Where was Scott Free? When Supes, Wonder Woman and Batman go to Barda's house in the suburbs, nothing looks to be wrong, she seems to be living a quiet life, and her husband's costume is hung in the super-heroing closet next to her spear and Mother Box. But nobody so much as mentions Mr. Miracle. What's up with that?
Maybe it was implied that he was either dead or had moved on in his life and that it was a well known fact. Rarely do you see super hero costumes on display for active heroes.
He certainly wasn't dead in The Supergirl from Krypton (2004), the comic book this was based on (which, IIRC, showed his costume up in the hero stuff closet as well). His day job is daredevil escape artist, so it is entirely possible he was simply on tour or otherwise out of town performing when the trinity came knocking.
Yep, the comic confirms that Scott was away on tour. Barda easily explains this in only a few lines, which makes it even weirder that she couldn't do so in the movie.
Well you"ll have to introduce Scott Free to any newcomer and explain why he is absent afterward, might as well just put a mask in the background than another exposition.
Talking to the Clones
I know they are heroes and were fighting to protect Kara but they had no reason initially to think Doomsday clones were subject to conservation of ninjutsu to such an insane degree that something that killed Superman in singles combat is killed by Batman. With an axe. In real life when out numbered by Doomsday you abandon planet.
It could be theorized that the original Doomsday is unique enough that copies of him are not as formidable, possibly due to the cloning process. Now, how Darkseid managed to replicate him is another matter...
Apokolips is one of the two most technologically advanced planets in the universe; that they could clone Doomsday is less suprising than that they actually failed to clone him properly. The issue is that none of the heroes knew that, and even if they did its a stretch to think that Batman is capable of taking them on. The fact that, as far as they were aware, these Doomsdays could have all been as powerful as the real Doomsday, means they are seeking the deepest Refuge in Audacity.
It makes sense that Darkseid wouldn't want to make an army of anything capable of killing Superman. Superman's managed to give Darkseid a tough fight now and then and an army of Superman killers would just be begging for someone to steal control. What doesn't make sense is that Superman wouldn't assume they were still capable of this.
Or that Batman thought he should actively take part in the fight. I know he's used to fighting being stronger than him but he really thought this was a fight he shouldn't be backing away from until the Batwing arrived with some hardcore equipment.
They're heroes. Fighting the odds, no matter how impossible they seem, is what they do.
While it's never confirmed in the comic, Batman (via caption) theorizes that Doomsday's DNA was very hard to replicate, hence the clones being flawed.
Heroes are probably ready for Doomsday now, I think by the time the coic came around Superman used to snap his neck right away and restrain him before he get back up. Also Amazonian weapon coud be magic enough Batman thought he could hack them up with just that.
How does Darkseid do it?
How does Darkseids mind control work exactly? It's said that he tortures and hypnotizes and a lot of stuff that shouldn't have worn off just because he said he wasn't interested in her anymore.
Its possible he could have used a machine of some sort...who knows, I guess it's not that important, considering he was blackmailed by Batman obviously to let her go-which would entail -CHANGE HER BACK-
So she was tortured and drugged back to normal? Granted I've never made someone into a homicidal maniac and then back into a heroic innocent girl but I'm thinking this is a massive handwave.
Maybe he did just hypnotize her or something. And released her from his control?
Later Supergirl story arc "Girl Power" suggests that Darkseid had used some modified form of Black Kryptonite. Lex tried to replicate the incident and...it didn't exactly work out the way he planned.
Finding the Kents
How does Darkseid know where the Kent home in Smallville is?
On a serious note, Darkseid knows that Superman occasionally is Clark Kent. So it is entirely possible that he tracked down where he frequents so he can attack him at any moment.
One comic implies that he has his henchmen to keep track of everything that happens on earth on a regular basis, Even porn, so if he knows who clark kent is, then it would not be that hard to discover the kents home.
Unnecessary Cuts?
The Adaptation Decay in this film bugged me to no end. Some of the changes, mostly though that seemed small but actually did have relevance, were strangely unnecessary and nonsensical. For instance, why was the beginning dialogue between Batman and Superman completely removed? In the comic, the two of them were bickering about Superman being cooped up on monitor duty for 14 days since his fight with Lex Luthor in Public Enemies. The conversation was not only hilarious and a perfect way to introduce the relationship between Bruce and Clark, but it also explained why Superman showed up to catch the exploded blimp since Bruce asked him to intervene. In the film, the same sequence transpires except with no dialogue and thus does not explain why Superman randomly shows up in Gotham City without Batman asking him to. People who didn't read the comic are left to just assume he showed up because...he's Superman.
