find on the Internet) where someone does try to kill, or at least hurt, the Joker, and he proceeded to give the guy an extremely gruesome beatdown. If he hasn't been branded, a possible explanation could be that Batman is careful to only reserve the brand for sex traffickers and pedophiles, as stated above, and the Joker, while an insanely evil guy, has (yet) to dabble in those areas. Not the best explanation but the best I can think of.
  • Why would the Joker be Bat-Branded? In the extended edition, it is pretty clearly stated that Batman has just started doing this. The paper is the first time Alfred has seen it, and when the cops find the trafficker branded, they are shocked, clearly having never seen or heard of Batman branding people before.
  • Do you want to share a cell with the guy on Batman's shit list? Any support could be responded by Batman breaking in the prison to mark you for helping him. Zero protection in a place where Joker's henchmen can tax the skinheads is a death sentence.
  • First, if Batman had that kind of omniscience and power, there'd be no crime in Gotham. Second, we learn that the entire "death sentence" gig was just another manipulation by Lex to further antagonize Clark against Bruce. Except that in this interpretation it sounds weak and contrived. "You're making violent criminals afraid of helping other violent criminals thus tangentially making those second violent criminals more prone to be murdered by yet other violent criminals! You Monster!!" Also, I don't see why Lex would even bother. In comparison to Bruce straight up murdering dozens of people, that's small fry. All it could possibly lead to was Clark, Bruce and the authorities realizing something was fishy.
  • Could be a mistake. Snyder may not realize that criminals in prison do know each other's crime almost automatically, and that child molesters and sex traffickers are supposed to get solitary anyways. In terms of Batman straight-up murdering people, the Bat Brand could be a leftover from a previous script that wasn't thought through. In the Ultimate Edition, there's a scene in which a Gothamite says Batman is playing judge, jury, and executioner, but when he says executioner, he only points to the branding, so Batman either doesn't kill anyone regardless of what we see, or for some reason no one cares.
  • In the Ultimate Edition, the criminal that Batman brands is revealed to have been killed by a prisoner bought off by Lex's henchman. It was part of his ploy to provoke Superman into thinking of Batman as a "judge, jury, and executioner". For all we know, Lex is behind the killing of every branded prisoner. For that matter, since the criminal worked for Knyazev, it's entirely possible the criminal was recruited into the sex trafficking trade specifically to set him up for a branding.
  • But, he's not being an executioner. If he was, he'd just killed the criminals instead of passing them to the police. What is the implication here, that Batman controls the prisons and uses criminals as his executioners? That's a distinctly unbatmanny thing to do.
  • That he literally controls them and tells them what to do? Obviously not. The implication is that Batman knows that other prisoners will kill ones he's branded, and brands them anyway. If you get kicked into a shark pit and eaten, the person doing the kicking didn't "control" the sharks, but is still deliberately causing your death by kicking you into a place he knows you'll be eaten.
  • While inmates can find out fairly quickly who is and isn't a pedophile, it might take a few days. Lots of prison populations give new inmates the good faith to procure their paper work. But the brand would make someone a target from the second they arrived. That also only accounts for criminals convicted of sex crimes involving a minor, while the brand could potentially announce that they did it even if there was no evidence, which in turn means that Batman could go on to brand anyone he especially disliked, and given how cruel he had become by the start of the movie, he very well might have if he kept it up.
• Now that I think of it, if Bruce didn't intend the brand to be a death sentence, then what was even its purpose, other than revealing to everyone what a psycho he is? To make everyone aware he captured that particular criminal? I suspect that would also be an open secret in any prison, but in any case, why? Hell, it could've just as easily become a mark of distinction, as in, look everybody, the Dark Knight himself considered me worthy of going after personally. Or is it to remind the criminals that he exists, so they'd be afraid of him? To make them think of their crimes?
  • The Bat himself spells out what the brand means when he visits Lex in jail. "Whatever you do, wherever you go, I will be watching you." It's probably what he says every time he brands someone.
    • If that's supposed to be the case, wouldn't it make more sense to only use it on villains who Bat knows can't go to jail?

What Measure is a Martha?

• Batman snaps out of his Superman-killing obsession, when he learns that Supes has a mother(-figure), so he must be ok (I'm simplifying, but essentially so). Bruce's main argument wasn't that Superman had already been a villain (even he wasn't so blind), but that he might become one. "He says it himself: Even if there's a 1% possibility that he might turn on us, we must treat it as a certainty!" and "No-one stays a hero forever". This is an extremely cynical outlook, sure, but also kind of undeniable. No-one can vouch that Supes will never go bad. Hell, no one can vouch that anyone will never go bad. It's entirely a matter of trust. With humans we allow it just to have a society and also because no single human (as far as we know) can be a planetary, or even a national, threat. Obviously there was a lot more to the Third Reich and WWII than Hitler personally. But Supes is a One-Man Army Person of Mass Destruction. He can be a planetary threat. They've already seen such a thing happen with Zod.
  So if Batman voted "no trust", if when given the "kill Hitler as a baby" dilemma he emphatically chose "kill", then what does it matter in the slightest, what good things he knows or doesn't know about Superman? Ok, he has loved ones, so what? So did many criminals, including some of Bat's own rogue gallery, didn't stop them. What happens if Bats fails to save Martha? Or if she dies from a mugging next week? When he decided that Supes must die, he couldn't have known what exactly would trigger the turn, but he sentenced him regardless, meaning that he dismissed all redeeming qualities Supes could've currently had. In fact, the "still good" Superman is the only Superman it'd be possible to kill - only he would allow to get close to him, he hasn't yet surrounded himself with guards, he hasn't yet preemptively eliminated all possible opposition, starting with Batman himself - Batman has to realize he's very unlikely to get another shot. So what makes him change not just his immediate view of Supes, but his outlook as well? What suddenly gives him hope?
  • Batman could have been thinking about the Injustice-style nightmare he had where Superman murdered him for "taking her from me". If the woman he was alluding to was his mother, then Batman would be avoiding a whole lot of horrors by working with Superman rather than against him. Sure he had Superman in a checkmate, but there's no guarantee that Batman could take on the next super-powered threat by himself (he did have to wait 18 months for something as convenient as kryptonite to be discovered).
  • Uhm, he wasn't "working against him" - he was about to kill him. That should pretty much take care of all the horrors. And he was going to kill him before he learned of Martha, so clearly the prospect of facing the next super-powered threat by himself didn't deter him either, stupid as it is.
  • Batman had been spending the entire movie trying to convince himself that Superman needed to die simply because he was a potential threat. His logic was that Superman was not human and did not have anything holding him back from being a tyrannical god on Earth. Discovering he had a human mother, who shares a name with his own, and that she was in trouble made him realize there were things that made Superman relate to humanity. His entire reasoning for killing Superman started crumbling apart.
  • That logic is not logical at all. If nothing held Superman from becoming a tyrannical god on Earth, don't you think he would've, you know, become a tyrannical god on Earth? He obviously hasn't. Instead he was saving people left and right, which Batman couldn't possibly not know, so there clearly was something that made Superman relate to humanity. And yet Bruce sentenced him to death nevertheless. "His entire reasoning for killing Superman started crumbling apart." - HOW? His reasoning was that a being so powerful and unchecked cannot be allowed to live period, because once he eventually (and, in Bruce's mind, inevitably) turns, there'll be no stopping him. How is having a mother (whom, I'd like to reiterate, he can lose at any moment) prevents that?
  • You know who else had a human mother? Most, if not EVERY, human threat Batman has faced in his 20 year career. How does Superman having a human mom change the potential threat Batman believed him to be?
  • I don't imagine many of Batman's foes would be begging him to take care of their loved ones upon being beaten.
  • No, because they're already past their Face–Heel Turn, and because Batman doesn't kill, and because no one takes super villains' loved ones hostage to force them fight superheroes, so it has nothing to do with anything.
  • It's not just "having a human mother." It's that Batman saw Superman as a super powerful alien, and not as a human at all. Superman not only having a human mother, but being primarily motivated in this fight by trying to save said human mother — i.e., the exact thing Batman has been wishing he could have done since he was eight — that shocks Batman out of his xenophobic murder rage and makes him realize that he's not fighting an inhuman alien, but someone very much like himself.
  • But Superman's been saving people for years, he went against his own kin to save people, all that somehow didn't convince Bruce, and now Supe's is jumping through hoops for a villain and is willing to murder a man, and that gets Bruce so misty-eyed, that he instantly dismisses his conviction that Supe's will eventually turn bad?
  • Who said "instantly"? For all you know, Bruce is thinking (but doesn't have time to debate the point given the urgency of the remainder of the film) "Ok, I'm moved that you love your mother and that we need to save her, I'll help with that, then we'll confront Luthor and make him account for his crimes, but then I want to sit down with you and have a proper conversation about your moral and ethics as a superpowered Physical God and how you can vouch for the idea that you'll always be a good person, and then and only then will I fully trust you". But then when Superman sacrifices himself, that obviates the need for such a conversation, because what more noble a thing could Clark have done?
• Hell, why does Bruce even believe him? What, that "super powerful inhuman alien" couldn't have lied, just to trigger that very reaction?
  • Lois was there and not only vouched for him, but was the one to explain who Martha is. So not only does Superman have a mother, he has a woman who loves him. It's entirely about how Batman had to dehumanize Superman in order to convince himself to do a pre-meditated murder, and what snaps him out was all these elements that humanize him. Superman asking him to save Martha is just the catalyst.
  • *Sigh* Yes, because having a beloved mother and a lover is definitely not something even the worst villains do, and there's no way said lover would lie to uphold her boyfriend's story and save his life. If all the strangers Clark saved mean nothing and didn't prevent dehumanizing him, how can a couple of personal affections, which he doesn't even know are genuine, turn it all around and convince Bruce that not only he's completely wrong about what Clark is, but also about what he might become?
  • Batman wasn't around to personally witness Superman saving all those people, and more importantly it was less about him becoming convinced he was wrong about Clark and more about seeing what he himself has become. Deep inside he always knew Superman was a good guy but believed he was doing what he has to do, as well as had a lot of pent-up anger to went. Hearing Martha's name triggered his memories about his parents' death, and when Lois appeared, Bruce got hit with the realization he was about to murder an innocent man and let someone's mother die, i.e. he essentially was in the role of the criminal who murdered his parents. After that Batman couldn't go through with it.
  • Yes. He believed he was doing what he has to do. He knew he was going to kill an innocent and heroic man (who cares if he wasn't there personally? No way he didn't know about those people Clark saved). Hitler in the crib, remember? Learning about Martha doesn't change that. And what is this about letting his mother die? You mean that they're going to kill her because Clark failed to kill him? Well, he fails anyway, so if her captors are watching them, then she's already dead, and if they aren't, then they are idiots, so it should be easy to rescue her, especially since Lex obviously has only one henchman who never changes his mobile phone (otherwise Bats' rescue plan is stupid).
  • It's been mentioned in the discussion that this Batman is driven by emotions rather than logic. He has gone through a lot of shit in his life and he is full of anger. Superman is just the biggest target for his rage but not the only one by any means. He also takes it out on the criminals he fights. If Batman was able to kill in cold blood, he could make a kryptonite bullet and snipe Superman while he was taking a kitten off the tree, but he didn't. Instead he made a point of challenging Superman, giving him an actual chance to win. Why? Because whenever Batman kills someone in the movie, he is high on adrenaline and anger, and people he kills are usually in the process of trying to kill him (or someone else). He needs to fight Superman first, to get enraged into kill mode. When he learns that Clark has a mom who is in danger yadda-yadda, he feels sympathy for him and along with the fact he has already defeated him, Batman just isn't feeling enough hate to do the deed.
  • Yes, it's mentioned, but not proven. Bruce has a logical reason for going after Clark. A ruthless, cold, calculating, cynical reason. He states it himself. He knows that Clark is a hero. Not a threat, not an "alien beast", not "inhuman" - a hero. Alfred says it, and he doesn't deny it. Superman is known for everything from saving people to preventing earthquakes. Bruce also challenges Clark to a fight, and yet doesn't expect a building thrown onto his head or a heat beam to the back of the head from a mile away. So once again and hopefully for the last time: yes, Batman is knowingly planning to murder a great hero and a decent man. And he does it because he doesn't believe that Superman will remain a hero. That's what he says. He believes that sooner or later Superman will decide to take over, and then it will be too late, because there will be no challenge - Supes will simply kill him. In Bruce's mind the fate of the world is at stake, and there's no way of saving it other than killing that good man, which he's absolutely prepared to do.
  • Killing during the fight and planned murder aren't exactly the same, right? And that going through with killing that good man is not exactly easy for Batman even if he wholly believes it necessary for the greater good? Anyway, there actually is a logical reason for him to back off. During Knightmare scene he had the vision of the future and no it wasn't just a dream, since it had parademons in it, whose existence Bruce wasn't aware of. In said vision Superman blames him for the death of some woman close to him - again not something Bruce would expect at that point. When Clark tells Batman Martha's death will be on him, he realizes that she is that woman and his attempts to prevent Superman from going evil by killing him are turning into Self-Fulfilling Prophecy... after he gets over memories about his mom that is. The end confirms it, showing that impalement is not enough to kill Superman for good.
  • "turning into self-fulfilling prophecy" How? He'd be dead! Bruce couldn't have known that Clark can come back from the dead, hell, there's no reason to think he would come back if stabbed with Kryptonite instead of some stupid bone, especially if his body is destroyed afterwards, which Bruce would've most certainly done.
  • "which Bruce would've most certainly done" - how exactly? Make a kryptonite chainsaw? And while yes, Bruce couldn't have known that, the fact Superman was alive in his vision indicates that either he survived or someone (say, the leader of parademons) resurrected him. Batman could consider such scenario and Doomsday's existence shows it's indeed possible.
  • Yes, a saw. Or use the spear itself. Do we really need to go into the gruesome details? "the fact Superman was alive in his vision indicates that either he survived" - no, it indicates that in that future Batman didn't kill Supes. Which is why he's trying to obtain Kryptonite there. To finally kill Supes. Which he wouldn't have bothered with if he knew that it doesn't work. And which is why the vision adds to his determination to kill Supes asap. Because if he doesn't, then Supes will break bad, enslave the world and it'll be too late to kill him, what's with his personal army. "killing during the fight and planned murder aren't exactly the same" - of course, not. But Bruce wasn't going to kill him during a fight - he was going to execute him, beaten and helpless. He was ready to go through with it. You can't say "Oh, his heart wasn't really into it, so he just needed a little push to back off", when his heart so was into it.

Martha's captors and Batman

• When Bruce breaks into the warehouse where Martha is being held, he wastes quite a bit of time, dispatching the guards manually. Meanwhile there are several people in the room with her, all armed. Why aren't they killing her and bailing? It should be clear to them that Supes' broken the deal with Lex, found them and will very soon break in and twist them all into pretzels, so what are they waiting for?
• For that matter, what the hell was Bruce thinking? Why WAS he wasting time punching mooks in another room, when there were armed people with Martha, who wold, of course, immediately kill her and bail? He didn't have any area effect crowd control weapons, like sleeping gas or sonic/flash-bang grenades?
• Also, how does he find them? I guess there was something about the phone he traced, but I must be missing the details.
  • At the beginning of the film it was shown that if bad guys know Superman is coming they are more likely to kill everyone and bail. They were also given the order to kill Martha when the hour is up or if Superman shows up, but were not told to do the same if Batman shows up. Batman knew this, and like a lot of dumb crooks they thought they could take on Batman. Going straight for Martha would leave him tactically at a disadvantage because of sheer numbers, and was only able to pull off the final rescue because he had taken out everyone else. Batman had also been tracking Anatoli via cloning his phone, and made the assumption that he was Lex's primary criminal ally who would be in charge of kidnapping Martha.
  • "Going straight for Martha would leave him tactically at a disadvantage" What disadvantage? Burst through the window, where the dumbasses conveniently placed her, (add smoke/sonic distractions to taste) grab her, yank her away. How is that more dangerous than beating them all one by one?
  • "Batman knew this"? How? He didn't listen to the conversation between Superman and Lex, and the brevity of the moment didn't give Superman time for him to give Batman a detailed explanation.
  • But they didn't know it was Batman, and besides, why would they care? If it's not Supes, then it's someone he asked to do it - either way he broke Lex's order. A knee-jerk reaction would've been to kill Martha and leg it. It's not like Lex actually needed her alive to keep motivating Clark.
  • They had a job and were told not to vary from it. Or maybe it was Villainous Valor. What do you expect? As Burn Notice put it, having a hostage is like having a gun with one bullet, you don't get a second shot. Lex may have had another plan in mind had Superman killed Batman like he asked, and needs Martha to still be alive.
  • Yes, they did. Their job was to kill Martha should Clark come to her rescue. Someone (they don't know who) has come to her rescue. Are you honesty telling me they were waiting to see if it was Clark or not, and that Lex bothered to specify that they're only to kill her if it's actually Clark, otherwise they're to mill around like tools and await their demise? "having a hostage is like having a gun with one bullet", yes, but as A Song of Ice and Fire put it, threats are only useful if you're prepared to go through with them. "Lex may have had another plan" - indeed he had. It was called "Doomsday". Martha didn't feature in it.
  • It actually makes sense they would prefer to not kill Martha if Superman actually did show up. The is no guarantee they would be able to escape from him, especially since there is no Lois around for him to be distracted by. Imagine Superman finding out you just killed his mom. Are you really so sure he won't literally tear you apart? These aren't crazy cultists, they are criminals who value their lives more than they care about following orders.
  • That's still more guarantee than if they stay there and wait for him to burst in.
  • The room Martha is held in has only one way out - and Batman is already on the other side of the door. Moreover, they don't know who it is or how many opponents they'd have to deal with. For all they know, the entire building can be already surrounded. And making a run for it is hardly a safe option, given that there are shots and explosions. They decided to wait till either the guards deal with the threat or they can start negotiations, with a living hostage.
  • Whom the Russian guy stood several feet away from... instead of grabbing her and using her as a human shield with a gun to her head... like every hostage taker ever in the history of hostage-taking would do... why exactly? "The room Martha is held in has only one way out" - that's dumb.
    • "every hostage taker ever" kind of goes out the window when the hostage taker in question has a flame thrower as a weapon.
  • And as long as we're on the subject, how did Batman/Alfred even know that Martha was held captive by the Russian? Alfred gives a convenient "Oh, I traced the Russian's phone for you," but as far as they knew, Martha could have been held captive by some other Luthor mook.
    • You're right, she could have been somewhere else. But, the Russian's phone was their best lead, so of course they followed it.
  • In fact she should've been held by someone else. Batman's attack on the Kryptonite shipment proves that Anatoly's likely compromised. Lex should've replaced him right then - don't tell me he only had one reliable goon, just don't.
    • Ya know, we're all used to Lex being the head of a huge criminal empire...in the comics. In the movie, he's a corrupt businessman with a lot of influence on the world stage, but that doesn't mean the gangs all do his work. Maybe Knyazev really IS the "one reliable goon" he has who can kidnap a superhero's mother and keep an eye on her.
  • People appear to be forgetting that the Batwing had spotted and tracked all occupants from the get go with thermal vision. It'd be clear just watching the video that the woman tied up with the flamethrower to her face was probably their lady, capped off by the fact that their man Anatoly was the one holding it. We're also forgetting that the Batwing destroyed three pickups with heavy machine guns on the way in, and loitered while controlled by Alfred when Batman was inside. The crooks standing and fighting is a realistic resolution to the situation; their anti-aircraft weapons were destroyed, fleeing on foot would've been a suicide run.

Which Robin?

• So Robin's dead in the movie right, which Robin are we talking about, Grayson? Todd? Drake? Damian's out of the question since Bruce never mentions fathering anyone at all.
  • The implication seems to be that it's Jason, since he is the only Robin Joker ever killed in the comics and in The Dark Knight Returns, which this movie is a partial adaptation of, it was his death that led to Bruce's retirement and darker attitude. We'll have to wait for future movies for the confirmation though.
  • It's Jason Todd. WB is apparently setting up a Red Hood storyline for Batman's solo outing.
  • According to Snyder himself, it was Dick Grayson. However, seeing as how Snyder is no longer involved with the DCEU, as well as the fact that WB has a Nightwing movie in the works^note and there's only been 1 Nightwing, Dick Grayson, we can assume that said statement by Snyder has been rendered Canon Discontinuity, so it's still Jason Todd.
  • Snyder is not "no longer involved with the DCEU. He executive produced Aquaman and co-wrote Wonder Woman. Fans are actively pushing alongside him to have WB release his original cut of Justice League, and this is now happening as a project. He may even come back to direct a future film, such as the Man of Steel sequel. Given this, it's not possible to make such an assumption.

Going Loo-oo-oony!

• So at the end of the movie, Lex is behind bars, raving like a madman, with some (implied) level of knowing about Darkseid. Did simply knowing about Darkseid drive him nuts, or was he infected with The Anti-Life Equation? Or did making contact with the New Gods (see "Communion" deleted scene) make him go loony?
  • Many would go loony if they were powerful and respected members of the community one day and the next despised jailbirds with no money and hair.
  • He was already pretty twitchy and impulsive (not to mention murderously obsessive.) It's just as likely, if you don't it interpret as already apparent, that he's always been extremely unhinged and the knowledge of Darkseid is just something he's gotten overexcited about.

Why was he Crying?

• Inside the Kryptonian ship, when Lex Luthor give Zod's body to the computer with his DNA, why does he cry and reference Icarus? He never met Zod, and if they'd ever met, Zod would've stomped him like an insignificant bug. Yet he's crying like he's burying the body of his child. It makes no sense.
  • Probably from his self-inflicted cut.
  • Speaking of which, what the hell was up with the cut? Lex does knows that needles and tubes exist, right? Was he doing science (even if mad) or literally summoning Satan there?
  • He's krazy with a K.
  • Also, if all Luthor cared about was unleashing Doomsday, he wouldn't have used his own blood in the first place; he's rich enough that he could've bought out a blood bank if he needed to. It was likely because it was personal to him, and he figured if he was going to use his own blood, he might as well cut himself so he'd have some of the pain (since he wants others to suffer with him).

"I thought she was with you."

• Look, I get it from a marketing perspective - it's a funny line for a trailer - but why does Batman express to Superman that he thought Wonder Woman was linked to him? Was there even a moment where Clark Kent and Diana Prince even glanced at each other, let alone spoke? The only link between the two seems to be "apparent superpowers" (and even then, "aging gracefully since the World Wars" doesn't automatically mean "combat proficiency") and that Lex had surveillance on both people, alongside other would-be Justice League members. Speaking of... hey, uh, maybe "sending said footage to the woman now fighting before you" gives you a stronger link to her? Batman's question reeks of logical leaps and complete lack of self-awareness.
  • I believe he was referring to the fact that he did not invite her to come help with Doomsday so Superman must have. Superman didn't invite her so he thought Bruce did. They were both wrong because she came of her own accord.
• Yes. Superpowers would be a logical link if Bats DIDN'T see other metahumans except her ("Oh, so she's also an alien, just arrived a hundred years ago! I knew it!"), since WW and Supes are fairly close in terms of base powers (flight/strength/durability), and the only truly different item, her lasso, being used only in the last part of the fight. However he saw Flash and especially Cyborg being metahumans (as in, not aliens and with completely different power set), so 'all supers are of alien origin' is indeed weaksauce explanation.
  • Well, it's not just superpowers — Wonder Woman has comparable superpowers to Superman and she wears a costume in similar colors to him (dark red and blue) and her general phenotype is pretty close to Clark's, with the dark hair and everything. It's still a pretty reasonable conclusion that the Flying Brick with dark hair and a dark blue and red costume is related to the other Flying Brick with dark hair and a blue and red costume.
  • She has superpowers and has arrived at just the right moment - even though Bruce already knew about her, each side would first assume that the other asked her for help, because quite frankly, there's no-one in the area, so what are the chances that a superhuman would just decide to pop in? They'd probably have the same reaction if it was the Flash rather than Wonder Woman who saved Bruce.
  • Batman could also be thinking there was some unified metahuman community he was unaware of.

Second destruction of Metropolis

• After Superman defeats Zod in Man of Steel, half of Metropolis blames him for the resulting devastation of the city and Supes ends up being mistrusted and hated. In Batman v Superman, Superman and Co. fight Doomsday created thanks to Kryptonian technology, and along the way they all create havoc destroying and burning down Metropolis's buildings once again, with people dying in the helicopters and what not. But this time they bury Superman a hero with deep showings of respect and gratitude. Apart from Superman dying, what's the freaking difference between the devastation in Man of Steel and the one in Batman Vs Superman to warrant such opposite reactions for similar collateral damage?
  • Perhaps because this time, they have the real villain around to shove blame onto, and it's pretty clear whose fault it is. Zod is dead when the dust sets, and it could be argued that it was Supes' presence on Earth that brought Zod there. On contrary, Lex Luthor is alive and will stand trial, giving the public a better closure.
  • So what? If these people were indeed so shallow, stupid, hateful and stupid as was demonstrated by Mr. Snyder, then what exactly stopped them from going the Batman's crowd way and wind up the "he's creating those monsters" song? It would even be true, from a certain point of view, - Lex did create Doomsday because Superman. Yes, it's totally unfair to actually blame Supes for it, but no more unfair than blaming him for some madman he had no idea about and had no way to prevent coming.
  • Who says the people hated Superman after Man of Steel? Sure, Bruce and Lex hate him, but as Clark said, "most of the world doesn't share [their] opinion". Superman's really become a hero in the years since, even if Lex's smear campaign was starting to take hold. And, as the above poster said, now they have Lex to hate.

Superman saving Lois

• So the government don't find it suspicious that Superman cares so much about this one female reporter? Not only that, but her boyfriend is the same height and build as Superman. They don't spy on her to find out more about this boyfriend?
  • Don't break someone civil liberties, especially when her boyfriend can destroy the whole planet.
  • Who says the government doesn't know who he is? Personally, I suspect Swanwick knows, given how many clues Clark dropped in Man of Steel. "I've been here for 33 years, grew up in Kansas" and so forth. It would also explain how they were able to get Clark's body back to his mother when they're supposed to be burying Superman in DC.

What happened to the two prison guards?

• Did Batman knocked them out? They mysteriously vanished. I don't see their bodies lying anywhere on the ground.
  • Suppose you're a prison guard, you know all about Batman, the lights go out, and from out of the darkness a rather ominous voice suggests that now might be a good time for a coffee break.

Okay for Batman to cause destruction of property and murder?

• Batman is mad at Superman for getting people killed and causing property damage, but he is doing the same thing in this movie, maybe not to the extreme as Clark. You could argue they were bad guys, but killing is killing.
  • Except Superman is capable of death and destruction on a scale orders of magnitude higher than anything Batman is capable of, and he could burn the earth to cinders if he ever felt so inclined.
  • Another way to look at it is that while Supes can afford to take it easy, Batman's enemies can easily kill him if he holds back. Additionally, this Batman has no hard feelings when nasty things happens to people he's fighting or inanimate objects. Superman takes full responsibility for the bodycounts and price tags out of moral obligation, but Bruce really just doesn't care about mercenaries maimed/killed and property destroyed by a persona that's only real when it's useful. This makes it even more of an unequal comparison when Batman causes less death and destruction, even though he cares less about collateral damage.
    • Batman doesn't kill out of self-defense in this movie, otherwise he'd have to have been killing his whole career, and he wouldn't use the Bat-Brands. He kills because he deems the people he's fighting as deserving of it, and it hypocritical for someone who does that to want to kill someone just for the possibility that they might deem the world unfit to govern itself? Of course, but Batman's character arc in this movie is about stopping himself from becoming the very villain he set out to fight, and at least they way he sees it, he couldn't remake the world in his image if he tried, but Superman can.
  • Of course Batman's the bad guy. That's the point of the movie. He tells Alfred at the beginning, "we've always been criminals, nothing's changed". His attitude now is, "I've always broken the law, done the wrong thing to serve a greater good. Well, now I'm going to break my own code to serve a greater good." The movie's trying to show us a Batman who abandons what he believes in order to "do the right thing". It's only when Superman begs him to "save Martha" that Batman realizes just how far he's fallen; that he's reminded of what it means to be a hero.