He's SUPERMAN. He has Super-Falling-Objects-Sense. Whenever a massive object is hurtling towards the ground, he teleports to its location so that he can fly down and catch it. Also works for anyone whose name he knows. He worked very hard at the Daily Planet to hone this particular superpower, as photos of it in action always make for an excellent front page.
As for the relationship between the two of them, they established that in the previous movie Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. That entire film is about their friendship and how they act around each other.
Barda vs Stompa but not going after Granny
In the fight against the Furies, why was it okay for Barda to kill Stompa, but not Granny Goodness? Goodness deserves it far more than she does.
She killed Stompa when she was seconds away from killing Wonder Woman, but Granny was effectively neutralized when Barda was about to kill her. For a lot of superheroes willing to kill there's still a huge gap between killing in battle and execution.
Indeed. Killing Stompa was a necessary action to save Wonder Woman. Granny, however, was trussed up. And, in fact, licking her lips and grinning ear to ear at the though to Barda killing her. It was a Xanatos Gambit / Thanatos Gambit for Granny. If Barda kills her, Granny's Strike Me Down speech ensures that Barda will now live with the unsettling notion that she's still Granny's trained puppet. If she refuses to kill her, then Granny gets to live to see another day, and another opportunity to torment her former student. Of course, mercy is a subjective concept. Leaving one of Darkseid's minions at his feet alive and well after they just failed him carries with it its own implications.
Fighting fire with Fists
Superman punching fire from the tanks. He punches the fire, and it drives it back, making a sound like physical impact. HOW DOES THAT WORK?
It is a well-known fact that kryptonians could punch anything into submission. In Justice League Supergirl managed to punch a combined blast of magic, lightning and fire backwards, with very similar sounds and animation.
Besides which, did you honestly expect real-world physics to work in a movie, an animated movie, no less, based on a comic book? The three forms of media most famous for ignoring the laws of reality whenever convienient?
Maybe, each punch was breaking the sound barrier? This is Superman after all, he has both the strength and speed to pull that off. This would explain the impact sounds and the fire being driven back too.
Wouldn't he fry the Amazons, too?
During the battle with the Doomsday clones Superman sees several Amazons getting killed in slow motion and this inspires him to use his laser powers to fry all the clones. He then seems to feel guilty over this. This brings up two problems. The first is that it raises the question of why he didn't do that at the beginning of the fight when he could have saved some livesnote and not accidentally killed any Amazons that might have been unconscious and in the line of fire. The second is that previously we clearly saw him freeze and smash at least two of the clones without hesitation while the Amazons were doing their best to stab the clones. Not only was Superman obviously willing to kill earlier, the best outcome of the battle would have been the deaths of all of the clones.
Dude, you can't just BEHOLD, HYPER OPTIC BLAST at the start of the fight. You have to build meter first. Also I'm only slightly surprised that Superman was partly in kill mode already; we know he pulls out the stops when there's a crazy superthreat like Imperiex, or Doomsday, or Darkseid. And considering they were fighting an army of clones of the guy who once managed to kill him, well...
There is also a bit of a difference between killing one or two soldiers and destroying the entire army in one shot. He didn't start the freezing and smashing until later on, so he was obviously trying to avoid killing.
Just because you shoot soldiers means you're ok with nuking them. Superman isn't big on A Million Is a Statistic if he has to go all out on force he probably feels he failed,
Batman vs Darkseid
Batman's...er, Batman Gambit...versus Darkseid, while just about plausible, was pretty damn stupid of him. He threatened to blow up Apokolips, and if Darkseid had been thinking a little more clearly he should have realised that a) Batman probably wouldn't do it (he might not known that Batman can't bring himself to kill an evil mass murderingMonster Clown, let alone destroy an entire populated super-planet, but he should realize that he wouldn't want to kill both Superman and Supergirl along with it, which is what would happen), and b) that he had several options to deal with it. I mean, why couldn't Darkseid have just went to the room where all the bombs were and, say, vaporised them with his Omega Beams, or even better opened a Boom Tube and sent them to another planet (say, Earth- and if New Genesis complains, point out that an Earthling set the bombs, or just pick some random place to avoid the diplomatic hassle). It works insofar as Darkseid arguably couldn't take the chance and seemingly didn't know that much about Batman, but that still seems to stretch it a bit. Not to mention Batman was lucky that Darkseid chose to try and kill Superman (by himself) for revenge for this outcome- again, Darkseid could and probably should have done a lot worse to Batman and possibly Earth itself if he wanted retribution, and Kara and Superman probably wouldn't have been worth that price.