The classified bullet

• Why did the black military-government guy refuse to come forward about the bullet being produced by LexCorp? Why does he say it's classified? Those were not the army, just some mercenaries. The USA government didn't have anything to do with the massacre. Even if he doesn't want the publicity for whatever reason, why isn't the government facing Lex about it privately? He's, for a second, currently tinkering with the most advanced technology on the planet, and they've just learned that he could be connected to mass murder, and they're not concerned?
  • The Ultimate Edition clarifies that the CIA was illegally involved in the conflict while claiming neutrality. It could very well be that Lois poking her head into those details are what revealed Lex Corp's connection in the first place. To bring that information forward is a breach of security and political suicide.
  • How was it illegal if CIA was acting in accord with the country's government against the rebels? And regardless, why didn't they confront Luthor about it?
    • If the USA is supposed to be neutral in a conflict — say, if it has a treaty with another nation that's supporting the rebels — then it being involved would be a breach of that neutrality.
    • A. And yet, they were going to drone-strike that village before Clark stopped the missile. B. How does a reporter uncovering Luthor's involvement with terrorists implicate CIA or USA in any way? C. Regardless, why didn't they confront Luthor about it?
    • Stopped what missile? Nobody ever mentions a missile.
    • The one from the so much improved, Ultimate^note Now with ALL the bullshift included for sure Edition.
    • A) They weren't drone-striking a village; they were targeting a terrorist's headquarters. As hidden as it was, they thought they could get away with it. B) Lois can only prove it's Luthor's metal if Swanwick verifies it, and he can only do that if he verifies the sources that connected the mercenaries to Luthor, i.e. the CIA. C) Why don't they confront Luthor? Because the military isn't above letting Luthor let mercenaries test his new bullets in the desert before buying them for the army. As Jenet told Lois, "this kind of thing still shocks you?"
    • You mean test his new bullets by staging a massacre that he frames Superman for, thus urging the government to come to him for an anti-Superman weapon and grant him access to the most valuable things on the planet? Nope, nothing suspicious here. You know, it would've been like in the Star Wars prequels, except if people knew Palpatine was the Sith Lord manipulating them, but kept going along with it anyway. Wouldn't that've been stupid?
    • Also, how exactly does acknowledging the bullets and confronting Lex about it exposes the CIA's involvement in the conflict? A reporter went in to interview the rebel leader, Lex used her to frame Supes, Supes saved her, she found the bullet, Lex is busted. Seems pretty straightforward. The only one who can expose them was Lois, and I think she'd be happy to cooperate to bring down Lex and clear Clark's name.
    • Incidentally, how can a drone strike against the terrorist headquarters that is in the village not implicate USA? How were they expecting to "get away with it"? And if they were so anal about hiding their involvement, don't you think they would be reluctant to show their mugs in the village?
    • Also-also, what are "Lois poking her head into those details" and "sources that connected the mercenaries to Luthor, i.e. the CIA" supposed to mean? The exact sum of what Lois did was find the bullet and ask the BMG guy to check it, and the only thing that connected mercenaries to Luthor was the bullet. Again, where do the CIA come into this and how can any of this make them look bad?

Superman lets Doomsday happen

• When Superman breaks into the ship, there's a whole minute left until Doomsday's "birth", with the helpful computer voice counting down the time "to animation". Why does he just stand there, letting Lex ramble about? Why isn't he grabbing the bastard, asking "what animation it's talking about" and, after failing to receive a satisfactory answer, starting to wreck the equipment? He could've compacted that entire ship into a small cube and thrown it into the Sun in that time!
  • Because he has no idea what it's doing and doesn't have the benefit of your comic book knowledge and hindsight about the movie. Remember: The characters do not have all the knowledge you do.
  • Right. The ship is shooting lightning all over the place, and it's Lex Luthor who's in charge. Of course he's making Kryptonian herbal tea there. And no, I didn't mean he should instantly know what it does — hence why the addition of "grabbing the bastard and asking about what it's doing"? But I'm sorry, apparently that would've count as abusing his power and proving Luthor right about... whatever the hell his point was.
    • It's not really a smart idea to start throwing punches or wrecking shit if you don't know exactly what it is, especially when it comes to Lex's schemes. For all Clark knew, it was some horrible Kryptonite bomb that would explode and kill everyone if he so much as touched it.
    • *Sigh* Hence why the addition of "grabbing the bastard and asking about what's going on". Besides, why would a horrible Kryptonite bomb have a countdown "to animation"?
    • Clark tried physically threatening Lex before, with his heat vision on the roof, but Lex said that if Clark killed him, Martha would die. So this time, Clark keeps his temper and doesn't threaten Lex with bodily harm because 1) Lex wasn't intimidated the first time, so why would he be scared the second time? (He'd probably just laugh.) And 2) even though Martha is safe by now, Clark still doesn't know all of Lex's plan and doesn't want to be blindsided again. As for why he didn't start destroying Doomsday: Clark has spent the entire last movie and much of this one acting impulsively, just flying in and punching things, and generally underestimating how much Kryptonite weakens him, and it's nearly gotten him killed. So when he's confronted with Lex's mysterious, possibly Kryptonite-based weapon, he decides to wait and be sure. Was it the best choice this time? Maybe not, but it isn't simply a case of him holding the Idiot Ball; he's genuinely trying to learn from his mistakes.

Adding his blood to the mix

• Why did Lex add his own blood to the Zod/Doomsday mix? To be completely frank, I don't see how Lex could have contributed anything genetically advantageous to Doomsday. As far as I can see it just made the creature dumber than Zod by a long shot.
  • Apparently it was supposed to give him control over DD, because he wanted it to.
  • Is this a play on his daddy issues or something? Because anyone with a teenage child can tell you having your genes inside someone else sure as hell doesn't mean you control them.
  • Maybe it was so that Superman would in a way die at Lex's own hand? Alternately Lex didn't want to resurrect Zod as he was, since a) Superman killed him once already and b) it would be more trouble than it's worth.
  • Again, Luthor is crazy by now.
  • Lex may have hoped it would help Doomsday imprint on him. He may not have expected it to give him control over Doomsday, but it was worth a shot. Plus, Lex is all about symbolism. "Blood of my blood", and all that.
    • Imprinting has nothing to do with blood. If Doomsday could imprint, Lex would have to make sure that he's the first thing Doomsday sees.

Unique bullets

• Why did Lex arm the mercenaries with unique bullets traceable only to LexCorp? Seriously. Their job was to just kill people, regular bullets do the job and are much cheaper. Why go through extra work JUST to give some dumb report extra breadcrumbs to lay the blame on yourself?
  • Apparently these were magi... advanced bullets that dissolve in the body, close the wound after them and generally leave no trace of themselves, thus adding to the frame up. The same thing happens when they hit walls, sand, basically anything other than Lois Lane's notebook... ... ... yeah
  • The Ultimate Edition clarifies that the bullets are made of special materials and design that was being field tested in a location away from advance forensics to identify them as such. Jena Malone's character identified them as beyond any current ballistic database and Secretary Swanwick, a high ranking government official Lois knew personally, was able to make the link to Lex Corp. It's unlikely anyone else could make those connections.
  • That clarifies nothing. We already know the bullets are unique. Confirming they're unique isn't what needs explanation. Why use bullets that could be traced in any way to LexCorp when other bullets are much cheaper, easy to acquire, and literally have no connection to LexCorp whatsoever? (on that note this is my issue with the Ultimate cut as a whole: the extra scenes may add more details, but the additional information isn't actually addressing the real problem at hand.)
  • Because the plan was kill the people then burn the body to make it look like Superman used heat vision, Lois finding the bullet was just a fuck up. Superman using a thousands of different guns to commit genocide doesn't make sense that's why they needed those bullets.
  • Again... still explains nothing. The whole bullet investigation scene only tells me that they're unique and traceable to Lex. Not that they're special bullets that, say, vaporize and disappear completely after being fired. So everything they did with the special bullets... they could have done with normal bullets. There's no evidence whatsoever that the bullets would magically disappear inside the bodies, or in the walls, or anywhere else. You'll still end up with burned bodies with bullets. Walls with bullet holes. None of the extra scenes tell me that the bullets are capable of doing anything that a normal bullet can't do.
  • Unique and traceable if someone who survived a war zone and has connection with a government official tell her the link otherwise it's just the unique bullets that make it look like Superman killed people. I mean if they used normal bullets what was the point of going in Africa to commit war crime for Lex?
  • "I mean if they used normal bullets what was the point of going in Africa to commit war crime for Lex?" How does using special bullets change this? You're still not explaining how the unique bullets have done ANYTHING that normal bullets couldn't do, and why they are worth the extra expense and effort. Your options are still this: 1. Bullets that are cheap, and have 0% chance of being traced to Lex, and do what bullets do. Or 2. Bullets that are expensive, and have a 0.3% chance of being traced to Lex, and only do what normal bullets do anyway.
  • Out of universe? Because they wanted to show what an awesome investigator Lois is and didn't think things through. In-universe? Hell if I know, my guess, it went kind of like this:
  Lex: So, you understand what you are to do?
  Knyazev: Sure, but I need weapons.
  Lex (calls Mercy): Give Anatoly our best equipment.
  Mercy: Yes, Mr. Luthor.
  • The bullets were experimental in both design (it looks to have aerodynamic grooves) and type of metal, indicating that Lex Corp is creating specialized, one-of-a-kind weaponry. Lex mentions the importance of making the Kryptonite chunk into a "silver bullet" as a deterrent. It could easily be assumed the bullets were a test bed for future anti-Superman weaponry. The type of untraceable metal also shows up later as being part of the bomb, making a connection between who is behind everything. Lex likely has a dozen illegal projects going on at a time, Lois nearly ends up exposing one of them.
  • Still doesn't explain why he would give them to his goons. "untraceable metal" - that's the point, it is traceable, right to his front door, in fact.
  • When you say "still doesn't explain", what you're really saying is "I still reject your explanation". The bullets weren't traceable. That's exactly why Lois had to go all the way to the top of the armed fed food chain to find them. Plus, as the above poster already said, Lex wanted the bullets tested in the field. Why else would he be making them? He probably wants to sell them to actual militaries, including the U.S. military. Even if they were traced back to him, he could always claim a shipment was stolen.
  • Uhuh, the bullets weren't traceable, so a single nosy reporter had them traced in a matter of days(?) using the advanced and obscure technique of asking people about it. Gotcha. And Lex Luthor, who was apparently working for an alien warlord to prepare Earth for an invasion, was simultaneously preoccupied with testing a new product line. Sure. And he didn't find a better place and time than in the middle of a false flag operation intended to bring him into the highlights of the two most powerful people on the planet and said nosy reporter. Right. I do reject your explanation. Because it makes no sense.

Why not just Google the name?

• In the beginning of the movie, Batman is looking for the mysterious "White Portuguese". Didn't it ever occur to him to Google the name or do some kind of database search? Since the "White Portuguese" is allowed to dock in the Metropolis port, it must be a registered ship, so it wouldn't have taken Batman that much effort to discover what exactly the name refers to.
  • Bats was looking for a person, not a ship; searching ship registers would be a waste of time from his perspective.
  • Also checking from Luthor's database on the ship, part of the registration was redacted.

Superman stays out of Gotham

• In the comics, Superman Stays Out of Gotham is usually handwaved in one way or another... But in this movie Gotham is right across the bay from Metropolis, well within the distance of Superman's super-hearing and super-sight. So how is it possible that Gotham is a crime-ridden hellhole while Metropolis is all neat and tidy? Also, when Superman starts investigating Batman, it seems he wasn't even aware of him before, or at least thought he was a mere myth. How is that possible, when Batman operates in the same metropolitan area as Superman? If Supes can hear Lois' cries from hundreds of miles away, it makes no sense that he wouldn't have noticed Batman's activities before.
  • This version of Superman doesn't seem to focus so much on street crime. When we see him doing stuff, it's "big" things, like saving flood victims or astronauts. He's also not paying attention to everything, all the time. He can only focus on so much — so he focuses on Lois because he wants her to be safe. If he tried to wipe out crime in Gotham, that would be a 24/7 job.
  • Also, Superman doesn't seem to concern himself with other superheroes (since assuming that Batman and Wonder Woman weren't the only other superheroes active at the time, other heroes would likely make the news). Perry White didn't assign him to investigate crime stories, so at most, he might've heard about "some masked vigilante fighting crime in Gotham", but didn't hear that much beyond that.

How popular In Universe is Superman supposed to be?

• Superman has a statue in the middle of Metropolis. So how popular was he really to get it? We are shown that he's supposed to be a very controversial figure amongst citizens of Metropolis. Controversial figures don't usually get statues in parks until the controversy is soundly decided in their favor. So, what should be the percentage of people who hate Superman?
  • I would like to know why they thought it was a good idea to build a statue of a man who was partly responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians, and the destruction of a bunch of buildings? No one finds this messed up? Imagine if a cop accidentally killed 15 civilians during a police chase. After capturing the crook, the people of the city build a statue in the cop's honor. The families of the victims would be angry like the Wallace character.
  • Because Superman wasn't stopping a bank robbery, he was SAVING THE F@$&ING EARTH. Most people were sensible enough to put the blame for all death and destruction where it belongs - to the invading alien army - and understand that if not for Superman they would be either dead or enslaved. It wasn't a police chase, it was WAR. Different situation, different stakes, different level of acceptable collateral damage.
  • Did you somehow miss the fact that while some people blamed Superman for the destruction of Metropolis, there were lots of people who did consider him a hero - enough for a statue of him to get built at the center of the city?
  • I would also offer that the statue of Superman was possibly built as an offering which would hopefully appease an unstable god. Think about how little so many people know about Superman up until the fight with Zod. They don't know he was raised human or what his mindset is, and are only really certain of his extra-human capabilities and willingness to kill one of his own kind. It would make sense that some people may actually treat him like a true deity and not just a super-powered 'god'. Deities, creators and overlords get offerings and monuments, so why wouldn't he? It would also further feed into (and potentially justify) Bruce Wayne's hatred and fear of this 'golden calf'/false idol who can reign supreme, bring destruction with him wherever he goes and still get hailed as a hero.
    • They knew from Zod's message that he was a Kryptonian who had been living on Earth for some time. They know he worked with the US military to save the Earth. He would still be seen as terrifyingly powerful but they still know he's an alien (not a god)that was raised on Earth (he even admits he was raised in Kansas) and that he is willing to work with humanity for the greater good of Earth.

Bat armor could have been useful against Doomsday

• Why did Batman take off his armor? There is a giant orc monster that is a threat to the world. It would have been cool to see Batman go toe-to-toe against Doomsday in that armor.
  • The armor got damaged in his fight with Superman and he didn't have a spare one.
  • The armor gave him the bare minimum of protection against Superman, and that was solely with regards to being gently (in relative terms) being tossed around. If Superman would be out to kill the same way as Doomsday, the armor would be less than useful, it would be a liability. Batman only survived Doomsday because he was agile enough to stay ahead, while the armor restricted his speed and full range of motion. Any strength bonuses would also be irrelevant to a 12 foot Kryptonian monstrosity.

Mercy is not good at her job

• I'm assuming Mercy Graves is aware of Luthor's illegal activities like her 90s animated series counterpart. She sees Bruce Wayne in a room he has no place being. Bruce gives her a lame excuse, and she shrugs it off and walks away? She doesn't escort him back to the party or give him a warning not to enter unauthorized areas.
  • She may just buy into his Upper-Class Twit persona. Or, if Lex trusts her as much as he did in other versions, she might know he's trying to manipulate Bruce, and letting him think he was getting away with something could help with that (especially if she thought he wouldn't be able to break the encryption).

Where'd she keep her armor?

• Where was Diana keeping her armor, sword, and shield when she decided to get off the plane and go fight Doomsday? She wasn't carrying any bags with her when she got off the plane, so it must have been in her checked baggage. So she was able to get off the plane, get down to ground level, and retrieve her bags from either the luggage trolley or out of the planes cargo hold all without being seen by any ground crews or anyone who happened to be looking out the terminal windows?
  • Why should any of that be difficult for a super-speedy superhero who's clearly been doing this for a long time? I mean, what, is someone going to stop her? Also, the character is and has magic, and at varying points of her history has been able to instantly switch into her armor by spinning around in place, so there's no reason to assume she has to have her armor physically folded up somewhere.

Where was Wonder Woman in Man of Steel?

• I understand Bruce was busy saving people from falling buildings, but why didn't Wonder Woman show up to fight General Zod? A genocidal madman announced his evil plan to the world on TV, she had to know about him and his kryptonians.
  • She could have been anywhere in the world. Ultimately the reason why she didn't get involved is because she wasn't in the inner loop to know what was actually going on.
  • And Zod didn't "announce his evil plan to the world on TV." The TV message was simply that, hey, there's one of us down there. We want to talk to him. The evil plan was "announced" inside of Clark's brain, which is presumably not broadcast to the world.
• "We want to talk to him." - And if he doesn't come, your world will suffer. He might not have revealed the entire plan, but it was enough to realize that they're a threat.
  • From Lex Luthor's database and the new trailer, it seems like Wonder Woman lives in France for the most part and so far she doesn't have any flight capabilities or super speed and even with the threatening message from Zod she can't guess where the threat will end up in which location and it ended up in metropolis and the Indian Ocean, too far away from where she is.
    • Ultimately, unless it's revealed that she had her invisible plane at the time of Man of Steel, the explanation is either a), she didn't hear about it until it was too late, or b), she did hear about it, but by the time she would've gotten there, it would've been dealt with (or too late to deal with).

Batman's reasoning

• In the previous movie, a bunch of super powered aliens attacked Earth and came really close to wiping out humanity. The one person who stopped them was Superman. Then in BvS, we have Batman deciding to kill Superman based on the minuscule chance that he goes rogue. Didn't the fact that Superman was the planet's only real line of defense against any possible future alien attacks pass through Bruce's head? What was he going to do if some super powered aliens showed up and tried to conquer or wipe out humanity again after he had deprived the world of Superman? And in fact, that's exactly what was going to happen, given the later reveal that the Earth is about to be attacked by Apokolips. (Remember, he didn't know about the other superheroes until he watched the videos he stole from Luthor, which happened after he decided to exterminate Superman)
  • Batman isn't thinking Superman would be the best bet against an alien threat, he thinks Superman is an alien threat waiting to happen. At this point the idea that they can be allies has not crossed his mind.
  • Yes, and that's exactly the problem. Batman is supposed to be highly intelligent and a master of preparation, yet the thought of Earth suffering another alien invasion never crossed his mind!? That seems out of character and rather unbelievable for such a brilliant hero.
  • It did cross his mind. It crossed his mind in the idea of Superman leading it. That's the whole point — he thinks Superman is the alien threat.
  • No, he opted to kill Superman based on the small chance that he goes rogue somewhere down the line. He said so to Alfred.
  • Yes. And if Superman goes rogue, that makes him an alien threat. Look at the prophetic nightmare-dream Bruce has — the one where Superman is the head of an invading army of aliens.
  • Regardless of the dream or his thought against Supes personally, Bruce has to realize there are likely to be other alien threats. Like Zod. So what does he expect to do about them after he murders this one friendly alien?
  • Murder them too. We're talking about the Tower of Babel here, a man using technology to wage war on a god. In Batman's mind, if he survives, that means it's doable. The plan is to use the experience to improve his tactics and equipment, and prepare for the next crisis. He fully intends to become Earth's interstellar deterrent or die trying.
  • Part of it too is assuming the Kryptonian invasion was a one-time deal. To his knowledge Earth had not dealt with that before, and will likely never have to deal with it again. The DCEU at this point doesn't have anyone to balance out the scale if Superman goes rogue. As more and more super powered individuals come out of the woodwork, and projects like Cadmus start up, the idea that humanity has absolutely nothing to counter Superman doesn't hold up. And if humanity was regularly facing other super powered threats, he would recognize how mandatory Superman is to stopping those threats.
  • You're missing Batman's mindset. The danger isn't just in Superman turning on Earth, it's also the potential for him to abandon it. Trusting your life to an unaccountable force you know nothing about, however good his intentions, is unacceptable to this mentality of a warrior's self-sufficiency; humanity must control it's own fate, so if you're a ruthless human warrior with this objective, you kill the alien, take his technology, and use it for yourself. Even if letting Supes be would be safer in the grand scheme of things, you can't trust something you can't control or predict to decide whether you live or die.
  • So how would he have dealt with any future invasions by super powered aliens? He had enough difficulty dealing with just one non-hostile alien.
    • Challenge them each to a one-on-one fight like he did Superman? Or let Amanda Waller send her "Superman-Class Threat Defeating" team of a guy whose real good at shooting, a 90-pound crazy woman with a bat, a guy with boomerangs, a chick with a katana, a croc-man, and a normal human government agent? I'm sure they could take friggin' DARKSEID and his army of parademons. Or Mongol. Or Brainiac. Or Lobo. Or... well, you get the idea.
  • Exactly. And not just "non-hostile" - a heroic alien, which is the only reason he could even hope to have that fight, instead of an asteroid to the head. If Bruce thought that winning an underhanded victory against a single person who clearly didn't want to kill him (because, again, no asteroid to the head) would in any way, shape or form make him a match to an actual alien invasion like that of Zod, then he's a moron so deluded that Lex Luthor looks lucid in comparison!
  • Maybe Batman just doesn't think alien invasions are all that likely. The last one only happened because Superman was there, anyway. If Superman had never shown up on Earth, then (in Batman's mind at least) neither would the other Kryptonians. And in his vision, Superman's leading the other aliens in their invasion. So, maybe his reasoning is "get rid of Superman, get rid of alien invasions".
  • That reasoning is inherently flawed. As MCU aptly put it, the more technologically advanced the Earth becomes, the more visible it is to the rest of the Universe, so an increase in inter-planetary interactions (including hostile ones) is inevitable.
    • Maybe he doesn't even think there will be any more alien invasions, so in his mind Superman is the only real threat that he MUST take down at all cost. After all, Superman is already stretching his tech to the limit fighting just one alien, he can't be expected to go looking everywhere else for others to fight.
  • Another possibility is Batman wanting to take Superman's technology. Batman doesn't know Superman is Clark for a large fraction of his plans, so he probably assumes Superman has a spaceship somewhere or at least a fortress, chock full of alien tech. Maybe Batman is hoping after he beats Superman he can locate this place (remember, Superman doesn't let anyone near it, even taking down army drones) and turn whatever defenses and technology there into humanity's defense against any threat from the stars.
  • Right, right, he cannot possibly find a spaceship that is laying right in the middle of Metropolis without killing Supes, sure. Because Supes doesn't let anyone near it except for Lex Luthor, right.
  • You're misunderstanding. That crashed spaceship was Zod's. It's not Superman's spaceship. If Batman assumes that Superman has a spaceship or fortress, his research should lead him to understand that the Metropolis one belonged to Zod, and he would have to look elsewhere for Superman's if he should wish to appropriate it.
  • What difference does it make? It's still a Kryptonian ship, if Bruce was interested in alien tech, he would've started with it. In fact, it's rather weird that he showed no interest in it whatsoever.
• This version of Batman isn't that kind of intelligent. He couldn't figure out Superman has a secret identity or an earth mother or didn't kill those people in Africa or anything else. He's a technological and short-term tactical genius, but doesn't examine situations very closely, and was probably too short sighted and bigoted to consider earth might ever need an alien or that his plan to kill the alien could have any negative consequences.
  • It's not so much that he's not intelligent, but that his hubris is blinding him. Indeed, he let Luthor play him like a fiddle. But he regrets his actions, and by forming the Justice League and resurrecting Superman to fight Steppenwolf, he is able to compensate for his mistake in this movie by indeed working with Superman against another alien threat.

Superman going easy on Luthor

• How come that Superman didn't force Luthor to order his men to release Martha? Yeah, Lex claimed that he didn't know where they had her, as he didn't let them tell him. But clearly he had some way of communicating with them, given that he stated that he would make them release her if Superman brought Batman's head to him.
  • Lex laid it out "You touch me, she dies."
  • But it makes no sense. Let's look at the situation from Clark's point of view. Suppose he does what the madman is telling him and kills Batman. And... then what? Luthor releases Martha, and they both go their separate ways? Obviously not. Meaning Lex is not letting her go no matter what. So this is absolutely the moment to go all Batmanny on Lex's ass and dangle him from the edge of the rooftop.
  • At which point his mother dies. And he doesn't want his mother to die. How is that not clear? Whether or not Lex "lets her go," isn't the issue, it's whether or not Lex has her killed.
  • It's not clear, because it's an impasse. If she dies, Lex also dies... eventually. Is he ok with that? On the other hand, as I said, Lex just can't let her go. Is Clark ok with his mother remaining in Lex's hands indefinitely? Because if not, then sooner or later he will have to press this issue, so why not now? Hell, how does he even know Martha is still alive?
  • It's an impasse, but it's an impasse that can only be broken by Martha's death until Clark gets Batman to help him. Clark is more okay with Luthor having his mother indefinitely than he is with Luthor killing his mother. Luthor is counting on Superman playing along. That's the whole purpose of a hostage — the hostage taker plans on the hostage being the status quo. It's just plain not about all the various ways it could end once the hostage dies, because if the hostage dies, the whole thing falls apart. It's about the threat, not about actually doing it.
  • 1. "until Clark gets Batman to help him" - this is just plain wrong. Clark has absolutely no reason to expect Bruce would be able to help him. The fact that he does relies solely on lucky (and rather contrived) coincidences and mind-boggling stupidity of the villains, which is not something you can rely on. On the contrary, since, as far as Clark knew, Luthor was watching the fight, teaming up with Bruce would instantly mean Martha's death. 2. "can only be broken by Martha's death" - also wrong. It can be broken by Luthor releasing her. Which he can be motivated into by, say, threatening to slowly tear him apart, which, uniquely in such situations, Clark had an opportunity to do. That's why Lex's position was so flimsy. Clark would survive Martha's death. Lex would not, and for all his looniness, Lex didn't give away an impression of a suicidal zealot, willing to die horribly for his cause... whatever the hell it was supposed to be.
    • You're still missing the point. Clark will do anything to avoid Martha being killed. Whether or not he can or would kill Luthor afterward does not matter. Martha dying is the end that Clark absolutely and completely does not want and will do damn near anything to avoid. Martha being alive is all that matters to Superman at that moment. And Lex knows this. That is, again, the entire point of anyone having a hostage in the history of humanity — the idea that the person you're up against does not want the hostage to die, and therefore you can use that as leverage. There's a reason that, for instance, police hostage negotiators don't open with, "If you kill her, we'll all just shoot you anyway." Because goading the hostage taker into doing the thing that they're threatening to do is a terrible idea.
      
      Added to that, the whole point of Superman's character is that he is not going to just use his power to threaten and force compliance on anyone like that. That would be, you know, proving Luthor completely right.
    • "Clark will do anything to avoid Martha being killed" - even murder another hero at behest of a madman? Because it's either that or betting on Luthor valuing his own life more than whatever his agenda is. I mean, surely Clark couldn't rely on Luthor being braindead enough to not monitor their fight and order Martha's death the moment it looks like they are teaming up, right? ... Right? "proving Luthor completely right" - And anyone, least of all Clark, should give a damn about that because...?
    • Monitoring the fight would be difficult — consider the amount of collateral damage, and the fact that the fight is going to move by nature if one of the combatants being able to fly. Any surveillance equipment will almost certainly be destroyed, and, most likely, so will any people sent to observe.
      