A few major flaws here. The first is that Batman might very well have been willing to do it. Apokolips is filled with the most evil beings pretty much in existance and them adding a Kryptonian to their ranks is a big deal. It's damn hard to stop a Kryptonian, especially one backed by an army that doesn't have a certain alergy. There is no way of knowing how far away the bomb room is so Darkseid may not have had the option to go there and move the bombs and that's if their still physically in the room. It's implied that the bombs have somehow burrowed into the planet.
Its not implied that they have burrowed anywhere- Batman specifically states they were in the armoury, and he can hardly disarm them if they are halfway to the planets core (not to mention there were 500 of them, in a nearby room- someone would have felt it). Darkseid has Boom Tubes and (for the comic version) can teleport at will, plus he could always radio an underling. Supergirl in the ranks is a big deal but tough as Kryptonians are, they aren't that much tougher than the average New God and she was only going to be part of his honour guard; Supergirl is not a game changer and Darkseid himself is a far more powerful threat anyway (nor can they use her against Earth without breaking the treaty with New Genesis), and Earth's heroes have handled far worse. And no, Batman would never blow up an entire world no matter how evil its populace (and there are plenty of innocent slaves on it anyway) and he certainly wouldn't kill Supergirl and Superman in the process, especially since the objective was to save the former. Not to mention blowing up Apokolips might rain meteoring death down on nearby New Genesis. Again if he can't even kill The Joker, he's not committing global genocide. It's just about believable since Darkseid presumably doesn't know Batman that well, but there were so many things that could have gone wrong with that plan its not even funny.
Apologies. It is not implied they have burrowed. I simply assumed that was a pre-req to making a fire pit. However unless you think Batman's Batman Gambit was so total that he actually didn't hack the hell spores, he just got the code and bluffed he was clearly risking genocide and all those lives because Darkseid could have killed him. Hell as strong as Darkseid is he could have accidently killed someone as weak as Batman. Simply knocking him THROUGH a wall should have rendered him unconscous I know he's the Goddamn Batman but we've seen him knocked out by weaker blows from weaker opponents. Even Darkseid acknowledges that nobody else would have the unmitigated balls to take out a planet to achieve his goals.
Ep, this particular blunder is because the movie slashed a TON of dialogue during the Batman/Darkseid back and forth. In the original rendition, Batman doesn't threaten; he assures Darkseid that he WILL blow up Apokolips if Darkseid doesn't return Supergirl and AGREES to not twist the deal, attacking the Earth and a lot of other stuff. Darkseid initially thinks it's a bluff; ponders for a while and then ALMOST kills Batman and lets them go; not before chastising himself for not destroying/conquering the earth before. See, even Batman is willing to go past the No Kill rule regarding Darkseid, as he is a cosmic evil. Darkseid even retorts aloud that "if the amazon or the kryptonian had issued the threat, he would have ignored it, but Bruce is a human, and humans are willing to kill themselves and their world to claim a victory; something Darkseid wouldn't ever do" (paraphrasing a bit). And Batman was wearing a combination of Apokolips armor and a motherbox in the comics, so it was a bit more "believable" for him to survive. He still gets almost punched to death.
Nah; that still makes no sense, even in the comics. The problem isn't that Batman is willing to kill Darkseid; its that he's willing to kill everyone on Apokolips, billions of people, probably along with Superman and Supergirl even though he was trying to save them, and possibly people on nearby New Genesis if the debris from the exploding planet doesn't fall on them too. If Batman is not prepared to kill the Joker, he is far from ready to annihilate an entire planet. Quite simply, its a gambit that rests on Darkseid not knowing Batman at all- which, evidently, he did not. But it was a damn risky gambit and it would have fallen flat on its face if Darkseid realized that Batman DIDN'T have the balls to do it, and was lying his ass off. And the truth is, Darkseid might have survived (Batman even acknowledges this- "king without a kingdom" rather than "you gonna die, bitchseid"), and if he did, regardless of whether Batman or Supes or whoever did as well, he would have taken his revenge by wrecking the shit out of the Earth. All that carnage and death for the sake of one girl (a girl, at that point, he was deeply suspicious of even pre-brainwashing)? No- Batman would not have done it.