      And if you don't think Clark would give a damn about proving Lex right about Superman abusing his power, then you really don't know Superman. Superman is about sticking to those kinds of principles. That's the point of the character.
    • *Sigh* Was that Clark's mindset in your opinion? "I don't want to kill Bruce and instead want to try and convince him to join me. But won't Lex watch over us and order mom's death the moment he sees me talking with him instead of laser-eyeing his head off from a mile away? Nah, he most certainly won't because collateral damage and he clearly cares about his equipment and his subordinates so much! Yeah, I'll bet my mother's life on that!" Not to mention that the damage didn't even start until way after it became painfully obvious that Clark has no intention of killing Bruce and that even then it never reached nearly enough scale to threaten a helicopter with significantly powerful optics. "Superman abusing his power" - ... What... abuse? Lex has kidnapped his mother, threatens to burn her alive and demands that Clark murders an innocent man! Even if we disregard the rebel leader whom Clark killed or maimed with zero compunction for just threatening Lois, calling retaliating to that "abuse" is insane! With all his principles, Superman is still supposed to be a hero who fights evil, aint he?
  • Regarding not throttling Lex, Superman is often mockingly called "the Big Blue Boy Scout" in comics due to his idealistic views, so doing so isn't in his character.
    • This Superman was never shown to be that idealistic, and we're talking about the guy who snapped Zod's neck when he was about to kill a family. Threatening Luthor in order to save his own mother hardly sounds like an excessive, out of question measure for this incarnation.
    • Take note of what he does immediately after killing Zod: Screaming in utter horror and grief at what he had just done. Also take note of what Superman did before killing Zod: Begging him to stop so that he didn't have to do it. Killing Zod doesn't show, "This is a Superman who's a killer," it shows, "This is why Superman doesn't kill; he had to, once, and he never wants to do it again."
    • The point is that he'll kill if it's necessary to save innocent lives, unpleasing as it is. Threatening someone in order to save his own mother is some levels below that.
    • No, the point is he did kill, not that he will kill. His one kill left him grief-stricken and traumatized. It was clearly not something he wants to do again.
    • It doesn't matter what he wants. He'll do it if he has to, just like he did it again when he had to kill Doomsday in order to stop him. And this franchise isn't even consistent about Superman's reaction to killing, as he didn't seem bothered by any of the innocent civilians he killed when he blew up a gas station in Man of Steel.
    • Doomsday was an abomination, a monster created from a corpse. That's very different from killing a human. Again, you are missing the point: Killing Zod was the moment Superman resolved not to kill again. It is not an example of, "Something he'll do if he has to," it was an example of, "This is the reason he never, ever intends to kill a person again."
    • And then he murdered the rebel leader without a second thought. Your point is invalid.
    • Remind me where in the movie it's said the rebel leader is killed by Superman's action?
    • I don't know, maybe Supes punching him through several walls gave that vibe for some reason. Regardless, I don't see how the Zod-killing scene is relevant in any way, because we're discussing what Lex Luthor specifically might think about Supes, and Lex wasn't there. What, did he track down that random family Supes saved and questioned them, like: "Ok, guys, are you absolutely sure that he looked grief-stricken and traumatized when he did it? And I mean "he never, ever intends to kill a person again, even if his mother's life is at stake" level of traumatized, not "crap, I would've preferred it didn't come to this, but oh well" level"?
• Accidentally, this is why no smart person would ever do that sort of negotiation in person - only via a phone or an expendable middleman. What the hell was Lex thinking?
  • He was thinking that Superman doesn't want to kill in the first place and that if Superman tried anything, Martha died. He informed Superman of this so that Superman would be even less inclined to try anything.
  • Lex also tells Clark that he had his mercenaries not tell him where Martha was being held, to ensure that Clark couldn't try beating the information out of him. A logical extension of that would be that Lex can't conveniently get in contact with the mercenaries to find out where they're holding Martha, only that they can get in touch with him, if need be.
    • Then how is he supposed to call off the hit on Martha if Superman agrees to his demands? Even if they're supposed to contact him just before the deadline and ask for a go-ahead to kill her, then this can be used to call them off.

The Witness

So, courtesy of the Ultimate Edition we now have the extended sub-plot of the Kenyan woman whose testimony against Supes sparks the whole shebang. I do have a few questions though.

• Are they telling me one completely unsubstantiated testimony is enough for a senator to start putting blames and instigating a hearing?
• We learn that the woman was blackmailed by Lex Luthor into giving a false testimony. But why is she shown renting some random apartment in the city? Wouldn't Lex plan on her be: fly her to USA, have her give the testimony, immediately fly her back to Kenya where she will most certainly not promptly die from random mugging? Did she run away from him? But what about whatever he was blackmailing her with?
• Later, when she comes back to her apartment, she sees Anatoly waiting for her in "ambush" in his huge black jeep parked right outside. I'm sorry, what the fuck is this kindergarten crap? Who does that?
• She tells the senator the truth. So now the senator knows that a) Supes is innocent, b) Lex Luthor is planning some major mischief, c)this woman is an extremely valuable witness. So why does she a) not tell Supes the truth and goes along with that stupid hearing like nothing happens, b) not put heat on Luthor, and c) not put the woman under protective custody, but instead lets her go and be killed by Anatoly.
• Anatoly kills the woman by pushing her under a subway train in front of hundreds of people. I'm sorry, what the fuck is this kindergarten crap? Who does that? Does no one sees him do it? Including the cameras?
  • She seems to be a political refugee and a character witness describing what happened, not the person whose sole testimony is driving the whole controversy. The world already has proof that something happened in Nairomi. As for Anatoly she catches him in her neighborhood and that is what gets her nervous. And pushing her in front of the train could easily be written off as an accident and he just slips away in the chaos. As for Senator Finch, it was a mistake to just let her go back into the public but they had only just learned what was going on and hadn't processed how to use that information.
  • "The world already has proof that something happened in Nairomi." - which is what, exactly? And how is "something" supposed to have anything to do with Supes? The only sources could've been Lois, the CIA agents and this woman. The former two knew Supes was innocent. "her neighborhood" - what neighborhood? She's just arrived from Kenya, and at Luthor's behest at that. Why would he bother to arrange accommodation for her instead of immediately returning her back? "easily be written off as an accident...in the chaos" - What chaos? It's one woman died, not a bomb exploded. Accident or not, there's no way Anatoly would've been let go that easy. "and hadn't processed how to use" - what's there to proceed? Supes' innocent, Luthor's a fraud, the woman needs protection - seems straightforward enough. Hell, the latter two problems are perfectly solvable with the first - just tell Clark about it all, and there's no one better to apprehend Lex and protect the witness.
  • Just because her testimony is false doesn't mean the whole case falls apart since they still want superman's testimony as he hasn't made a claim about being innocent, that is why she still does continue with the hearing
  • What case? No, seriously, I'm very much interested in even the barest outline of what she was going to talk about when the only substantial witness had been proven false. Why should Clark have made any claims to his innocence, when they had nothing to accuse him of? And it's not like there simply was some mistake or the woman had a personal grudge like the crippled guy - the Senator's just uncovered an active conspiracy involving mass murder and a potential international crisis. I'm not going to deny that Supe's standing in the world and relationships with people in general and authorities in particular needed some clarification, but don't you thing that at that particular moment there were much more pressing matters which she inexplicably ignored?
  • The "proof that something happened" is Lois. She went to interview the terrorist, she came back after Superman saved her. But, she didn't see what he did before he saved her. The Nairomi woman claims that she was a witness, and Lois can't refute it.
  • Except nobody can prove the he did save her, except Lois herself. They were alone in the room when he crashed in.
  • Also, Lex isn't interested in building a bulletproof case against Superman in a court of law. He's trying to turn the court of public opinion against him. Superman showed up to give his side of the story about what happened in the desert. Senator Finch had the new evidence that Lex's goons pressured the Nairomi woman into lying. Lex stopped both of those things from happening by blowing up Congress. And by the way? That is the "more pressing matter" that Senator Finch is dealing with. She's going to expose Lex Luthor to the world. It's what she means when she says "Today is a day for truth".
  • Why? What's going to happen if people stop loving him? He's going to kill him anyway and he'd already had Doomsday underway. "She's going to expose Lex Luthor" - no she's not. She was clearly addressing Supes and him alone, and she had nothing to expose Lex with since she'd stupidly let the woman go.
  • Lex is trying to make a point, not create a tangible, beneficial result for himself.
  • What point? That such things as slander and frame up exist and can, unfortunately, be quite effective, especially if you pour an inordinate amount of efforts and resources into them? That seems to be common knowledge for a few thousand years at least. That Aliens Are Bastards? I think Zod had mostly taken care of that. That God Is Evil? But he's planning to kill Superman next, which should put the lid on the very idea of Supe's divinity. I honestly don't see his endgame, whether tangible or not. At least the actual Joker wanted to tell people something unpleasant about themselves, force them to come to grips with reality of what he considered to be their self-delusion. What was this knock-off Joker trying to say?
  • The point that Superman is not as good as he says he is, and that one man can't have that much power and stay good. He spells this out pretty clearly in the movie. I'm not sure how you missed it, but this version of Luthor is clearly not playing with a full deck, so obviously his motivations and goals are not going to be entirely realistically and reasonably thought out. That's kinda why he's the villain.
  • Even if Clark had been whatsoever vocal about his perceived moral superiority (I mean, has he quoted "Fighting for TJAW" once?) how is framing him going to challenge that? Lex isn't putting him in a situation that calls for violating his moral convictions here - he's just blowing stuff up around him while he's minding his own business! At worst he's painting Supes as a Doom Magnet, except it takes investigators mere hours or days to unravel his ploys, and he only gets away with it at all because the senator inexplicably let the witness go. And even if his deception had held, its effect, fake and shallow as it is, would've only lasted until the timer on his Doomcake oven chimes. So, to summarize, he kinda sorta maybe makes people think Supes' bad news for a short while, then presents him with a discount dilemma he had already dealt with ("kill a murderous psychopath, who's also a random vigilante, to save his own mother" vs "kill a murderous psychopath, who's also his only living compatriot, to save random people") and then Supes dies and none of it matters anymore? Is that it? And yes, I realise he's a villain, so his point of view is going to be flawed, but it still has to make sense, right? Otherwise, why even bother giving him any motivation outside of being crazy, or being Darkseid's stooge?

Waynes' Manor

• If Bruce Wayne in this continuity is not a recluse, and maintains his public persona, then why is his manor a ruin? Regardless of what Batman-related conflict caused this destruction, how does it look for the billionaire-playboy-philanthropist Bruce Wayne to keep it this way? Hell, where does he officially live in this case?
  • Bruce is reclusive, Lex said it's really hard to get him out to socialite parties. He typically donates money to various causes but, at least at this point in time, isn't much of a smiling public figure always in the news. His new place looks to be a modern glass mansion built elsewhere on the premises, the batcave has a similar style and that could be the explanation on how it was built.

Superman and the Nuke

• Kryptonians generally are always solar-powered. Stars are giant fusion reactions in space. The majority of modern nuclear weapons, certainly those used by the United States, are also fusion based. In the comics, Kryptonians can literally walk the sun. Superman Prime from DC One Million meditated within the sun. Even the most destructive human weapons ever made are laughable in comparison, but it would appear that this Superman isn't as hardy as his comic book counterparts.
  • Actually that's incorrect, all nuclear weapons are fission based. There are maybe only a few fusion bombs, and they are experimental only. In any case this superman is apparently much weaker and can be hurt by regular nukes.
    • Where is this information coming from? The American nuclear arsenal is pretty much entirely fusion weapons (the fusion is powered by a preliminary stage fission bomb).
  • The scene was inspired directly from something similar in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Superman's top level power varies depending on what comic book we are talking about and what era. Taking a nuke to the face in most continuities is at the least a nuisance for him.
• What I wonder is, if Supes and Dooms were both hit with a nuke launched from Earth, ergo the shockwave was expanding outwards, then why did Dooms fall back to Earth, and Sups just stayed hanging there? Shouldn't both of them have been propelled into open space?
  • Most likely, they just absorbed the blast. We know Doomsday absorbs energy. And, since he landed in roughly the same spot where he left, he must have the ability to fly, since simply falling would have landed him much farther away due to the Earth's rotation.
    • And yet both can be effectively punched. Kinetic energy is kinetic energy. If you cannot absorb a punch, there's no way in hell you can just absorb the shockwave from a nuclear blast, and neither punch that hard.

Were Batman and the Justice League planned from day one?

• This is an out of universe headscratcher. Did Zack Snyder originally want a "Superman in the real world" type of movie, similar to Nolan's Batman? Having magical beings, other supers, and monsters exist in the MOS universe kinda kill that idea. Were Batman and other heroes already planned when they were working on Man of Steel?
  • Yes. Producers and directors often have conflicting visions on their films. Warner Bros and DC have wanted to start the DCEU since Green Lantern. For MOS they gave Zack Snyder, Christopher Nolan and David Goyer a lot of creative control based on the success of the Dark Knight Saga. But it is not the directors job to be consistent with the style of potential future films, only to make the film they want. The realistic tone is not a deal breaker since future films were intended to do world building on the more fantastic aspects of the universe. BvS is by far less "realistic" since Zack Sydney was given more control to make his own style of film.
  • People are nothing if not hopeful. Nolan had the original premise and approach to MOS, Snyder was the foreman to get it done. Nolan in general has been an overseer for the DCEU but not much more than a consultant. Snyder did say that what lead to BVS was discussing the ending of MOS and someone suggested having Kryptonite dropped off on Batman's front door, and once you had Batman as the villain of the sequel you can't really go back on that. MOS was intended to be a standalone series focusing on Superman, but the delays with BVS was because of the change in direction to actually create the DCEU using BVS as the linchpin.
  • No, the studio decided to expand the Superman universe to accommodate Batman and the Justice League only when they saw the humongous success of the first Avengers movie.
  • WB had been planning a Justice League movie since before Iron Man came out. Even Green Lantern was supposed to start the JL movie universe. It wouldn't surprise me if they wanted to make JL right after Man of Steel and BvS was their compromise.

Why does Superman need Batman at all? (AKA Superman conveniently forgets his superpowers for Plot reasons)

• So Lex has told Superman that he's going to kill his mom if he tries anything. Did Superman just forget his powers? He could have Lex bound and gagged before he could blink. More importantly, look what happens when Batman goes to rescue Martha. He jumps in, punches and throws everyone around, and yay, Martha is saved. Why couldn't Superman have done exactly the same thing except a thousand times faster? He could have taken out all the mercenaries before a single one of them could pull the trigger on their weapons.
  • Also, he still has to cover big grounds since Martha can be held up either in Smallville, Metropolis and Gotham. He knows that Bruce has taps on Lex since the party so he was trying to get the information from him.
  • Or, you know, literally any place on the face of the Earth, above or below it. "Taps on Lex" mean nothing when he admitted his thugs didn't even tell him where Martha is.
    • Just before this fight, he could hear Lois scream as she falls down a building. The last we saw of him, he was in Tibet or someplace doing a vision quest. He can hear Lois scream faster than sound can travel. The amount of time he spends just talking to Batman is more than enough to zip through and find his own mother.
    • Please show me where they establish that Clark is still on the mountain when Lois is dropped off the building. "Last we saw of him" does not mean that is where he still was. You're twisting the scenes and their intended meaning.
      
      Also, on the "bound and gagged before he could blink," Lex is pretty clear that acting against him means Martha dies. Stop ignoring the thing that Luthor says directly on screen several times just so you can complain about a plot point you don't like.
    • They don't. But "Clark hears her screams from Tibet and flies from there in a matter of seconds" sounds marginally less stupid then "Lex drops her in a mad hope that Clark would be nearby and catch her before she falls to her death and her body is found and removed by the police thus screwing his entire plan."
    • It's not like lex knows superman is gonna be in Tibet anyway, all he knows that there hasn't been a global activity from superman for the time being, I think it would be a bigger plot hole if somehow lex knows superman is in Tibet even though there was no sign of him being there
    • It clearly doesn't matter whether he was in Tibet, on the moon, or in the city. The speed of sound is around 350 m/s, Superman was clearly flying in from further away than 700m after 2 seconds of falling. He can hear sound before the sound even reaches him (he does this again later while fighting Doomsday). He can isolate one particular person over the noise of an entire city. Again, there's no reason he can't use this superpower that he used to find Lois to find his mom. Also, regarding the threat of "Lex will order his mercs to kill Martha if superman threatens him" - Lex isn't psychic, and neither are the mercs. Just because he threatens to do it doesn't mean he's capable of it. Lex wouldn't be capable of giving any orders to his mercenaries fast enough before Superman restrains him. He has no way of communicating, even if there was a "dead man switch" implant in his body or something it wouldn't activate from simply being restrained. And lastly, Lex gave Superman an hour to kill Batman... which is an hour the mercs expect to be waiting around anyway, an hour for Superman to go searching. That's plenty.
  • Lex doesn't say he'll order them. He says if Superman touches him or flies off, Martha dies. The natural assumption here is Lex has someone watching himself and Superman — like, say, the guys in the helicopter that shows up ten seconds after he talks to Superman. Or someone watching the cameras on his roof. The mercs aren't just "waiting around anyway," they have a few triggers they're waiting for to kill Martha. Lex is insane, but he's not stupid — he's not going to let himself be the only trigger on that. And as for his hearing, why assume that her screaming is the first thing Superman notices — this is his girlfriend, remember, and he's just getting back into town. Chances are he was already looking for her and might've been on his way already when he heard them just talking before she was pushed. Notice how Superman doesn't have to ask Lois what happened, he just goes straight to Lex already aware that he pushed her off.
  • Okay, so let's ignore the hearing and the possibility of restraining Lex. We'll go with the camera explanation. But he obviously used some kind of superpower (or combination) that allowed him to find Lois immediately, in a place she wasn't likely to be in the first place, within seconds of being IN danger, from basically across the city or further away. Again, whatever superpower this was (x-ray vision, hearing, psychic, the specifics are not important here...) why can't he use this exact same superpower to find his mother? Why can't he identify his mother as easily as his girlfriend? He's familiar with her voice, her smell, her skeleton under x-ray vision, whatever. Lex was monologuing for several minutes. That's literally a hundred times longer (or more) than he needed to find Lois. Then he gave him an hour to fight Batman... that's practically forever, and again he spent several minutes standing around trying to talk to Batman. Throw him into a building where Lex's cameras or whatever can't see, fly to the next floor, gain a few more minutes to scan the city and look for Martha again. Again, through all of this... how could Batman have done any better than he could have in searching for his mother? Again, the main issue is still present: Why doesn't Superman use his powers to find his mom? We've seen him use it multiple times to find Lois, sometimes when there's no reason to expect her to be in danger, and we know he can do it through TONS of noise, distraction, and distance (Warlord at the beginning, off the roof, drowning while getting the spear). His power usage is inconsistent, and he doesn't use it the one time he KNOWS of the danger beforehand and has to consciously and actively search for his mom.
    • Because Lex makes it clear that if Superman goes off to find his mother, she dies. Either Lex calls it in, or the people in the helicopter do. Hell, the US government seems to have some kind of radar that can track Superman (the big screen when they launch the nuke has him as a moving dot), so Lex might have something like that, too. Superman is not omniscient — as fast as he is, it will take him time to find her, partly because he has no idea where to even start looking. Remember that Martha was in Kansas when she was grabbed, while Metropolis is apparently on the east coast (or at least in a different state, since Perry muses that Clark goes to Kansas from Metropolis). Does he start looking there? Lex has influence and people who could have smuggled her out of the country. It's rather lucky for Superman and Bruce that Lex decided to put her in Gotham. And while Lex is talking, Superman is clearly upset and in shock. He has a lot of powers but he is still, in a lot of ways, very human, and thinking clearly and logically is one of those things that is very hard for humans to do when they're upset and shocked.
      
      What it boils down to is that Superman A. doesn't know where to start to look and B. knows that he's talking to someone who already threw his girlfriend off a building, and therefore isn't bluffing about Martha dying if Superman doesn't at least look like he's cooperating. For all his power, Lex has him over a barrel in that moment.
    • That's my point. He can just pretend he's cooperating. In fact, during the first 5 minutes or so he literally isn't fighting Batman at all, and just trying to talk - that wasn't against the "rules". Again, going back to the original question: why is Batman going to be any better than Superman at finding his mom? He can pretend to fight Batman and search for his mom in between punches, with literally 1000x the amount of time he had to find Lois, using the same technique he used to find Lois. That's a lot of area he can cover. How is Batman going to be any better? Because of a technicality? On one hand, he is assuming that Lex is a super-mastermind who knows exactly if he's cooperating (despite flying through buildings). On the other, he's assuming Lex is so dumb he'll be foiled by a technical loophole (if Batman goes and rescues my mom, that's not against the rules! ha-ha!) It's just so... inconsistent.
    • Batman's going to be more effective because Batman is a detective; he's someone who's already been investigating Luthor in ways that Superman doesn't even know about and, sure enough, Batman finds where Martha's hidden in about 10 seconds (or rather, Alfred does). How is Superman going to "search between punches"? You're attributing far more ability to him than we've seen in either film. And it's not about being a "loophole." By the time Bruce does listen, they're far from where the fight started and there's been enough collateral damage that whatever surveillance Lex might have had on them is probably knocked away or destroyed. Superman goes to Bruce because he knows he at least has to confront him (Lex or whoever's observing has to see he's in the area) and Lex clearly isn't expecting them to cooperate — he's spent two years making sure Bruce won't cooperate, after all. It's not a "technical loophole," it's just something Lex didn't plan for.
    • I still find that to be an extremely weak explanation. First: Is Batman's investigatory power so great it can beat Superman? Did he predict and prevent Lois's kidnapping? No? And how long did it take Superman to find out and respond? Not only that, Lex himself told Superman he doesn't know where the mercs are - is Batman's intel on Lex so great he knows Lex better than himself? There's no reason to believe Batman is a super-detective in this incarnation - he couldn't even figure out the White Portuguese was the name of a ship until it was almost too late. Not even a code name for a ship, it's painted right on the side of it. He may be a super-detective in the comics, but this isn't the comics Batman. He's got plenty of character differences from the traditional Batman incarnations (like killing) and we can't assume other attributes that haven't been demonstrated in this continuity. Secondly, regarding the cameras and monitoring: Ok, let's accept that Lex has such supremely powerful surveillance devices he can track Clark even with his super-speed. Next, his surveillance devices must have been destroyed in the fight, and Superman knows this somehow because he can safely bargain with Bruce without Lex finding out. Also, Lex doesn't know what's going on, but he'll continue to take Superman's word that he's still fighting Batman and not kill his mother for trying anything funny. Additionally, with all those surveillance devices destroyed... he doesn't try to look for his mom himself (again, using the superpowers he uses to find Lois multiple times throughout the movie), but has to rely entirely on Batman to do it (who, in this particular incarnation, has not proven himself to be an extremely good detective). He also assumes that Lex won't notice Batman's movements (did he have no plans to confirm Batman or Superman's death after the fight?) And lastly, he knows Lex is fine with Batman punching out mercenaries and rescuing Martha, because "anyone but Superman" is still following the... uh... letter of the law and not the spirit of the law, which Lex clearly subscribes to? Ok, let's say that Batman IS a super-detective and finds out where Martha is. Instead of having Batman finding out where his mom is and just tell him, he lets batman take 5 minutes to fight goons (during which his mom could have died) instead of taking care of it in 5 milliseconds. I'm sorry, but that explanation is just too inconsistent.
    • Is Batman's investigatory power so great it can beat Superman? He beats Superman by investigating his weaknesses, so yes. Did he predict and prevent Lois's kidnapping? No. How is this relevant? Is Batman supposed to be able to prevent all crime from occurring in cities he's not in, to people he doesn't know? You're comparing Superman, on his own turf, looking for his own girlfriend, to Batman, who's not interested in Lois and has never been about preventing every random crime from occurring. Batman does show his detective abilities. Did you forget how a big chunk of the movie is him investigating the White Portuguese? Lex doesn't have to "take Superman's word," he saw Superman and Batman fighting. Superman only shows up at Lex's ship after Martha's already been saved. And, again, it's not some letter of the law loophole. Lex just does not expect Batman to help at all. That's what Superman's banking on, not that Lex is some Faerie-like creature who is caught in his own web of regulations. Okay, let's say that Batman IS a super-detective and finds out where Martha is... Well, given that's exactly what actually happens in the movie, I don't see why you're sarcastic about it. And Superman does plan to go with Batman — he says, "Let's go," and it's Batman who convinces him that going after Lex is a better use of his time and ability.
    • Is Batman's investigatory power so great it can beat Superman? He beats Superman by investigating his weaknesses, so yes. Wow, good job on deliberately misinterpreting the question AND missing the in-movie reason. Did he predict and prevent Lois's kidnapping? No. How is this relevant? Is Batman supposed to be able to prevent all crime from occurring in cities he's not in? This is relevant because this IS Superman's power. He regularly detects and responds to crimes and disasters around the world. Superman has this power, Batman does not. In-movie example: Superman saves a rocket's crew capsule as it explodes. Did Superman somehow investigate rocket engineering, realize this rocket would explode, and wait nearby just in case? Or did he realize the rocket was exploding, fly in from Metropolis to Cape Canaveral or wherever it was, and perform the rescue within milliseconds? Compared to that kind of sensory, response time, and speed, how does Batman do better than Superman can? As for the White Portuguese - that is merely an example of how bad Batman's investigative skills are. It wasn't a nickname or a code name, it was a legal name which would be documented. He took weeks to figure that one out. Just because the movie demonstrated him doing some investigation isn't the point, it didn't show him doing investigation at a level of competence required by the following plot point. Well, given that's exactly what actually happens in the movie, I don't see why you're sarcastic about it.... Yes, this is why it's a headscratcher. People don't like Deus ex Machina, people don't like characters suddenly becoming infinitely better at something while another character suddenly becoming infinitely worse at something without reason. It's bad writing. And leads to head scratching.
    • You want to talk about missing the in-movie reason? You keep assuming that the only way Superman could possibly hear about anything is if he, personally, hears it. It's not like the movie dedicates a shot to Clark seeing a news report about one of the events he goes to intervene in. And it's not like, "Working at a paper so he knows about things that need intervention" was the original reason for the Clark Kent persona since 1938. Look at what we see him intervening in: A flood, which absolutely has TV coverage; the fire, where we see him being notified by the TV report; and a rocket launch, which would have TV coverage. But no, Superman must have a plot-hole power you can bash the movie for, because that's the only way anyone on the planet could have known any of those things were happening. And making one bad assumption doesn't make someone a "bad" investigator. The movie provides its reasoning and explanations pretty clearly, if you're not so focused on trying to find things wrong with it.
    • I picked the rocket launch example BECAUSE it's unlikely to be televised. Do you know how often rocket launches are shown on TV? When was the last time the ISS crew launch was televised? It's so routine nobody talks about it. This stuff doesn't make it to live television. But let's say I grant you this: the explosion was televised live, and Clark just happened to be watching. Do you know how fast explosions happen? He has the capability to find and respond to things across the globe in a matter of milliseconds, checking every single building within a city or two would probably take 5 seconds.
    • You're assuming it was a normal rocket launch. There are rocket launches that do get hype and such coverage. Maybe it was a new type of rocket. Maybe what was being sent up was new or unique in some way. The point is, your argument that Superman has a Plot Hole power that you can bash depends largely on assumptions. There's dozens of ways Clark could've been aware of the launch. And again, if he checks every building, Lex has his mother executed. That is something Superman is not going to risk.
  • Also, even if this Batman still was world's greatest detective, there's a Marianna trench-large gap between "investigating Lex" and finding a single woman, whose whereabouts, as aptly noted above, even Lex himself didn't know, within an hour. Let's be honest, the way he did it was insultingly convenient. She just happened to be held by the one goon he had traced and in his immediate vicinity? Are you kidding me? They could've at least had Bruce look at the photographs and notice some clue or whatnot! Also also, there's nothing to indicate that Lex' surveillance equipment got destroyed, and "collateral damage" wasn't nearly massive enough. All in all, it seems Clark's only option was indeed to pretend he's fighting Bruce while simultaneously looking for Martha. I don't know how, but he's the goddamn Superman, if there ever was a time to pull some ridiculously awesome, "reverse time by reversing Earth's rotation" style stunt, that would've been it.
    • Batman killing people is incredibly out-of-character. Superman doesn't even want to be a hero, that's very out of character. Comic book Batman/Superman have nothing to do with BvS Batman/Superman. Do you know what you call a film that requires you to only assume the best traits of a comic book incarnation, while ignoring other core character traits, all while barely explaining or contradicting it within the film itself? A bad film. Look, you're responding to criticisms as an obvious fan of the series beyond the film. You've read all the comics and watched the old TV shows. You assume everyone else did too. You bring all your favorite parts of Batman from the comics and cartoons, and use them to fill in the gaps of logic in the movie, even when the movie is clearly creating a completely different character than what you grew up with. Then you assume not only will everyone else fill in these gaps, that they will find those gaps acceptable because there's a better explanation somewhere else, outside the movie. It's just the opposite, though. The movie is creating a new version of a character, they need to explain that character, and using outside explanations to fill in the holes just makes it worse. It's not mindless hating, it's a valid criticism for ANY film. A film needs to explain its characters. BvS doesn't get a free pass.
  • Where it gets into blind complaining is the straight up, outright angry rejection that's being shown toward any plausible explanation for what's going on in the movie — including and especially those explanations that are explicitly shown in the movie. It's got nothing to do with the comic series outside the movie. One person is providing plausible answers for the complaints, and the response appears to amount to, largely, "No, it has to be a Plot Hole because the movie is bad!"
  • But there's no explanation, sorry. We're told explicitely that Superman must obey Lex and kill Batman, or else Martha dies. Lex has Superman (and presumably Batman) watched remotely. Superman goes and... starts talking with Batman. What makes him think the watchers (who are not even Lex) won't interpret this as disobedience and kill Martha that very moment? Then they fight for a few minutes, make friends, talk, and Batman leaves to look for Martha. What makes either of them think the watchers will not notice that and kill Martha that very moment? Then Batman finds Martha and it takes him a good minute to dispose of the thugs. Taking the next folder into account, what makes him think they won't kill Martha before he can get to her? All in all, there was no reason whatsoever for Clark to expect that his actions would prevent Martha's death. If that was indeed his priority, and if killing Batman wasn't an option, then he should've tried to find her with his superpowers while pretending to fight Batman. Don't care how, he's Superman, he's got a license for doing impossible things, and also it would probably have been much more exciting to watch.