The important thing is that Darkseid didn't know Batman wouldn't do it and humans have suicide bombers. He likely doesn't know much of anything about Batman that he hasn't learned in direct conflict with the man. Not that I'm convinced Batman wouldn't have done it since as has been mentioned he was beaten near to death, all it would have taken was him being unconscious for a few precious seconds and the planet would have blown. So he was certainly willing to risk it.
Darkseid was losing his temper and he probably would have felt stupid killing Batman while beating him into submission. As for the bluff last time Darkseid used a kryptonian as enforcer things didn't go so well for Earth so yes Batman is ready to blow up the planet if it means that it never happens. Batman willfully let hundreds of people die because he refused to use lethal force if he has a choice (if he doesn't Batman will kill as his contingency plan of setting Martian Manhunter on fire shows) so a whole planet of slaves too far gone won't matter if he can stop Darkseid from taking over Earth.
Power incontinence
The method to teach an alien with potential to break the world by accident to better control her powers...is to train her in ancient Greek fighting style. Am I the only seeing the conflict here?
Yeah, It makes no sense at ALL, especially how it would help Kara with her laser vision. Not to mention Kara is strong enough to kill an Amazon.
The point was to teach her discipline. Besides, it's not very likely that they had her fighting live opponents at first, if she couldn't control her strength. The film explicitly mentions that Kara was training for months.
But when Wonder Woman talked Clark into it, she specifically brings up the argument of Kara controlling her powers. Then she's...swordfighting? And wouldn't Superman be the EXACT right person to teach her perfect control? It still makes no sense at all.
Superman had decades to practice control though.
Superman is a lot of thing but a teacher he ain't, Kara learning to use weapon instead of her eyebeams or city shattering fist when things get tough is way better control than fry people with first degree burn.
What was WB thinking, exactly?
The name. I know WB were disapointed in the earnings of Wonder Woman, but do they really think that people wouldn't buy it just because it features Wondy and Kara, so much that they have to hide that from the cover and ads? I know that some people are not interested in films featuring female superheroes, but it still got Superman and Batman, and the inclusion of girls isn't enough to scare away small boys from picking it up. The name itself doesn't make any sense at all.
Two things: 1, yes, they really do think that, otherwise the movie would have been called Superman/Batman: Supergirl. It sucks, but that's how it is. And 2, it's called "Apocalypse" because Darkseid, ruler of Apokolips, is the Big Bad. The name's a pun, as well as being meant to draw people in at a glance. Case in point, people tend to scoff at the title of The Princess Bride, but few ever scoff at Die Hard.
How'd he get in?
How did Darkseid get into the Kent house without making a hole? He is even larger than the doorframe.
Who says he didn't make a hole? It's not like Clark and Kara do a quick lap around the house. They pull up and try to come in through the front. Also he could easily have boom tubed inside which is probably the best answer.
Shouldn't Kara be weaker at night?
How did Kara get powers so quickly after arriving? It was nighttime! No sunlight to absorb!
Maybe she was getting charged when she arrived by the ship
While it was cut out of the film, that was how it was answered in the comics—in the comic, while Superman and Batman are studying Kara's ship, Superman discovers something that was simulate yellow sunlight.
Didn't they know her?
Did Superman and Batman know Diana before she attempts to kidnap Kara? Their interactions just don't seem right to me. And if they do know each other why is Diana's first reaction; violent kidnap and not talk?
If they didn't know her they certainly knew of her. The interactions at the "kidnap" make it clear that Superman isn't trusting his cousin to some strange woman who attacked him but a trusted ally. At worst they didn't have the kind of personal relationship they normally do. Though I think unless it's been specified that the Big 3 don't know each other it should be assumed that they do. Having never read the comic that scene reeks of cut dialogue to me. Presumably at some point Batman and or Wonder Woman suggested to Superman that she needed time to go train and learn to use her powers without mass damage. He said no. They staged an attack to illustrate just how dangerous she was at her current level of control. As it stands they may have enough of a relationship to know Superman is stubborn and wouldn't listen without being shown exactly why this was the best and only course of action.
Having read the comics, that is what happened in it: Bruce and Diana did stage the event, though in the comics, it was to test how Kara—and Clark, according to Bruce—would react.
That's the thing about comics: no matter how much the heroes have all been through at each other's sides, at the beginning of every new story arc they're suddenly at each other's throats.