Are these Mercenaries, or robots?

• Ok, these Mercenaries are under orders to kill Martha if Superman tries to save her. They hear a loud ruckus, they hear guys in the next room being killed and tossed around. What's their reaction? "Error! Error! Must verify that person killing us is Superman before proceeding to next command!"
  • They are pretty confused since they don't know if Batman is trying to save Martha or just continuing with what is left from the port
    • Does it matter? Again, only a robot would be confused. They are holding a hostage from someone who is basically a walking supersonic nuclear bomb, with instructions to kill her if he ever tries anything funny. Someone is killing them and the main suspect is capable of snapping their necks before they can blink. PULL THE TRIGGER.
    • The main suspect is a guy riding on a plane that shot down their vehicles and some of their forces so it's clearly not Superman
    • It's clearly not Superman at the gates. The whole point of a hostage is leverage. In this case, the leverage of, "If you harm me, I'll kill her." If they kill her, then hey, there's absolutely nothing stopping Batman or Superman or whoever it is on the other side of the door from annihilating them. And it's one thing to be somewhere far off, torching Martha while Superman has no idea where you are. It's suicide to be the one holding the flamethrower over her smoldering corpse when Superman is in the next room.
    • So let me get this straight. It's Ok for Bruce to assault the crooks who can kill Martha at any moment, because if Martha dies then nothing protects them from being killed by him and they are supposed to take this into account, ignoring the myriad ways Lex could've forced them to forego their own safety. But it's NOT Ok for Clark to threaten to kill Lex himself with exactly the same reasoning in mind?
    • Yes, they take it into account, because that's what every hostage taker takes into account. The threat of a hostage is the entire point of a hostage. I mean, this isn't complicated: Lex tells Clark, "Do anything to me and she dies." If Clark does anything to Lex, then Martha dies miles away without Clark having any idea where. This is the ideal scenario, from the Russian's perspective — he torches Martha, but Superman doesn't know where he did it and isn't coming to stomp his face out through is ass; or at least, he isn't doing so right now, and if he is going to stomp someone, it's probably Lex. If Superman or Batman is right there in the next room, there is no such buffer. If Superman is in the next room and you kill Martha, then what's coming through the door is Death itself. If Superman is in the next room and you threaten Martha, you have leverage on Superman and might, possibly, survive. And how is Lex going to "force" them to forego their own safety? He's not mind-controlling them. He's paying them.
      
      What you're basically asking here is, "Why didn't the goons get rid of their only leverage and why didn't they act suicidal?"
      
      Put it this way — if you wanted to sneak cookies from the fridge while you were a kid, did you wait until your parents were at work, or did you wait until your mother was at the stove three feet away and in full view of the fridge?
    • So your explanation for if Superman himself came by to save his mom, the Mercs would... also just not kill her either because they're not suicidal and don't want to piss off the guy who can fry them by just LOOKING at them? Yeah, great hostage plan there. And what if things DO go according to plan? They've already pissed off a guy who can topple entire cities and fly around the world faster than anything on the planet. For any of them to have even accepted the job in the first place, they are either robots, or were willing to kill the hostage over their own lives. "not suicidal" isn't the type of reasoning to explain ANYONE who is only human-level and tries to threaten Superman.
    • Yes, that's the explanation. Because — and bear with me here a moment because I know this is a wild concept — people generally do not want to die. What you're getting sarcastic about is literally the entire point of having a hostage in the first place. A hostage is leverage. A dead hostage is just another reason for the authorities (or in this case, Superman) to kill you. A live hostage gives you an out — "If you let me live, I'll let her go." A dead hostage, the only out is, "Well, I guess you're going to kill me because there's nothing stopping you at this point." Your whole complaint now is that the mercs are not stupid enough to make a completely suicidal action that does nothing to benefit them. At this point it doesn't matter what the movie's reasoning or basic human behavior says, you're going to complain.
    • Your explanation simply is not consistent. Anyone with any regard for their own lives would not threaten Superman in the first place. You know what's safer than putting yourself in a position where your only two options are to piss off a guy who can fry you with laser eyes by killing his mother, or to piss him off just as much by threatening to kill his mother? Not kidnapping her and threatening her in the first place. Your "assumption" also assumes fanatics don't exist, suicide bombers don't exist, martyrs don't exist. Anyone crazy enough to attack Superman on a personal level and earn a real grudge is not looking for long-term personal well-being - You are currently attempting to claim "normal" psychology on a person who has just jumped in front of a speeding train or off a tall bridge. Anyone who, as you say it, "generally does not want to die" wouldn't TRY to get a super powerful space alien to hate them personally, then depend on him keeping his word and completely forgiving you while you walk away from the situation you created in the first place. Clear? With that out of the way, if they're fanatical enough to try to hurt Superman in any way (especially emotionally, it's obvious he's invulnerable physically) with complete disregard for their own well-being, they have no reason not to kill Martha immediately when it's clear someone has arrived and is starting to kill them, because: 1. They haven't confirmed the identity of the assailant, and 2. Their primary and most likely target is fast enough to kill them all before they CAN confirm his identity.
    • They're not threatening Superman. They're threatening his mother while Superman is miles away and has no idea where they are. You're the one ascribing traits and thoughts to characters who we have no evidence made those thoughts or have those attitudes. You're twisting everything just so that the movie is wrong and stupid no matter what it did.
    • Please think about your explanation for a second. Are you assuming the henchmen think Superman has no superpowers? Are the henchmen assuming Superman has no memory? Are the henchmen assuming they will have a gun pointed at Martha for the rest of their lives when the go home, go get groceries, go to the bathroom...? You say their escape plan is to threaten Superman's mother. How long do you think they can continue doing that, until Superman gets royally pissed off and kill them? What happens after Superman does what he's supposed to and kills Batman? Do they think Superman is incapable of holding a grudge? Do they think they can just... walk away? Your explanations only seem to make sense for the scene. If they had any intention to live... I dunno, 5 minutes longer after that, it makes no sense.
    • And killing Superman's mother is a better way to stay alive?
    • How about not kidnapping her in the first place?
  • ^All that and also, "how is Lex going to "force" them to forego their own safety" - Take their loved ones hostage. Choose them from the ranks of destitute, terminally ill, or condemned and promise their families a fortune. Put bomb collars on them. Poison them and hold an antidote as ransom. Create a cult and raise a bunch of fanatics. To Clark's and Bruce's limited knowledge any or all of the above was possible and, since indeed only a suicidal person would agree to piss off Superman, very probable. The only alternative I see would be Lex lying to the mercs about whom they're kidnapping and why. In that case yes, they would likely hesitate to kill Martha when they saw who came for her, but in that case one would most certainly expect Lex to also rig the whole place to explode. You know, like he had already done with another unwitting stooge of his. Either way, it makes no sense for Clark to expect Bruce to be able to rescue Martha, that is if she's for some reason still alive after he'd violated Lex's order which he should be aware of if he's monitoring the fight which he has absolutely no reason not to do.
    • They already work for Lex. He's not going to keep their loved ones hostage because of that, and because they are literally his "take loved ones hostage" squad. You're proposing a cycle of ever escalating control that would be utterly ridiculous for Darkseid, let alone Lex.
  • The guys are told to take a hostage and hold her until a very specific time. It is very literally their job because all leverage you have remains with them being alive. Killing the hostage and running at signs of trouble is contrary to the very concept of taking a hostage. Someone very dangerous busts in kicking ass, your best bet remains to keep the hostage alive. And these movies would be A LOT shorter if every time the hero is seen the villain abandon their plans and run. It's written into the fabric of superhero worlds that bad guys will stand their ground and fight them, even though they are destined to lose.
    • Putting bomb collars on people to coerce them into doing suicide missions is ridiculous? Somebody tell Amanda Waller, she might need to rething her strategy. Which is the point - that going against this Superman, with his lax-to-non-existent rules against killing, in any way is a suicide mission. They don't know the extent of his powers, they're cannot think themselves safe from him. Either they're a suicide squad, don't give a crap about their safety and wouldn't have a reason not to shoot Martha immediately; or they're not, and then they wouldn't be doing this at all. And killing her at the first signs of a rescue attempt had to be part of Lex' specific orders, because it's the freaking Superman, and "at first signs" is as good as you will ever get with him, if you're a bad guy.

Why chase them, Bats?

• So Batman engages in a long and violent chase, trying to steal the hunk of kryptonite before it gets to Lex. But right before the chase starts, we see him shoot a tracking bug onto the truck carrying it. Further, he knows where Lex's lab is anyway, and as we see later, is able to steal it offscreen anyway. So why bother with the big chase?
  • Just want to add that it looks like pure luck that the tracking device even stayed on the truck, he almost knocked it off the truck during his chase. You could explain the tracking device by saying Lex has multiple labs and warehouses and Batman doesn't know which one it's going to exactly... but it still doesn't explain the chase sequence. Batman just wanted to go on a killing spree for fun...
  • For that matter, if he was prepared to go in full assault, why not just fly in on the Batwing, shoot the truck, shoot the crew, and take the rocks right there?
  • The tracking device was insurance. If the convoy got away — due to, say, another hero dropping in — he could chase them down after recovering.
  • The insurance he shot at with a machine gun and then jumped at with his entire car, I remind you. And again, if he wanted violence, why not attack them right away. If stealth, why attack them at all?
  • At the end of the day, these are hired thugs operating on Batman's turf. Batman's territorial instincts kicked in and he's letting them know the hard way that Gotham's no place for shady dealings.

Superman forgets he has superpowers, Part 2

• Why does a smoke grenade (NOT the kryptonite grenade) manage to confuse Superman in any way? He has X-ray vision and super-hearing. Also, why did Batman even think it would work? Wasting time against a super-speedster is a death sentence, anyone supposedly as smart as Batman is supposed to be would know that's a horrible strategy.
  • Could the smoke have dispersed lead in it, hampering Supe's X-Ray vision? As for the latter, well, Bruce was early just standing there, expecting the "inhuman beast", or "self-appointed god", or whatever the hell he thought of Clark, to come obediently at close range and allow itself to be dosed with kryptonite gas, instead of lasering his head off from a mile away. Doesn't look that smart to me.
  • Batman is clearly not thinking straight. It is not a good idea to teach Superman to not underestimate you. Now, if Clark ever does become evil/ Brainwashed and Crazy, it will be much harder, if not impossible to not get killed. Just make him promise to stay a good guy and talk to him instead of attempting murder. And he already must have figured out the If I Wanted You Dead... thing before Superman mentioned it, because it's not that hard to figure out. He does seem too confident that Superman will just toss him around a bit and not do anything that would actually be lethal.

How important is Martha to Superman, anyway?

• So we already know that Superman doesn't use his super-hearing to make sure his mom is safe, unlike Lois. But why does he waste time fighting Batman? I know he tries to talk to Batman, convince him to help him... for all of 5 seconds. Then he's full-on aggressive, angry-face, shoving Batman around and completely forgets about his mom. Batman's traps did nothing to him, he could have just stood there and taken the machine gun fire like it was a light breeze while calmly explaining the situation. Or instead of pushing him away, just restrain him with his super-strength and say, "we need to talk."
  • Batman threw the first punch by using those high-pressure sound emitters. Remember that Superman's hearing is hyper-sensitive, so that on top of having his last parent being held at gunpoint would have left him understandably agitated.
  • But sensitivity isn't the same as pain threshold. We see examples of him literally flying into explosions without a problem, he regularly goes supersonic and makes sonic booms every time he moves, so a few loudspeakers aren't going to be a problem. Also, it doesn't matter if Batman threw the first punch any more than if a toddler threw the first punch at me. He is fighting at a level so far below Superman there's no reason for Superman to actually fight back when his goal is supposedly to make Batman calm down.
  • Now I have a mental image of Clark treating Bruce like an unruly toddler. Clark doesn't seem to realize the implications of his super powers beyond don't accidentally kill anyone. He lost his temper and wasn't thinking clearly about the best ways to defuse the situation. What would be Bruce's reaction if Superman just carefully picked him up and told him to calm down and stop fighting?
  • This has been argued to hell and back up above. You should get the answers up there.
  • My analysis of the events may have been more detailed when they were more fresh in my mind, but I remember Clark trying to speak rationally to Bruce when the encounter started, but Bruce was already in full combat mode, with the guns and the noisemakers and all that. Clark has to bring him to a nearby building, away from the weapons Bruce set up in advance, and then takes time to tell him that if he wanted to kill him, he'd be dead already. You can tell that Clark knows it's best for them to work together in order to save Martha, but that's not just going to make the preexisting tension between the two go away on its own. And once Bruce breaks out the Kryptonite gas and starts going to town on him, it's pretty understandable for Clark to assume that any chance for negotiating is gone and that he has to start fighting for his (and Martha's) life.

Batman standing in the rain

• As far as we can tell, Batman didn't exactly coordinate with Lex to kidnap Superman's mom. Apparently that was just coincidence. So if Lex hadn't pushed Lois off the building, and convince him to fight Batman... what was Batman's plan? Just... stand in the rain all night? What if Superman's vision quest in Tibet had taken longer?
  • Earlier Superman had warned Batman to not answer to the Batsignal again. Batman turning it on himself was his challenge to Superman. Luthor already knew that Batman wanted to use the kryptonite as a weapon, so he just had to bide his time.
  • Yes, but, unlike Batman, Superman doesn't confine himself to Metropolis. On the contrary, logic would dictate that he'd be spending the majority of his time elsewhere, saving people all over the globe. Bruce really had no reason to expect Clark to learn of his challenge right away. I mean, surely he would have stayed there for as long as it took, but it does get a bit awkward and funny to think of it. "Well, it's morning already, and he didn't show up. Better luck tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will be appropriate as well."
  • You have to assume then that Lex had some way of baiting Batman into knowing that Superman would accept the challenge on a stated day. And that Lex is sophisticated enough to do this without Batman's detective instinct of "who is really sending me this news?" being triggered so that it overwhelms his need to fight Superman. You can infer it from how Batman states "Well, here I am..." as if to say "Well, I knew you'd be here, so am I, now let's throw down!" as his first taunt towards Superman. In turn, this sense of being misled would feed into the anger Batman expresses to Lex about being duped by him, both just before Doomsday's birth and at the end when he tells him he's going to Arkham.

What about other aliens?

• So Batman fears that "if there's even a 1% chance" that Superman can turn evil, he has to get rid of him, because absolutely nothing can stop him. You know, I can follow that logic... if Superman was one-of-a-kind. But... he's introduced to Superman via the battle against Zod. There is clearly more than one being with superpowers and laser eyes that can chop buildings in half. He doesn't know Krypton is blown up. There could be an entire alien species that's as powerful as Superman and more spaceships on their way. They might not have the convenient weakness of Kryptonite. But... his plan is to kill Superman now, while he's friendly, while also using up most of the kryptonite in non-reusable ways?
  • Didn't Zod broadcast to the world that their planet was dead? If he didn't, you can bet there was enough media coverage and a certain reporter probably put out at least one interview with Superman detailing what happened. Also, remember that Batman is not at his most rational here. If he is thinking about the future, he's thinking of it in terms of, "Well, I don't want there to be TWO super-powerful aliens to deal with at once."
  • This has been argued to hell and back up above. You should get the answers up there.
  • I didn't get the impression that Bruce was planning to kill Superman before he came evil; he was just recognizing that he might become evil and wanted to develop the Kryptonite weapons in case that happened. He only ended up using them because the events of the film played out such that he felt they were necessary.

Batman rescuing Martha Kent

• Does Batman see his mother in Martha Kent? When he was rescuing her, was he imagining he was saving his own mother?
  • Yes.

Wonder Woman's Sword

• What the hell is Wonder Woman's sword made of? Not only can it cut Doomsday's skin, but she cuts off his hand with it. This is a Kryptonian monster who just shrugged off a nuclear explosion. If she can cut off his hand, why can't she cut off his head? Sure, he regrew some bone to replace the hand but she should be able to cut off his head then shred it...a spiky clump of bone may replace a hand, but not a brain. Further, is the new sword better than the one she had to fight Ares with (which he pulverized like it was nothing)? If so, why would her mother have allowed her to face Ares with a sub-standard sword?
  • Well, he was a god after all. It was still an awesome sword, just not god-slaying tier of awesome. Regardless, slicing a hand off should be much easier than a head - it's just an easier target.
  • Diana's new sword is called "Sword of Athena" in The Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Tech Manual. It might be a secret god-made weapon she dedicated time to find (being an antique dealer helps). Could be a plot point for the Wonder Woman sequel if the movie happens yet again before the present time of the DCEU. Hippolyta most likely knew that Diana can destroy Ares without needing a sword, anyway.

Wonder Woman's Lightning Powers

• Now that I think of it, if Diana managed to obliterate a god with her lightning powers, why didn't she use them against Doomsday?
  • From what I saw in Wonder Woman, she didn't create the lightning; her bracelets absorbed it from Ares and she redirected it back at him, like she did with Doomsday's energy attack.
    • That is what happened in Wonder Woman. Additionally, Doomsday only ended up dying because of the kryptonite spear. If redirecting his energy attack would've been enough to kill him, then Superman could've just as easily used his heat vision to do the same thing. And that's assuming that said powers wouldn't power him up.

The letters

• So, a part of Luthor's plan was to somehow intercept the welfare checks Wayne Enterprise had been sending to Wallace Keefe, and then send them back to Bruce with some inflamatory notes written over them. Ok, setting aside that Bruce only got to see those notes pretty much by accident, because he happened to watch that specific newscast about Keefe defacing Supes' monument, how exactly were they supposed to work? Apparently Bruce was supposed to assume that Keefe was throwing his money back into his face, that he demanded "real action" instead of trying to appease his guilty conscience with charity, but it's not like Bruce ever expressed any pro-Superman feelings and besides, what action could he possibly expect from a mere mortal, no matter how rich, against that god-monster-whatever? Bruce wasn't even a politician! It's not like Keefe was aware Bruce Wayne was Batman or that kryptonite existed, is it? This incongruousness alone should've raised Bruce's suspicions (that and also how little sense it makes for a guy to refuse a generous allowance and then claim on camera that "he has nothing"). Moreover, how could Lex be sure that Bruce would only see all the letters together and be hit by the combined message, instead of just one or two, whereupon he wouldn't immediately get in touch with Keefe and expose the entire charade? Even the last note, the "you let your family die" one, sent directly to Bruce, makes no sense. So Keefe, after refusing the allowance, is now sporting a fancy new wheelchair and a suit, so he's clearly well-off and the "I have nothing" line was bullshit, and then he goes to commit a monstrous act of terrorism to... "wake Bruce up" I guess, and Bruce is supposed to sympathise with him?
  • Both men being billionaire entrepeneurs, Luthor probably thought that the minute details of a single former employee wouldn't make it directly to Wayne and if they did, that he probably wouldn't care enough to read between the lines.

Lex's haircut

• I realize the meta answer is "Because Lex Luthor is bald", but why did the guards shave Lex's head? Modern prisons don't typically require a shaved head as part of the inmate uniform.
  • No one made him. He requested they do it because a lot of prison inmates are bald and he can be swapped out for and mistaken as him to give him a head start if he should disappear. He pulls it off in Arkham in Justice League.

What would Lex have expected Superman to do about Lex's abusive dad, anyways?

• Lex's reason for wanting Superman dead make no sense when you consider how old the two are - at most, there's an age difference of a few years between Lex and Supes, something Lex would've known (given that he figured out Supes's true identity), and Superman didn't even know about Luthor at that age; even if Superman did know about Lex's dad being an abusive father, what exactly would Lex have expected Superman to do? If Superman had killed Lex's dad, Lex would probably grow up hating Superman because You Killed My Father; even if any authorities would be willing to overlook a child having superpowers bringing Lex's dad to them (as opposed to automatically taking said child to some secret facility and experimenting on him), Lex's dad would likely be able to get off due to Screw the Rules, I Have Money! (never mind the fact that it would basically be Clark's word against Lex's dad's); and odds are that Lex's dad could threaten Superman's parents if Superman did something that didn't involve killing or turning him into the authorities (since if Lex could figure out Superman's real identity, then surely Lex's dad could as well), never mind the fact that, given that Lex didn't out his father as abusive to the general public, Lex probably wouldn't appreciate his father's name being dragged through the mud. If the abuse Lex suffered as a child had caused him to develop a general hatred of metahumans and had decided to eliminate them all, starting with Superman, I could buy that, but he makes it pretty clear that he's only targeting Superman, and at most, he's only keeping tabs on Wonder Woman, Cyborg, the Flash, and Aquaman.
  • You're completely misunderstanding everything about Lex's speech. He's not literally saying, "I hate Superman because he, personally, did not literally show up to stop what my father did." The idea is completely absurd. What he's saying is, because nobody stopped his dad's "abominations," therefore there is no "all good, all knowing" God figure. Therefore, Superman can't be all good and all knowing either, so Lex sees him as a fraud.

Batman can block Superman's punch

• A simple one to begin with, probably with myriad potential answers: how can he block Superman's punches, even with a powerarmour suit about equivalent to a walking main battle tank? And a slightly more complex one: even if he can do this for a given Newton force value of Clark's right hook, why can't Supes contain his reaction of astonishment inside a nanosecond (instead of a human-level reaction time of a second), within the next nanosecond exponentially dial up the force of the punch to overcome Batman's blocking arm (and yet not to the point of pulping Bruce inside that miracle suit) and pacify him that way (instead of trying to follow up with a left hook)?
  • Superman is hit in the face with and breathes in kryptonite. This happens literally seconds before the part you're asking about. How did you miss it?
  • Of course I didn't miss that, but I don't credit that it can reduce Superman's strength down to human levels (or Bruce Wayne in powerarmour levels), given that he looks stunned at the block. He must still be orders of magnitude stronger even with this handicap.
  • It doesn't matter in the slightest bit what you "credit," or what you think he "must" be. That's what the movie portrays, and that's the explanation. The reason he looks stunned at the block is he didn't know his strength would be reduced at all in the first place — he knows nothing about Kryptonite at this point.

Did Superman even help rebuild Metropolis?

• With all of Superman's powers and his sense of helping people, we're never given any hint that he helped or worked with anyone to rebuild Metropolis, and in the expanded material it was said that LexCorp and Wayne Enterprise did the bulk of the work.
  • Maybe so. I think it sounds logical for two large companies to do "the bulk" of the work, though, since they have tons of employees and resources that can work toward reconstruction. Clark Joe may be super, but he is still just one man, and I don't recall either movie showing that he has any knowledge of how buildings and the like are constructed. If that is the case, then any constructive help he could offer may be somewhat limited due to a lack of expertise. Both movies also show a certain anti-Superman sentiment that's been festering among the people — since Clark was partially responsible for the damage, maybe he figured people wouldn't really take him seriously if he tried to assist in repair efforts.
  • If that's true, and he didn't help in any way - like using his powers to find people trapped under rubble - then it's no wonder people hate him.
  • I wasn’t suggesting that he didn’t help in terms of rescuing survivors in the aftermath — he’s Superman, that’s basically his life’s work. I thought we were talking mainly about the physical reconstruction of parts of the city that were damaged in the fight, which would be better left up to people who know how to do it.

Batman's level of comfort with killing

• What are the parameters with this? I mean up to the point where his what have I done minor Heel–Face Turn triggered by nearly killing Superman unjustly seemed to ward him off it altogether. In this universe, to our knowledge he has arrested Deadshot, Harley Quinn and The Joker (maybe others in the expanded material such as novels; I will research this later and add other names if necessary), the latter two on potentially multiple occasions. By implication, he's also either spared or even never arrested Black Mask (we don't know from the Birds of Prey movie if Sionis ever did time), nor has he killed any of Black Mask's gang as shown to be alive in that film. In Justice League (2017) Alfred alludes to the existence of the Penguin, but nothing further than that (and if the Snyder Cut overrides the theatrical's existence in continuity, then this mention may or may not be erased). And Batman has killed Anatoli aka KGBEast and many other low-level minions. The thing that seems to have driven him to this point is the death of Robin, which is understandable. But although we don't know the timing of the arrests around that event, it seems from what we do know that he is ok with killing mooks and branding others to die in prison, but apparently his Rogues Gallery are off limits (minus Antaoli, and at that because he was doing a Human Shield with Martha hence he was obviously a fair target, and in this universe you could argue he's more of a Luthor associate than a fully fledged member of Batman's Rogues Gallery). Is this logical? What's stopping him from killing any of his infamous enemies, especially as they'll likely soon escape from Arkham or Blackgate? And they're more of a threat than any garden-variety mook, possibly even more than Anatoli (albeit arguably Harley isn't as dangerous as Deadshot or The Joker at least on a level of most violent).

Brakes, or gas?

• I just realised that due to the slow motion when Batman realises Superman is standing in wait as the Batmobile rounds a corner, it's ambiguous. Did Batman try to slam on the brakes as he may have guessed that crashing into Superman would only damage the Batmobile, or did he actually stomp the gas to try and run him down? Most people assume the latter, but it's hard to tell.
  • Batman looks surprised when he sees Superman; if anything he hits the brakes. He wouldn’t have a dumbfounded look on his face while stomping on the gas.
  • Perhaps, but it could just be "OMG I didn't expect to see the alien I've been hate-obsessing over for months now round this corner while I was tracking Lex's mercenaries, this might be my only chance to try and run him over" shock. It kinds adds to the ambiguity.
  • I watched it again. There’s actually a shot in which Bruce’s foot moves from gas to brake.

The Christian Analogy

• Okay, so I get that Superman in the Zack Snyder movies was supposed to be analogous to Jesus, and Martha was Mary, Pa Kent was Joseph, and Jor-El was God (and I guess Lois Lane was Mary Magdalene), Lex Luthor was Pontius Pilate, and Doomsday was the cross, but who were the Apostles? Was Batman supposed to be St. John the Beloved, or was he St. Peter? Who was Wonder Woman in this context?
  • You can make a character a Christ figure without including analogues for every major figure in Christ’s life.
  • Not sure if this was an actual character/characters in the bible, but couldn't Batman be seen as, say, a soldier (maybe even a secret vigilante protector) fanatical about protecting the land who thought Jesus was heretical until he witnessed his Passion and realised he had been wrong to doubt his convictions and virtue, and only as he was dying did this knight renounce his former hatred of Jesus and work to restoring Jesus's legacy?

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